Mom's Favorites.com

I am very excited to be asked to participate in the Room by Room Redo Series with Katie Harding from Momsfavorites.com!  Mom's Favorites is tackling rooms of a family home and showing their readers how easy it is to make their home both kid and adult friendly. 

Today, my painting along with some of my other work is being featured in the post of her home office.  I think it looks great there! 

I am offering a 15% discount on my Etsy site for this special post.  When purchasing after "add to cart",  just enter MOMS15  under "apply shop coupon" on my Etsy site.

She also is featuring a lot of discounts and give-a-ways, too.  Very fun stuff!

Crossing

Crossing 6" x 8", Mixed Media on Canvas Panel

I am loving this new look of impregnating plaster into burlap.  It is quite a process, and I am having fun experimenting with all the different things I can do.  I like to break the plaster to create all the little cracks and crevices.  Then, once the plaster/burlap is adhered to a canvas panel, it becomes very strong and stable. 

Doesn't it look great in  this black frame?   Unlike some of my other paintings which could go frameless, I love how this frame makes it pop.  It really makes the piece. 

You can purchase both here.

Reflections of the Day

Reflections of the Day, 5" x 7" Mixed Media

I had been struggling with a small landscape painting and I thought it best to just leave it for a while.  So when I picked it up again, I was ready to throw it away and thought I got nothing to lose if I just play around with it. 

First thing I did was turn it so that I would start looking at the piece a different way.  I also kept some of the papers from the original showing through.

I'm also very excited about my new website.  Come stop on by....

www.dianamulder.com

White Roses

White Roses, 16 x 16, mixed media

What is Spring without flowers?

I love the way  this galvanized/tin texture came out with a one squirt of latex paint remover sprayed on the wet paint  (The first coat was a dark gray and then I painted the lighter gray over with a little spray on top. 

Another interesting backaground detail.

All this yummy texture comes from adding some Golden Gel Medium to the paint. 

Pug Painting

Pug 3 x 3, mixed media

We had a discussion about pugs last night and how they were cute-ugly like Gismo.  I love when dogs tilt their heads when they don't know what your saying. 

Chase Your Wildest Dreams

Chase Your Wildest Dreams, mixed media 11" x 14"

"Chase Your Wildest Dreams"  has been brewing for a long time now and I am delighted with the finish.  The girl was painted over a discarded  floral painting.  You can see the white flowers coming through even on her top. 

She's chasing her dreams symbolized by the butterflies.  I think the nature of butterflies is a great way to show desires and dreams the way they float in and around you yet seem just out of reach.    You see, she caught one though and will catch more, no doubt.

Japanese Geisha Painting

Japanese Geisha Painting, 5 x 5 arcylic on textured canvas

I had this prepared, textured canvas on the shelf just waiting for something special to happen to it.  Sometimes you have to just let the artwork spring forth without much thought.  I didn't set out to paint a Geisha, nor did I use any references.  I just let the painting emerge.  I believe sometimes you need to let your hand be guided.  This Japanese geisha painting is available in my Etsy shop.

Treasury Time!

Amalia featured my "LOVE" mixed media painting in a treasury.  Looks awesome.

New Haircut

New Haircut 8" x 8" mixed media

   

I thought I'd paint my daughter and her new color and haircut.  I love the edginess of the style and wanted to show that in her portrait.  After a struggle with paint, I decided to scrub off as much paint as I could and then used oil pastels  to finish it.  I love her eye.  It really looks like her.  The background is a map.

Birds Take Flight

"Birds in Flight", 8" x 10" acrylic

Here's another experiment of using the Annie Sloan's chalk paint "french linen" as a background color.   This time I smudged a blue color over top.
 

I used a lot of charcoal pencil and scratched into the background with my palette knife to create more texture.  Wouldn't this be a great Christmas card?