Shelly Loke

Here is a bit of what last summer was.  Toooooo-Busy!  But I did get to art a lot.  Here is a sampling of my new works with hypertufa: a portland cement, sand, and peat mix.  The sculptures are suffering their first wintering and next year they will be set in place to grace the garden.  The dinosaur planters will be filled with various sempervivum and hardy sedum.   I can’t wait!  If you ever get a chance to play with hupertufa then do so.

This guy was my first attempt at a standing hypertufa. His back will be filled with soil and planted up. I left his eyes and mouth open so that I can plant plants inside of them.

What he could look like next year!

Beware, the hippo is the most dangerous of animals. This land hippo is particularly sneaky.

These were a bit tricky as the fingers would often break off when I cut the glove off. I found if I let them cure for longer then it helped, but still I had to take my time when de-gloving them.

This guy has a wire frame underneath. I built him up in two sessions so that I could have a stronger frame

It is quite a bit smaller than usual this year.  In fact it is down right tiny.   But it was delivered by a chicken with beefy arms.

Ice carving in Grafton and snow sculpting before I head off to work. 

These three works will be sold Saturday January 26th at the Grafton Art’s Mill

Tomorrow begins yet another month of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month: http://www.nanowrimo.org/ ).  It is a time for stretching yourself to meet your life goals head on.  You say you have no time for writing a novel?  Nonsense.  Just turn off the TV, become a hermit for a few days of the week, and eat lots of cold cereal, fresh fruit, cheese sandwiches, and noodle soup.  Honestly, if you follow the exercise as it is intended to be you can do it in as little as an hour a day.  You just have to type and add words without turning back to edit.  If you goof, then start writing again as if you had not.  Add new words and never delete.  All the rest of the months of the year are for polishing.  This month we empty our brains.

Brain Child

As an extra challenge for myself I am also going to finish two 8X8 art works in that time.

The drawing panels are ready! Are you?

It is never a long day watching a gallery when you draw!  We had a lot of neat visitors at the Grafton Mill art gallery.  Most of them had never been there before.  Be sure you stop into the Grafton Mill when you next need a gift for someone.  There are items from purses and vintage jewelry to wild life art.  Kids cloths, soaps and lotions, and bottle cap jewelry are also among the treasures available.  Artisan made and fairly priced!

Little brown unicorn

Tiger Blanket

Peacock

Green rabbit yellow mouse

Eye fish

I have been working on a custom illustration.  My challenge, a field sketch drawing from an alien world.

familiar yet strange.

a balance

Notes and drawings while watching a speaker from Northwind perennial farm.

Unicorns and notes

I have been working on everything from a Vlad Tepes hat for a Halloween to a custom drawing of alien wildlife in a journal page style.  Here, have a kitten.  It is an innocent striped kitten who is lost in the desert.

very thirsty kitten