this is similar to the abstract piece I am still working on for my mother… but this one needed to look good in my grandmother’s kitchen… she gave me a piece of the wall paper she planned to use, and I did my best to work up a painting that would work with what she wanted…
if I still had this painting, I would be reworking the flower petals… they just don’t look finished to me… but when she saw it, Granny-two said she liked it as it was… but looking at this picture, I have this overwhelming need to steal it so that I can fix the areas sticking out to me… grr… lol
Just wanted to show everyone this piece… right now, it is unfinished… I didn’t like the flower in the background, and in order to work on it, I had to cover part of the tree… the flower is finally just the way I want it… but I still have to rework the tree…
this was supposed to be a Christmas present for my mother, but sadly she is still waiting… I misunderstood, and thought that she said that she didn’t want a painting… and I admit, I got my feelings hurt… I left the painting waiting as I dove into other projects… but I just couldn’t white it out, if she didn’t want it, I decided I would just keep it for myself… 😛 but she said I misunderstood her, now I just need to finish
this is the last piece I did for my publisher, Mary Smith, over at Gone Writing Publishing, for her give-away boxes… there were a lot of fun…
book/ escaping stories
As you can see, by adding a little more to it, the painting started to look even better… that is what I love about oil paints… you can work on them, continue adding to them, for days… the fact that paint takes so long to dry can be annoying when you want to finish quickly, but it is worth it… you just keep working until you like what you see… and if you decide that you hate the entire thing, you just have to break out the white paint… muahaha
then you have a blank canvas to start over with, and no wasted material… oil paints are very forgiving… they allow you to work until everything is perfect… TRACEY CLARK
Help Me! I’m burning… HEEEEELLLP !!! Okay, not me, but my poor polymer clay… I don’t have a picture of the results of my foray into the world of polymer clay, but trust me… it was spectacular… and not in a good way…
I worked the clay, molded it, and managed to make what I thought was a cute dragon pendant… the only thing left was to pop it into the oven… (toaster oven)… setting the temperature and the timer, I went off to work on my next piece… happy as a clam… … … and this is the part where you hear the horror music…
I went out to check the oven (which was set up in the garage so that the fumes didn’t bother anyone) and upon opening the oven door, I started to gag and chock… omg, the smoke… my poor little dragon was a disfigured, charcoaled lump of coal… really… what the heck… the figurine doubled in size and apparently caught fire…
I definitely need some practice…
but I wasn’t deterred (yet) … I decided to try again with my second figurine… it was supposed to look like a jaguar, but turned out looking like a pug with a very long tail… lol…
I checked and double checked the temperature recommendations, and crossed my fingers… when I checked on the little cat/dog I found a half charred pendant… well hell… I guess that’s better than completely ruined… lol… I think I need to watch a few more tutorials before I try again.. but please, please, pleassssseeee…. if you have any insight, send it my way… 😛 night peeps… Tracey Clark
My aunt talked me into participating in the Multiple Sclerosis Walk one year… and in my typical OCD fashion, I decided to make our team shirts instead of buying them… I got out my crayons and sketched a design… then I went to Walmart and bought some iron-on sheets… they are in the craft section…
they are easy to use… you can either go to the Avery website and pick a design or if you have a scanner/printer/copier you can make your own, like me… you can put the sheets in the copier and hit print… then you just iron them one… this could be a fun family idea for those with small kids… I even ironed the design for the front pocket of the shirts onto a hat…
making the shirts wasn’t necessary but it sure was a lot of fun… on the sad side, I wasn’t able to walk even half way around the park, but those of us in team clark decided to get together and go out to eat, wearing our team shirts… we went to an Irish pub and one of the guys that wore kilts agreed to take a picture with us… and the food was delicious… lol…
This is another of the paintings I did for my publishers give-away boxes… a book flower… this isn’t the finished piece but I forgot to take a picture before I sent Mary the three paintings… this is close to the finished look… the only thing I added was a bookmark with Shocking Finds written on it, falling from the middle of the book flower… and few books shooting off with the leaves like flower buds, and showing the name of my fellow authors and their book titles, those of use at Gone Writing Publishing… cute but I still love the painting of the flower shooting up out of an open book better… 😛
I added some different shades to the flower book pages, and placed some lovely book buds… the finished outcome that I forgot to take a picture of had the writing on the bookmark and the book buds… for that I tried to used a paint pen… next time I will just use a paintbrush… a paint pen is great for tacking you name to your work, but I needed something with a finer tip in order to write on the books… and if there is a finer tipped paint pen out there, I haven’t found it yet… TRACEY CLARK
this was a fun… a bit messy, but fun… I have this tree painting that I did in college, and I love it so much that I painted it on my wall at home… and apparently, my cuz loved it as well… she was getting ready to get married and she came across this idea for a wedding tree… but instead of buying the premade version that everyone else had access to, she asked if I would create one… and really… how could I resist…
wedding tree/ before marriage
I didn’t want the background to be complete white, and that is the only thing I ignored her on when I started this piece… I hate white… I just couldn’t do it… I did erase the clouds in the sky that resembled faces… they were supposed to be vague representations of my cuz and her future husband… but she didn’t like them, and I had to agree… I just couldn’t get them right… finally I got my sky just right and she loved it…
but I still wanted to put something into the piece that represented two bodies coming together… I decided to use the bark of the tree, making the right side darker to show something more masculine, to join it with the lighter/female bark on the left side… 😛
to represent their love, I painted a few branches in the form of a heart, and wrote their names in the smaller branches… Erin and Neil… Her name came out a little clearer than his, but the names were more for them to now that they were there than for the world to be able to see…
And finally, I added some roots shooting out of the dirt, and used them to write the date… Sept 2015…. mom thought I would look better with a few more roots, because that was the part she loved the best on my original tree, but Erin said she liked it as it was… and I had to agree… I mean, I loved my roots, but I wanted the date to stand out as much as possible… you still have to look close, but it can be clearly seen… finally the tree was ready for the big day…
wedding tree/ guest fingerprints
all that was left was the fingerprint part… I told Erin that this was incase any of her guests committed a crime, I would have their prints on file… muhahaha… just kidding… the fingerprints represent their friends and family coming together to join their newly united family… the messy part came in because I prefer to paint with oil paints… that meant that we needed a lot of baby wipes for the guests to clean off their fingers when finished… but as careful as I tried to be, I managed to get some paint on my pretty dress… some soapy water and all was fine, but I loved that dress so was a bit frantic… lol…
Okay… this isn’t mine, but there are just some things that demand to be shared… I found this on Pinterest and loved it… it is a time-lapsed photo, or that is what the blurb below the picture said… personally, I don’t see how it could be done, but how ever they did this (and I’m thinking magic… lol) it is beautiful…
if you want to read comments about the pic (some oooing, and some doubting) Go HERE
for me, it doesn’t really matter if it is photo shop or nature, it is still beautiful… 😛 and as for the hole photo shop issue that one commenter had, I can’t say if they are right or not… the magic that can happen on a computer is amazing, and easy to trick those of us unable to hit the right keys… perhaps one day I will learn about time-lapse and long exposures… but for now I will just enjoy the picture… TRACEY CLARK
okay… this is where the insanity of an artist comes in… I hated my reeds so much that I didn’t finish this piece… and in fact, I broke out the white paint and decided to learn a little more before attempting this scene … I love bob ross with his happy trees and sound effect painting, but I couldn’t let this piece live… lol…
my water, my sky, and even my light house (though a little crooked) … those I love… but not the dang sand and seaside grasses… so I bought bob ross’s video on the basics… hopefully, after I have played around with that a little I will create a seascape that I love… lol…
I think mom wanted to strangle me when she found out that I had decided to start from scratch… 😛 but it just had to be down… lol… one day, but until then I will play with my bob ross goodies… man, I hate that that man is dead… he had a way with paint that was magical…
okay… for now, I must be off to the world of book edits… but first, I think I will look for a few more of my previous paintings to post here… happy wordage everyone… TRACEY CLARK
a booklet is like to wonderful artistic activities coming together and having a baby… lol… I love these little things
so far I have made 150 of the little things… they hold the first two chapters of my novel, Shocking Finds and a few excerpts… there is the cover picture, my author photo, and the blurb… and if that isn’t enough, they also house my book and author links… that is a lot of info to cram into nine small pieces of paper – no more than a quarter of a sheet… you can send off to have someone else do all the work for you, but I love tackling new art projects…
I need at least 250 swag gifts for the Rebels and Readers book signing in November… and that is just the swag I needed to donate to the free goodie bags… getting your swag ready for one of these events is a job all on its own… but I don’t want to just make booklets… I already have some bookmarks and bookmark ideas, and maybe some bracelets… and recently I have been thinking about making keychains or charms… and best of all, Clark jr bars, with a sticker on the back showing one of my novels… man, I have never loved my last name more… lol… 😛
clark arts and crafts 