Vancouver Art in the Heart, mermaid painting in progress + more Wise Woman body painting photos

Had a wonderful weekend of art vending localized in Vancouver Washington- Oregon's close but often neglected neighbor who has quickly grown into a hub of the arts.
On Friday Danny and I drove over the bridge to Vancouver for "Craft in the Village" which happens each first Friday of the month.
Then on Saturday we made the drive over the bridge again and set up for "Art in the Heart" right outside of the Guerrilla Gallery where i am currently having 7 of my paintings on display:

My paintings will be up for viewing during this month of August.
Come check it out in person at Guerrilla Gallery -1001 Main St. (Upstairs)Vancouver, WA 98660

It was my first time participating in the "Art in the Heart" festival but i had great fun rockin to the live music and chatting with the local artists.

And here is a quick snapshot of our set up:

It was an overcast day that managed to still be rather hot so i was again super happy to have my sunhat with me( this thing, as obviously huge as it is has saved me so many times this summer!)

I also made use of my time by working on my mermaid painting:

I like this shot of Danny's because you can see a slice of Vancouver in it. I love it's super old red brick buildings and calm small town vibe. I wish i could move to Vancouver and rent out one of these wonderfully huge live/work studio spaces in these surrounding old warehouse redbrick buildings. Vancouver's cost of living is significantly better then Oregon however i have been told its almost impossible to find a job. Ah well...a girl can dream.

I got a lot of work done on my mermaid while i was there. I added side fins, as seen in this photo but later on in the day i also added a lot more on her upper/hip fin area. I will take some more "work in progress photos" soon to share. I plan on putting a brigade of bubbles in the distance to hopefully hint at some depth. It is always a lot of fun to do "live painting" at these art events- it always creates a lot of interest. I love the exchange of conversation to be had over a work in progress piece. I had a very young lil lady come over and ask me if i had named the mermaid yet. I had not yet named her so i asked what she would name her. She said "I would name her Amber after the beautiful colors of her scales!"

So yes, "Art in the Heart" was a wonderful experience.

Sunday I reserved for some much needed "home body" time. I did some patio gardening, some much needed TLC in the art room- straightened everything up so that i can work in it again! The summer wreaks havoc on the art room because it gets torn apart every time we have an art fair to attend. Also managed to take a trip downtown to the "Saturday market" to say bye bye to an amazing artist and friend Anna Tadaro. She is moving to Chicago and will be missed by many!

Also, i wanted to share two more photos i posted recently from my body painting/photography session with Suzanne Owens-Duval:

(body painting and photography by Chelsea Rose
Model: Suzanne Owens-Duval)
I just love how strong and confident this pose is!


(body painting and photography by Chelsea Rose
Model: Suzanne Owens-Duval)
....and this one thrills me with how happy and comfortable she is in her skin- loving herself for who and what she is, loving and living life to the fullest!

A dear friend of mine recently suggested i pick up the book "Women Who Run With The Wolves” by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, PH.D and i have found it to be extremely inspiring and perfect fuel for the creative fires for the women's study body painting project that i have been working on.

I found this quote from the book to go perfectly with the two photos of mine above:

“A healthy woman is much like a wolf: robust, chock-full, strong life force, life giving, territorially aware, inventive, loyal, roving. Yet separation from the wildish nature causes a woman’s personality to become meager, thin, ghostly, spectral. We are not meant to be puny with frail hair and inability to leap up, inability to chase, to birth, to create life. When Women’s lives are in stasis, ennui, it is always time for the wildish woman to emerge; it is time for the creating function of the psyche to flood the delta.”
- Clarissa Pinkola Estes.

Truth be told!

....more updates soon.
Best wishes,
-Chelsea Rose

Vancouver Art in the Heart, mermaid painting in progress + more Wise Woman body painting photos

Had a wonderful weekend of art vending localized in Vancouver Washington- Oregon's close but often neglected neighbor who has quickly grown into a hub of the arts.
On Friday Danny and I drove over the bridge to Vancouver for "Craft in the Village" which happens each first Friday of the month.
Then on Saturday we made the drive over the bridge again and set up for "Art in the Heart" right outside of the Guerrilla Gallery where i am currently having 7 of my paintings on display:

My paintings will be up for viewing during this month of August.
Come check it out in person at Guerrilla Gallery -1001 Main St. (Upstairs)Vancouver, WA 98660

It was my first time participating in the "Art in the Heart" festival but i had great fun rockin to the live music and chatting with the local artists.

And here is a quick snapshot of our set up:

It was an overcast day that managed to still be rather hot so i was again super happy to have my sunhat with me( this thing, as obviously huge as it is has saved me so many times this summer!)

I also made use of my time by working on my mermaid painting:

I like this shot of Danny's because you can see a slice of Vancouver in it. I love it's super old red brick buildings and calm small town vibe. I wish i could move to Vancouver and rent out one of these wonderfully huge live/work studio spaces in these surrounding old warehouse redbrick buildings. Vancouver's cost of living is significantly better then Oregon however i have been told its almost impossible to find a job. Ah well...a girl can dream.

I got a lot of work done on my mermaid while i was there. I added side fins, as seen in this photo but later on in the day i also added a lot more on her upper/hip fin area. I will take some more "work in progress photos" soon to share. I plan on putting a brigade of bubbles in the distance to hopefully hint at some depth. It is always a lot of fun to do "live painting" at these art events- it always creates a lot of interest. I love the exchange of conversation to be had over a work in progress piece. I had a very young lil lady come over and ask me if i had named the mermaid yet. I had not yet named her so i asked what she would name her. She said "I would name her Amber after the beautiful colors of her scales!"

So yes, "Art in the Heart" was a wonderful experience.

Sunday I reserved for some much needed "home body" time. I did some patio gardening, some much needed TLC in the art room- straightened everything up so that i can work in it again! The summer wreaks havoc on the art room because it gets torn apart every time we have an art fair to attend. Also managed to take a trip downtown to the "Saturday market" to say bye bye to an amazing artist and friend Anna Tadaro. She is moving to Chicago and will be missed by many!

Also, i wanted to share two more photos i posted recently from my body painting/photography session with Suzanne Owens-Duval:

(body painting and photography by Chelsea Rose
Model: Suzanne Owens-Duval)
I just love how strong and confident this pose is!


(body painting and photography by Chelsea Rose
Model: Suzanne Owens-Duval)
....and this one thrills me with how happy and comfortable she is in her skin- loving herself for who and what she is, loving and living life to the fullest!

A dear friend of mine recently suggested i pick up the book "Women Who Run With The Wolves” by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, PH.D and i have found it to be extremely inspiring and perfect fuel for the creative fires for the women's study body painting project that i have been working on.

I found this quote from the book to go perfectly with the two photos of mine above:

“A healthy woman is much like a wolf: robust, chock-full, strong life force, life giving, territorially aware, inventive, loyal, roving. Yet separation from the wildish nature causes a woman’s personality to become meager, thin, ghostly, spectral. We are not meant to be puny with frail hair and inability to leap up, inability to chase, to birth, to create life. When Women’s lives are in stasis, ennui, it is always time for the wildish woman to emerge; it is time for the creating function of the psyche to flood the delta.”
- Clarissa Pinkola Estes.

Truth be told!

....more updates soon.
Best wishes,
-Chelsea Rose

July Last Thursday Artwalk on Alberta Street + new corset

So its Friday morning and i am having a hard time keeping my eyes open and my legs and arms feel as if they were made of lead but emotionally i feel elevated and inspired- these are the true sings of a art walk that went well!

Yesterday was Last Thursday Art walk on Alberta St ( a free art vending opportunity that occurs monthly in Portland Oregon.)
Unfortunately this was the first one of these i was able to attend so far this year because previous months it was either raining or i was out of town. So, i decided i was going to go this month and go enforce, thus i took the day off from work so that we could arrive
super early ( around 12:00pm) to stake out a good spot.

This is a photo Danny took after i had finished getting ready by painting my face for the art walk.
It was a super bright day so we were very lucky to have grabbed a spot with ample shade and trees. Still...the brightness made it hard to snap photos of our booth setup during the day but Danny managed to grab some of my body painting exploits:


I painted several lil girls faces + a few young adult faces...but when i asked one person if i could paint their face they turned around and asked " can i paint you!?"
Of course i said yes! they painted a small vine starting from my numb up a lil past my hand that ended in a heart. It was a silly/fun/unexpected treasure.
As the day crept into night danny was able to get a shot of our booth setup:

This photo was taken at a strange angle because what you dont see is the massive wall of moving people walking down the street in front of the booth. The turnout for this was just insane. After 8:00pm it was almost impossible to step out of the booth because the "river of flesh" was roaring!
We were setup facing the street with two tables on parallel sides .
One table with my my art:

the other table with Danny's art:

We used to always set up our artwork together but found that customers got confused as to "who's artwork was who's" which seemed to bother them a bit. Thus, we have found that now this separation seems to streamline customers experience making it less "modge podged" and more effective.
We did also have Danny's stencil records and a few silkscreen shirts on display laying on a sheet on the sidewalk:

We had a lot of folks stop and hover over the records- seems a particular point of interest to many.
We did well in sales this time which is always encouraging. We sold two of my pen and ink on Masonite board illustrations, a few art prints, a couple tie dye, and several face/body paintings.
Also managed to luck out and have a bunch of familiar faces pop up out of the blue so there was lots of hugs and catching ups to do. Met a few new friends as well.
And, as allways...its left me really looking forward to the next art walk on Alberta!
If you are interested in seeing some wonderful documentive photos of the this months artwalk check out the amazing Anni Becker's photographs here- bosting photos of all the crazy splendors of the day such as fire dancers, roaming musicans, dance pits, free hugs, crazy costumes, cute puppies, cops, artwork and artists , jugglers and much much more!!!

In other news, my new corsets arrived in the mail this week!
They were made by Danny's talented lil sis seamstress extraordinaire:

I am in love with it! I had picked out the fabric and sent it over awhile ago so i was delighted to have it in time to wear to the art walk last night.

Tomorrow i am going to the FaerieWorlds summer celebration festival to check it out for the first time. I am mainly going to enjoy myself but partly going to scope out the art vendors to see if perhaps i should hold a booth of my own at the fair for next year. we shall see! Also very excited that i get to do some body painting while i am there: will be painting the Didgeridoo Man in the band Telesma for their musicale prefromance at the festival! Pictures from this outing will most probably be posted via blog update on Monday.

Hope everyone has a lovely weekend filled with joy, relaxation and creation.

Peace n Love,
-Chelsea Rose

July Last Thursday Artwalk on Alberta Street + new corset

So its Friday morning and i am having a hard time keeping my eyes open and my legs and arms feel as if they were made of lead but emotionally i feel elevated and inspired- these are the true sings of a art walk that went well!

Yesterday was Last Thursday Art walk on Alberta St ( a free art vending opportunity that occurs monthly in Portland Oregon.)
Unfortunately this was the first one of these i was able to attend so far this year because previous months it was either raining or i was out of town. So, i decided i was going to go this month and go enforce, thus i took the day off from work so that we could arrive
super early ( around 12:00pm) to stake out a good spot.

This is a photo Danny took after i had finished getting ready by painting my face for the art walk.
It was a super bright day so we were very lucky to have grabbed a spot with ample shade and trees. Still...the brightness made it hard to snap photos of our booth setup during the day but Danny managed to grab some of my body painting exploits:


I painted several lil girls faces + a few young adult faces...but when i asked one person if i could paint their face they turned around and asked " can i paint you!?"
Of course i said yes! they painted a small vine starting from my numb up a lil past my hand that ended in a heart. It was a silly/fun/unexpected treasure.
As the day crept into night danny was able to get a shot of our booth setup:

This photo was taken at a strange angle because what you dont see is the massive wall of moving people walking down the street in front of the booth. The turnout for this was just insane. After 8:00pm it was almost impossible to step out of the booth because the "river of flesh" was roaring!
We were setup facing the street with two tables on parallel sides .
One table with my my art:

the other table with Danny's art:

We used to always set up our artwork together but found that customers got confused as to "who's artwork was who's" which seemed to bother them a bit. Thus, we have found that now this separation seems to streamline customers experience making it less "modge podged" and more effective.
We did also have Danny's stencil records and a few silkscreen shirts on display laying on a sheet on the sidewalk:

We had a lot of folks stop and hover over the records- seems a particular point of interest to many.
We did well in sales this time which is always encouraging. We sold two of my pen and ink on Masonite board illustrations, a few art prints, a couple tie dye, and several face/body paintings.
Also managed to luck out and have a bunch of familiar faces pop up out of the blue so there was lots of hugs and catching ups to do. Met a few new friends as well.
And, as allways...its left me really looking forward to the next art walk on Alberta!
If you are interested in seeing some wonderful documentive photos of the this months artwalk check out the amazing Anni Becker's photographs here- bosting photos of all the crazy splendors of the day such as fire dancers, roaming musicans, dance pits, free hugs, crazy costumes, cute puppies, cops, artwork and artists , jugglers and much much more!!!

In other news, my new corsets arrived in the mail this week!
They were made by Danny's talented lil sis seamstress extraordinaire:

I am in love with it! I had picked out the fabric and sent it over awhile ago so i was delighted to have it in time to wear to the art walk last night.

Tomorrow i am going to the FaerieWorlds summer celebration festival to check it out for the first time. I am mainly going to enjoy myself but partly going to scope out the art vendors to see if perhaps i should hold a booth of my own at the fair for next year. we shall see! Also very excited that i get to do some body painting while i am there: will be painting the Didgeridoo Man in the band Telesma for their musicale prefromance at the festival! Pictures from this outing will most probably be posted via blog update on Monday.

Hope everyone has a lovely weekend filled with joy, relaxation and creation.

Peace n Love,
-Chelsea Rose

Weekend bliss: Queen Bead, KPG live music, mermaid acrylic painting, playing dress up and morning glory flower

This weekend was eventful and this coming week will be the same way or perhaps doubly so!

First off, one more photo to share from my body painting photo shoot with Queen Bead:


(body painting and photography by Chelsea Rose
Model: Queen Bead )

Why is she called Queen Bead? well thats her artist/stage name. She is the head woman for a local reggae band called KPG - Keep Portland Green and her voice coupled with the music made me tingle. I danced all night long:

....needless to say i was super sore the next day and have realized how out of shape i have gotten- need to dance more!! This was a wonderful way to start the weekend.

On Saturday Danny and I watched T.Ruth artspace gallery
We set up a lil sidewalk art sale and worked on various projects inside while greeting the people who came in to look at art. Queen Bead dropped by with her son, i gave her a CD full of the body painting photos of her and we chatted for a couple hours.

I also managed to get some work done on my mermaid painting:
....i am not sure what it is with painting mermaids but they always give me trouble. I am assuming its their trickster/mischievous nature. I have been drawing them since i was 5, so i better get used to painting them since i love mermaids so much!

...i think she finally did manage to cooperate and i got a fair amount of work finished on her. Shes at least got her first layer of paint on...i am going to put in some flowy side fins on her tail and a bunch of bubbles in her hair. Blue/green and yellow orange is a strange color combo for me and i dont think i can say i have it mastered yet so i will have to do a lot more tweaking with it till i am happy. So there is loads more work to do on her- i pray i can find the time to do it in the next few weeks!

In other news...i discovered that my dreads have grown long enough to do side buns...whoohooo!

Can you tell i was quite excited?

....turns out to be a great dread-do for the hot summer months- helps keep the dreads up to cool off the neck!

Also, I came to realize that the FaerieWorlds Festival is this coming weekend! I must go and so i shall. Also will be happily helping the singer Joanne Berman Juskus who heads the band Telesma by giving her and her drummer a lift to the festival- they will be playing there at 5:30pm. Whats extremely exciting, that i just now learned via facebook message a sec ago, is that they are hoping to have me do some body painting on the digeridoo man( Ian Hesford) for their preformance! I cant wait. I guess Ian usually goes onstage painted up very tribal and has even been painted by Alex Grey for a concert! If you have time...check them out, they make some wonderous psychedelic mind blowing music.

So yes... looks like i will be doing all that on Saturday. This realization had me diving into my costume bag to figure out what to wear:

I love playing dress up!

...i think this hat is going to save me from turning into one big sunburn on Saturday.
I am also super excited to hear that the two corsets i commissioned Danny's amazingly talented seamstress sister to make me are on their way in the mail! Thus...i may be strutting about with one of my new ones on for the fair. I had her make one under bust corset with this crazy 60s mushroom fabric i found and another corset- over bust(1700's styled) out of a wonderful purple brocade. I will take photos when they arrive( due Wednesday i think!)

This Thursday is the Art walk on Alberta st so we are also gearing up for that- will be there around 20th and alberta st ( Portland or) with a full booth boasting lots of paintings, art prints, screen prints and tie dye!

That's it for now....more updates and news soon.
Best wishes and much love,
-Chelsea Rose

P.S

i wanted to share my first morning glory bloom of the summer with you:

bye now :)

Weekend bliss: Queen Bead, KPG live music, mermaid acrylic painting, playing dress up and morning glory flower

This weekend was eventful and this coming week will be the same way or perhaps doubly so!

First off, one more photo to share from my body painting photo shoot with Queen Bead:


(body painting and photography by Chelsea Rose
Model: Queen Bead )

Why is she called Queen Bead? well thats her artist/stage name. She is the head woman for a local reggae band called KPG - Keep Portland Green and her voice coupled with the music made me tingle. I danced all night long:

....needless to say i was super sore the next day and have realized how out of shape i have gotten- need to dance more!! This was a wonderful way to start the weekend.

On Saturday Danny and I watched T.Ruth artspace gallery
We set up a lil sidewalk art sale and worked on various projects inside while greeting the people who came in to look at art. Queen Bead dropped by with her son, i gave her a CD full of the body painting photos of her and we chatted for a couple hours.

I also managed to get some work done on my mermaid painting:
....i am not sure what it is with painting mermaids but they always give me trouble. I am assuming its their trickster/mischievous nature. I have been drawing them since i was 5, so i better get used to painting them since i love mermaids so much!

...i think she finally did manage to cooperate and i got a fair amount of work finished on her. Shes at least got her first layer of paint on...i am going to put in some flowy side fins on her tail and a bunch of bubbles in her hair. Blue/green and yellow orange is a strange color combo for me and i dont think i can say i have it mastered yet so i will have to do a lot more tweaking with it till i am happy. So there is loads more work to do on her- i pray i can find the time to do it in the next few weeks!

In other news...i discovered that my dreads have grown long enough to do side buns...whoohooo!

Can you tell i was quite excited?

....turns out to be a great dread-do for the hot summer months- helps keep the dreads up to cool off the neck!

Also, I came to realize that the FaerieWorlds Festival is this coming weekend! I must go and so i shall. Also will be happily helping the singer Joanne Berman Juskus who heads the band Telesma by giving her and her drummer a lift to the festival- they will be playing there at 5:30pm. Whats extremely exciting, that i just now learned via facebook message a sec ago, is that they are hoping to have me do some body painting on the digeridoo man( Ian Hesford) for their preformance! I cant wait. I guess Ian usually goes onstage painted up very tribal and has even been painted by Alex Grey for a concert! If you have time...check them out, they make some wonderous psychedelic mind blowing music.

So yes... looks like i will be doing all that on Saturday. This realization had me diving into my costume bag to figure out what to wear:

I love playing dress up!

...i think this hat is going to save me from turning into one big sunburn on Saturday.
I am also super excited to hear that the two corsets i commissioned Danny's amazingly talented seamstress sister to make me are on their way in the mail! Thus...i may be strutting about with one of my new ones on for the fair. I had her make one under bust corset with this crazy 60s mushroom fabric i found and another corset- over bust(1700's styled) out of a wonderful purple brocade. I will take photos when they arrive( due Wednesday i think!)

This Thursday is the Art walk on Alberta st so we are also gearing up for that- will be there around 20th and alberta st ( Portland or) with a full booth boasting lots of paintings, art prints, screen prints and tie dye!

That's it for now....more updates and news soon.
Best wishes and much love,
-Chelsea Rose

P.S

i wanted to share my first morning glory bloom of the summer with you:

bye now :)

Weekend Tidbits:finishing my Trinity Pixie painting and a look at Dayzee love creations

This weekend was blissfully uneventful- sometimes you need those in order to find a balance.

Our only obligation for the weekend was on Saturday: to open up and watch our friend Tiffany's Gallery, T.Ruth Artspace, since she is till recovering from illness. We made the best of the day by setting up a couple tables along the gallery front on the sidewalk and sold some of our creations. I love sidewalk sales.
I also managed to put the final touches on a acrylic painting i have been working on:

This is the Trinity Pixie- named after her strange balance of 3 eyes. I spent about 3 hours going over her in the gallery adding more highlight and shadow/correcting shape and so on ( in this photo she was still an hours worth or work away from being finished.) Today when i get home from work i hope to sign her and coat her in a protective gloss varnish then she will be all done. I will be displaying her along with some of my other paintings next month inside the Guerrilla Gallery, curated and run by Olin and the Guerrilla Media artist collective based in Vancouver WA ( i love those folks!) I will have more on that as the date draws nearer.

I also wanted to share an etsy artist and friend with you: DayzeeLove creations
She is a UK based etsy seller whom i met via Chat on one veryyy slow day.
I recently had ordered a pair of custom made clip on earrings from her and she had sent me some extra goodies along with them and i liked them so much!

....they are called "Purple Skeleton Leaf Glass and Antique Bronze Bobby Pins with Silver background."
see her actual etsy store listing for these here.
...her creations are very hard to resist for those who are generally entranced by shiny things :P

and a close up for you:

Here is a shot documenting the lovely "Green and Purple Skeleton Leaf Glass Earrings" that she made into clip ons for me since i dont have my ears pierced. Check out her shop listing for them here.
I love etsy and the community of hands on, hand made enthusiasts and artists. Its a very good thing to have a hub such as this site where other artists can mingle and connect from all around the world with each other- sharing inspiration and helpfull tips. And even though i have my own shop on etsy i think its karmatically good to buy from another etsy shop now and again- we have to support eachother!
Speaking of my etsy shop, its been awhile since i have uploaded anything new so i will have to make a point this week to do so. However i currently have over 100 art creations for sale including original paintings, art prints, screen printed shirts, tie dye and much more so take a glance into the shop if you are curious.

So yes, hello to a new week.
Much love to all,
-Chelsea Rose