Natural Homemade Dyes

I've been a natural dye buff for many years. I love the process of creating them and the smell of them cooking. I think the colors that come from nature have such a unique look and feel. I used to teach classes every year at Wild Oats on how to dye eggs for Easter using coffee, beets, turmeric, purple cabbage, onion skins and more. I even went on the news one year to demonstrate my techniques to Anietra Hampur on NBC 4!

In the past few years I've experimented with using natural dyes to make art and I've had some great success with it. This last weekend I was able to present my knowledge about natural dyes to about sixty attendees of the fantastic OEFFA conference in Granville, Ohio. I also led a "paint with natural dyes" activity for about thirty kids during the kid's conference as well. It was so much fun and I just love being at the conference and look forward to it each year.

If you'd like to learn more about Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association you can visit their website at: http://www.oeffa.org/

During the adult session I demonstrated painting natural dyes onto wood using an old salvaged cupboard door. I've continued working on the piece I started at the conference and will be posting it here when it's finished!

Pets with Treats!

I created this illustration for the Union County Humane Society for an event they have coming up called "Treats 'n Sweets" where a Girl Scout troupe is making homemade pet treats to sell to benefit UCHS along with their traditional cookies. I used UCHS's cat and dog characters then added some bones for the dog and made the cat juggling cookies - which I had to look up a picture of to get them right. It's been a while since I ate Girl Scout cookies, lol. The event is on March 5th from 1-3pm at UCHS.

For more info visit their website: http://www.uchspets.org/

Cornucopia

I'm really happy with this cornucopia drawing I did for my October e-mail. I love drawing vegetables and I did the coloring for this with colored pencil first, then finished with some airbrushing in photoshop. I love the textured and bright effect I got from this and will probably use it again even though coloring that much with pencils made my hand cramp up!

Brunhila

I did a drawing of my WOW character Brunhila just for fun and it turned out so cute I wanted to share it! This was sketched out in pencil then I used color pencil to finish it.

Mamapalooza Flyer

I put together this flyer for the Mamapalooza back-to-school event. I love the font I used for "Mamapalooza". It's so fun and funky. I'm also playing at this event at 1:00, so if you live in central Ohio, you should come see me! Lots of talented moms are involved in this event sponsored by Advanced Wellness Center and WCBE . We'll have music, food, belly dancers and mama-made stuff, and we'll be giving away some excellent door prizes :)

Halloween Hand Illustration

I created this drawing from a sketch I did in a coffee shop. I wanted to do a fun halloween montage and include some different elements but tie them together somehow. I liked this sketch because all the scary things were being scared by something themselves - namely the zombie hand popping out of the grave.

First I did a pen drawing of the illustration then on my light table I did a painting of the elements with watercolor. I scanned both sheets then put them together to create the final piece.

The Right Mama

I created a rockin' mama illustration for the Mamapalooza poster, but it turned out to be a little too rockin' considering most of our line-up is acoustic singer/songwriters (like myself). So, I toned it down a little, changed the guitar and the color scheme to go with the mamapalooza colors.