Tonia Davenport

Stenciled Patches

Have you seen Flavor for Mixed Media yet? Well it's a pretty darn cool book and I'm not just saying that because I edited it. If you want to become inspired to paint more, check it out and I think you'll agree with me. But . . .I digress. The real reason I'm here (let's face it—it takes major doing for me to do a blog post) is that I'm also a contributing artist in this book and as such, I wanted to support Mary Beth in her desire to do a blog tour, so here I am! Mary Beth is giving away a copy of her book this week and if you pop on over to her blog, you can enter to win. To make things more fun, I wanted to give something away, too, so since I'm into funky patches lately, I thought it would be cool to create an apron (see the fool/art cross-over potential here?) using one of Mary Beth's stencils for a pattern! So if you win the book, you win the apron as well.

One reason Mary Beth and I get along so well is that we share a love of food and it's that love that led us to developing the concept for her book in the first place because we could see numerous correlations between making food and making art. Get this, there are actually recipes in this book, including a pizza recipe from yours truly. So check out the book (you won't be sorry—plenty of inspiration to be had), check out her blog and I hope you win!

Love More: Altered-T Fix

Summer's a few months away, but I'm preparing now. Okay, I actually just wanted an excuse to cut up a shirt; it's been a while.

Plexi for a Cause

Way back in the day when I was a good little Etsy shop keeper, a very sweet girl by the name of Adine bought something from my It's All Good line for her bridesmaid. She remembered that the proceeds of her purchase went to charity, so she went out on a limb to contact me and see if I had any plans on selling more goods in that vein because she is currently raising money for The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. While I'm not prepared to open the shop back up, I did tell her that I'd be happy to whip up some projects for her drive. So . . .here they are! If any of these three pieces catches your fancy and you'd like one or more, for a $20 donation to Adine's fundraising efforts, I will happily ship it to you. Just go here to make your donation and leave me a comment as to which piece you want. Okay--that's all I got for now. Sometime in the next couple of months you will see a very exciting blog post from me. My life is about to open up for me and some great new things are around the corner.

Daily Doodles: A Different Way to Journal

In the summer of last year, July 2009, I decided to take some steps to alter my life path. This would seem like the perfect time to begin a journal or art journal, yes? As much as I have admired the process of art journaling that I see others do, it has just never been able to become an outlet for me. But I needed to do something as I had too many thoughts and feelings that were simultaneously having a frat party and a war battle inside my head, and they needed to be heard. (Outside of my head.) I had heard of doodling exercises before where someone had taken a typical wall calendar and created a little doodle inside of the box for each day, to mark the day. Then I came across a doodle app for my phone and something clicked. This I could do. Every day. As a reflection of how I was feeling on that day. I liked that I had little control over too much detail (unlike an actual piece of paper, using pens and paint and brushes) since I could only use my finger and that I had little space to work in. I also decided to keep it to black, red and white. These seemed to easily reflect my core emotions. As someone who likes to distill things to their important essence, this practice seemed perfect and I made a commitment to do at least one (some days I do two) doodle a day for a year. To keep myself accountable, I decided to post them on my Facebook profile. Nine months later, I'm still with it, and while I haven't always felt like doing it every day, I have. Every day. (Even though I sometimes wait a day or two before actually posting the pics). And I think it's been therapeutic to have this outlet as I search, grow and explore this new path I'm on--letting go of the past and not having too much of clear picture of the future. The slide show here is a sampling for you to see what I'm talking about. If you've struggled with committing to a daily practice before, maybe you should give something like this a try. It's fascinating to look at the hundreds of doodles you'll accumulate as a group. Little doodles, big impact.

Meditative Doodling

A few weeks ago I was trying to come up with a new activity to do with the group I'm currently mentoring through Free Arts of Arizona. The idea of presenting them with a doodling process that could actually mimic meditation seemed pretty cool and so before actually bringing the project to them, I had a hand at it myself for a few days. Wow! Turns out this is really fun! Do you do this already? I found this a really great way to get in the present moment and quiet the mind chatter at the same time. (Who doesn't need more of that?) I have to admit I've never been too much of a doodler myself (though I've often admired the cool results that I see from others) but coming at it as a deliberate meditative practice is something I can work with. The therapeutic part comes from the continual repetition of lines and patterns and it works best if you don't think about it very much. You are probably more cool or savvy than me and already do this, but if you don't, try it! 

Dabbling With Duct Tape

Yesterday marked my fourth visit to bring art into the lives of a handful of teenage boys
living in a group home not too far from where I live. Last fall I went through some
mentor training through Free Arts of Arizona—a wonderful organization whose mission
is to "spark the creative spirit in abused, homeless and at-risk children and their families,
to inspire and transform their lives through the power of artistic expression." I work with
a partner and we alternate curriculum planning, so every other week it's my turn to try
and come up with something to inspire these boys. I know I'm often the last to try the
latest and greatest crazes and while duct tape projects have been all the rage for a few
years now, I had my first experience this week, and decided to bring the boys the
experience as well. Here are three things I practiced with ahead of time, so I could give
the illusion I knew what I was doing. One wallet, one flowered wristband and one ring.

In case you're wondering . . .one of the boys was already familiar with making duct-tape
wallets (of course), but everyone seemed to have a good time and liked what they made. I
have lots of tape left over, so I'll be playing with it myself for a while. Who knows what

havoc I'll wreck . . .

Is This All You Need?

In Need of Love?

Jane said she needed more blog posts, and because I love Jane, here is a brand new post! Don't ever say I don't aim to please.

 

So tell me, do you know someone who is struggling, sad, having a hard time at the moment? Someone you think has lost their way or forgotten just how beautiful they really are? Leave me a comment and tomorrow (or Friday) on my lunch break I will choose someone and email you for their mailing address, and I will send them this pendant in hopes of bringing them a bit of joy. We all need a reminder now and then just how valued we really are. xoxo

Side note: I thought I should add . . .I'm happy to make more than one. . .

This just added: I found a great site with a wonderful challenge to give something away for 29 days.

Heart-it-Forward XV

This post should really be titled, Heart-it-Forward Forward. I'll get to that in a minute. So have you wondered where I've been? I've been experiencing life in a full spectrum--some colors pretty and some not exactly my favorite, but that's how life is. Oh, and in case you don't know, I live in the Phoenix area now. Yep. You just never know what life has in store for you around the corner, so it helps to be prepared for anything. And that's enough about that.

I realized a few days ago that it's been like, forever since I've posted a HIF project. Sorry about that. Again--it's that silly "life" thing. But here we are; I'm back with something new for you. Only this time, there is a fairly big twist. I'm not sure if you're going to like it or not, but as I said, life is full of all the colors and so here we are, even if periwinkle is your favorite color, and I'm offering up burnt-orange here.

For this HIF project, the twist is, if you win, you are to tell me the name of someone else that you would like me to forward this project to--someone that you think could use a little extra love in their life at the moment, or someone that you just think is the bee's knees and deserves something out-of-the-blue. But wait, there's more . . .Normally, the first person to comment wins, but this time around, it's the first person to correctly guess my city of birth. A secret bonus if you know my birthdate too.

Okay, that's it for now. I hope to not be so elusive and post a bit more, but who knows? :-) XOXO

String Art Pendants

I hadn't played around with this concept for a while, so I created two new pendants this weekend. These will be samples for my upcoming class, String Art Pendant, at the Bead&Button Show next month. There are still spots left in the class if you can make it. :-)