In the words of Kurt Cobain

 

“Wanting to be someone else is a waste of the person you are.”  Leslie Herger from the Art Journaling ning came up with this great quote as a journaling prompt.

It’s a simplistic face but I like it for the quickie it is.

 

 

So what’s up with you?

Cutting up my credit card

Thanks to Beverly at the http://artjournaling.ning.com/ I am back to art jounaling on a regular basis.  I told myself after Kelly Kilmer’s class that I should be working on my own prompts. That choosing my own was the best way to work on finding “My Style.”  But after the slump I have been in, I decided to get my mojo back any way I could and if it takes someone else’s prompts to do it, so be it.  Some of the prompts strike a cord right away, some take a bit longer.

March 2nd Prompt: Credit cards

This prompt came at a very opportune time.  Chase Bank, who took over after WAMU went belly up, had just sent me a replacement card for the WAMU card. So I had one to cut up for this prompt.

March 3rd & 4th:  Blue and Doodles, respectively. Not much to say about this one, except the background is watercolors instead of my usual acrylic paints. The flowers are colored with watercolor pencils and/or Intense pencils.

March 5th & 6th: Past and Present.

Yes that little girl is me as a child. Since my mom passed, I’ve been going through old photo albums and I found this kid picture of me I wanted to use. Today was the perfect time to try a new method of image transfer.

I used an ink jet transfer method to get the image onto the journal page. after testing, I think I prefer the toner based method more. The water based Ink jet image is easier to mess up. 

The Here and Now side was done with a stenciled image of me that I created a few months ago after taking Mary Ann Moss’ Stencilery class. I’ll probably use it a few more times because I like how it looks. :)

 

I’d love to hear what you do to get out of a creative funk.

From Hugs to Mirrors

Who do you give your biggest hugs?  Mine go to my family, of course.

Who floats my boat?  My Guy ‘cuz he always has my back.

All of a sudden I got the urge to sing the Mary Wells song:

No muscle bound man,
Could take my hand,
From my guy.
(My guy)
No handsome face,
Could ever take the place,
Of my guy,
(My guy)
He may not be a movie star,
But when it comes to being happy,
We are,
There's not a man today,
Who can take me away,
From my guy.

 

Another thing I do with lottery winnings? Hire a personal assistant. :) Who wouldn’t want one?  Raise your hand if you couldn’t use someone do do all those mundane chores you’d rather not do. Yeah I don’t don’t see any hands.

When you get to be my age you start looking in the mirror, wondering who that is staring back at you.  Certainly that’s not the 30 year old living inside me….(she used to be 25 for a long time but she’s grown a little.) You wear make up, do your hair, etc… in hopes that “she” will look a bit younger but I hear that after a while you’ll realize that this one is here to stay and you get comfortable with her. I wonder when that will be? :)

How old is your inner self?

A Frizzy Day at the Beach?

I was born and raised in Albuquerque and the only beach in NM is Tingly Beach which is basically a glorified lake.  Truth be told, it’s really more like a dirty ditch bank.

So the first time saw the ocean (in 1980) was during a weekend trip to New Orleans. I was amazed and it was rejuvenating. It puts all my worries into perspective. I was thoroughly in love with it. So much so that after a year I started having dreams of the ocean calling me.  After a week of these dreams, I knew it was time to schedule another trip. The dreams stopped then but reoccurred every year and would continue until I scheduled another trip to see it.  In the seven years that I lived in NM after that first trip, I managed to visit Hawaii, Grand Cayman, the Bahamas, Mexico, Los Angles, and San Diego. Several more than once and all just to see the ocean.  

Since moving to California in 1988, we’ve visited the beach at least once a year….usually on our anniversary. It’s a must do for both My Guy and I.  I wish we could go more often but we keep further moving east. Why are we doing that, why??? 

My dream is to own a cottage on the beach with a large studio over looking the ocean.  Every week we buy a lottery ticket in hopes that we may one day own that cottage as well as travel to as many beaches as we can possibly see.

The picture above could have been me after my last perm at the beauty shop.  After the rollers came out I wanted to scream.  I told the woman all I wanted was soft curls and this is what I got.  Not only was it frizzy, it was fried. arrrgh!! 

Well, I wasn’t about to let that woman touch my hair again but I had to cut off as much as possible without shaving my head.  Luckily, I found a hair stylist who was able to cut all the frizz off and keep some of the curl. While it was pretty short when she was done, it looked much better. Next perm, I did it myself and it came out nice, if I say so myself. 

From Childhood to High School

More pages from the Prompt-a-Day class:

When I was a small child I used to go to Roosevelt park in Albuquerque, with family or friends.  The park was probably 4 city blocks in size with rolling hills and and many, many evergreen trees as well as other beautiful vegetation. Because of how the park was set up, you could stand in any part of the park and only be able to see a small portion it from that vantage point.  It was large enough to hold hundreds of people and yet you could find areas for some privacy.

What was so fun, for a child, was that there were many places to play hide and seek, or you could play Frisbee (or Frisbee golf) without bothering other people. But one of my favorite things to do was roll my body down the grassy hill over and over again. Yes, I was a dizzy child.  In the one or two days a year were actually had snow, we would take large cardboard boxes to use as a sled and barrel down the hills.  It was so fun. 

When I finally made it to high school this park was a great hangout location. Plus the city allowed kids to cruise the park.  For those who don’t know what cruising is, it’s going around the park over and over again in your car while flirting with the boys in their cars. See, I told you I was a dizzy child. 

Did you ever cruise?

Here’s something I hadn’t thought about in ages.  This page brought about the recall.

When I was in high school I was shy, very much like I am now. On the last day of my Junior year I had a guy tell me he had a gift for me from a friend of his. I didn’t have a clue who the guy in from of me was nor did I know who the gift giver was.  However, not being one to turn down gifts if nothing was required in return, I accepted. (I going to date myself now. ) It turned out to be a 45 Single of the Blood Sweat and Tears song “You've Made Me So Very Happy.”  My first thought was “I do?  I don’t even know you.” :)

Turns out this boy, Louis, was a senior who had a crush on me for sometime but waited until the last day of school to let me know.  He had also signed up to go into the Marines, was leaving very soon and wanted someone to write to him while he was gone. We wrote to each other regularly while he was in boot camp and even dated once when he came home on leave.  He was cute but he was going to be gone for quite sometime so the romance didn’t last long.  But it did create a nice high school memory.

Do you have any good “men” stories you’d like to share? I’d like to hear them.

Why so many Art challenges in January?

And why do I want to try them all?  I feel compelled to try every one and then get so overwhelmed with choices I don't get much done at all.  My real art goal for January was to finish the portrait I started months ago. And yet it still sits on the easel looking back at me expectantly while I surf all the wonderful blog sites that are offering these wonderful journaling prompts or art classes.  Too many temptations  for a girl with art ADD. 

Here is my newest journal page prompted by the Art Journal January, Day 4, Spirals and Flowers by Milliande at:

http://www.milliande.com/Art-Journal-January-Day-4.html

Used water soluble oil pastels in the background, with a layer of white paint mixed with acrylic glaze over the top .  Added rubber stamp images and black ink pen drawings.  One comment, don't use your nice Pitt pens to draw with.  It ruined my favorite pen.  What ended up working really well was a Calligraphy  ink pen nib that you dip into an inkwell.  This type of pen works because it doesn’t get clogged with the oil pastels. 

It’s still feels unfinished so I’ll probably come back to it.

Also having Art Journal prompts this January are

Misty Mawn  at http://www.mistymawn.typepad.com/

and Kelly Kilmer: http://kellykilmer.blogspot.com/ 

Suzi Blu - http://www.youtube.com/user/suziblutube

Not specifically dealling with art journals but in being creative in many ways is:

Creative Every Day challenge at:

http://www.creativeeveryday.com/creativeeveryday/creative-every-day-challenge.html

I signed up for this challenge, not specifically for prompts but to remind myself to do something creative everyday.  It doesn’t necessarily have to be art but something creative daily.   So toward that effort I have worked on another journal page not shown here and have also worked on creating 10 double sided background pages for a new art journal book(let) I want to make for myself.  (Why do I always feel the desire to start a new journal even when the last one still has empty pages in it? I suppose that question is best left for another post.)

More than once I’d read that having premade backgrounds ready for adding images and journaling makes it easier to create art pages on the fly.  So before Christmas I painted a few pages very simply using some left over paint and found that it worked for me while I was away on vacation.  These were pages that I would have otherwise put off until another time and then never would have gotten around to because the inspiration passed.    Having the pages ready (and remembering to take along a glue stick) allowed me to let my inspiration bloom.  I think I will do this much more often.

I’m also contemplating joining One World One Heart event to make some new blogging friends and I’m wondering what would make a nice giveaway. Would anyone want what I have to give? Hummmm  I’ll think on that.

Oh and about that portrait I talked about earlier, even though it’s saying ‘finish me’, there is something comforting about it sitting there staring at me unblinkingly (is that a word?).  Someday I‘ll tell you why.

So what challenges are you taking part in this year?

Just before I heard the shattering crunch of the van folding around the truck bed, something hit me, hard, but not from the direction I was expecting.

Rules:
* Pick up the nearest book. Right now.
* Go to page 56.
* Find the 5th sentence.
* Write that sentence in your Title.
* Copy these instructions as a comment on your Title.
* Don't get your favorite book or the best one, but the closest to you right now.

Sentence from Twilight by Stephanie Meyer

My Little Girls and more

This has been a very busy week.  Last Friday I finished up my hosting duties for the NorCal Residents ATC Swap at ATCsForAll.com.  There were some very nice cards created in this swap.  As host I got to look at all of them and drool over them. They were so hard to let go, but let go I did, and now they live with new families where they are loved. 

As if I didn't have enough to do, I joined yet another art group.  I jumped on the bandwagon and signed up for Suzi Blu's Les Petite Dolls class.  These are my first attempts at doll faces.

 

I am also working on a doll on wood, but it's not ready to show yet. Part of the class is outlining the doll drawing with a wood burning tool and that is what I find the hardest to do.  I'm getting some bumpy looking lines and let me tell you, it ain't pretty.

 

I also got more involved with Milliande Creativity Club.  These are the two pieces I did for that group:

It's called "Washing away the dust or Out to Art"

 

and The Purple Tree

 

The poem says:

The Purple tree

where I sit every eve

pondering the majesty of her leaves

and imagining where

I could be if only

I gave in to the dreams

that call to me. .......by me

 

That's all for now, thanks for reading.

From the Artella Daily Muse

The Artella Daily Muse had this list of writing prompts. What would you like to know? I'll attempt to answer them at a later date. (I'm also a procastinator, hehe) (it's now later, Sunday morning 9/30/07)

They say "Fill in the blanks with your answers."

1. If time and money weren’t factors, I’d love to take a course in ___ceramics, oil painting, watercolours, interior designing, architecture, get an arts degree, ethnology, playing steel drums, mosiacs, computer programming_.

2. I’ve always wanted to ask (person you know)__my now gone grandmother _ about __her life__.

3. I’ve always wanted to know how ___weightless _ works (feels).

4. My life would improve if I could only ___win the lottery, be less of a procrastinator, sleep more ___.

5. When I have a sleepless night, it’s usually because I’m worried about _finances or I've had too much coffee__.

6. The worst injustice I can think of is __child and domestic abuse, world hunger__.

7. When I was a kid, I was really passionate about ___astronomy ___.

8. I have always been embarrassed to admit that __soap operas __really interest me.

9. In my life, I have overcome ______?_________.

10. If I could volunteer for just one cause, it would be __domestic abuse hotline ___.

11. I wish I were better at __my art, decision making, cooking, making friends___.

12. I have always wondered why ___child and domestic abuse exists_____.