Back from My Walk in the Desert

I hope everyone can see the photo slideshow displayed above. These pics are from my latest sojourn out to the desert city of Las Vegas. While most go to Las Vegas for inside a building activities, I go for the incredible scenery outside the Strip and city! My favorite place to get away from it all is the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area, which is surprisingly less than 20 miles from the city. Since I was on a solo trip, I could do whatever activity I wanted (my usual travel companions are not interested in hiking for hours in the desert and rock), and getting on the trails at Red Rock was my main agenda this trip!



This was my first time really spending time exploring the trails. There are many miles of trails out there, a lot to choose from. I decided to hike on as easy access trail as I could, which turned out to be the Rocky Gap trail. This trail is well seen and is actually wide enough to drive a 4x4 vehicle through. The trailhead starts at the Willow Springs campsite, which is about a mile from mile marker seven on the Scenic Drive road. It's very easy to drive to and lots of space to park your car, esp. since I was there before 9 AM.



The trail is fairly rocky, but not too difficult to walk on. The trail does go uphill quite a bit and is not marked other than a trail head marker back at the campsite. But I didn't really care, I've had some experience being out on trail for a few years so I knew how to stay smart and safe (rattlesnakes and poisonous lizards do live out there as well!). To make a long hike story short, I wound up covering about a six mile round trip hike. And I loved every step!

When I'm out there what I love is that it is so quiet. Quiet, real quiet, nothing but nature sounds and a dry cool breeze keeping you company. I understand that some people would be scared by this isolation, but I'm not and I really don't feel isolated at all. For me there's nothing that refreshes me mentally and spiritually like a walk in the desert like this. I feel like my burdens are freed into the canyon winds and I come back to my real life with a clean slate, ready to keep pressing on with whatever I'm supposed to be doing in life!

Plus, getting in better shape by slow hiking is a nice benefit too!

When will I get back out to the desert? It will be a few months I'm afraid. Like everyone in today's economy I've had to cut back on just about everything. But I know that the desert trails will still be there for me when I'm able to come.

Etsy Texas Crafters

Etsy Texas Crafters

I haven't ever been a social butterfly per say, my college years saw the most active participation in groups and clubs. And I've been involved with a few horse groups here and there in the last couple of decades or so. But now, with my "fire in the belly" for pursuing an art career, I'm looking into joining art groups that suit me. On Etsy, there are many "team" organizations according to location, theme or interest that artist can join. I'm starting with the Etsy Texas Crafters, and don't think it's going to be a bad decision at all! Check out the website by clicking on the new tag added. I'm already getting inspired and working hard on projects so I have something in my shop to participate in the team events! I will use the ETC blog site to keep my notes up to date on the activities, and my art projects here on Blogger.

Yea, just need to keep up with one more internet blog, that's what I need, Ha! Oh well, it will all draw me out of my "anti-social" shell so to speak!

More Paintings Finished

Well, have to say I'm proud of myself for getting these miniature bookmark paintings done, I'm gitting, oops, getting, more disciplined about my time during the day to devote to creating some artwork. Plus, it's actually fall season here in Texas (hey, when the temps are 90 degress or less in September and October, it's Fall! LOL!), so I'm not tired from working out in the heat around the farm.

I want to start with the bay horse and the hand painting titled "The Polite Offering". This depicts a natural horsemanship concept called the horseman's handshake, which is all about approaching and inviting the horse to seek the human first, not the human just taking over the horses personal space and grabbing and pushing the horse around (which is rude to the horse, and they know it!). The hand in this position shown is placed to simulate another horse's muzzle in a friendly non-threating position. There are volumes of thought that go along with this, and for me, learning about it opened up so much more depth in my horsemanship! The style of the painting is rather controlled, and I'm pleased with how it turned out. Takes a lot of patience to work a lot of detail in a small (2"x2") space! I will put this is a vinyl bookmark sleeve and embellish it with a beaded/leather cord.

The next bookmark I went in a different direction stylisticly, looser and more abstract. I don't have a name quite yet for this one, so it's working title is "Bold Spirit Horses of Color". This painting is based on a vintage Navajo sterling silver pin I have. I love collecting and wearing Native American artisian made jewelry, and have a special interest in horse pins. The horse colors represent the stones often used in NA jewelry; turquoise, coral and spiney oyster. There are stories from several native indian cultures about how the horse was created and was used by the dieties. I found a very interesting story about a horse of turquoise color that was ridden across the sky every morning and thus the reason for blue skys! ( Thanks to Twin Rocks Trading Post of Bluff, Utah for sharing this info online!!) The ruddy colored background is an abstract representation of the red rock sandstone formations that I've seen ancient petroglyphs on. With this painting it will give me the opportunity to embellish with some genuine natural Kingman turquoise and spiney oyster beads (once my bead order gets here) for the bookmark cord.

The very top painting is called "Practising the Good Hack". Here, something a bit more traditional in equestrian painting. While I live in the mecca of cowboy country, there are a fair number of English style riders and activities around. In fact, I know several riders from the UK across the pond who have been riding among the cowboys and wannabe cowboys here for many years! All of my barn boarders are english riders and I myself, ride either english, western or bareback. Depicted in the painting is a rider on a proper turned out horse working on their form. I could just hear the rthyhm of the trotting footfalls across the arena sand and the rider quietly counting, "one-two, one-two" in posting up and down. I think it turned out to be a very plesant looking little painting! This one also will be put into a vinyl bookmark sleeve with a beaded leather cord, perhaps gold embellishment on this one!

I'm planning on getting these in my Etsy shop by the weekend I hope, as I will also have some little notepads ready to list by then too! Now, back to the day job....

"The Inviting Path", first of a series

Don't you love it when you finally get going on something you know you should be doing? Finally, I finished my first bookmark painting. I call it "The Inviting Path". After all these years of trying all kinds of horse riding activities, my absolute favorite riding endeavour is heading down a trail in the wide open spaces. There is such a bonding experience between rider and horse from doing something so simple as going from point A to point B down a path, whether it's for an hour or 24 hours!

As this painting is for a bookmark purpose, I wanted to tie in the theme with purpose. Reading a book takes the reader on an adventure for fiction or fact. If you will, taking the reader down a path. So here is a path painted that I hope folks find just as inviting as the book it's in to read! Notice how the horse has the right ear facing back; he's listening to the rider or reader in this case to keep going forward!

This is a freestyle painting, I used no reference photos, just what I saw in my imagination. My watercolor pencil palette was pretty simple of a few greens, yellows, browns and indigo blue and ultramarine blue for the background and my horse is a few violets, paynes's grey, indigo blue. I decided to put in a wildflower field in the distance and used a permanent red, orange chrome and a pink to add some bright color. Bookmark size of approx. 2.25" wide by 7.25" high on white Lenox 100 cotton rag paper (I LOVE this multi-purpose art paper for small projects!) I will put this painting inside a vinyl bookmark sleeve and embellish the top with a leather cord and wonderful silver horse charm. I plan on putting this up in my Etsy shop as soon as I get a few more bookmarks created.

Ok, so now that this first one is started, I'm going to stay on this momentum and get going on the next! And I will be sure to post it on the blog as soon as I can!

Oooohh, Ahhhhh, TURQUOISE!!

Just have to share a wonderful essay on Deerwoman Designs blog about turquoise! You see, I'm ready to admit that one of my great loves in my life is southwest turquoise and Native American made jewelry. I'm always on the lookout for artist pieces using natural, beautiful turquoise stones, and silver work. I often study the designs and draw inspiration from it.

Buying turquoise isn't as easy as you think it is, as I found out. There are many, many, many fake stones or plastic being passed off as turquoise on the market. Learning to buy quailty turquoise pieces takes some homework and developing a good eye. It's something people have devoted their lifetime too!

This essay about turquoise on Deerwoman Designs blog really covers the basics and is a good start to help about learning how to distinguish what is natural gem quality turquoise stones to plastic fakes with little to no actual turquoise stone involved. If you love turquoise you will thoroughly enjoy the effort she took to compile the info and pictures!

I'm not one to believe in emotional attributes or tailsman qualites attached to stones, but if you do, turquoise is believed to have healing properties and was also believed to make arrows fly straight by some Native American cultures. Another belief I personally found interesting is that it's susposed to help a horseback rider stay on and prevent falls! Boy, too bad I didn't know about that all these years I've been riding, I would have been saved a lot of bumps, bruises, broken bones, etc.....!!! LOL!!!!

Promote! Promote! Promote!

I started something I've never done before last week, creating promotional items of my Etsy art shop! Making my Etsy shop a success (ie producing a steady monthly income and showcasing my art) has become really important to me. So, I've been reading through all the forums for days on the site to glean ideas about how to do this, especially in the economy today! I gathered some great ideas and one of those was to join an Etsy Team. I joined the Etsy Texas Crafters last month and one of the events is a participating booth at the Maker Faire in Austin Oct. 18th. And, one of the members is cordinating "goodie bags" to give out to promote Etsy and the Texas Etsy members. And all I, or any member, need to do was simply send their shop promo items and the kind Etsy member will distrubute them out!!

I thought, wow, this is a great and affordable opportunity for me, so why not participate and take advantage! Now, what in the world do I send as a promotional item? The obivious is business cards, however, I asked myself, would just a business card be motivation enough to get someone to come to my shop? While I have some very nice business cards, they do not really promote my Etsy site (it mostly highlights some other websites I use, but I'm in the process of changing my mind about those sites as I'm not getting ANY sales there!). I racked my brain and thought back on my experience from working in a doctor's office and when I was a veterinary pharmaucetical distributor salesperson. At those jobs I was innuadated with promotional items from all sorts of drug companies. The ones that I handled the most, therefore in my eyesight more often, was nice, cute USEABLE, items........

So, there you go...... (as Texans say)....

I tossed around a few ideas and decided on two products that would get some good attention and say "Pick me" "Look at Me"! Or at least I think so! A small handmade notepad (4" x 2.5") and a bookmark/business card combo. The notepad will have my store info, a copy of one of my paintings and a beaded accent and backed with some handmade paper. My bookmark with be printed on some cotton linen type handmade paper with a ribbon and bead accent. And here's a sample of what I came up with:

The first notepad shows how I did the back of each pad, bound with real leather cord and assorted handmade paper. Then two of the examples of the pads showing the beaded binding and a painting example. Each pad has five pages of off white resume paper. I'm thinking people can use this pad as a mini sketch pad too. I'm having to practically hand cut all the pages so it's a lot of work. The front of the pad is printed on some great cotton rag paper (Lenox 100) that has a nice stiffness and thickness. I used glass beads with gold beading wire and just wrapped it around the leather cording (these supplies, beads & leather cord, came from WalMart so I didn't have to spend much). I'm making around 30 or so of these!

And these are the business card/bookmarks:

I'm making around 30-40 of these and hand tying each ribbon and bead. The paper used has more of a cotton linen feel to it, I really like it a lot.

I'm trying to be very disciplined and keep working on making all of these and then get them mailed off. This being the first time I've ever hand made promo items I'm getting a good idea of what it takes timewise and cost wise. I'm learning a lot, it will be very interesting to see what kind of response I get after they are handed out in October.

Now, after this project is done, it's time to really build art projects for my shop in time for October. Lots and lots of ideas........Stay tuned!!!