Introducing Cherilynn Fine Art

I haven't featured another artist in some time. Today, I am featuring a truly talented watercolor, pen and ink artist. I have purchased a card from Cherilynn and all I can say is "wow!" Truly stunning, detailed and realistic work.

"Through technical use of the medium and color theory her watercolors take on a life of their own with bold colors and playful character expression. Her artwork is driven by a desire to express the individual characteristics of a particular animal as well as bring that animal to life through watercolor paint.
The artwork takes on the traditional portrait composition style depicting the animals as important as any family portrait. She portrays the animal kingdom as one big family."

Did I mention her extremely reasonable prices? And the fact that she does custom portraits of YOUR pet?

I just think her artwork is fantastic and as an animal lover, her pictures make me smile. And in the end, that is what life is about!

If you would like to check out her shop simply click on any of the pictures in this post or her name and you will be there.

Jewelry Item of the Week July 26th, 2010

This is one of my favorite pendants. I love being able to make most of each piece myself. In this case the lampwork bead is made by me and of course I put the rest of the finding together. This pendant has a lot of depth and has a very cool and serene, earthy feel to it. If you look closely you can see the flowers inside the glass. You can find this pendant in my shop at http://www.silverriverjewelry.artfire.com

Fire Divas Summer Contest Winners

Okay, if you have not run off and peeked at the rest of the winners of the Fire Divas summer jewelry contest here are the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place winners.

Please go and take a look at the Fire Divas blog and check out the wonderful artists that provided the beads that made these lovely pieces of jewelry possible! (besides, its always fun to check out all the cool beads!)

Bead of the Week July 26th

I really like this particular set of beads. Dark, stormy hues of rich purple, blues and grays, each bead is different, yet similar. Encase in clear to bring out the depth and richness of the patterns in each bead.

Fire Divas Contest Winners!

Some of you may remember that a gentleman named Scott bought beads from me to use in the Fire Divas Summer Challenge. The results are in and Scott won! I am so excited for him and very pleased that my beads were used in the winning piece! Scott did a great job with the design, it was stunning and unique and very wearable.

I will be showing the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place in an upcoming post or you can simply click on the link to the fire divas blog if you would like to see them now.

Treasury!

I have been featured in this lovely treasury called Treasures Washed Ashore. Lots of really pretty goodies in orange and turquoise with a beachy feel to it. Go check it out! And many thanks to LetThemEatKate for including my beads!

Moving Forward

Well 19 days have passed since we lost Liberty. It seems like a lifetime. The pain is not quite so immediate but there are moments when I look for her and once again the sharp pain of loss latches on to my heart. I still can't look at pictures just yet, so a true and detailed memorial will have to wait a bit longer. But despite my desire to go back in time when she was still here, life does have to move forward, so I will be posting my items of the week once again, and moving forward with only my memories of my sweet girl.

My Heart Is Broken

On July 3rd, 2010 my dog Liberty, the dog of my heart, my best friend, my happy go lucky, mellow girl died unexpectedly. She had a tumor growing on her aorta, between her heart and her trachia. Totally inoperable even if we had found it sooner. She was happy and seemed healthy almost to the very end for which I will be forever grateful. She started to seem sick on Thursday, the vet thought it was probably an irritated stomach. The medicine seemed to be helping then Friday night she started breathing hard and you could just tell she didn't feel well. I stayed up with her most of the night and took her back to the vets on Saturday morning. While we were waiting for the xrays of her heart due to the excess fluid she was retaining, she simply laid down on the floor and quit breathing. The vet showed me the x rays, her heart was so enlarged and while I understand I couldn't have done any better for her, my heart just wants her back. My house is so empty without her, even though we have two other dogs. Even though I know the pain will lessen as time goes on, I will miss my heart dog all the days of my life. She was only 8 years old. When I can look at pictures without crying so hard, I will post a proper tribute to my beautiful girl. Thank you Libby, for making my life so much better, and for being the wonderful dog that you were.

Jewelry Piece of the Week July 2nd 2010

This is a new design for me. I wanted to incorporate as many handmade components as I could and this is what I came up with. I cut the heart out of sheet metal and drew the design on then etched the metal. I also made the lampwork bead. I am very happy with the way this turned out and think the general design has many possibilities!