Auction winner and my prize

The auction for Artists for Japan has finished and the winning bid on my Madame Butterfly was made by someone in
Calgary - Canada
so Madame will fly over to meet her new owner soon and I will be able to make the donation to the Red Cross for Japan
I know the Red Cross will be happy with every donation they'll get from my personal experience here with our own quake and everything the Red Cross does, they need a lot !

I also bid on and won (yay !) a wonderful sketch done by Peggy Allen Fergusonbeautiful huh ?
I feel very lucky, go check out her blog too
just follow the link I put on the photo and her name

Unicorns

Oh how magical the unicorns are,
they have put a spell on me at the moment.

I have done two entries in my Moleskine so far and now Cameron (follow this link and check out her blog) has just shown me what she has made for our trade,
oooh and he's coming this way..
I will share with you soon what it is I will be sending her too.
But firstly, let me introduce you to my firstborn Unicorns :
"Hippimani Pitou" and "Azul Hai"-I made up that they are siblings, I might have to make a book with some stories... -
maybe you have read one of my earlier post about the
Magical Unicorn group at Vanillery Garden
it's very inspiring
♥

ROAR

I was cleaning up more stuff at home and was sorting through some piles that had fallen down and found this pen-sketch that I did when I was still a teenager. There are quite a few times that I really do feel like this at the moment, so I thought why not share this with you too:

I made an accompanying few lines:

"Shout, be loud, let it all out !
or get a piece of paper
and sketch and dream
the Scream."

Artists for Japan and Rise Up Christchurch !

I am not so much in a writing kind-a-mood, but wanted to let you know just a few things on this rainy Sunday morning.
There was a Memorial Service in our beautiful but ravaged city on Friday
They released video footage of our city's battered heart
They very unexpectedly recovered my car from the parking garage in the "No Go-zone" yesterday
and I joined the Artists for Japan and donated a one off hand-embellished print of my
Mixed Media painting "Madame Butterfly" for that cause.
Please follow the links to watch for more info and images on either of these

Kia Kaha ♥ Aroha
everybody

on a Zetti note :

I did these Zetti squares (4x4 inch not so chunkie chunkies) for a swap,

but had to pull out because of our quake, couldn't get them posted in time.

Still wanted to share them with y'all...
I am still experimenting with Teesha's Zettiology style, I love the look, but find it pretty hard going. Well, as the saying goes: "practise makes perfect" - I guess I just need to make more of them.
:)

I found another Doe.......... and another frame is finished

I don't know what it is with earthquakes and Deer, after the September one I posted my Antler Maiden and this time I just finished another Doe I found or pulled from random paints that I had put on some paper a while ago

and also I finished painting another frame that my hubbie made for "Shattered"

Magical Tales~ Unicorns

Magical Tales ~ Women and their Unicorns
♫♪♫
Hop, skip, Jump
♪ tralalalalala !!!
♫
I'm so happy, oh so happy ♫♥♪
I was on my way to bed when I received an invite to join this new class at Vanillery Garden !
Vanillery Garden is Natalie Neumann from Vienna
and she is the most generous Mori Girl in the world !
I had been checking out her site and the class, but with things the way they are at the moment, with the earthquake and all, I just could not spare the dosh...it's always the money, it's annoying..so I entered her give-away on her blog for a spot in this class....and.....I got it, yay !
Check it our for yourself and come join
♥

Making Frames

B.E. (before Earthquake) I had started to exhibit some of my works in a local Gallery. The comment of the proprietress was, that my works would look so much better in frames. So my husband and I started to figure out how to do them. And he already bought materials and started some samples, actually he was working on them at the time the earthquake hit us. Now that we are almost 3 weeks on from the main event and we now have power back on and running water (yay !!!!) we have resumed this project. (The Gallery unfortunately got badly damaged, they opened it up last Sunday for us artists to come and retreive our works ad now it will be demolished and the owners had enough and moved away, they also lost their house, it's all very sad) Luckily I got my panels out undamaged.
And here's the first one finished
"Mother Earth in frame" (excuse the quality of the pic, my camera got damaged in the quake and I am using another one at the moment, also the weather is very gray and dull...click on the pic to go to the original post for her, the colours are like that)

Frida Kahlo x Coraline- framed

Another one-of-a-kind framed prainting *) that I just finished. As with "Dream Always" I posted a few days ago,
this Frida Kahlo meets Coraline is made from one of my original ACEO's. The print is done with archival inks on heavy canvas cardstock. I then added another layer of interest and encaustic beeswax.
"Frida Kahlo x Coraline" is framed in another carefully sourced vintage brass Italian filligree frame - aren't they just cute ? they'd make such great gifts ! - and is ready to hang.
The frame size is 5 inch x 3.5 inch or 12.5cm x 9.5cm

She is available from my Etsy shop
*) a prainting is a painting I create with the starting point being a print of one of my original works.

Felt Aid - donation

I have donated this set of two (2) folded cards with envelopes in mainly gray tones to Felt Aid. The insides are blank. FeltAid is an initiative by "Felt"- a place where New Zealand Indie designers sell online. They are trying to raise a bit more $$ for the rebuilding of our devastated city. The cards are printed wit archival inks on the highest quality Strathmore heavy canvas cards One of each taken from Mixed Media works by me, they are "Shattered" and "Pensive" Two paintings close to my heart and that embody the feelings stirring in me from the recent Earthquake

Dream Always

I am making some one-of-a-kind framed praintings *)
I made this one from one of my original ACEO's
The print is done with archival inks on heavy canvas cardstock. I then added another layer of interest and encaustic beeswax.
"Dream Always" is framed in a carefully sourced vintage brass Italian filligree frame and is ready to hang. The frame size is 6.5inch x 5inch or 16.5cm x 13cm
*) a prainting is a painting I create with the starting point being a print of one of my original works.
She is available from my Etsy shop
More framed works are soon to be added to my listings too.

Treasure Earth - Safely Landed

I just received a lovely message from Deedra in Canada about the blog-post she made about my painting she won in the latest One World One Heart bloghop.

I posted it the day before the EarthQuake and hoped that it would have already left te country and not ended up in piles of rubble somewhere on the way out. Lucky for us both, New Zealand Post is wonderful and fast and the painting must have been flying safely in the sky when our grounds started to shake. The beautiful coincidence that this painting as well as myself escaped these tremors unharmed. I am really glad my "Treasure Earth" has found it's destination safely and I am really happy that Deedra likes it so.
Please hop over to her blog by clicking on my pic here and pay her a visit as well, she makes the most wonderful dolls amongst many other things.

Beautiful buildings

It must have been a blessing in diguise,
the fact that we have not had power and thus TV etc. for a week.
I normally am a very visual person,
but I am glad that I have not had the chance of seeing too many images (except for the newspaper ones)
during the first week after the quake.This used to be our beautiful city centre and this is now:

and it's just one of the many beautiful buildings...
It will be very strange once we'll be allowed back into the CBD and...Who knows?...
I might get my car back from the parking garage ?!
-What bugged me so, was that I left a bag full of $ 100 art supplies that I just bought in that car !-

POWER !!!!

We got POWER !

YAY !

I am skipping an jumping and singing

♫♪♫ tjolla hop !

After a week of having dinner by candle light (very cosy and romantic of course)

and going to sleep and waking up with the chooks,

we just got power restored to our little valley suburb.

We still have no running water

and our area is still waiting on the coveted portaloo

(oh, let's hope we'll get one of the fancy ones that are on their way from the States...)

But to tell you all the truth, it's all not that important.

I was in the centre of the city when the quake struck

and I am just so happy to have made it home alive.

I left my car in the parking garage

(will it ever come out ? probably not, the CBD is a war zone)

I escaped the office building I was in when it started to shake like mad

and made my way into the street

and eventually out of the CBD on my way home.

Partly hitched a ride, partly walked and waded through the liquifaction and flooded areas. Walked the long stretch of coastal road where the cracks in the pavement were out of this world, I felt as if I was walking in a movie or a computer game or something, it didn't really feel real. A week on and it feels as if it happened yesterday and also it feels as if much longer time has passed, very strange still. Our house still stands and therefor I am so grateful and for the fact that my family and the friends and people that are close to me here are all accounted for and okay. But sad that this second time around Christchurch has not survived this earthquake without casualties. As I mentioned, I just got the power restored, so I will now hop to all the places and emails to leave a sign of life and to say I will be back with more news soon.

Take care and lots of love

♥ Aroha ! ♥ Love ♥