Dream Weekend Art Sale in January in Conscious Art Studios Artfire Shop

Happy Cold Blustery Weekend everyone ! It is frigidly cold and blustery today, too cold to go out. So, while staying warm and cozy indoors, we're offering an Art Sale for this Martin Luther King weekend. We have been adding lots of new artwork to the studio over the past few weeks, so this weekend would be a perfect time to collect some beautiful art. 

With Valentine's Day around the corner, we have been creating lots of new Glass Art Print Pendants and Necklaces, Glass Art Earrings, and Symbolic Gourd Pendants. These handmade necklaces are rich, colorful, and meaningful. 

The glass art pendants and necklaces are available in many shapes; round, rectangular, and triangular. Some are set in metal while some just glass themselves. The metals come in silver, copper, and bronze finishes, with complimentary chains.

You can take a peak at them here

We have some new Gourd Jewelry added to the studio as well. These earthy pendants are embellished with gemstone, wood, and glass beads. They add a wonderful uniqueness to the wardrobe with their earth element elegance.

 You can see them here

Soon we are going to have to make another trip to the Gourd Farm, our supplies are beginning to get low. We have been crafting some new Gourd Art Bowls and I really love how they have been coming out. We have many gourd bowls throughout our house. I tend to collect lots of little things, and of course all little treasures need a home. I use my gourd bowls to store my gemstones and feathers. I keep one on my desk for paperclips, binder clips, and tape rolls. I have others that hold my pencils and markers. And I have a large one that I keep on the mantle that holds little index cards with written affirmations on them. When I need a little uplifting, I pull one out and keep it with me for the day.

"The Old Ways" Gourd Art Bowl by John and Jeanne Fry

And of course, our Artfire Shop is full of original paintings, greeting cards, original bookmarks, native flute music, art dolls, and lots of inspirational and symbolic art. We try and create the things that make our spirits sing.

Deer Totem Original Painting by Jeanne Fry

If you are staying in on this chilly winter weekend, grab a cup of coffee or cocoa and have a visit in our studio. Stay warm and enjoy our Dream Weekend Art Sale.

Lizard Tales ~ Art Blog Giveaway

In celebration of our Facebook page reaching 400 likes, as promised we are having a blog giveaway. Along with the Lizard Totem being the most popular totem on our blog...we are going to be giving away 2 of our pieces of Lizard art. One is a hand painted stone tile that measures 6 inches x 6 inches and has a metal hanger on the back so that it can be displayed as a wall piece or set in a small tabletop easel as I often do. The other piece is a hand painted gourd pendant necklace featured with a Lizard Totem, and embellished with amethyst.

Lizard Totem Stone Tile

Lizard Totem Gourd Pendant Necklace

 To enter into the giveaway, please leave a comment here on this post, and we would love it if you would share our blog - through Facebook or Twitter. We will choose a winner at random on Saturday, November 3rd.
Thank you for supporting us through Facebook and here on our blog.
Happy Halloween and Happy Lizard Totems !

Gourd Art ~ Using the Gourd as a Palette

More and more we integrate the Gourd into our artwork. Having always been drawn to using natural materials in our creations, this medium becomes not only a perfect palette, but provides so many possibilities.

Granted, the cleaning of the gourd is time consuming, but if you are not wanting to exert the energy for that step, you can always purchase your gourds from a farm that will do it for you. We get many of our gourds from Ghost Creek Gourd Farm

http://ghostcreekgourds.com/

Otherwise, you'll need to use a little elbow grease, a Scoth-brite pad, and a 10% Bleach solution.
If you are choosing to paint your gourds, you have a diversity of paints you can use. Acrylics or  Oil Paints can be used, while many others use leather dyes. Personally, acrylics are our preferred paint because it dries quickly, blends well, and has nice coverage.
Alcohol inks can be used: http://www.gourdsupplies.com/Adirondack-Alcohol-Ink-Dyes.htm
Many leather dyes, angelus paints, and suede dyes, along with a treasure box of other gourd art supplies can be found at TurtleFeathers
http://turtlefeathers.net/text/product-index.html

Do you know what types of gourd you want to use? There's many varieties.

Digital Gourds chart © Dan Dunkin 2003
This chart is used courtesy The Gourd Reserve

Gourds aren't just for birdhouses anymore. The creative possibilities are endless. They are used in sculpture, musical instruments, vessels and bowls, lamps, dolls, ornaments, the list goes on and on.

Some of the things we do with OUR gourds..

Bear Claw Frame Drum by John Fry

Sweetgrass Blessings to the Star People Gourd Art Doll by Jeanne Fry

Running Horse Gourd Art Bowl by Jeanne Fry

Bear Totem Gourd Ornament by Jeanne Fry

Gourd Jewelry by John and Jeanne Fry

Dragonfly Gourd Ceremony Rattle by John and Jeanne Fry

To see more of our artwork you can visit our website
http://www.consciousartstudios.com/

We also sell our work on Artfire
http://www.artfire.com/ext/shop/studio/ConsciousArtStudios

Happy Gourding !

Blending Art with Natural Elements in Gourd Jewelry

As Eco-friendly Artists, using natural and recycled elements and reducing waste has always been important to us. One of our most used mediums are Gourds, creating Gourd Bowls, Masks, Sculpture, and Musical Instruments. We were having lots of small pieces left over from our creations and it always seemed a shame to just throw them out. Recently we decided to start taking those small scraps of gourds and transforming them into jewelry.

After sketching out some shapes, the pieces were cut and sanded. We then began adding small paintings to the piece, with the gourd being our Canvas, and sealing them to protect the Art. Beads, baubles and trinkets were then strung on to the pendant, and finished off by hanging them on long high quality Leather Cord. The result...a Natural Adornment displaying a work of Art.

We love that were are now completely using every piece of our Gourds, and that we have a creation that BOTH of us are designing together...John does the cutting, designing, sanding, and beadwork...and I do the painting.

These have been very popular, but we do have a small amount of them that are listed in our Artfire Studio
http://www.artfire.com/users/ConsciousArtStudios

Choices in our Directions as Artists

Like the ebb and flow of time, so goes our directions as artists. Life experiences and a continual fine tuning of our philosophies, creates more possibilities to explore within our creativity.

We have studied the growth of our Art over the years, reflecting back over the changes from the beginning until now. Trying to stay conscious that our Art is speaking not only to us, but to those who collect it, we have made choices on where to currently expend our creative energies.

For example, over the years we only sold Original paintings, and did not dabble in offering prints of those works. But we have found that certain pieces deserve the opportunity to be offered in that way, in order to reach more people who resonate with the work. So now, specific Paintings and Photography that is meaningful to us, are offered in a new forum for our collectors through Fine Art America. Here you can choose to collect some of those works, in different sizes, on archival papers, on stretched canvas, matted, framed...all a choice for you. Each week I will add more to the collection and hope that it widens the scope of possibilities.

http://jean-fry.fineartamerica.com

Our jewelry has also made a transition, not only from being solely created from gemstones, but now offering more mediums with clay, bone, and glass beads. But probably our biggest change is venturing in the use of one of our favorite Natural materials...the Gourd.

The Gourd is designed and cut, painted with layers of hue to enhance it's richness, and then embellished with a complimenting bead work. Each pendant is hung on long soft leather cord that can be adjusted in length.

What we love most about the Gourd jewelry, is the ability to offer our Gourd design, Painting, and Bead work...all in one piece. It also allows us to utilize more of the gourd, instead of wasting small pieces.

So, this new evolutionary period will produce...more Paintings, Prints, and Photography...a larger line of jewelry including more natural materials....a new line of Art Doll sculptures that will be revealed soon...a larger line of Gourd Rattles, Drums, and Cedar Flutes that utilizes a blend of contemporary yet still natural persona...and some things will be discontinued.

We will be choosing more galleries to show in, that will allow us to more time to spend on our Storytelling Performances  and Workshops, and hope that you enjoy the transition along with us.

http://www.consciousartstudios.com/