Category: Women

The Stream Carried Wonderment and Joy

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The Stream Carried Wonderment and JoyThis painting is on of the very first collages I’ve created and thought good enough to post. The tall, elongated woman with her face divided by cream and blue stands with her eyes closed taking in everything. The secure and at peace woman stands with her feet in the stream and allows joy and wonderment into her life. There is no struggle, no working against the tide. She takes it all in and is entirely in the moment.

Her hair is adorned with flowers. Her dress is yellow at the top with two butterfly cut outs. The butterfly details also appear at the side of her skirt. The remaining cut outs are small flowers made from hand dyed coffee filter cut outs. Food coloring was used to stain the coffee filter cut outs. The painting has been sealed with a matte acrylic seal.  Continue reading “The Stream Carried Wonderment and Joy”

Sage: a Queen on Her Throne

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Sage - On Her Throne

At 27 inches in length, head to feet, Sage makes quite a statement.

Sage is a 100% handmade African-American rag doll, art doll. Her face is hand painted, her hair sewn in piece by piece. She can wear her hair down in dreadlocks or up in a headdress.  The Queen’s inner layered garment is a dusty lavender polyester. Her outer flowing floral garment is sheer rayon of lavender, cream and sage. The flowers in her hands are real lavender that were dried then painted. Sage wears a pendant and gemstone around her neck.

Not only is she hand stitched and hand painted, but her clothing is handmade as well. I also made the pendant she’s wearing and painted the flowers she’s holding. Continue reading “Sage: a Queen on Her Throne”

She is the Wind

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Sheh is the Wind fmaShe is the Wind’ is primarily a finger painting. The blue hair and the hills as well as the larger parts of the tree were created with my fingers. Details were added with other tools.

The large figure is searching for a part of herself that is missing. She and the warrior that blows in her blue hair, into a white sky, will search and bring her home. Behind the white tree she sees her, weary, cold, wrapped in hills of colors under a burning sky. She has found her. Continue reading “She is the Wind”

Let Her Fly

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Let Her Fly This piece was created in one night. I took the paper that already had sawdust prepped on it and I began adding shapes and colors.  My goal was to manage some heavy Post Traumatic Stress Disorder symptoms I was having.

I thought to myself, I want to go to sleep, but I can’t. I just kept painting. Painting what? At first I didn’t know but as I focused I knew I wanted a woman in a thick field of flowers with her hair wild in the breeze. I kept painting. Her face was divided, half gold, half multi-colored. Her eyes look up or roll up to the sky. Black birds flutter in some areas but soar in others. Their wings are out strong and high, no hesitation, no fear of flying. There are 8 black birds in all. They’re in the sky, her hair, on her white chest and in the flowers below. Continue reading “Let Her Fly”

Gentle Peace a tea bag painting

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Gentle Peace- SOLDI started this painting off with tea stains that I then painted in. I placed my reusable tea bag on the paper and left it there a few minutes. I moved it around here and there to leave spots and images. Once I was satisfied with the shapes I began to bring out the young girl who sits on top of the world.

Art title: Gentle Peace SOLD
Art by. F. Magdalene Austin
Size: 9×6 inches on heavyweight paper, art journal piece
Medium: Acrylic, ink, Indian tea, Caylon black

Continue reading “Gentle Peace a tea bag painting”

The Sun Rises on Dust and Clay

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Dust The dream I had was a terrible one. When I woke I felt sick inside. I lay there thinking of what my doctor said, you can change your dreams. He said if I don’t like the way the dream ended then I can write out exactly how the dream happened then write how I want the dream to end. Instead of writing in dream therapy I decided to paint the new ending.

DREAM: In the dream there were children covered in dust and embedded in the cliffs of a winding mountain road. Boys and girls dressed in peasant sack cloth, hung in vertical lines. As if this were a normal sight, cars drove past, without a thought, spitting more and more dust until they one by one became stone.

NEW: Of course I cannot live with that dream. I’m not sure how I would have written a better dream, so I painted it. In this painting you see a dry canyon washed in white. There’s a young woman of power with a white owl watching a young woman deeper in the canyon climb her way up. To assist the climb is a large hawk flying above her. He flies straight towards the sun. Continue reading “The Sun Rises on Dust and Clay”

Power

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This is the third and final piece in the series called Renewed.

Power : Renewed by FMA

Title:  Power
Art by: Faith Magdalene Austin
Stats: 5×9, acrylic paint, ink, crackle medium. The painting was first hand sealed then given an acrylic over lay seal. She is painted on mulberry paper mounted to an up-cycled foam board. ‘Power’ has been signed on the front and back.

Continue reading “Power”

Tile Art: Grant me the serenity to accept

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I sometimes like to blog about what I was thinking and where I was headed with a painting. For the most part I was thinking about the serenity prayer while painting ‘Holding Flowers.” I didn’t go as far as to write on the tile itself, “Grant me the serenity to accept” but those very words were on my mind through out the entire creative process.

I wanted to create a surreal, dreamlike moment. I wanted the viewer to feel as if they’re observing a private moment of a woman taking stock of herself, taking a moment to hold on to what she needs and let pass what she doesn’t.

Change feels rigid but its not, its fluid and that’s what I wanted to lines on the painting to be.

That’s what I was thinking and feeling as I created Holding Flowers. She has been painted on a 4 x 2 tile in acrylic and ink.

Art Title: Holding Flowers
Ceramic tile as canvas, 4×2 inches
Acrylic and ink, sealed, signed on the back
Art by Faith Magdalene Austin of Sundrip Journals

May Bell African-American Art Doll

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May Bell Sunflower African American Folk Art DollI stopped calling May Bell a rag doll because she has so much character that she falls more into the art doll category. This isn’t my usual type of doll but I have to admit, I enjoyed making her.

May Bell is a beautifully elegant art doll who is handmade and hand painted. She stands approximately 8 inches with a rust and gold flowering dress that falls at 12 inches. May Bell’s hair is up in buns on both sides of her head, twisted perfectly and able to hold ribbons or flowers if desired. Her accenting Anne Klein II sunflower brooch is removable and can be placed where desired.

Continue reading “May Bell African-American Art Doll”