Monday, August 31, 2009

BSM: Best Shot Monday 8-31-09

My last shot at an August 2009 BSM ... Best Shot Monday.

I'm taking full advantage of the fact that today is, in fact, a MONDAY. I am back on the BSM track, and happy to be here.

I hope you all enjoy this image of a Swallowtail butterfly perched on a Duranta in full blook in our yard, which I took in September 2008 ... 11 months ago, now. It's just been lurking in the back of my mind, waiting for the most perfectly beautiful summer Monday to post.
-- Princess Magpie

Saturday, August 15, 2009

YOU ARE AN ARTIST - Suzi Blu Says So !!!

http://suziblu.typepad.com/

Okay, so I thought I had already done a post about the class I took with Suzi Blu last Sunday, the 9th of August ... with my cool and wonderful friend Ann, out in Poway at STAMPING DETAILS. As it turns out, there were other of my cool and wonderful friends in the class, too. Angela, you know who you are, girl !!! :-)

the wonderful SUZI herself, in wings no less, with one of her beautiful art journals - before class

and the AMAZING Miss Gigi ... who kept seeking quiet, dark spots to relax in ...


ANYWAY, apparently all I had done so far was post some pics on Facebook. Sooooo, here you go.

We started at 10 am, making straight lines with a ruler that Suzi gifted to each of us, which says something very kind & inspiring to each of us on the back (a keepsake!) so that we could begin to "graph" our face onto the moleskin journal page.

the lovely & talented MARA, Suzi's friend who is more of a classically trained artist; Mara helped Suzi split our very large class into 2 groups, so we could each have space to see how the process goes ...

After working on three versions of a face, it was time to choose one and move to the next step: colorizing it by shading in with colored pencils.

Suzi, demonstrating her colorizing techniques

MY GIRL ...

okay, so no laughing and no critiquing, please. I know that she looks like she has a nose ring; that was UNintentional, believe me. LOL !!! But there will be a (magic) way that I can soften that later - I hope so, anyway

And then, by following the other magic steps that Suzi told us to take, which I cannot tell you here BECAUSE you just have to take her class. Somewhere, somehow, some day.

no, this isn't my girl - this is Lorrie's girl !!!

So here's the scoop: Suzi makes it SO EASY, offering her LES PETITE DOLLS and her GODDESS / POETS journal dolls - online - wow!

these are the more realistic GODDESS faces that we learned to work with today in class ...


contrast the Goddess faces with Suzi's oh-so-fabulous LES PETITE DOLLS faces ... which I still want to learn how to create ... here:

this, another page spread right out of Suzi Blu's art journal

my dear friend, ANN (Deakers) and HER girl ... cool, huh?!


and THIS is my girl ... nearing completion ... now all I need to do is add some JOURNALING NOTES on that left page ...

I don't have much time to include all the fun comments I would like to right now; I just want to get some of the images UP and IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN before heading out on holiday.
Your,
Ever Faithful, and Always Seeking Inspiration

PRINCESS MAGPIE (aka, Davielle)

Monday, August 10, 2009

BSM: Best Shot Monday - August 10, 2009


Here's my BSM for today ...

It's our youngest "grand", Kaia, holding and directing our attention to ...
The world's absolute SMALLEST SNAIL SHELL. {I'm sure it's the smallest ever.}

Have you ever seen such a thing?

To put this into perspective for you, I also photographed that snail shell side-by-side with a Prednisone tablet. They're rather small themselves, those Pred tabs.

-- Princess Magpie

Sunday, August 9, 2009

LES PETITE DOLLS JOURNAL class - today - with the amazing SUZI BLU !!!

Yes, that's right ... Suzi Blu is teaching a full day of LES PETITE DOLLS to the fortunate 16 (or so) of us that registered for her workshop. TODAY. I am SO freeeeeeking excited !!!!!

If you don't live in So Cal, or you can't make it to a class, or her next class(es) fill up before you can blink your googley eyes, well, then, YOU CAN PURCHASE A KIT from Suzi ... yup, that's right. VISIT HER Les Petite Dolls Acadamey right here: http://suziblu.ning.com/ and give it a look-see.
Or visit her BLOG right here for more info on that PARTY GIRL kit (shown above): http://www.suziblu.blogspot.com/
If you want to "paint pretty girls", as Suzi calls her fantastic Petite Dolls, then this is an artist you want to look in to .... I'm hoping she will teach again (and again) at STAMPING DETAILS in Poway - which is where today's class is being held. Some of the best workshops I've attended are held right there at Stamping Details - I love what they offer!
Lots of photos will be taken today, so check back later for PICS and the whole STORY.
Your very excited and happy ...
Princess Magpie (aka, Davielle)

Sunday, August 2, 2009

a new look

it was time to step boldly into the NEW LOOK realm, and thanks to Ann, my blogging mentor and friend extraordinaire, I was pointed to a way-cool BACKGROUND site ... where, for free, one can copy and paste the "code" into their customizable settings .. well, you know how it goes.

so what do you think? like the new art-ful look? I sure do !!!

the only problem is -- the "link" to that site where the free backgrounds come from -- it sits RIGHT OVER PART OF THE TITLE of the uppermost blog-post, and that is a problem.

anyone know how to fix that?

-- Princess Magpie