Makewells

Giveaway! Alisa Burke - An Online Class

You have no idea how excited I am to give this away to one of you! 

But first, I have a confession: I have an artist crush on Alisa Burke. 

Yep, I said it. Not ashamed either. But seriously, Alisa was one of the first arist/bloggers I ever discovered. I sent her an email a long, long time ago just letting her know her journey as an artist inspired me. And she wrote back, personably and promptly. Since then, I've followed along as she's created amazing things, offered new classes, and moved her family to the Oregon coast to open her very own studio space. I just love seeing what is happening in Alisa's world. 

So, it is such an honor to be able to offer one of her online workshop/classes to you as a giveway today. That's right, one of you will get your pick of an online class by Alisa! 

There are 19, yes NINETEEN, classes on Alisa's site you can choose from if you win. And they are so cool. I wish I had time to take every single one. But I barely have time to write this blog post, so we'll save that for another day....

Here is just a peek at some of the classes Alisa has to offer:

If you are creative, wish you were creative, or are just dying to take a class to see how much more creative you can get, then this giveaway is for you! 

Below, there are numerous ways to enter...but I, of course, recommend them all! I'm so tempted to enter this myself! But, I think I'll wait until I have a slow week and I'll just take a class for me finally...

 

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Inspired by England: Libby McMullin

Saturday, we spent the day in London. Just the girls (my sis, mom, and friend Steph). Talk about inspiration overload! While it was just a "shopping trip", that does not exist for me - so of course, in true UK fashion, I took on the role as the paparazzi. My motto is: "When in doubt, take (a ton of) photos". So I did. 

Our first stop was the historic Camden Market. I really had no idea what I was getting into here, but within the first few minutes I had bought a bracelet, sunglasses, Banksy magnets, and other goodies.

Then, I stumbled upon Libby McMullin and her adorable little shop. She was planted right in the midst of food from every country imaginable (I chose Peru - but more on that next week) and her goods were adorable. 

As I was purchasing a couple cards, drooling over her calligraphy style, we struck up a conversation. She was a doll! So sweet and genuine - and excited about her work. I asked if I could blog about her and she gave me a big, smiling 'yes'. I loved her bio so much on her website, that I just decided to include it here:

Libby has received commissions from some fabulous clients, including Tigerprint, a division of Hallmark Cards).

She recently launched her own publishing company for her cards, but can be found every weekend in the Camden Lock Market's West Yard.

Here's a little peek at her work, including two beauties that I picked up. Keep up the awesome creating Libby!

So glad I bumped into Libby! I just love her work!

Happy Friday friends

Curly Willow Collections

Hello! Makewell Readers!

So happy to guest post for Miss Meg as she gets to travel to London to hang out with her sister and her Mom (MUM). I mean, who else, is totally jealous, besides me? What a fabulous trip! GIRL TIME!

I'm Vicki and I blog, create and hang out on my computer a lot with other awesome people like Meg. Her illustrations and paintings are so amazing. I was a lucky winner of one of her custom art projects which hangs proudly in my bedroom.

So, let's start with wear I hang my hat... www.vickidesigner.com is my blog were I show and tell about my graphic art projects, crafts, my family and my faith. I love blogging but honestly, since I went back to work full time, I do not have enough time or energy blogging more than once a week. It really makes me sad.

I am a graphic designer. I L-O-V-E creating art, patterns and cards... pretty much anything cute I can put on paper. Like Meg, I have my own Etsy shop call Curly Willow Collections. I started creating greeting cards, then my confidence increased and started creating art prints.

Then, I found some time to create patterns that I sold as digital downloads for scrapbooking. Then, OMG, I found that you could CREATE YOUR OWN FABRIC! Yes, you heard that right! I hope you just got as excited as I did!

At Spoonflower, you can take any of your art and they will print it on fabric! Makes me want to learn how to sew! But, I don't have time for that, I mean, I can only find time to blog once a week! (I also like exclamation marks!)

But, now, thanks to my friend, Shelley the sewer, I have some housewares in my shop and this week sold my first houseware product. WOOT WOOT! I also am so excited because I created my first fabric collection.

What do you think? I started with the multi-color leaf pattern, then took the colors in that and add some additional patterns and colors and make a collection. SO MUCH FUN!!

What's even more fun is sharing them with others. So, now that collection is available in my shop as digital pattern printables, plus I made a fall banner that's in my shop as a printable. HOW GREAT IS THAT! 

In addition to blogging, graphic design and my full time job as an office manager for a team of realtors with Re/Max; my little corner of the world includes three kids, well, three adult kiddos, 26, 19 and 17 year olds, my hubby and my overly excitable Maltese puppy, especially when we are eating! All my kids are all creative, my daughter and her hubby are professional actors, my son is in college studying music performance in percussion, and my baby is a high school senior and wants to study English and creative writing. We are all creative and yet very different.

Have I talked your ear off yet?

I hope you stop by my blog, my shop, facebook page or twitter. Stop and say, "HI"! 'cause I love new friends!

A big, big thanks to Meg for allowing me to share with you. And a big hug to each of you for sticking around and reading this to the end! And, as my kids say, PEACE OUT!

Vicki

Today's Muse: Fran Gifford

Oh, hoorah for artists like Fran Giffard who make blogging SO easy for me. I mean, if you know me AT ALL, you know I love art that has birds in it. And I love sketchbooks. And I love handwriting brought into someone's art... so it will be quite easy for you to see why I wanted to post about Fran and her amazing work. 

~Sigh~

Here you go...

Happy Tuesday everybody!

Michael Cutlip: One of my all time favorites

Don't you just love it when you rediscover something you were totally obsessed with for a while, but then forgot about? It can be a sandwich, an old tv show (this happened to me recently with some Punky Brewster re-runs), or a verse you hadn't read in a long time. And it all comes back...smack in the face. All the things you thought or felt in that moment are back with you again. 

That happened to me the other day when suddenly the  name "Michael Cutlip" appreared on my screen. Whoa. Flashback to 2008 when he was the biggest source of inspiration for my work (I'll show you those at the end of the post...).

So to stumble upon this artist again was just plain exciting. It was so wonderful to browse through all of his new works, and revisit some I hadn't look at in at least 3 years...

So kudos to you, Michael Cutlip, because you remain one of my favorite artists today. Here are some of my recent favorites, followed by some of my work that was directly influenced by his amazing pieces.

You can see more of Michael's at his website and blog.

But here is a little Makewells blast from the past. Paintings from the summer of 2008...or was it 2007, hmmm...?

24" x 24" Mixed Media on Canvas - $250 (contact for purchase information)

 24" x 24" Mixed Media on Canvas - Sold

16" x 16" Mixed Media on Canvas - Sold

24" x 30" Mixed Media on Canvas - $275

24" x 36" - Mixed Media on Canvas - Sold

Make sure go check out the rest of Michael Cutlip's work and if you'd like to see more of my paintings from long, long ago you can see them in this album on my facebook page. 

Lot's of new work to show you soon! Happy Thursday...