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What a coincidence that it’s the Lunar Year of the Rabbit! It matches my logo perfectly, which surely must be an auspicious sign, right?

So what have I been up to lately? I did take a mini break over Christmas (or did I?) as far as creating artworks is concerned. I have some secret projects I’ve been working on that will take some time to come to fruition, so I’m not able to share about them publicly yet. Stay tuned for more to come later this year.

To help celebrate Lunar New Year, I was invited to be the vendor at the Topeka Chinese American society’s New Year Celebrations. I created some delightful hand painted watercolor Rabbit bookmarks to help create a wonderful memory for my purchasers. I also donated an art work to their silent auction to help with their fund raising efforts.

January has been a busy artwork submission month for me. This month I have entered four artworks into upcoming Gallery shows at the NOTO Arts Center, Morris Gallery in Topeka Kansas.

February features a delicious exhibit named “Chocolate it is” in honor of Valentine’s Day and all things chocolate. It’s a beautiful show that opens to the public on Friday, February 3rd. I have entered two pieces into this show, Dreamer of Dreams, a Willy Wonka inspired acrylic painting complete with a gold leaf winning ticket of course! My second work is a mixed media assemblage piece featuring shades of chocolate in mixed media and 3D embellishments including vintage buttons, beads, fabrics, papers and gold leaf accents. Both artworks are available for sale at the show, along with most of the other artworks on display. To see images of these works, please go to my Social Media tab and click on my Instagram account (that’s where I post all my art photos and adventures).

At the beginning of January, I entered two artworks into the Juried Art Exhibit named Seasons, which is sponsored by Bernina. I was delighted to receive notice last week that both my works have been accepted into the show. I’ll be posting more about this show in the future, with photos over on my Instagram account, so be sure to follow my account and see more about the show in March.

I’m keeping a daily art journal this year, based on the prompts from the Artist’s Almanac collage fodder booklet, kindly given to me by a dear friend for Christmas. It’s been a challenge to keep up with it daily, especially considering working full time and working on four show entries all at once, but I made it happen and successfully completed every day in January. I did give myself permission to skip a couple of days, and come back later to finish them. But isn’t that what life is all about? Giving ourselves grace and forgiveness to do our best and baby step forward daily? I’m also working on giving myself permission to rest as I need it, because I have a tendency to push myself too hard on occasions. Easy does it!

Let’s see how I do in February with this daily art practice. I have some fairly assertive goals for myself this year. As you’ll see on my home page, I have another two shows I’m working on with entries due at the end of this month (so literally everything else is on hold while I work on these two show entries). Come March, I will likely need a bit of a break before launching into some other big projects for later in the year.

As for blog posts, I plan not to bombard your in box with newsy updates. That’s what I use my Instagram account for, to show my progress photos, completed artworks and other life adventures. I use my Pinterest account to record inspirations for current and future projects, and my poor YouTube account is feeling quite bereft because I haven’t touched it since last year. If I have the energy and bandwidth, I’ll attempt to create and upload some progress videos of my projects throughout the year to give it some love and attention.

By the way, have you seen my latest designs uploaded over on my Society 6 store? My dear friend Kathleen asked me to create a mid-century modern, geometric fish pattern in blues for her bathroom. I created a hand printed, hand cut Fishies themed pattern also with bubbles. It’s now available on a wide range of products in my Society 6 store and would be super cute for kid’s bathroom and bedroom decor too! Hop on over to my Society 6 store to view the new Fishies and Birds designs that are appearing over there.

Well, that’s all from this neck of the frozen tundra for now. Stay tuned for more fun projects and artworks this year (especially if you like watercolor, hint hint). If there’s anything you’d like to know or hear about from me, just drop me a comment and I’ll see what I can do. As always, future blog post suggestions are welcomed and much appreciated. Have a great first quarter and best wishes!

Michaela xxx

10-26-22

Well, it’s been an exciting time since I returned from MA this past summer dog and house sitting. I hit the ground running on my return and jumped straight into joining the NOTO Arts Center team as their Administrative Assistant. And I love it! I’m also working to assist a local professional chef with his meal based business a few days a week, so to say I’m busy is a bit of an understatement.

As far as art is concerned, I’m currently participating in Birdtober 2022. I’m posting these works as they are completed on my Instagram account (click the Social Media tab above) so you can see them over there. It’s definitely been an education for me despite working at the Omaha Zoo for several years, I’ve had to research some of the birds to figure them out. Campo Flicker anyone?

I’m working on the last of my private commissions for the year, and then I will be taking quite a long break from commissions for a while (about 6 months) to work on some other goals, priorities and education I would like to complete. I will begin working on my wait list for commissions again in May/June 2023 (I’m already booked through summer of next year!).

I’m excited to tell you that I have thrown my hat in the ring again to participate in Roar and Pour 2023. So stay tuned to find out if I’m selected to be paired up with an animal to create art!

I’ve just submitted two artworks to the Morris Gallery in the NOTO Arts Center for their Holiday Traditions show in November 2022. Both artworks will be available for sale.

Wishing you all a happy and healthy holiday season! Best wishes, stay safe, and joyful celebrations to you all. Shine on!

Michaela
xxx

It’s hard to believe, but the end of my two year term as a member of the International Design Team for The Crafter’s Workshop has come to end. Today is my last post over on their blog. Want to read it? Hop on over to their page and check out my last post!

Hi there! Want to learn how to heat emboss using a stencil, embossing liquid, and embossing powder? Then hop on over to my latest blog post over on The Crafter’s Workshop Blog for a step-by-step tutorial with photos!

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A post shared by Michaela Butterworth (@aussiegrl154)

Don’t have time to read my blog post? No worries, I’ve got you covered as always. Click this video link to watch my fly-by process video on my YouTube channel.

Check out my new blog post today over on The Crafters Workshop Blog! What is frisket, and how do I use it? How did I use it with stencils to create this amazing multi-layered background? Click the link to read step-by-step instructions. Let me know if you have any questions or comments via my Contact Me page on this website (Instagram messaging). Happy creating!

9-24-20

Well hello there!

Here in Kansas, fall is really beginning. Lots of leaves are falling from the trees, most of which haven’t had cold enough temperatures yet to start to change to pretty colors. However, I noticed this morning, the tips of some of the trees are beginning to turn to beautiful fall shades, which I adore and which inspire me greatly.

This week, I was trying some new techniques, experimenting with stencils and the wonderful ColorSparx powders. Before I joined the TCW Design Team, I had never used the ColorSparx powders, so I hadn’t experienced their beauty or their versatility first hand.

Since receiving my first ColorSparx powders about two months ago, I have been playing with them constantly, trying new techniques, learning what to do, and just as importantly, what not to do with them.

I thought this week I would show you some of what I tried, what worked, what didn’t, and what I learned during the process, all in the hopes that it will encourage you to experiment and try something new, too!

When you purchase ColorSparx, they come with a card of great suggestions to try. I definitely recommend giving those techniques a start. That’s how I got started. From there, I have progressed to trying the ColorSparx powders mixed into different mediums, such as modeling pastes, gessoes, and gel mediums. There are so many possibilities!

This week, I wanted to try some water techniques with the Colorsparx powders and stencils. Here’s some photos and narrative of what I tried, and how it turned out…

Recently, I learned a technique which intrigued me. After adding water to the watercolor paper page with a brush, sprinkle on the ColorSparx powders, lay the stencil on top and walk away. Yep, walk away. Let the page dry overnight.

Using this technique, the color pools under the plastic stencil, and clings to the edges of the stencil cut lines, leaving darker outlines of the cut out shapes. Once dried, I took a black Micron pigma pen and outlined the stencil shapes, and voila! One hot, and happening page! (if you turn the page upside down, it looks like flames! Good to know, right?).

For this page, I used stencil TCW568 Moving Vines with TCW ColorSparx Powders in Gamboge, Crimson, Scarlet, and Orange. For the sentiment, I used TCW9039 Copper Penny Modeling Paste which has a dreamy, creamy, spreadable texture, that is so easy to use with a palette knife. The next morning I was swooning over these gorgeous, vibrant, fall colors and shimmery copper sentiment!

My next experiment had me using the TCW192 Gingko Stencil with the Gamboge, Fuschia, Yellow Ochre, Burnt Orange, and Scarlet ColorSparx Powders. I used exactly the same water technique as the Moving Vines experiment, above. The Yellow Ochre and Gamboge powders have a touch of green sparks in them, and I really love how that green soaked into the ginko leaf shapes. For this page, I used the same black Micron pigma pen to outline the leaves. Then, I decided I wanted the leaves to ‘pop’ out of the page more, so I outlined the leaves with a white signo pen. In places, you can see where the white ink absorbs some of the color sparks pigment, adding unexpected tints! To make the tints more noticeable, I outlined the leaves one more time with the pigma pen. I really love the way the leaves look three-dimensional, and as though they are about to pop off the page!

Last, I decided to use the TCW658 Mini Jungle Vines stencil with the TCW9043 Marcasite Silver Modeling paste applied using a palette knife. I used another combination of the Colorsparx powders, in Olive Green, Crimson, Gamboge, Orange, and Scarlet, and I used the same water technique that I used for the previous two pages, shown above.

This page was a good learning experience for me. I added too much water, when the modeling paste was not fully dry. I should have dried the modeling paste completely with my heat gun, then added the water and powders. Lesson learned.

The water soaked into the edges of some of the leaves, making the modeling paste dissolve overnight. When adding the water for the powder, I added too much water to the page, which caused some of the colors to blend together, turning an icky mud brown. Ooops, please, learn from my mistakes!

As a result, it took this page far longer to dry than the previous two pages, and the colors turned out much murkier and darker than I would have liked. Once dried, I used the same outlining technique for the stenciled shapes, that I did for the gingko leaves. In the end, it really didn’t turn out too badly, as you can see in the image below, on the right side.

I’m sure you’re probably wondering what the image on the left side of the above photo is. While I had the powders out, I played with just sprinkling powders on some other pages I had practiced on earlier with modeling paste. I left these pages to dry with the other pages shown above.
When I came to look at the pages the next morning, they were all simply too gorgeous to not be used.

What I decided to do was take the off cuts from the pages above, combined with these other pages cut into what I like to call “moments of joy and beauty”. I then created a series of seven mini collages, each collage measuring approx.. 6″ x 8″, featuring a fall theme, using these ‘left over bits’ die and hand cut into pieces. I hand poured some resin leaves, painted them with TCW9002 Black gesso and finished them with waxes. One leaf was added to each collage as a three-dimensional element. I’ve included photos of the six additional mini collages, below, for you to see.