VanGoghChica Studio

Hola, friends. It is I — Bimini. Black cat. Muse. Visionary. Creative Director of BiminisBoutique (my mama assists).  My mama, VanGoghChica, has once again handed me the keyboard. She says I have “things to say.” She is correct. First, yes — we are collaborating on my eBay boutique. But let us be clear: I am the Creative Director. Mama handles opposable thumbs and shipping labels.  You may have seen the caricature our dear friend Gracie created of us. We are shown in full art mode. Mama in her collar. Me in my sleek authority. Now, between us, Mama is having another neck surgery this month. Soon she will shed that collar. But honestly? She rocks it. Collar, walker, fierce brown girl spirit — all of it. I approve. Now. The first pieces I have placed in my boutique are very dear to my velvet heart. As Mama’s daughter (yes, species is irrelevant), her concerns are mine. She is the daughter of Peruvian immigrants. A brown baby boomer growing up Spanish-speaking in the U.S. ...

As a card designer, one of the most powerful ways to create mood is with color. With this card, I demonstrate how atmosphere transforms a design by recreating an artist’s work table filled with inspiration, quiet focus, and creative energy. A dramatic overhead light source and minimal surrounding light helped me achieve the emotional tone I wanted.  Using the Altenew Craft Your Life Kit: Illuminated Scenes, I show how to work with multi-layered stencils and coordinating dies to build a bold composition. Techniques for stencil layering, inking, die cutting, and thoughtful color choices elevate the card's design. Supplies Altenew's Craft Your Life Illuminated Scenes kit with coordinating stamps, dies, embossing folder and layering stencils Altenew's fresh dye ink in  warm sunshine ,  caramel toffee ,  olive ,  rocky shore ,  mocha ,  lavender fields  and  azurite Altenew's crisp ink in  parrot Altenew's pigment ink in  permanent bla...

  September 19th is the one year anniversary of my emergency hospitalization for cervical myelopathy that resulted in cervical surgery (corpectomy and fusions). Three months after that on December 27th, I again had an emergency hospitalization and that resulted in thoracic spinal sugery (T9-12) You see, my entire spine has sustained a lot of damage over time; to the point that the spinal compression was severe enough for paralysis and fatality. I ended up having two complicated neurosugeries  (cervical and thoracic) over three months.  I am coming up on my one year anniversary of my first emergency hospitalization/surgery. I want to share with you two different art journal entries I created this year about my recoveries. To hear a much more detailed story with visuals, check out my  You Tube video here.  This first page was made five months post op from my cervical surgery. As you can see, I felt stuck, angry and sad. This was most optimistic...

How to live with my disabilities as an artist.

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.

This card is a far cry from the multilayered roses in a Victorian garden card I made two posts ago. Granted, a skeletal human spine and brain are not usual thank you card images. Does it clarify things if I tell you this is a thank you card that I plan on giving my neurosurgeon(s) at my next appointment.? Thought so. Within this last year, I had two serious spinal neurosurgeries. They were both myelopathy emergencies and I was quite ill by the time I was taken to surgery. The good news is that I have regained abilities with my hands for the most part and my doctors arrested the spinal compression that was causing me to lose my balance and that would eventually paralyze, then kill me.  I am still trying to walk and hope the end of the year will see me getting around without a wheelchair or walker. But even if I stay as I am now, I am so very, very grateful to the neurosurgery department of Cleveland Clinic Hospital in Florida for saving my life and giving me back much of my abilitie...