Stephanie Corfee

vibrant, bohemian, and intricate art

Catching up again

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i think it’s just my MO. Blog regularly, settle into it. Find a rhythm. Then….get bogged down with a big project or deadline, and ignore it for a couple months. ugh. Maybe there is no use fighting it. i’m sporadic!

But, a lot has happened.  i’ve had a lovely holiday with my family, finished my new book, and survived 4 days of solo travel to a trade show in Atlanta to promote my upcoming gift line. Came home from said trip and fell ill for a solid 10 days with the worst combo of yuckiness i have ever experience. My hair hurt! : )

Recovered.

And now i’ve caught up on all the loose ends that followed that little whirlwind and i’m resetting my clock and  beginning to sketch daily and really create again. It’s an ebb and flow sorta thing.

So here’s a little smattering of images from the past couple months for a little catch up.

MillerGirlsChristmas2014

Christmas Eve with my sisters. Laura, Jodi, Lissa and me…. 

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trucking along

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Howdy pard’ners!

This summer has flown and the tail end has been so full o’ DRA-MA! geez! i am not cranking out as much art as i usually do. My little guy is 18 months old now. And he has decided he dislikes when i work. But he loves to get into my painting supplies. He will run giggling down the hall after stealing a tube of crimson acrylic, probably one with a loose cap.  He is wearing out my painting arm by making me scoop him up eleventy-kajillion times a day….and also…right…the DRA-MA. : ) No fear, there is nothing horrifying and unbearable, and some stuff that is actually super great and ready to be shared very soon.

But i DID manage to paint the little ditty above one night when i just HAD to paint. Painters! Don’t you love when you get that “i HAVE to paint!” feeling? i do.

i named this one SUGAR. Because immersing myself in a whole evening of painting again finally felt so SAH-WEET!  She is 36×36 on gallery wrapped canvas and there is some major pent-up brush-strokey artist-arm evidenced on that baby. If you are inclined to bring her home, you can find a listing here.

You can alternate views on etsy….or just scroll below.

Catch ya’ll on the flip side! (as my 6 year old says) : )

Experimenting

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This past weekend was time for some experimenting. i found myself in the painting studio in the wee small hours just itching to open up all those dyes you see lined up on the easel. i dug through my stash of silks leftover from my old wedding gown design business and found a suitable piece of habotai silk. i ripped it to a 36″ square and taped it to the back board. White duct tape. Classy. i’m certain it would have been nicer to stretch the silk onto a frame for painting, but did i mention it was the wee small hours? And i was just experimenting after all, what’s the worst that could happen? A few hours and a few episodes of PSYCH later ( i really love that show!) and i came out with what you see on the board.

The next day, i used fabric markers to add doodles all over the silk as well and here is what resulted.

It was so interesting to see how the intense looking colors in the jars translated to such watery, transparent colors on the fabric. i used Dye-na-Flow silk paints from Dharma Trading. i chose them because they seemed the most user friendly for beginners and are just heat-set with an iron. i am a very low maintenance kinda gal. If you start talking about crafts that require lots of odd ingredients and equipment, i sorta zone out. PLUS! they have a really nice variety of shades and colors….PLUS! they are economical enough to get a whole bunch to experiment with…under $3 for the small jars! My parents actually gave these to me for my birthday in november. Mom is awesome about getting you just what she knows you wanted! Thanks mom & dad!

The silk project was super fun and it made me want to try another project that i cannot believe i’ve put off so long! Lino Block Stamp Making! i have made all sorts of mickey mouse temporary stamps in my day out of potatoes, corrugated cardboard, foamcore etc….but never tried carving linoleum before.

EPIPHANY!!!!

Even though i just picked a simple design for my first time out, and wasn’t super meticulous cutting it, i know i’m hooked! Now i have visions in my head of shelves and shelves of unique patterns and such. Cutting the block is just so relaxing!

Here is the first little bitty block i cut.

And since i didn’t have a specific project in mind for it yet, i just added a few plunks of this design to the background texture of a new painting. Can you find it? i sorta obscured it with other designs….but the stamp will have its day in the spotlight sometime soon. Definitely.

“BLUESY” – 12×12 acrylic on gallery wrapped canvas.

And what’s REALLY weird is that when i logged onto Facebook the day after i posted this, there was a very matchy-matchy post right below it in my feed!

Its the Pantone Spring Color predictions for what’s gonna be hip & happenin in 2012!? i am SO not hip & happenin. How did my brain know to use just about every color in this palette? Must’ve been all the PSYCH i was watching rubbing off on me. : )

Hooty and his friends

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WhoooLovesYaBabyFINALcomp-smThis is one of the surprise commissions i couldn’t share before. It is custom nursery art for a special little boy.

But the soon-to-be-mama recipient had her baby shower today and now the cat’s out of the bag, so i’m free to post! This piece was done with colored pencil and paint pen on a 13×17 wooden board painted with chalkboard paint. It suits the nursery’s owl theme and color scheme of greens and blues. i am always so honored to make art for new additions to a family. It is such a joy to create with a little one as my inspiration.

Congratulations Jessica! Good luck with the arrival of your precious boy!

coming to an organic baby onesie soon!

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birdonbranch-color

i’ve been working my little fingers off lately! Here are 2 designs recently sent off to Green As Wee Grow for screen printing on their organic baby tees and onesies. You may recognize these pieces from their original appearances in larger artworks in my etsy shop. GAWG has licensed these two excerpts and i also have one original design in the works for them as well. Hint: it’s and animal with a lonnnggg neck interpreted in swirly stephanie style! Just a few more ways to give a darling baby gift of a nursery print and a onesie or tee with the coordinating design.

FlyGirlOnSwingB&W

Happy Sunday Everyone!

commissions – buried in sweetness

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i have a new commission. It is to render this lovely house…..as a creampuff.

i will explain.

i received an email from Mr. Awesome (name changed to keep him safe from throngs of women). Mr. Awesome had just finalized purchase of his first home with his beloved, and wanted to have me create a piece of artwork to hang in a special place and commemorate their milestone.

“Can you create an artwork showing the house as a creampuff, he asked?”

Hmmmm………Now there’s a sentence you don’t read everyday!

Mr. Awesome went on to explain that somehow or other (possibly because of it’s sweetness or size?) their house had been nicknamed “The Creampuff.” Ahh, now i was getting it. His idea was to embrace the name and the adorableness, & preserve it for posterity. So i am happily obliging, and quite hurriedly put together a crude pencil sketch. i explained that i’d love to make the art with sketchy pencil & watercolor, with touches of colored pencil shading and such. My goal was to evoke a storybook-look, akin to illustrations of the woman who lived in a shoe. Remember her? i’m sure she’d have chosen a creampuff if there was one available on the market when she was buying!

Creampuff sketch 1Anyway, the sketch was a hit!

So that makes my …um…..7th? commission this month. gulp!

Now, as the title to this post aptly states, i am buried (and drowning just a little) in literal creampuff sweetness as well as the sugary loveliness of abundance. i blame it all on scoutiegirl tara. i read her post on embracing abundance a few weeks back and it has stuck with me BIG TIME!

In the past, i’ve always taken a fair amount of commission work. That’s nothing new. But i’ll admit i’ve also often shied away from certain projects. If someone approaches me, who i find intimidating, or who wants something that i think is too lofty for my skill set, i balk. i can’t help it. i have a fear of failing. Don’t we all? But i’ve put those feelings of inadequacy aside lately. i’ve grown a lot more confident in my individuality, my unique talents, and what i have to offer. i attribute these changes in attitude to tara and the community of indie artists and crafters who’ve told their story in response to her prompting in posts like “embracing abundance” and “kick the damn door down.” Just yesterday, i wrote a would-be client, that my experience doing commissioned works as well as my 13 years experience as a graphic designer working with clients of all different tastes has made me “quite adept at flexing my art muscle and adapting to suit the client.”

i surprised even myself with that! Because, while i believe that statement to be 100% true, i’ve never had the guts to put it out there before. (and i think the guts are making my art better too)

Reading so many stories of inspiration from other artists, and hearing encouragement from people i respect was definitely timely medicine for me. Look what the universe dropped on my doorstep! Three LARGE canvas painting commissions, 2 pencil portraits, a piece of nursery art and “The Creampuff.”

i will be a crazy person working my day job, trying to get goods ready for upcoming art markets and trying to complete all this work. But that’s hardly something to complain about!

So, thank you to tara. Thank you to all my fellow artists whose stories have inspired. Thank you to my customers who drive me to create…and thank you to myself, for finally getting it into my skull that i don’t need to try to be an artist. i’ve been one all along.