August 27, 2008

All Tangled Up Again

I'm not sure what it is about Zentangles but I love them.  Here is a few that I worked on this past week. I've posted rather small images but they are 5.5" x 8", so they take a while to finish.

My Little Zen Monster

The first is my little Zen Monster.
He didn't start out to be a monster
but soon there was a head
and then the fingers and toes appeared.
and what do you know,
little Zen was born.

 

"I saw the angel in the marble and 
                   carved until I set him free."--Michelangelo

 

 

Zen Flourish

 

With this Zentangle I was determined
to use some new patterns. Now it's not 
made up of entirely new patterns
but just some I'd never used before.

 

 

 

 

 

Zen Hand

 

This one was one I'd been wanting
to do for a while. I love the look of
patterns on hands.
It reminds me of the Illustrated Man.  

 

 

 

 

 

Hand Drawn Flower

 

This last page was a fast drawing 
so I could test the new Prismacolor
markers I bought on Ebay.  The color is
much better in person. It didn't scan
well and I didn't have time to play with it.
If you are interested in the Ebay seller
I purchased these from just leave me a note. 
It was a very positive experience.

 

August 23, 2008

Time on CD

My studio has been needing a clock for a while now but instead of buying one, I made one.

Here my first effort, fairly plain because I didn't know what I was doing. I altered a used CD to make the clock face by painting it first with gesso and then with a few colors of paint.  I used rub on numbers for the 4 major time increments and dashes for the others. Then added the clock mechanism which I bought at the craft store for $6.99.  I did beef up the back of the CD with glued on chipboard but it was probably unnecessary.  Next time I would leave it off.

 

Handmade Clock

"People don't understand the virtue of time, until their clock stops ticking." -

  --  Steve Goodman

August 17, 2008

I've Had a Strange Week

The week started off OK enough. I don't know if I've ever posted about my day job, but what I do for most of the day is technical support for a quilt software company.  Monday was a very typical work day, busy most of the day with tech support email and phone calls.   But on Tuesday, I had sad phone conversation with a woman. She had been hard to get through to because, even though she has a high speed internet account, she doesn't have email. (Say What??? Yes, it's hard for me to imagine having an internet account but no email. Sorry I digressed)  So we had played phone tag for a few days and when I finally got through to her on Tuesday, I could tell something was wrong.  I asked if everything was OK and she said, in a trembling voice, that her husband had died the night before. Oh my god, what do you say besides I am so sorry?  I asked if she would like me to call her another time (after all it was only quilting software). She said no, that this would help her if only for a few minutes. So that's what we did.  I can't even imagine doing anything but bawling my eyes out if anything ever happened to my guy. She had a lot of strength that woman.  My condolences and a rose for Natalie.

                                     Roses in November

On Wednesday morning my guy left to Las Vegas, NV for a business convention and I thought , here is my chance to go out to my studio and work on the ATC card swaps I signed up for this week.  I signed up to create: 1>Cards made with beeswax, and 2> Altered magazine faces.  So what happens? The weather decided not to let me play. It was one hundred and frackin' two degrees outside and not much less in my studio. I have a fan in there but all it was doing was circulating hot air.  Frack!!! So instead of bringing all my stuff inside the house where it is cooler, I went shopping? Hey, what else is a girl to do?  :) 

So that brings me to my bad marker shopping experience.  I go to Home Depot and find some Bic markers in a set of very yummy colors.  So back home I go, happy as a clam, because they were fairly inexpensive for the set of 36 colors.  I sit down on the couch, moleskin in hand, to play with my beautiful new markers and two of the lovelies were bone dry and a few others were on their way to marker heaven.  The ones that worked were lovely but I had paid for 36 and I thought I should get 36 working markers.  Aren't they pretty though? 

                                                    36_ct_markers

 

So back to Home Depot I go and not taking the chance that another set will be dry, I return them instead of exchange.  I decide to go to Michael's, the craft store, as if you didn't know what Michael's is.  The closest Michael's is 20+ miles away.  At Michael's I find what are named Art Markers for Professionals (OK not the real name which I have now forgotten).  I'm certainly no professional but it sounds good, doesn't it? Yes, I thought so too. They had 18 lovely colors and were more expensive than the Bic so I thought surely they would be a good choice.  I also bought a few Prismacolor markers in skin tones because there were no skin tones in the other package. I brought them home, once again I have my moleskin in hand, and.... they smeared/bled from one color to the next.  Not even the cheap Bic's did that.  OK I thought maybe they need to dry first.  Nope they smeared, black into the yellow making a muddy mess. Yet the Prismacolor markers did not, they were beautiful....sniff, sniff...I can't afford the Prismacolor markers. Or could I?

                                                    prod_double_ended

Of course I took the AM4P back and resigned myself to buying the Prismacolor markers a few at a time, and at $4 a pop it would take a while to be able to get a whole set.... or so I thought.  I rarely check Ebay but this time I thought what could it hurt? I found a set of 48 markers for $40.00 plus shipping.  WOW, that's 1/4 of the MSRP and 1/2 the Dick Blick price.  So I checked out the seller's reputation and hoped I wouldn't go too wrong with a person who has 1900+ positive reviews but we'll see. If it turns out well, I'll name the seller.  

To top off my week, I went for my regular Sunday morning walk.... don't want to over do it after all. :) All is well, I'm taking pictures and enjoying the sunshine until about half way through the walk. All of a sudden a guy jumps out of his car, and runs inside the house that is across the street from where I am.  I hear him yelling "Call 911, call 911".  What's going on? Well, there is a guy laying on the ground in front of the house and I hear someone say, heart attack.  My heart sank. But by now, their neighbor is running toward their house and I knew that they had things under control so I didn't go near. I would have been in the way at this point. Minutes later, I hear the sirens of both the fire department and the EMS. My mind jumped right back to the beginning of the week and the woman who'd lost her husband. I wonder how she is doing?

                                                      sad-woman-K133-31-147

August 11, 2008

Soul Journaling Day 18

OK I'm behind again.  Still only on Day 18:

Here is the prompt from Sarah's page:

Mix up this list!

-Write the Alphabet quick and Angry (use a permanent ink pen)
-Cut out a silhouette of a person’s face, ink or paint over (magazine stencil technique)
-Add a wash of paint in a new color
-Use something unusual as a stamp (like a piece of corrugated cardboard or a sliced green pepper)
-List everything you did today so far. (Include little things like: brushed my teeth and let the dog out)
-Gesso out a section of your work, don’t think about it…just do it. Add something new over it.
-Add something metal
-Add a drybrush of paint in a new color

 

Here is what I came up with:

True Colors

August 5, 2008

Soul Journals

Not long ago I was blog surfing and found this great blog written by Sarah Whitmire called Caspiana. Sarah started a art journal project last month called "Soul Journaling." When I read her words, "I want these books to be a mess of words, color, collage, etc. I want you to be able to be totally free with these and use them to express anything you wish," I decided to follow along. I started late and so I've been busy catching up. Lucky for me Sarah took a short vacation so I could catch up.  That's what I have been up to recently....catching up.

The good thing about starting late is that I could sneak a peek at the pages to come while working on the previous pages. It really helped me to continue with the project. In other words I liked what I saw.  The bad part is that I haven't posted my images on Sarah's blog so I haven't been a part of her community. As soon as I finish this entry I will. Hopefully I won't be too late to join in.  So here goes

Now I didn't take photographs of the whole process but just of the finished pages.  The instructions for the pages were written over several days so what you are seeing here is just the end product but I will list the Journal "Days" from her blog. 

"Claiming your Journal" and "How to protect your creative soul": Days 2-5

 CreativeArmor-web

 

Inchie Art: Day 5-6 and Day 9

Inchies

 

I Forgot to Tell You: Day 7 - 8, there will be more to come on this page

I Forgot to tell you

 

  Recreate our home: Day 10 - 15

Home

Close ups

Home detail pg 1Home detail pg 2

  About this page, I feel the need to explain that the house on the left is my home and the one on the right is my daughters home, which is 1100 miles away. The song lyric says how much I miss her.

Now I have to admit that I jumped from creating the house to the next assignment and skipped right over the "paper dolls"  I still want to do this but I also wanted to catch up.

Magazine Stencil technique: Day 15 & 16

Using magazine stencils

The stencils were supposed to be people but this doggie said 'use me'. See the doggie looking up at the woman and she is finger crunching?  I think it's because I've been yearning to get a doggie for a pet. Still trying to convince myself it's not a good idea because we don't have much of a back yard. Plus I'm afraid he'll fall in the pool and drown. That would kill me.  I (we) still miss our Charlie, RIP. Charlie was the cutest red/black haired Pomeranian and had the best disposition. sniff, sniff...

I Can Count on Us: Day 17

Not the real name of the project but what my page said it should be called.

I Can Count On You

That's where I am so far.

Thanks for looking, come back soon for the next installment. Enjoy your life and your art.

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