VanGoghChica Studio

 🐾 A Note from Bimini: Black Cat Magic & a New Year Blessing Hello, darlings. My mom,  VanGoghChica , has graciously given me a corner of her blog so I can chime in whenever I feel inspired—and trust me, inspiration visits often when you are a black cat. With her help, I recently opened my very own eBay shop called  BiminisBoutique . I’ve spent quite some time watching my mom create art, cards, journals, and all sorts of papercraft wonders. Somewhere along the way, I realized something important: I, too, have a creative flair. My other unique contribution?  Black Cat Magic (BCM) —naturally. Like my mom, I read tarot. Being a black cat comes with certain… perceptive abilities. My mom likes to joke that I live with one foot in the other world. She’s very astute that way. To welcome the New Year, I pulled a tarot card for all of us and then created an  ACEO (Art Cards, Editions & Originals)  inspired by that . The card that revealed itself was the...

This was a very fun card to make. I used stamps and dies from different sets to compose this scene. And my cat, Bimini, wanted in on it so she made an appearance in my card. Rarely do I have the luxury to buy complete sets that include rubber stamps, dies and stencils. Those large sets tend to include a couple complete scenarios that you can choose from.  Most of us have smaller sets; either single rubber stamp elements or just die cut sets. It is up to us to put these together to create a nice scene. I used four sets to stage this whimsical scene of my cat getting into mischief. The hanging shelves were one set of rubber stamps. The planters with greenery was another set. My cat came from a die set and the champagne glasses came from yet another set. Aside from visualizing how different elements will fit together, you will need to plan carefully. Work from the bottom up; so that the items further back are inked or glued first. Aside from overlapping elements, light shading adds to...

Here you can View my YouTube video that is a check in which focuses on my art journal pages. Here are pictures of my art journal pages that I show in the video.

 I have been having fun with whimsical animal portraits lately; mainly cats. My Bombay cat, Bimini, fancies herself Bastet. Bastet was the ancient Egyptian feline Goddess.  Both compositions show Bimini in a Sphinx-like pose. And she wanted to be surrounded or embody Egyptian hieroglyphs. Image on the left is at work on paper (9”X12”) while the image on the right is a painting on 12”X12” canvas. I do not think I am done yet with Bimi's portraits; no doubt you will see some more of them if I do.