Dresses as Canvases

I thought it was high time I got back on here and posted something about the work I do for Designs by Lyn. Below is a link where I have posted a batch of photos of most of the gowns I have had the pleasure of painting on. There are a few that show how they turned out after the Swarovski crystals were applied to the painted parts of the gowns. They always turn out stunningly beautiful after they are crystallized. You can see them at this link.                                          Dresses as Canvases album

My favorite and most fun gown was this mermaid gown that was briefly called the 'miracle gown' amongst us. The inserted photo-link of this gown, as well as a detailed shot of it, are what you're seeing below. One day, I went to the shop to find work and found this gown on a shelf with other 'bagged dresses', where they end up when no one can think of how to progress with them. However, when I took the gown out of the bag an idea immediately came to mind...I 'saw' what it needed. I painted the bold and bright geometric design on it and when I brought it back to the shop everyone was like: "Dee, it's a miracle! We didn't know what we were going to do with it!" You can see how it looked with just paint on it, in the album linked above. The decorators ("stoners" as we like to joke about it) applied crystals to the painting and the seamstresses added the bright feathers to the skirt hem, which finished it off beautifully. I'm always so impressed with what we come up with in our team efforts.        

This is a detail photo of the crystals on the paint along with the necklace created just for this gown.

I hope you take a few minutes and enjoy looking through the photos of these gowns.

Trip to Bolivia in 2006

In 2006 I spent ten days in Bolivia to teach basic drawing to small children in the Haven of Hope Orphanage, in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. The purpose wasn’t just to bring them creative fun but by learning to draw these orphans could illustrate on paper the trauma-causing events they’d experienced. This served to aid the psychologist working with them to better help them with working through their personal struggles. In the past I have taught basic drawing in a small class setting at my college, and since then tutored home-educated students privately, in their homes. I'm not in the classroom photos because I was taking the photos while my team helped translate my instructions and showed the kids what to do on their worksheets.

You can see a photos of the children and their work and other photos of the trip here: Bolivia trip_2006

Im a blogger newbie...

  Hi! This is going to be my blog for talking about art I make and those things directly or indirectly related to it. This page is under construction for now while I learn how to use it.
If it makes you confused or just plain blank...well so am I.   :-)

   To begin with, I'll include some things about my background and experiences so you can get to know me a bit better. Having spent 16 years, cumulatively, in Europe while growing up, I was exposed to a great deal of art ranging from very old to very new: mostly of the old master painters, old world architecture, statues and woodwork on a frequent basis. Such quality craftsmanship and talent was my main inspiration and influence, early in life. Mostly, I have developed my skills on my own with little formal instruction. It seriously began with the "Paint by Number" kits I used as a kid. Somehow, my little child's brain figured out how to blend between the lines on those paintings and make them "look more real". I was so proud of myself. LOL. My dad always said..."If you can read and comprehend well, you can learn anything you choose to"...and I’ve been doing just that. Thanks Dad.

    The "art" classes I had in high school and college did not educate me with the information about the painting skills and color theory that I needed to paint in a realistic style. I had discovered after-the-fact that they were not actually qualified in teaching the methods of the old master painters that I was looking for. In all fairness, in my own ignorance, I also didn’t know how to find what I needed since I didn’t know what to look for. Mostly I learned to do what they called ‘modern art’ and handcrafted-type work.

    Painting in a realistic style is something I had to mostly learn from my own research, practice, and tips from intermittent conversations and friendships with fellow artists, over the years. The most influential being Tracie Thompson http://www.traciethompson.com/ and Greg Biolchini http://www.biolchini.com, both of whom had actually received good instruction on a range of fine art skills. This link https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10202743116957205&type=1&l=3266ccd71c has several from the last 6+ years, alone.

   My other experiences include having taught a recreational, beginning drawing course as a freshman in college. I have three children whom I home-educated and who are now all serving our country in the U.S. Marine Corps. During that time I taught other home-educated kids how to draw and their families helped my kids in other subjects such as middle school math, high school math and some science.

  In July of 2006 I traveled to Bolivia and spent ten days at the Haven of Hope orphanage teaching the orphans to draw. See my blog post about it here: http://dee-deeott.blogspot.com/

This gave them a creative, therapeutic outlet for their emotional distress and in turn helped the attending psychologist better understand the kids traumatic experiences.

Brenda, Carlos, Hernan and German are some of the children I worked with.

Haven of Hope Orphanage Bolivia

    Around the same time frame I began working for a ballroom dance gown designer and former champion ballroom dance competitor, Lyn Wallander. My position as gown decorator included creating creative crystal designs for and applying Swarovski crystals to the gowns and then was moved into gown-painting designs. The link below contains several of the gowns I've worked on.

Dresses as Canvases album

 
Since then: I have submitted a few pieces of my work to the Arts for ACT annual fundraiser auctions, where live auction items are auctioned off by a celebrity guest auctioneers. Past guest auctioneers have included Jesse Metcalf, Niecy Nash, Joan Rivers, Tracey Ullman, Meryl Streep, Lily Tomlin, Lauren Hutton and Sharon Stone. It is a not-for-profit gallery from which the proceeds go to the Abuse Counseling and Treatment center for battered women and children here in my city. I've experienced some of those things in my life as a child and as an adult, so their cause touches me on a personal level. I started making art as a child and found it to be a safe place to express what I was feeling while I was going through those difficult times. I enjoyed passing that ability on to the kids in Bolivia. “Arts for ACT” is a good charity to support. http://www.artsforactgallery.com/index.html

   Currently, I am overcoming a four-yearlong bout with vertigo-like symptoms which have made me a medical mystery of sorts, and therefore difficult to diagnose. Recently, I finally found a treatment plan that has caused me to improve slowly, but it IS improvement, nonetheless. In the meantime, I have continued to create art during those four years even though I’ve been symptomatic 24/7 the entire time.
(Edited to add: this is why MdDS)

   On my better days, I make art, albeit ever so slowly. Most of the pieces you see posted at the Artist- rising site, dated between Dec. ’07 and today’s date, were made during this challenging time in my life. I feel good about the fact that I have not made excuses NOT to make art, because I really could have made them and they would have been a legitimate, within reason. I had to see if I could do it and when I did it was a tremendous morale boost. Life was not totally on hold for me, after all.  =)