From art to pendant

Recently, while my mom (Maralee Lowder) and I had a booth at the Butterfly Festival in Mariposa, Calilfornia, I met a lovely photographer/jewelry maker named Joelle Leder. We immediately formed a mutual admiration society as I love her photography and handmade jewelry, and Joelle loved my art and pendants. Joelle has been successfully selling her work at art and craft fairs for over ten years and, thankfully, she was more than willing to share tips and tricks for being successful at shows. Soon after the show, Joelle asked me to consider creating a line of pendants that complimented her "beachy" jewelry. I love the ocean and jumped at the idea to create art that brings to mind the casual and laid-back feeling of the beach.

I started with this sea start painting...

Sea Star Painting for LaBelle Mariposa pendant

Once I'd completed the painting which is 12 by 12 in size, I photographed it and re-sized it using Photoshop. Painting something bigger and shrinking it down for a pendant is such a fun process. All of the details are so cute and crisp when shrunk down from a large size to an itty bitty piece of art. :)

There are several factors that influence the final product when printing the images. Therefore, I usually have to do a few test-prints before I get the final image that I want for the pendant.



I'm very happy with the final result of this image...

I love the dimension and the shading. In real life, it looks like you could run your finger along the side and feel the starfish. :) Now I'm working on a sand dollar, and next will come a painting that represents Manhattan Beach, CA. I'll share photos of those paintings as they come along.

Sea Star Pendant

Blessings,
Laura P.

One day at a time

Life has been more crazy than usual here at my house. My sweet ex-husband is sick with cancer and my sons are now with me full time. When he was healthy, their dad had them from Friday to Friday and we traded off. So, I was a 50/50 mom. Having them here all the time is a blessing, but it makes getting work done pretty tough. I can't imagine how single moms who work out of the home have time to get any thing done at home. Today Joe starts chemo, so we are praying that he'll be back up here in Northern Cali to enjoy his boys very soon!

As far as the art business goes, I've created a few new pendants from the art I've been painting. I have an opportunity to do an art walk (FOR FREE!!!) on Saturday and I'm looking forward to getting feedback from folks on the new stuff. I really love them and it's always interesting to see what other people love. I've been surprised by what gets people excited. Here's the original painting that I took the images from:

And, here are the pendant images that I used for pendants:

The second dove is from another painting in the same series. It's always interesting to see what other people see in our art work. I believe that the imperfections in art leave space for the observer to insert themselves and interpret from a personal place. While I admire artists who can recreate the world so perfectly that it looks like a photograph, I also appreciate a folksy style that leave lots of room for the observer to interpret.

Two new monarchs

I've always loved butterflies. There's the brighter than life colors, the fact that they FLY, transformation symbolism... The cover of my book, Walk in Your Own Footsteps is a photo of the trail that ends in a butterfly sanctuary in Santa Cruz, CA. There are really a lot of reasons that I love butterflies. About 2 years ago I painted my first one. I fell in love all over again. Each one is like a snowflake, it looks just like the others, but not quite. Today, I finished two more paintings. I have so many ideas for butterflies fluttering around my head, it looks like I will be painting many, many more. So, here's what I finished today.

I will be printing out tiny versions and creating pendants with them. Gosh, what a lovely way to spend my time. It surprises me that my heart, soul, and imagination can be so excited and my body gets so tired that I can't create. I'm never out of ideas or inspiration. I hope you enjoy these, too.