Fun In The Studio by Leada Wood

Everyday is a happy day when you can spend time in the studio painting, especially with friends. The arts bring people together, it’s a language anyone can speak, whether young or not so young. We are  all young at heART!

I sure enjoy my special time with my kiddos as well as my friends. I hope this new year brings new and exciting things for you to look forward too. Dare to be creative and learn something new! 

And support the ARTS!

I did catch up a bit on my blog and hopefully next year I will keep up. I enjoy sharing the things I am doing with you and I hope you enjoy seeing a little of what I do in the studio. You can find more of my posts on leada_wood@instagram.  Instagram makes it so easy that I find I am using it more and more but I do enjoy my blog, as it is another way to journal.

Happy New Year!



Furry Friends by Leada Wood

All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small, all things wise and wonderful, the Lord God made them all. Nature inspires me both in life and in art, but life is an art if lived well.

As the end of another decade comes to a close and a new one begins, I feel very grateful for all the wonderful things I have experienced, the beautiful people in my life that I love and most of all the life I have been given. I am thankful for the gift of creativity and strive to use it in all areas of my life, to bring more beauty into the world. What a wonderful world indeed it would be if everyone chose to be a little kinder and use the talents they have to enrich our own lives and the lives of others. To let our light shine in the darkness and light other candles along the, yes it would be a better world indeed.

Here are a few of my favorite furry friends painted  in watercolors. I have so much fun painting critters. I have been fascinated with animals since I was a child. We always had birds, cats, rabbits or turtles around, might of had more but we lived in town. Now that We live on the ranch we have llamas, cows, sheep , five cats, one dog, raccoons and birds. The wild rabbits hang around and mr Roadrunner and his family, a family of fox come and go and an occasional Peacock wanders through when he escapes the neighbors and is a free bird for a while. Now you see with all this inspiration all around me why I enjoy painting them!

Artist Trading Cards by Leada Wood

Artist Trading Cards are fun to create and a challenge as the surface in only 2.5 x 3.5 inches. I used collage, stencils, gold leaf and ephemera to create this series. Kelly Hoernig hosted the exchange and I am looking forward to the mail next week as I will get some art mail! It is enjoyable to participate in the different art exchanges I do, as I now have art from around the world. Artists are so generous to bare their souls and share their work with us, don’t you think?

This little Abby is the one I kept as I always keep one for myself and send others to friends during every exchange. This one was special to me as I experimented in hammering copper and wire to incorporate into the design. I also added Swarovski crystals to it to give it a little more sparkle and gold leaf. 



Mixed Media Collages by Leada Wood

I enjoy doing mixed media, it transports me to my happy place. Arranging papers, photos and ephemera to create a meaningful piece of art. Something about this photo of this little girl reminds me of myself. I used found objects to create a fall composition around the painting. Hearts are meaningful to me as they represent love. Love for God, love for family, love of nature love of animals. When I see feathers I always pick them up. They remind me of the angels watching over me and I am grateful for their protection and love.

This mixed media collage represents my mama and me. Yellow was her favorite color and she loved butterflies, birds, flowers and gardening. There were  always flowers blooming in her yard.  She also loved autumn as do I...I guess the acorn didn’t fall far from the tree after all.

This mixed media collage represents my daddy and me. He was an Horologist and could fix anything! He was also a musician and could play a lot of musical instruments and tinkered with cars. the gears and clock represent him as he made his living fixing watches, clocks and jewelry. He had more patience than anyone I’ve ever known. You can see my mom is represented in the background by the yellow butterfly. These paintings are intuitive and evolved as I go. It’s like a adventure that I discover and I never know how it will turn out.



Van Gogh, by Leada Wood

For goodness sakes...it is me again! I hope you are enjoying seeing some of the things I have created this year and I will try to keep up next year!

We took the four oldest granddaughters to Houston to see the Van Gogh exhibit. Among other things we also went to a Renaissance Faire. A great celebration for two of the girls birthdays!

I was so moved by the exhibition. Van Gogh was a prolific painter. He painted everyday objects from his life including his hat, pipe and shoes. Very touching to see ordinary things made extraordinary by the brush of a genius. He only sold one painting in his short lifetime.

Here is my little painting of his shoes.

It was a wonderful exhibition and included his drawings, sketchbooks and tools as well as paintings. 

First Friday Art Trail, by Leada Wood

This a series I created for one of the FFAT in Lubbock. They are mixed media.



“Play” by Leada Wood

Play was inspired by one of my kids Little People some scrabble tiles and a crossword puzzle. It is a mixed media piece 12x12.





Playing Catch Up! By Leada Wood

Here it is the end of 2019 and I am so far behind with my blogging that I considered not catching up but I never was a quitter so here goes! These are from a zig zag journal that I made in June inspired by a beach trip with my son, Adam and his family.



The journal was small only 4x4. I really like working in the small square format. I am desperately trying to post all this years work so that I can include it in my 2019 book. I may not get it all included but I will try! 



Collage Play by Leada Wood, Texas Artist

I just love paper and have stacks of it. I delight in printing my own with my Gelli plate or using an old book that is ready to recycle and it is always fun to rip and glue my papers into a new design. Here is part of a series that I have made using a limited palette, collage, and a word that came to mind as I created each one.

"Celebrate"  ©2019 Leada Wood

"Shine"  ©2019 Leada Wood

"Balance" ©2019 Leada Wood

"Look at everything as though you are seeing it for the first time, with the eyes of a child fresh with wonder." -----Joesph Cornell



“Paper Pears” by Leada Wood, Texas Artist

"Paper Pears" ©2019 Leada Wood

It's always fun as an artist figuring out how to push the envelope and bend the rules a little. Being an experimental artist makes it more of a challenge! I belong to the West Texas Watercolor Society and they have their prospectus, that I try as I might to abide by when entering their shows. But it isn't easy...as I paint intuitively and things get stuck on there that are laying around my work area just because it pleases me.  Therefore my work doesn't always comply with the rules and I can't enter...but this time I was mindful and hopefully I have met the criteria.  Any how...there are no found papers, no printed papers, only ones I have painted and that's the way I came up with the name, Paper Pears. 

Pen Pal Swap by Leada Wood, Texas Artist

Maybe you have heard giddy squeals of laughter in the air...it's the sound of artists getting art mail.

What fun to have art pen pals! Kelly Hoernig arranged for a group of her students to have an art swap in which we send an envelope full of ephemera to our pen pals each month.

But there is a catch! The swap is intended to inspire you to create art with the new materials and not just hoard them.



I have received lovely papers and I am so excited to try them in some new ways! I have had fun so far just looking at them and arranging them in various fashions and letting my imagination run free. Thank you Kelly for always inspiring me and challenging me to come up with something creative and fun!

“Blooming Melody” by Leada Wood, Texas Artist

"Blooming Melody" ©2019 Leada Wood

When friends get together to create, there is an electrical current in the air.  On such a day this painting was conceived while digging through my stash of collage papers. Some were Gelli prints I had painted and others I found in my files. Cutting and gluing them into an arrangement of fantasy flowers was music to my heart. Making an intuitive collage is a joyful experience, you never know what you will create!

"Every possibility begins with the courage to imagine."---Mary Anne Radmacher





Family Fun by Leada Wood, Texas Artist

It's a pleasure to be a part of a family having fun. This group were having a family reunion and asked me to host a paint party for the afternoon. What an honor to share those precious moments with their family.

Grandmothers, Grand-daughter, Sisters, Aunts and cousins came together to create. Some of their family members came from as far away as Chicago IL.

Since a Texas theme was requested by Chris, I gave them a choice of Cacti or Sunflowers. They embraced the white canvas with enthusiasm and created their paintings.

Every good party is a work of heART! I couldn't have done it without the help of my Grand-Daughters! They pitched in and helped me set up and worked all during the festivities. I am so blessed!



“The Many Faces Of Eve” by Leada Wood, Texas Artist

"The Many Faces Of Eve" ©2019 Leada Wood

"Tear off the mask, your face is glorious." ----Rumi

This painting has had many faces. I started it in a figure painting workshop with Liz Hill several years ago but it was tossed in the unfinished painting stack to deal with later, when inspiration arrived. I cropped the finished (is a painting ever finished?) version to give it more mystery.

Inspiration finally did come but in phases, as most paintings do evolve in stages. I thought it might be interesting for you to see the process that Eve has been through.

The original had shorter hair, but I wanted it longer. I also painted over her face and  added crackle paste to give her texture.

This is another version before I decided she needed longer hair and a new face, back in the pile of unfinished paintings she went.

"The Masque" ©2019 Leada Wood


One day I saw a mask that captured my attention and decided to draw it. I really enjoy drawing with graphite and it is very relaxing to me. This one action created a reaction and got me thinking about the "lost girl' painting.  I retrieved Eve and started working on her again.

     

This is a very rough sketch on velum to see if the mask idea would work on the painting. I decided it would so I added a face and the mask to the girl.

“The Many Faces Of Eve”@2019Leada Wood

One idea usually leads to another and I started thinking of Eve and women in general and how we all hide behind masks at times. We wear many hats or masks throughout life. We are daughter, sister, wife, mother, grandmother, nurse, nanny, cook, housekeeper, and soooo much more! Some have careers added onto all of these titles and change from one role to the next at the drop of a hat.

All of this brainstorming was how I came up with the name, "The Many Faces Of Eve".  In life, just like painting, we undergo so many transitions and they take time. We are all the Daughters of Eve, the mother of humanity, all different but related and we all wear masks at times.

"Behind every mask there is a face, and behind that a story" ----Marty Rubin