New Website

Hi everyone, I'm happy to announce the launch of my Fine Art website.  I hope you'll hop over and investigate. It's still being worked on, but the start is up and I'm excited.  I'll continue to blog here in my sporadic manner, but all of my fine art will be on the other site.  Hopefully I'll be able to add a blog there too.

Brandy Gerber's Fine Art

A Seal Hello

Here's another of my recent paintings.  Most of these are acrylics on 16" x 20" gallery wrapped canvas.
I must admit this one is not my favorite, but its gotten a lot of really nice feedback.  This one challenged me quite a bit.

Thanks for stopping by.

My favorite painting

Here's another painting that I did not to long ago.  This one is the largest I've painted.  It's about 2'x3'.  I've wanted to paint this picture since my first visit to Hawaii over 10 years ago and just did it.  I love Hawaii and am fascinated with sea turtles.  I was fortunate enough to see tons of them and took lots of pictures.  This painting is based from my favorite pic.  I also got to snorkel in a few areas where there were many turtles swimming.  It was incredible!

I love how this turned out and it now hangs over our couch.  I think this is my favorite painting I've ever done and love that I get to see it everyday!

Thanks for visiting.

Manatee

I love manatees.  I had the great pleasure of one surfacing right underneath us while we were sitting on the pier at Mallory Square in Key West.  It was an amazing moment.  I think these gentle creatures are so loving and adorable.  I tried to capture those qualities in this painting.

Thanks for visiting,

My first art show!

I haven't posted in awhile but that doesn't mean I've been idle.  I set a goal for myself this year to get my art  into a shop or a gallery.  I've been painting a lot trying to get together a nice repertoire to present to places.  Today, my work paid off and I am still stunned to say that I will have a month long art show in May of 2013!!!!

It will be held at Pentamere Winery in Tecumseh.  It even includes an artist reception!  I am very excited and encouraged by this acceptance of my art.  I promise I'll update more soon to show the work I've been doing, but just wanted to let any and all of my readers know the good news now!

Thanks for visiting,

St. Patty's Day Top Hat Fascinator Tutorial

I saw these adorable little hats at Claire's and I really liked them.  I thought about buying one, but decided I'd try to make my own and then maybe I could continue making them for different seasons and holidays.  I started by cutting out 2 circles, one bigger than the other, and a long rectangle.  These will form the visible hat.

Taking the long rectangle, I cut the edges and folded them up so I would be able to tape them to the top and bottom circle.

 Here you can see the rectangle taped together to form the main part of the hat.  I simply taped the cut edge down inside the hat.  Later I went back and reinforced beneath this with glue to make the bond more secure.

 I found some leftover sticky back black felt and I cut out a thin long rectangle to form a hat band and attached it slightly up from the hat "joint".

 I also cut out some shamrocks from the glitter paper and glued these onto the hat band.  I used a circle of the sticky back felt (cut the same size as the larger green circle), cut a slit in the felt and put a barrette (I changed this over to a hings style barrette to make it easier to open and close and attached the circle to the tophat.

I added some glue to areas that seemed to have gaps from the tape and let it dry with a bit of weight on top.  Now I've got a fun new hat to wear for St. Patty's day!

Thanks so much for stopping by.  I'll be linking up to some of the parties found in my sidebar and also here:


 



   

   
  

My backyard mermaid

I love being in our backyard when the weather is nice.  After being cooped up during the cold, dreary winter months, I try to spend as much time as possible out there.  I paint out there, read out there, nap in the hammock out there, and of course play with the pups.  We dont have tons of land but we are fortunate enough to have a nice privacy fence to ward off the nosy neighbors-if only there was a  way to make it soundproof!-and also let the pups run free in a safe environment.  I've been trying to add little touches back there to make the space even more enjoyable.  This past summer, I made a mermaid to hang on the back of the garage.  She is visible from almost the entire backyard.

I sketched out a basic shape on some fairly thin plywood, and then cut out the shape.  Yes, I cut it out by myself, that's why she's got some wonky spaces.  I then started painting her.  I wasn't exactly sure how I was going to finish her so I painted the fin with scales and just basically thought over different ideas for her.  

I started gluing seashells and little glass marbles onto her tail.  I used quick-set epoxy to attach them.  I gave her fins a more patterned placement of the shells.  I also added more glass baubles around her waistline.  I like how that looked, so then I had to decide what to do with her body and hair.  

I had a terrible time painting her boobs, so I decided she needed a shell bra.  I affixed two of the larger, better matched shells on her torso to cover my awful paint job.  I then went in search of hair material.

I decided that branches would give her a fun, funky 'do and I began epoxying them in a crazy hairstyle.  When everything was attached and dry, She was sealed up since she'd be hanging outside and then, with the hubby's help, we screwed her onto the back of the garage.  I love how she turned out.  I know have a funky, unexpected surprise to make me smile and enjoy the backyard even more!  

Now I just gotta wait for the warm weather to return!  Thanks so much for stopping by.