Teresa Sheeley

crushin' on stuff today

..this bracelet

this linen tee

this embroidery kit

these clogs

this ring

just a few things i am coveting this morning.  **sigh i will chip away at my wish list piece by piece, buy when i can, little bits at a time. :)  

happy friday!!  shine on!!

 

My baby girl is 24 today!

Kayla with her Dad at barely one month old.

When Kayla was born she seriously was the most beautiful baby I had ever seen.  Maybe because she was a c-section baby, but still she was just beautiful.

When she was young Kayla was naughty in a funny sorta of way.  You never knew what her and her cousin Seth would be up to.  They always had these little smiles on their face.

Kayla visiting Grandma & Bud

She always has had her own sense of style, I mean not many girls would wear a dress with sweat pants and dress shoes.  She loved to dress herself when she was young.

Today she still has her own sense of style, but a little more conservative I would say. :)

Her and I have always been closer than close.

I love her.

Her nickname at home is "baby"

her daddy has always called her that.

The rest of her family 

calls her

Weez

Now she is 24!  And is a wonderful woman.

She walks steady with the Lord.

Is stubborn

but loving

She has big dreams still

and is so talented

and best of all

married the man of her dreams

but still is a daddy's girl

even though they fight like cats and dogs

ugh, two peas in a pod

I love you Kayla Brianne Sheeley Johnson

I hope today brings you exciting blessings and goodness for the rest of the year.

You are my sunshine my only sunshine

you make me happy when skies are grey

you'll never know dear

how much I

love you,

please don't take my sunshine away.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BABY!

original sketch for sale

I am selling my original chandelier sketch.  This is a sketch done with white india ink on masonite board that has a coating of chalkboard paint.  The size is approx. 12" x 15"

It's an original one of a kind!

If you're interested you can purchase it

here.

I am off to play with the kindergartners today, they can bring such joy those little ones.  Now looking back when my kids were that age; my goodness they were just to young to send to school.  If I could rewind and do it over again I would choose homeschooling for sure.  These little ones are still so small to be sending out into this world full of its issues and problems and having to get up so early in the morning.  Now I know why they used to have nap time on those little carpets when I was that age.  They don't do that anymore, the time there for them is busy, busy, busy, as it is for the teachers!

 

 

 

facts and answers about the e-course

my beautiful daughter Kayla at her easel.

How does art make you feel?

For me it's hard to explain, it gives a sense of peace, contentment I guess.  It's like a euphoric high almost.  I love looking at art, making art and discovering new things about art.  I love the feel you get when you touch the paint brush to the paint and then onto paper.  It will gently glide and the paint can almost make art all on its own.  Especially with watercolor, it's unforgiving and what you lay down is what you get. There isn't much room for error; there isn't much chance to cover up, it glides by itself.  I love that feeling, to not have so much control over it.  Art is very much therapeutic.  If you have had a stressful day, there is no better way to relax than to do art.  And if you have kids, it's even more fun to give them a little project to do side by side with you.  I've always sketched and when Kayla was little we would sit and bed or on the couch and find things of the same to sketch together.   She kicks butt at sketching people!

Do you paint slow or fast?

Slow...I don't like to rush anything...well maybe I do quick illustrations, but I am not one to crank out a bunch of paintings in a short period of time.  But when I am on a roll, it goes rather quickly.  I usually paint on a smaller scale, no bigger than 9" x 12", so it doesn't take days and days usually, but I still prefer to take my time.  To me people who just chug out work, may possibly not be taking the time to soak it all in, to enjoy the process, to experience what your mind can discover while painting.  The peace and getting lost into what you are creating I would never want to rush.  Bigger paintings take so much longer.  But the process is amazing.  Everyone should do a huge painting that takes months to finish.  Little bits at a time to study and find the colors and the shapes.  With our e-course we will give assignments each week, but work at your own pace, find your groove, we have no expectations of wanting to see work right away.  It's your creativity and foresight that is important.  

 

On Buying Tons of Paint Colors

No, not necessary.  Learn your primary colors mixed with white; you can make so many different varieties of color.  I have a Pantone color formula guide, and it was one of my most prize possessions of all my art supplies.  It shows you every color you could ever want and it only uses your primary colors mixed together with white or black.  I seem to go through a lot of white and red.  Kayla thinks she goes through more red than any color.  I never buy colors of paints already mixed; only my primaries and of course some burnt and raw umber, they are a good staple to have on hand.  

 

What kind of artist are you ~Realism vs. Impressionism?

I desire to be a realism painter, but am probably more of an impressionistic painter because I paint in a painterly style.  Kayla is more of a realism painter.  She is spot on with visual content.  I am all over the place and cannot paint a straight line if my life depended on it, she is precise.  I do however have a trick up my sleeve for keeping my hand steady while drawing or painting I will share with you in our classes.  It helps me a lot.  I think it is important to find your own interpretation of still life, portraits, or whatever you desire.  My Chanel bottle I drew and painted would come out looking more real for a realism painter; this is way I deem myself more of an illustrator.  There is a difference of those two artist in the art world.  We will explain it all.

 

What will this e-course do for me?  Why should I take it?

You should take this course if  you are wanting to learn new techniques.  You should take this course if you wondered what it was like to step foot into art school for the first time.  You should take this course if you want to learn some art history and to learn a bit about why things work the way they do.   It will give you an environment and structure to practice in, plus a community of fellow artist to communicate with.  It will open your eyes up to art if you haven't experienced it before.  It will give you skill sets to become your own artist and your own person with art.  To not be a duplicate artist, but find your own originality and give you confidence to plunge forward.  If you are a seasoned artist, you may learn new techniques to help you with something new you are working on, or maybe give you a new medium to try you never thought you would like.  Or maybe give you the opportunity to be something you always really truly wanted to be...an artist.

Classes start?

April 2, 2012 and the last week of April 30th will be time for our Art Salon.  We invite you to sell your work and show it to the world if you are ready.   No pressure to participate, it's all up to you.  This will be a virtual space with nothing but art from our students.  I am super super excited about it.  You will see all the different individuality.  It will be BEAUTIFUL!!!

 

Why did you name this MAKE SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL?

Because every tiny little piece of art is beautiful, whether you are doing painting, drawing, mixed media, sculpting, printing, it's all about aesthetics and trying to make something beautiful your mind saw, and to make it come to life.  It's all about beautifying the world with your handy work, your skills, your visions, and the blessings that were given to you when you were made.  

If you have any other questions to add to this, please let me know and we will answer them right away!   Please join us, sign up here, we would love you to be a part and to see what beautiful somethings you can make.  

 

playing around with digital drawing

Still need a lot of practice, but it is a lot of fun to play around.  

*me painting {video}

If you want to hear the music playing with the video, you may have to pause my other music on the sidebar...sorry for that.

This is just a little demo of me doing a butterfly watercolor.  My goal was to make it look "vintage"; so the colors are a slightly aged looking.  I also use instant coffee crystals a lot when I am making a painting look aged.  

During the courses for our online art e-course, I will teach you little tidbits here and there of things I know.  Mostly I just learned by trial and error and still are; but I can teach you little tricks that work.  A lot of the time I do illustrations that I can then put in Photoshop and play around with.  Since I didn't want to play around with the background myself other than making it look aged ~ I used Photoshop to add some vintage text.

I will also give little tutorials on how to do some Photoshop things like this; just in case you want to play around with your artwork too. :)  

Comments are always appreciated!!   I love feedback!!  

e-course:  Make Something Beautiful

 

So did any of you see "The Vow"; the movie that has been out for awhile now?  I just saw it last night; and it resonated with me about this e-course.

 Here is a little video introducing me and Kayla.  Okay so "disclaimer", NO I was not drinking nor had been, and YES I am just a little spacey; I tend to just blurt things out, you know 5 minutes after that conversation has ended....ugh, sorry I am learning how to do all this be in front of a camera stuff, thanks for not judging too harshly.  My poor daughter is trying to explain everything, being professional and then her ditsy mom chimes in... :)  Anyway here it is:

 

If you find yourself thinking back to the moment in time where you wanted "to be an artist", but it fell by the wayside with other things in your life....this class is the perfect opportunity to step back into that little dream and begin stirring your desires.

 

We are offering classes, techniques and teaching you just as if you were beginning school at an art institute.  Starting at ART 101!!  Even if you had some teaching in the past; but it has become dusty and rusty; our e-course is here for you to shake it all off and look at a blank piece of paper or canvas or whatever your passion may be and to start again. 

Paraphrasing from the movie again...."it's amazing how my hands never forgot what my mind has.."  that is a place where I was once as well...maybe you have been there too. 

Let's begin with ART 101 and give this a whirl...your hands are waiting for your heart; your mind is waiting for your hands; and your eyes are waiting to Make Something Beautiful!!

 

 

sunday brunch

enjoying a lazy day at home...

we enjoyed a yummy sunday brunch....and enjoyed a few surprise visitors too!  it's always nice to have extra food for those that stop by to say hello.

we followed up our brunch by listening to a sermon from Pastor Chuck online.  if i lived in california i would be a regular attendee for sure.  

so far a perfect sunday...now for a little artwork...and a movie!!

i hope you are enjoying your sunday too!  

i hate it when i make mistakes...

I seriously hate it when I make mistakes...usually I try really hard to remember things and get them right...but lately I have noticed I tend to make errors here and there.  I guess that's all human, but it bugs the crap out of me when I do.  And I am just talking about silly little shipping errors to customers, or not shipping the right thing...I guess I just want to make everyone happy and I hate it when I don't comply to what they ask for.  So if I messed up your order lately, my apologies!!  I try to fix it as soon as it happens.  

As my painting says...I am grateful, and do have joy even when I make silly mistakes!   Of course when you make a mistake with a painting, you can cover it up and start over; well unless it's a watercolor--not so forgiving then.  

I invite you to share in the experience of Make Something Beautiful our first ever art e-course.  We are pretty much set up and are just about ready for filming.  I have also invited a few other artist to share some of their techniques with students as well; hopefully they will accept and become a part of this.  

I love the collaboration with my daughter; it's really an experience I am going to treasure.  Trust me this girl has taught me so much; you will be sure to learn from her as well.  In the midst of mistakes I have made; this adventure takes over with much joy and jubilation!  Don't let the small stuff get you down; it's just a speck of dust in your day...this is what I have to tell myself...so I don't feel like I disappointed someone with my errors.  Now I think it may be time to add some Ginkgo biloba  to my diet for forgetfulness.....great is this expected for someone who will be turning 50 this year??  

artwork available here.

WINNERS * Hand Lettering...

Using my favorite number generator ~ it picked 10 winners for the Make Something Beautiful art e-course!!  Here they are:

Nathalie

Sue W.

Pamela Graham

Kristina

Patti

Connie

Vicki H

Pam

Di

Leslie

CONGRATULATIONS!!!  And..if you already had paid for the class, let me know if you prefer a refund or would like to give this spot away to a friend...your choice!! :)  Please email me with your information so I can send you your login information when it is available.  tsheeley@gmail.com 

We are super excited about what is coming your way...up next is our Kayla, Teresa introduction video we made; so you can see us chit chatting with you....*disclaimer* when you see the video I want you to know that NO alcohlic beverages were involved.  My daughter seems to think I act like I had a few....but sorry folks it's just me, a little air headed at times...and have a hard taking things to serious...well that's all I will say...you will see....please don't judge to harshly! :)

Above is my hand lettering with india ink on plain white paper...I do love hand lettering....maybe I will throw in a lesson for that really quick too!! 

The blog site for Make Something Beautiful also has the supply list on it now!   Please share all and any information with your friends about the course...would love to have you all!!!!  

And...for those of you who didn't win in the give away....we still have our discounted price available this week, a savings of $25.  Hope to see you there!!!