New projetcs, a visit from friends and dready updates!

woowww!!
.....just checked my traffic counter at the bottom of my blog and its telling me that today we went over 3,000 views(all time)! Thanks so much to everyone for the support, its very inspirational and much appreciated.

Its been a jam packed couple of weeks.

Now that the dust has settled a bit i have started working on a new painting.
It started out with this rough pencil/pen and ink sketch:

I have a vision for this piece involving some background setting. I rarely do backgrounds and i would like to start...so this is a bit of a challenge to myself. I am planning on positioning her coming out from the gloom of deep sea, hovering protectively above a sunken glowing city. So far i have the first layer of the background prepped-which is a cool gradation of blue, light at the top center, slowly darkening into inky purple blue, where i will soon start painting in the sunken city. I hope to chronicle my creative process with this piece, as i did with masquerade ball.
....speaking of the masquerade ball piece. I finally got to sign and varnish it- so last night i took some better quality pictures of this finished piece. here you go:

.....I had some great news over last weekend. At one of the first Last Thursday Art walks on Alberta St of this year, a nice lady whom i feel compelled to describe as an "art angel"( youll see why) named Tiffany Ruth stopped by our booth to speak with me. She seemed to really enjoy my work. We got to talking and she mentioned that she will soon be opening a Folk/Outsider art gallery in NW Portland, and that she would love for me to do a show with her. I gave her my card and crossed my fingers, hoping she would call me back when the time was right. She called me back last week and said that she would like me to be in her 2nd show with one other artist( sometime in august or September). Im looking forward to checking out the gallery space on July 2nd, when she will be having her first gallery opening featuring a sanfran artists doing a tribute to Freida khalo. From what i have gathered so far the art gallery is called Curious artspace. its located in NW portland on 24th and thurman. Very excited to find myself slowly but surley making my way into the portland art scene. People are so supportive and open up here...there are many galleries that work as launchpads for up and coming artists....the community so tight nit and diverse. Once i have more details on Tiffany's gallery and the show i will be in i will post here to get the word out.
In other exciting news: Marla, my dear friend...flew up to come hang out in Portland for 4 days. We did so much! On the first day of Marla's arrival we checked out the forest trails in our neck of the woods and then drove around the city afterward checked out Belmont st, showed her the hawthorn district and then came home and cooked a super yummy meal. The next day we scouted out a few art galleries and went driving out to Horsetail falls just off the 84 on the historic highway. We hiked up to the horsetail falls and have a nice picnic, basking in the sweet spray of the roaring waterfall. Here is a pic of Marla and I that Danny took as we were making our way to Horsetail:
this is a photo collage that danny made of the lower ponytail falls:

The next day we went downtown and checked out the Saturday market, got some lunch and sat on the waterfront grass as the gay pride festival unfurled. There happened to be a naked bike ride parade that day too....which was quite a site. We then made our way around town checking out more art galleries. The next day we drove to Cannon beach and had a nice relaxing time there, taking in the sea breeze and the sights. I was sad to see Marla go the next day, but i am left with some lovely memories!
This summer has been a busy one so far( and its not even summer yet)...its interesting how life jumps alive after those hard winter months. its refreshing.
.....Also i have an update on my Dready Journey: Its been over 6 months now, that i have had my locks! i just recently got a bunch of lovely handmade beads from Anne at Dreadieworld : www.flickr.com/photos/dreadieworld/
and i felt like showin them off!
Front
Back
side 1
side 2
i am in love with my new beads. its so fun to adorn dreads with charms and lil things...incorporating a lil magick and festivity. fun stuff! they are feelin like they are maturing nice and fast. they have done a fair amount of shrinking as well so they are gettin thick. ...im excited to see where i will be in a few more months with them. sometimes i feel that tending ones dreads is almost like tending a garden and watching your flowers slowly bloom.
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Update on Life and the Creative Process

So its been a very long while since i have updated my blog, tragically. For awhile there spring turned to full blown summer and my apartment got so hot it rendered me into a state of complete mental and physical handicap. Also, I got pretty sick with the stomach flue and was MIA for some time. but HAZZAAH! i have risen and this past weekend i got all my unfinished projects completed since it has cooled down once again.

I would like to detail my most recent finished painting and my creative process here. I tried to document the various fazes of the paintings creation from the first sketch to the final stroke. I thought this would be a good thing to begin doing for myself with my paintings as a way to be able to step back from the creation process at intervals and really look at and critique what im creating…figure out what I like, don’t like and where I should go with the painting next. I thought I would be interesting to document the creation process on pieces since each painting is a completely different creative and spiritual journey for me. I learn something new with each piece I create.

Creative process- Step 1

My painting, as they often do, started out with a pen and ink drawing:

This illustration was done with my favorite drawing pens by Faber Castell. They are India ink pens that come in a variety of size from super fine to brush pen.

My pen and ink drawings usually happen spur of the moment. This drawing was inspired by lovely high busted, fancyfull dresses of the olden age when corsets and undoes were aplenty. I think I was watching the movie Sleepy hollow while I drew this, very much inspired by the costume design in the film…that especially of the white witch in the story. I have always had a fascination with tight waist corsetry and dresses and I find more and more I am doodling out my own gowns and gussied up ladies.

…I love pen and ink, black and white illustration. I am fond of this drawing as it is but I got to thinking I would like to try it on a larger scale using acrylic paint.

Creative process – Step 2

I started with a 24” x 24” studio framed blank canvas painted gray. I used my lil art projector called “tracer” and used one of my 5x7 prints as a base to project the illustration onto the canvas. I then very roughly traced over the projected image onto the canvas with my Faber Castell India Ink pens, until I had down the basic shape and detail of the drawing

Creative process – Step 3

Close up of color experimentation in detail on skin and face:

Next, I started experimenting with my colors. It may seem obvious but my favorite colors are Purple and green, especially when paired together. I find the color combo creates a unique color harmony that is hard for me to resist. Thus, I began to work out that the dress and the mask would be in those chosen colors. I often tend to paint the skin of my ladies a blue or a green, hinting at a paranormal aspect to these creatures( also indicated with the one eye that is in fact part “creature” be it cat or reptilian inspired with the sharp pupil)

Creative Process -Step 4

Here I began coming in to detail and smooth out the first layers of color.

I went into the under eyes and pulled more purple in to compliment the dress. began adding color detail, high lighting along the sleeves and stuff... to give the dress a glow, then reapplied black to secure and smooth out the planned shapes. I decided on a yellow green gradation for the background...so far the background color just has its base foundation that will need to be enriched and smoothed later on. At this point I can really begin to see what direction the color palette is going and began plotting out things like what colors I might try to use in the hair and along the sleeves. Also realizing I will want to go back into the mask and repaint the right side so it’s a lil less clumsy lookin. At this point there is lots of room for experimentation.

Creative Process – Step 5

FINISHED!!

Please click to full View!

….i would have liked to document a few more phases with creating this piece before finishing it but it came together so fast I didn’t have time to stop at intervals and document. Firstly, I went back into the background and smoothed out the gradation...pulling more yellow into the mix and fanning it into a sorta green vignette around the sides. Once I did that I was able to make a firm decision on what color to make the hair. I wanted to go light, close to white even…to create a similar look of the old fashioned powdered wig type style. I chose to use the hair as a way to tie in some pink, that also is present in the delicate features of the face like the lips and the cheeks. I used a darker purple for shading, which helped compliment the color palette of the dress. I then went back into the corset and decided it was much too rough looking and needed some more highlight and a bit of interest. I did a few layers of green/yellow highlight and then began to layer the shine with a suggestion of spirally black brocade pattern…for the corsets fabric. I felt that added some interest and helped it look less flat. Once I got the corset finished and figured out I finished the lower pieces of sleeves along the arm, choosing the same colors used in the puffy striped parts of the upper sleeve. Once I was done with that I took some gray paint and whited out the right side of the mask just above her eye. I then went back in with black and planned the mask’s detail and shape better to compliment its other side. I then went in and did my base color work on it, trying to stick close to the colors already present in the mask. Once that was finished I went over the entire piece once again and accentuating a glowing look by adding more highlights in the details. When I was done with that all that was left to do was go back over the entire painting with black to smooth out the planned shapes and also to add the last pieces of detail, such as the wispys and flowers that spring from her head and the glowing jewels and flowers near her bosom. I did all that over this past weekend. I am very relieved to have this piece finished. Now all I have to do is sign, date it and varnish it. Once It is varnished I will take better, closer, more detailed pictures of it.

So, that’s that. I think I am going to try and paint smaller from now on since I am running out of room in my small apartment, and also it seems smaller paintings tend to be more sellable at the present since they tend to be less of an big investment.

P.S
Just incase someone was curious...I used a combination of Windsor and Newton Galleria acrylic paint and Daler Rowney system 3 acrylic paint.
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Finished my Bast-cat goddess painting + new merchandise

So i have finally finished my cat goddess painting that i had dug up from a pile of unfinished paintings a few weeks back. I did alot of revamping on it...and just last night I varnished it and took pictures, so here you go:

(Please click to full view)

Title: Bast, Keeper of the Meadow
14" x 14" Original acrylic painting
by Chelsea Rose

This peice turned into a portrait of sorts of Bast (or Bastet)- the Egyptian warrior cat goddess, goddess of the sun, protector of the land.

...I struggled a lot with this painting in the beginning and i believe thats why it ended up behind my art table, collecting dust for a few months along with other various unfinished projects of mine.

My process in creation of this painting was as follows: I used a small art projector to transfer my original pen and ink illustration of the cat spirit onto a 14" by 14" canvas. I painted the outlines and then began to introduce colors. Part of the difficulty creating this piece was trying to figure out how to most elegantly use all the empty space on the top an the bottom. My first attempts were very unsatisfying and it seemed no matter which way i reworked it, i wasn't happy. here is a picture that has a glimpse of the painting when it was in its yucky faze:

(Please click to Full View)

can you spot it? its to the right of the easel. As you can see the top and the bottom are completely different then what they are now. It was at this stage that i gave up.
I find that sometimes, if i put something away for long enough by the time i come back to it i will have a fresh point of view/different perspective allowing for newideas/problem solving. So when i pulled it back out 6 months later i ended up completely whiting out the top and the bottom and reworked them from scratch. Almost instantly all the blocked creative energy began to flow and it only took me a few weeks to get the entire painting finished.

....I am now ready for my next painting. Unfortunately i am completely out of blank canvas and too strapped for cash to be able to run over to the art store and buy some. So i am thinking about re purposing some of my old canvas paintings from school. I will just sand them down a bit, reapply gesso and add a nice layer of neutral gray and they should be ready to paint anew. It might be hard to let go of some of these old paintings.... but I am trying to be thrifty, as much as i possibly can.

In the meantime, i have plenty of new merchandise to list in our online shop.

(please click to full view)
I found these frames the other day and realized they would work well with a few of my illustration prints. Now that i have taken product pictures, i just need to get off my lazy fanny and load them up in our online shop. Till then, feel free to email me in order to reserve: chelsea@lucidopticlab.com

Tomorrow I am expecting to receive my snazaroo face paint that i ordered from ArtSupplyWarehouse.com. I am trying new things to see if perhaps they could spice up my art booth/bring more of an audience when i do the various art fairs in town. I have always loved body and face painting....so it would be very awesome if i had a positive response doing it/ could make some extra dollars. This may end up being yet another creative freelance job prospect. So once i receive the paint i will be experimenting like crazy and taking lots of pictures...so stay tuned!

Much love!
-Chelsea Rose
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Alberta Art Hop, Weekend highlights and news!

This past weekend was full of surprises and opportunity. I am feeling quite contented now, sitting in the office sipping on some chai, dreamily staring out the window and reminiscing.
This weekend Danny and I shared a booth with our friend Shauna, creator of Mama's Herbal soaps( www.MamasHerbalSoaps.com/ )and had a blast.

We were at the art hop on Alberta st in Portland Oregon from 7am-7pm soaking up sun rays and watching the fair unfold before us. since i knew we would be there all day i set up my easel so that i might get some more work done on the cat spirit painting i just started working on again.

People seemed to respond well, excited to see some live painting. It kept me busy during the lulls of the day and allowed me to gain progress on the painting.
....i cant wait for the next one coming up May 28th. Danny and I as well as Mama's Herbal Soaps will have a booth set up on Alberta st and 20th. don’t miss us! Plus, i may be trying something new: Face and Body painting!:

While chatting with Shauna, she mentioned that perhaps i could start doing face and body painting while vending to see if that might help generate so more funds. i have always loved body/face painting and considered it something i might get into some day. Her daughter Maya sweetly volunteered to be my first test subject. we had a lottah fun doing a simple spirally flower garden pattern up her arm. While we were doing that another girl( pictured in this photo) walked into our booth and asked to have her arm painted as well. Then as I was finishing up her arm four other kids lined up in a row for a body painting as well! So i think i may be bringing a stash of face/body paint with me at the next art walk on Alberta street.
All in all, the day had been a bit slow since we were a few blocks away from the epicenter of the fair but we managed some sales. The intense sun had made it a bit exhausting....i managed to get sunburned even while wearing my big fancy hat! Needless to say, by the end of the day i was a complete zombie. I cant even begin to tell you how much a relief it was to get home, take a cold shower and flop down on the couch!
Sunday i woke up with some major body fatigue, but i was able to shrug it off and get a lot of stuff done...including straighting up the house( since every time we do a fair or a show we end up ripping our apartment to pieces), editing/posting photos from the art hop, walked to the library( checked out 2 books: Women Sailors & Sailors Women, an Untold Maritime History by David Cordingly and Wild Child, Girlhoods in the CounterCulture), visited the local thrift shop and found some great summer skirts, did a lil produce shopping and last but not least i managed to FINISH my metaphysical cat painting! Today when i get home from work i will varnish it and take some pictures so stay tuned!
In the meantime, here is a quickie pic of my lil home studio space, showing me working on the cat spirit painting:
Please click the photo to full view this image, as my blog tends to cut off my horizontal photos.
As you can probably make out, my work space tends to get messy fairly quick! I find each week if i dont go through and reorganize it becomes a complete disaster. I am currently mentally preparing myself to go through all my boxes of art supply and do some much needed spring cleaning sometime this week, and then if i have enough stuff i could do a yardsale. If i generate enough, it may help me buy some nice snazaroo face/body paint for the next fair.
Wish me luck!
-Chelsea Rose
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Workin on a Painting, glad its friday!

So, its a bright and beautiful Friday morning! The weekend's weather forecast for Portland Oregon is sun filled with highs of 80+. That will be a nice change but I hope I don't end up roasting in my lil apartment trying to finish this painting I finally resumed work on:


....it had been sitting collecting dust for over 6 months. Over the last two days i have worked a few hours on it, finally breaking the little creative slump i had come to realize i was in. It seemed as of late, once i get home from work im ready to just curl up into a ball and dream. I am rarely awake past 10pm! I think im slowly coming out of hibernation now that the days are longer and warmer. I am certainly catching onto the vibrations of spring and im feeling anxious to create and explore! This painting stems from one of my original pen and ink drawings:

(Prints of this illustration are available for purchase as 5" x 7" high quality digital prints on card, in plastic archival sleeves in my online shop: http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=19753713 )

....So, we shall see if i end up finishing this painting over the weekend. If so, there will be photos posted soon enough.
In the mean time, i have a few super awesome things to look forward to for the month of June: My dear friend Marla will be coming up to visit me near the middle of the month. It will be great to see her...and i am looking forward to checking out a few Oregon sights to be seen with her, such as the amazing Multnomah Falls and some more of the misty coastal forest trails. She is an amazing artists and so i am sure she will enjoy checking out Portland's infamous Saturday market scene as well. Wonder may also be in town, and if this is the case we will all have a pow wow!
Then, on the 18th, danny and i will be seeing Midnite play live at the Crystal ballroom! It will be the second time Danny and I have seen Midnite play. The first instance was at the Raggamuffin concert in 2008 at the Long Beach convention center, but the venue was fairly crappy so i am hoping the sound quality is better at the Crystal ballroom. Its been awhile since Danny and I have splurged on something like this....but we couldn't resist the sweet temptations of Midnite's righteous reggae vibrations so close to home!
....In the meantime Danny and i are restocking our merch for this month's Last Thursday Artwalk on Alberta St. happening May 28th. I have a bunch of new illustrations to be made into prints as well as some new/fresh tie-dye and screen printed shirts to showcase. So, if you are in town please stop on by and say hi...our booth will be planted close to Alberta and 20th st.
Best wishes and much LOVE!
-Chelsea Rose
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What I have been up to as of late....

Hello there loverly folks!
Its been awhile since my last post and so I have lots to share.
I am still in awe over my trip to the WolfCreek Sanctuary. A few hours before we left i made my way down to the creek and found the most magical spot. It was a little ways past the community kitchen and down a few mossy slopes toward a little opening mouth at the side of a clear water creek. It was just bursting with life: the rocks within it covered in moss, wild flowers and ferns, little tadpoles lulling along the algae, a baby otter darted past to hide in bush, the trees curved like halves of hearts along the sides creating a refreshing canopy of shade....ahhh it was so tranquil. So In reflection i drew this illustration last weekend and I called it "the River Spirit."

It felt great to draw her.

.....also, last week i released an older illustration from 2008:

Im hoping to get off my freakin butt sometime this week and offer these two illustrations of mine as prints for sale....so stay tuned if interested.
And here is an older mixed media art piece of mine that i just finally made a scan of and released:

The base of this mixed media piece is a very old self portrait photograph of mine that i took while still in highschool.
So the picture was printed black and white on some matte photo paper that i then colored using watercolor, pen and ink and even acrylic paint( Lumiere gold acrylic paint).
This piece is up for sale in my etsy shop: http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=24902631 if you dont have an etsy account feel free to email me to reserve the item: chelsea@lucidopticlab.com
On to other news, my wild flowers are really sprouting now...i do hope to see some blossoms soon:

so many of them! also i believe the bulbs have begun too and they are the ones that look like giant blades of grass....i have two pots like this one.
and in this pot( that my mother gave me) i originally planted two types of flower seed( got packets from a nursery but forgot what i planted). It seems that the dominate flower snuffed out the other kind of flower i planted. I fear there isnt enough room for all the sprouts....so i am hoping their growth isnt stunted and that they will still produce some flowers for me. I really wish i had some dirt to play in...a yard would be lovely so that i can experiment with growing things more. im such a newbie with it. Id love to grow some carrots and tomatoes and strawberries and lettuce and whatever else and have some home grown produce for a change. Someday, hopefully i will get the chance because i think its important to at least strive to be a little more self reliant.
...and its time for a Dready Journey update: ( please click to full view!)

so far i have gone through 3 distinct physical dread phases.
1. Day one of my dready journey, a few hours after sectioning my hair off/backcombing and putting on rubber bands.
2. couple weeks after initial backcombing. took all the rubber bands out and used the crocheting method to finish each lock.
3. About three months after the inital crocheting session
the crocheting really advanced my dread's maturity.i think my most favorite locks are the ones with lots of loopies...they are so much fun! i certainly have a halo of frizz...crocheting really helps tame that but i worry about over crocheting and ripping/thinning hair so I try to do it sparingly. My routine has been to wash my hair at the end of each week with residue free shampoo( adding a few drops of tea tree oil for the refreshing fragrance and to fight dryness/dandruff, then air dry( 20 minutes in sunlight after 10 minutes of being pressed in a clean towel). crochet if the washing created too much loose hair. but lately with each wash I can feel them tightening an strengthening! Danny's dreads are doing super as well....hopefully i can get a picture soon to show their progress.

....its strange to realize i have already had my dreads for 4 months now!
As for this past weekend...Danny and I made the most of it...did a lot of relaxing and some exploring: went and checked out Astoria and some more of Cannon beach. On Saturday we randomly decided that we were going to paint all our kitchen Cabinets. The cabinets were looking really bad since they were originally this ugly dirty cream color...but we made it look worse by streaking them with all sorts of tie-dye and cooking stains. So we ended up going to the store and purchasing some "Forest Green" which is a darker/deeper green. Now the kitchen feels a lot more fresh and inviting. I wish we could paint more of our place but since its an apartment i figure its better not to go too crazy because who knows how long we will be living here anyway.
Now its Monday and im sitting at work drinking some chamomile tea, remindimg myself to take deep breaths and stay positive. When i get home i have lots of laundry to do, and i hope to list a bunch of stuff on etsy since our lil shop seems to be in a lull.
Before i leave off on this post i thought i would share a baby picture of mine that i stumbled across over the weekend:

Peace and Love, always!
-Chelsea Rose
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Last Thursday Art Walk on Alberta Street April 30th 2009

Last Thursday Artwalk on Alberta st, April 30th was super fun....it was a wild scene/HUGE turn out. By the time Danny and I got there spaces were all taken along the street and for blocks and blocks people had erected booths/tents/drum circles/ selling art, edibles and all sorts of hand mades, live music, stilz walkers, fire breathers/the works. it was a true festival to be had. We had planned on setting up our canopy like we always do but there just wasn’t enough room. So we snagged some sidewalk and laid out our paintings. On our long table we displayed our screen print shirts and our art print bins.


Surprisingly we did better then we ever have at the last Thursday art walk, even though we had much less out and a much more simple booth without canopy. We had so much fun and met so many people. truly inspiring day. I sold a painting and prints. Danny sold a shirt and a few of his ink cards. It was such lovely day and night.....i cant wait for the next art walk on Alberta!

So for those of you in Oregon or just passin through, come experience Last Thursday Artwalks on Alberta st. We will be there around Alberta st and 20th ( our favorite spot to set up):
The date of the next Last Thursday on Alberta st is May 28th, 2009. Anyone who finds our booth ( Lucid Optic Lab) and mentions my blog gets $5.00 off of their purchase!

Best Wishes!
-Chelsea Rose
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