New Clay Tile

Last week I posted a picture of this tile before it went into the kiln. This is how it turned out. This little cottage garden was inspired this summer when I was in France. As we were driving through the country and the villages, I noticed that many of the homes had flower boxes and pretty gardens, and they all had shutters on the windows. I have always been interested in architecture and I had plenty to look at in France. I have many reference pictures that I hope to use for future drawings and possibly more tiles. It is now in my Etsy Shop.

Garden House Tile

Beth S. Macre

© 2008

SOLD

My Etsy Treasury

I have had a shop at Etsy for several months now. Etsy is very busy, large and growing larger all the time, so it is important to promote your shop so people (buyers) will see your work and, hopefully, buy something from your shop. One method of promotion at Etsy is through the Treasuries. But the idea behind the treasuries is to promote other artists that you like in the treasury. A showcase of your own favorites or members of your 'teams'. It is, however, a challenge to get a treasury(that would take a whole post to explain how to get one and to create it). I've only made 2 treasuries since I opened shop. This is a snapshot of the one that I made last night. It features some colorful pieces from some of my favorites from 'team' members of the 'Mud Team' (clay artists), and a few from Arkansas artists, and some from online forums that I have gotten to know over the years that have recently opened new Etsy shops. Some of the new shops that have been opened are Cindy Haase, Paula Pertile, and Fannie Narte. They are very talented and friendly artists who have been kind to me and I wanted to show them my appreciation by helping to promote their shops. So I hope you will drop by their shops and see what beautiful things that they have been creating!

Another week of school done and I'm beginning to get caught up and ready to start working on some things of my own. I have some clay tiles and some smaller pieces that I need to glaze and fire to add to my Etsy shop. I hope to do that soon. Here is one of the tiles I'm working on before it was fired. I will post an update as soon as I glaze fire it.

Getting Framed...

School started 3 weeks ago and I've been busy with work and no energy left at the end of the day to post or create. But hopefully things will start to settle down with school and I won't have as much work to bring home soon. I do have a few clay tiles that have been drying and waiting to be fired, so I hope to get to that soon.

I will be in a group show beginning around the end of this month, so I've gotten a couple of my most recent colored pencil paintings framed. The show is the Memphis Chapter of CPSA that I belong to. Their annual show will be held September through October at the Bartlett Performing Arts Center in Bartlett, Tennessee.

One of my colored pencil paintings is my 'Tree Scribbles' that I worked on in the last year. It is a collage of colored pencil on stonehenge pieces, glued to a black stonehenge background. The Colors extend onto the black stonehenge, which is hard to see in the photo. You can see a better image of the drawing unframed here. I've been debating on the title for awhile, but I think I've decided on "Colors of the Seasons".

This was another loose piece that I enjoyed working on lately. As soon as things slow down at work, I hope to do some more colored pencils pieces using these loose textural strokes.

Another piece that I will show is my latest cp piece, "Stars, Stripes, and Stichtes". Here it is framed. I think it turned out very nice in the frame. I ordered the frame and mat online, but the mat came slightly too large for the image, so I had to go back and add a quarter inch around the edges so it would fit, and I like the way it turned out. You can see a better unframed image of this one here.

"Stars, Stripes & Stitches"

Beth S. Macre © 2008