Jill of all trades (master of none??)

I wanted to post pictures of some of my creations the last few months and over the last few years! For those of you that have seen all this work, well thanks for taking another look and for those that haven't I'd love to hear what you think :)

                                          This was my first painting on canvas in June of this year.

                This was painting number 3 ... I feel like these look like paint by number or coloring book pages.
                I can assure you they are neither of those. I like concepts and techniques in each of these :)

     This is painting 2, 4 and 6. This pull toy concept jumped into my head and was created for a friend with
      a baby on the way. I really enjoyed watching this come to life. I really lucked out when I found that
      spools that matched the size of the ones I painted ... it was a over sight that worked out in the end
      (whew). I love what happens after the eyes are painted, its like the personality of the animals comes to
      life :)

                                        One of my first mixed media pieces, this I REALLY enjoyed!

               For the last 18 years I've been painting on this medium, it started as a need for cheap
               (yet meaningful)  Christmas presents for people. I was 14 when I started and with no
               money this was something I was able to do. I started with small ornaments and worked
               my way up from there. Some of these larger statues take hours and hours to complete.
               I rare paint things for myself, so this snowman took me 7 years to finally complete only
               working on it in-between everyone else's gifts during the Christmas season.

                I don't often sway from the Christmas items (as those are my favorite to paint), but this
                my husband purchased several years ago for about 7 dollars on clearance. Since he
                had never gotten to this I decided to paint it. He was really fun to watch as his personality
                begin to show. Despite the picture he is actually 3/4 the size of a real human bust ... he was
                sitting on the dining room table right after I finished him and in the middle of the night (getting
                a drink of water) scared me half to death!  I keep him out during Christmas too, he looks
                much less blood hungry in a Santa hat! :)

                  After taking one art class in college I purchased all the necessary equipment to
                  make these Stained glass window panels. I've only made a couple, it's a tedious,
                  complex (designing, measuring, glass cutting, glass grinding , soldering etc),
                  MESSY art form and without a good place to do it, I don't get the inspiration
                  very much.  This is my own design. I used foil instead of lead. I really like how
                  this turned out. And my friend was really happy to receive it! :)

                          Sometimes art can be found in the mundane. This is a martingale dog collar
                          my Italian Greyhound Luigi wears this. I have several others too. I took apart
                          one of this collars he outgrew, bought the hardware online and I was able to
                          figure out how to make them. I make standard clasping dog collars as well.

        So as you can see I am a "Jill of all trades" and hate to add "a master of none".  I just like art in all forms and enjoy making it. I'd like to think make things that make people smile and like to think I create better than mediocre art! I really love painting above all. The sewing is the lowest ranking of all artistic visual mediums (I've been playing the clarinet for 20 years), that I do. I'm self taught in everything except the stained glass (and the clarinet) and have a long ways to go ... this is definitely a FUN journey.

                                                             Thanks for looking!! :)