Monday, August 27, 2012

Fall In My Art World

Summer is always so much fun to go to the beach, lay outside in the sun, play in the pool, and enjoy summer vacation.  For me personally, this is all fun but summer gets too hot.  It's always a little sad to see summer go but....with September first basically here, that means Fall is approaching!!! If you hadn't read any of my blog posts from last Fall, this is my favorite time of year!!  The Patriots have already started their preseason games with their first season game on September 9th, my favorite coffee stop in New Hampshire, Aroma Joes, has already had my pumpkin chai for a few weeks, Starbucks will have their pumpkin spice chai next week, and I already saw pumpkin muffins at Dunkin Donuts this morning :)
I AM SO EXCITED!!
The past few weeks I have already started to paint some Fall pieces.  This time of year is my favorite, not just for the weather, football, food, and drinks, but also because the darker Fall colors are so pretty!  The leaves all turn these colors and there is orange everywhere!  I love drawing and painting pumpkins and right now is the time to start.  Here are a few I did last year:
 These 2 pumpkin pictures are drawn with pastels.  These 2 drawings are available on my etsy shop:
http://www.etsy.com/shop/SavvieDesigns


 These 2 pictures are painted with acrylic paint.
 Charcoal acorns:
 Acrylic paint:
 And graphite pencil.  This picture is one of my favorites around Halloween.
I have only just begun this years fun!!  Here is what I have so far:
 White acrylic single pumpkin.
 Fall colorful leaves on this tree.

 Acrylic painted sunflowers:
 Not quite sure if I am going to like the charcoal sunflowers on this leaf but I figured I would give it a shot.
I will keep you posted with these finished projects and many new ones to come!!  Be on the look out for these and many more on my etsy shop, after all you will need Fall decorations in the next few weeks ;)
xoxo Savannah

Thursday, August 16, 2012

Ribbons In Jars Simple As That

When I was in 8th grade, I remember learning how to shade for the first time.  Our art teacher had us draw a ribbon and with our pencil we would press hard near the small corners where the ribbon would twist and then lighten up, by loosening our grip on the pencil as we get further from that point.  I fell in love with that!  I would draw it every where!  I still do to this day and I use it as a mini lesson when I substitute teach.  Especially if I see a student who likes to draw.  If we have extra time during the day and all the work is done I will teach the students a quick shading ribbon lesson.  They love it as much I as I did when I first learned how to do it!
When I first started painting in college, one of the first things I wanted to paint was a ribbon.  It was more difficult because now I had to mix the colors instead of just loosening my grip on my pencil.  For my first large product I did just that and had the ribbon coming out of glass jar, my professor really liked that idea and complimented me on it many times.
Now painting on my own, I still enjoy doing just that.  When my room was first painted a purple tone with a darker shade, I wanted to paint something to match my room.  My bed spread was a sage green so I decided to paint a purple shade as the background and the the ribbon and jar green.
It's a little crooked and I can tell buuuttt, I'll just hang the picture a lil crooked so the jar looks more up right haha.
Tonight I decided to try and paint another ribbon in a jar.  I wanted to use the blue and tan.  I had a little trouble mixing the correct color for the tan and it ended up coming our more orange (I started with way too much red).

 When I first started painting the canvas my paint brush brisels were coming out.  I switched brushes and only used it for mixing because majority of the time they come loose and get stuck on my picture.



 When I was trying to make tan, I ended up mixing more paint then I wanted.  I like the orange that came out and didn't want to waste such a great color, so I grabbed another canvas and painted that entire canvas that color.  I wasn't sure what I was going to do with it yet but that's the great thing about acrylic paint, you can paint over it as many times as you want.



 I'm not sure what made me think of it but even after I painted the canvas with the left over orange, there was still a little left.  I still had some of the blue left, so I decided to mix them together to see what color would come out.  It came out to be a tan/brown/gray shade.  I wanted to use it because it was pretty.  I just kept on going and started to free hand LIVE LIFE on the canvas.  I had never painted a sign before but love the way this came out!
 The letters aren't perfect because I didn't use a stencil, which makes it even more of an original.

These 2 finished pieces will be up on my Etsy shop before Sunday.  Stop by and check them out!
etsy.com - key word: savviedesigns
xoxo Savannah


Thursday, August 9, 2012

Shades of Pink

Sorry I haven't posted recently, I've been hard at work finishing up some art pieces and being a proud committee member of Shades of Pink!!  What is Shades of Pink?


Our Mission is to establish an organization whose  events raise money to aid the Gloria Gemma Breast Cancer Resource Foundation  as they work to promote Breast Cancer awareness, early detection, support systems, and other various programs for patients, survivors, and their families as well..  Donating our proceeds to the GGBCRF ensures that the funds continue to aid both men and women with Breast Cancer in Rhode Island.
Our story begins with not one but two diagnoses. My mom and our cousin,two cousins who live next door to one another, were diagnosed with Breast Cancer less than one -year apart. After fighting their own battles and winning, they decided to create an organization which would help both men and women become more aware of this cancer. Having participated in events with the Gloria Gemma Breast Cancer Resource Foundation, they decided to donate all proceeds from their own fundraiser to this wonderful organization. With this idea, Shades of Pink was born.  
Over the past three years, we have raised over 28,000 dollars for this cause through our Shades of Pink annual fundraiser. This year our event will be held on September 29 at the Lusitania Club in Cumberland Rhode Island at 6:30 in the evening. The event includes a sit down dinner, raffles, a silent auction, and much more. Tickets will only be sold in advance due to limited seating. Please use our email address, shadesofpink09@yahoo.com, to request tickets

When Shades of Pink was born my cousin Sharyn started sketching along the lines of what she was looking for in a logo.  Her and my mom gave it to me, and asked if I could help.  This is how it started off:
From Sharyn's sketch, I kept playing with different ideas.  I kept thinking of the message and our name.  This was the initial logo that they chose as the final piece:
After the 2nd year, the fundraiser was getting much larger and we had a larger team at the Gloria Gemma 5K Race. T-shirts were created!!  The logo that was used for the past two years was then morphed into:
On the back of our T-shirt we have yearly sponsors:
This year we are not only having T-shirts with this years sponsors, but this week we just got in our brand new pins!!
 They are $3 each and all proceeds are donated.
We are so excited for this year's event and all the new things we have :)

After our event, we always participate in the Gloria Gemma 5k.  Each year Gloria Gemma produces a pin to sell.  They had asked me to draw something up for them for 2010.  They wanted a sneaker.  While I was drawing up ideas, I sketched more than just a sneaker to just give them more options.  Here are the sketches that I had given them to choose from, if they wanted to use any of my ideas:


 And the winner was.....




It was extremely exciting to see something I drew up for someone produced :)  If anyone is interested to sign up for the 2012 Gloria Gemma 5k let me know and you can be part of our Shades of Pink team :)

If anyone would like to learn more about Shades of Pink you can "like" us on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Shades-of-Pink-for-Gloria-Gemma/205110656208415

You are also able to follow us on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/ShadesofPink009

And check out our tumblr!:
http://shadesofpink77777.tumblr.com/

You can also feel free to ask me anything at any time!!
xoxo Savannah