celebrating Mom’s Birthday
My Mom has always been the pillar of strength, kindness, and fun in life….and today she is celebrating her 73rd birthday.
Happy Birthday Mommy – I love Ewe!
Category: Uncategorized
-
A Different Kind of Christmas
Celebrating Christmas usually is my favorite time of the year – the lights, buying presents for loved ones, the food, the times together playing games, watching movies, doing puzzles, and laughing…
This year, all that was toned wayyy down in our house – a sick mom is really no fun for anyone…I spent five days sick on the couch, with no energy to do much of anything. The kids were troopers, and very caring and condiserate – but I know they missed the hubbub and joyful atmosphere we usually have in the house…
So the question is: fake it to make them happy, or just go with what is, and see it in contrast to the happier christmasses we’ve celebrated before and will be celebrating again?
Never quite sure what the better approach is for that…the good part is, that I am slowly on the mend and gaining a bit of energy back. We are making the most of the few days during christmas break to do all the things we had planned for Christmas…
And who knows, I might even get some painting done this coming week – it’s been a long while since I’ve had a chance to work in my studio.
New Year’s Eve will be a marathon of Hobbitses, Dwarves, and Elves – can hardly wait…
-
A Glimpse Under The Trenchcoat: 1st Edition
So you want to know how I came up with the Sheep idea? Well, it all began like this:
“there once was a blank canvas on my easel, and some paint and paint brushes nearby”
…pretty much each and every one of my paintings begins like that. What happens when those things get together with my thought processes takes the story in a whole different direction, though.
Many times, before I even unwrap the canvas, I have a general idea of either a message I want to impart, a pun or phrase I think the Sheep Incognito would be good at interpreting, an image I would like to try creating, or, sometimes, I simply feel like flinging paint around.
To explain that a bit better, I think it’s best to go sheep by sheep to give you some insight into the process and inner workings of my artistic mind. I hope you brought a good flashlight along – it’s a dark place in there…
Today’s “Under the Trenchcoat” victim: DANCES WITH WOOLS
This painting began with a conversation between a longtime artist friend, her son who makes oil paints, and myself, who is always on the lookout for good or better materials. I was offered the opportunity to give his new line of hand-crafted oils a try on one of my new paintings – so of course I jumped right in. He had given me a small set of oils – almost none of them my usual color set. So it would be challenging to create the usual vibrancy in the painting without the use of my normal palette.
With no title in mind, I just wanted to paint the essence of happiness, contentment, and exuberance, touched with a bit of childlike innocence. So a dancing sheep, engrossed in the moment and movement – carefree and lighthearted – was just the thing. I finished the initial sketch of the sheep – then realized that without a reason to be dancing, she would look just a bit out of context, and it was not clear WHY the sheep was happy. There are all kinds of things that make all kinds of people (or sheep) happy – but since we were heading to the New York Sheep & Wool Festival, there really was only one thing that could be danced with in this painting: Yarn! It is what knitters crave, crocheters seek out, spinners fantasize over, and dyers get heart flutters about.
The new oils turned out to be luscious and easy to work with – lighter than my usual paints. The blue was just right, and for the skin tones, these new paints worked better than what I usually opt for. The only issue popped up trying to paint the red yarn and the red flowers – to keep with my usual color scheme for knitting images in recent times, I needed to add some cad light red to make things “zing!”.
As I was painting the yarn, I was also desperately trying to come up with a title – “doing the happy dance” or “springy flingy thingy” just didn’t seem to groove with this one…It needed something that connects to the real world, or at least makes it recognizeable. At which point the title “Dances with Wools” was born – it sounds and looks a lot like a familiar movie title, but brings it into the world of Sheep Incognito, where things are questioned, re-interpreted in a sheepish way, or re-purposed to fit the sheeps’ view of the world around us.
DANCES WITH WOOLS has quite rapidly become a new favorite among my knitting and fiber world friends… so if you want to join that hype, you can order prints of it by clicking here to purchase
If you have questions about the process involved, colors used, etc., just drop me a line in the comments section.
DANCES WITH WOOLS -
A Flock of Sheep for Christmas
CARAVAN TO BAAATHLEHEM – A flock of Sheep on the way to Bethlehem Because sheep seem to be very observant for the most part – unless there is corn involved, then they throw all caution to the wind – they noticed something amiss in the Christmas Story as we know it: the three wise guys. The gifts. They were all wrong for someone who supposedly was just born. Yes, the baby is a king. But in the world of sheep, even kings start out as little lambs. And those generally do not derive any kind of joy or excitement over little bits of gold, myrrh or frankincense…
Of course, nobody later wanted to mention rubber duckies, dinosaur eggs, or the mysterious contents of the box that the flock of sheep brought to the manger that special night. But it might be safe to assume that in fact, those might have been the best gifts of the event.
They just did not have the writing skills to keep records for the generations afterwards…that’s where the wise guys had the advantage: if the marketing guys say it was so, then that is what will be in the history books.Well. here is your chance to help make this Christmas join the history books in someone’s life: from now until December 20th, 2013, you can save 20% on your entire purchase in the Sheep Incognito shop by entering coupon code SIStNick2013 at checkout.
Sheep know what good gifts look like – don’t be the one with the box of smelly wood bits this year…Click here to visit the Sheep Incognito shop: Caravan to Baaathlehem prints on paper and canvas
-
Add Another Show to the List
There is actually another show we will be attending on Thanksgiving weekend – muddleminded me had skipped over that one, even though it takes place with my favorite show promoters – Christmas Made in the South in Jacksonville, FL.
Don’t miss out on this opportunity to visit with Sheep Incognito, see all the new flock members, and snag one of the few 2014 calendars we have left. Time is running out to get these to you before Christmas, so make sure you either snag one at the show, or hop by the website at www.charisma-art.com to place your order before they are sold out!
https://www.charisma-art.com/2014-calendar
Sheep Incognito 2014
Wall Calendar by Conni Togel -
Winding Down the Year
After being in more States than I care to remember, setting up more shows than I can count, and meeting more people than live in my town, we are finally getting to the last event of this year – it’s the big one!
For a few more days, the Sheep Incognito Flock will be hanging out at the always phenomenal Southern Christmas Show at the Charlotte Expo Center. 12 Days of five buildings filled with any- and everything you might possibly associate with the holiday season. Comes complete with live music, roasted nuts, mulled cider, Dickens attired folk, and the new Sheep Incognito Christmas Painting “Fleece Navidad”.
You don’t want to miss out on this one!
-
Finally Back In the Groove
Back To work – new landscape painting Finally Back At Work!
we finally have made some space in my new studio to allow me to access my easel again – first thing I wanted to do in the new space, is paint a new landscape. While I love my Sheep Incognito, my traveling self needed to create a vista to get started again. This one incorporates lavender fields, clouds, and most likely will have some yellow fields of wheat somewhere – I love that color combination, so that is where this is headed. I am still working out which direction the fields of lavender will be going – I want the lavender to lead the viewer deeper into the landscape, rather than just being a snapshot of a field of flowers. By making it a lavender path type thing, that will guide the eye into the distance for a walk through Provence….now, if only I could add a scratch and sniff element…
music element in the studio today: Earth Wind & Fire on Pandora,,,for the groove…
-
Back To Work In The Sheep Incognito Studio
Back To work – new landscape painting Finally Back At Work
There are still bits and pieces of things laying around, but those were pushed aside so I can get back to painting – I’ve been anxious to get back to doing a few landscapes to add to the Sheep Incognito online store…I had been focussing exclusively on my Sheep Incognito series of paintings for the past years – fun things indeed! But to feed my artist soul, every now and then I have to break with traditions – therefore, a new landscape painting involving lavender, clouds, blue sky and possibly a tree or three…
This one is oils on canvas – size is 24 inches x 48 inches.
Updates will follow…
If you want to place a hold on this one, just drop me a line…
-
A River Runs Through It…
…the Sheep Incognito booth, that is…
We’ve finally reached the mid-summer break in the busy art show tour schedule – and none too soon, it seems. Last weekend’s Orchard Lake Fine Art Show in West Bloomfield Michigan decided to line up with ever other art show we’ve attended this year: forecast for beautiful weather – reality was a mad scramble to get prints inside the tent, and batten down the hatches for storms.
If nothing else, at least we had our gym membership for free on that one…lots of ladder climbing, box lifting, panel adjusting, rain activity.But, even with that, there were moments of gorgeous weather for patrons to stroll around – they did a lot of that. Since good moments in life are not made up by dollar signs, it was perfect that we had some good friends stop in for a visit and a chat, and we got to meet a new artist friend for dinner and breakfast, which turned an otherwise rather dull show into one of magic, laughs, good times, and great memories.
And those are things not purchased at any art fair, or any Walmart.
