Welcome to 2022 at Rural Pearl. My motto for the year is SOFTEN.. find more joy, nature, connection, and less letting the world chip away at my shoulders. Become a light, for myself and others. Follow my truth, have more boundaries, live and love more… and blog more. Seek out inspiration more often. Look for the beauty around us instead of being constantly bombarded by all that is wrong with the world, and record it here. Thanks for being here.

New bookmarks available online and in store! Featuring a crop of my paper cut collage “The Moonlight’s Hum”, these 16pt stock bookmarks with waxed cord tassels are durable and ready to mark the pages of your favorite book! http://ruralpearl.etsy.com

I love it when I can say, as an artist who makes a lot of bird and tree art, that I get to “branch out” and do things that I don’t normally do. This project was certainly one of those things! I was honored to be asked by the Food Network Magazine to design and decorate an Easter Egg that represents the state of Kansas for their April article titled “The United States of Easter Eggs” where a “crafty blogger” from each state was asked to “decorate an egg honoring their home state”! (PS: Check out Food Network Magazine, April 2018, page 143 for the full story!)

The first step was sketching up some concepts that I thought would represent Kansas well. I sent these off to one of the editors and we decided to go with the sunflower design! I don’t think anybody DOESN’T think of Kansas when you think of sunflowers.

I had the choice of either using a real egg or an eggnot (a ceramic egg that will not break into a yolky mess or get smelly)… I obviously chose the eggnot! I received one in the mail from the Food Network and got to work! I used a light blue acrylic paint as the background for my sunflower design.

Being a paper cutting artist, naturally I chose to use paper for my design. Luckily I like to work with tiny details because some of these paper cuts were tiny! I used tissue paper painted with acrylic paint for the leaves and petals, and Canson Mi-Teintes art paper for the stars and black details on the sunflower.

To glue the paper to the egg, I used Golden Acrylic Gel Gloss. This is my favorite glue/ sealer to use on my collaged works.

Because I knew the egg needed to be photographed, I opted to use a matte varnish over the design so that it did not reflect so much light with the glossy gel that I used to glue and seal it. And VOILA! The finished egg! I was happy to carefully wrap it up, ship it back to the kind folks at Food Network Magazine, and await the release of the April issue of Food Network Magazine to see it with all the other states! 🙂

Here are a couple recently completed logos I made from paper cuttings for Kathy Damron Yoga and the Lawrence Artwalk! Both super fun to work on. Kathy wanted something that appealed to children  that was sweet and could work across the board for anybody and any product. The Lawrence Artwalk logo was inspired by the bricks that you can find around town stamped with “Lawrence, Kansas”.  And of course, birds…

Brookside Art Annual in Kansas City starts tomorrow and I’m super excited to be exhibiting there! I’ve got some new work that I’m excited to show! I’ll be in booth 45 under the big tent. Hours are Friday, May 5, 5pm-9pm | Saturday, May 6, 10am-9pm | Sunday, May 7, 11am-5pm. The weather looks like its going to be perfect!

I’m looking forward to being at the Brookside Art Annual this weekend! My first art fair of the year and beginning to a very busy season! Details on the events page!