Yes, We Have No Piñatas

Just a page I created to get something off my chest.  I feel better now.

I have a “blogging without obligation” motto for my blog but I still feel guilty for not posting more often. In my defense, I have been working on several projects at the same time, but they are in various stages of incompletion. So I had nothing to show except my piss poor attempts at humor.  Here is what I have on the drawing board:

I have a painted walking stick, taken from our Butterfly bush, that I actually plan on taking for a walk. It’s almost done.  It just needs some varnish to protect the finish.

I’m also making a new 6” X 6” journal. The cover is made with recycled materials. You may be surprised at what I used.

And I have a 14” x 17” mixed media painting/collage that needs some lettering done on it.  I’m really liking how this one is turning out so I don’t want to rush it and make a mess of it. 

Of course, I have my art journal that I work in sporadically.

And I’ve also decided to practice sketching faces in the Sabrina Ward Harrison bound sketch book I purchased last time I was in Albuquerque. It has too many pages to paint in. It would get too bulky so I’m just going to sketch in it.

In the weird but true category: Lately I seem to see faces  in all sorts of odd places. No, not faces of Jesus, just faces. For example, last night I was watching an artist interview on Ovation TV and in the background was a curtain hanging in such a way that the light and shadows created an image of the face.  It passed so quickly that I had to rewind the interview so I could see if I imagined seeing it. It was 1:30 am after all and I’d had a Margarita earlier in the evening….so you never know.  So I paused the interview at just the right spot, ran and got my sketch book and sketched it.  I’ve decided that if they are going to appear to me, I’m going to sketch them.  They’re there for a reason, don’t you think?

 

How happy can a chubby girl be?

Just a couple of pages to show you today:

The first was from a vintage ad that had this woman along with the words:

“How happy can a chubby girl be?” It was an ad for clothing. I don’t think the manufacturer would dare to run an ad like that today.

 

This page is a simple one made with tape from TapeSwell and Michael’s.  In order to add the black charcoal I had to paint the tape with clear gesso. Once the gesso dried I added the smudged charcoal and set it with Krylon Fixative so it wouldn’t rub off.

The flowers were some extra die cuts I had leftover from another project. Now when I look at them, they seem to need some definition.

Thanks for reading.

Love Comes in Tiny Packages

I’m back home and I’m back to creating in my art journal and of course one of the first subjects had to be Lil G. (in the middle of the night he’s known as Notorious G.) I cried the day I left Albuquerque to come home.  I miss him and his mama like crazy. Yes I have a new obsession and you’ll probably get sick of my talking about him and all I can say about that is you were warned. :) 

What have you been up to?  Seriously, what have you been doing?  Leave me a comment.

That’s it for today, I’ll have more soon.  Don’t want to overwhelm you with my wonderfulness…. OK don’t laugh cuz I can hear you. :)

Welcome Little G. into the world

Saturday morning at 3:20 am, my daughter gave birth to a beautiful, healthy baby boy named Gregory Charles.  He was 6 lbs 11 oz.

He is our first grandchild and I am already so in love with him that I am busting at the seams. I can see that he will become a wonderful source of journaling material.

 

I want to thank my girl and her husband for letting us, my guy and I, be a part of the birthing process. We were with them through all of it and while it was so difficult to witness her pain, I am so grateful that we were allowed to help them. It brought us even closer together than we already were.

It was through this experience I learned that my daughter is the strongest woman I know. She had to go through so much to give birth to this beautiful little boy and she barely cried even though she was in a tremendous amount of pain. I AM SO PROUD OF HER. She is going to be a wonderful mother.

Now you know what I’ve been up to. What about you?  What have you been doing?

Yes, I’m still a Twirp.

A few weeks ago I was reorganizing our collection of family photos and memorabilia and I came across a scrapbook I kept when I was in high school.  Among the photos of my high school buds I found my old learners permit and a “Twirp License.” Have you ever heard of a Twirp License? 

Every year we had a week long school event called Sadie Hawkins week and at the end of the week we had the Sadie Hawkins dance. In order to go to this dance, the guys had to be invited by a girl and the girl had to buy a Twirp license if they wanted to do the inviting.  (Now I’m wishing I hadn’t packed away the photograph of me with my date. Talk about looking like a Twirp.)

The dance was a lot of fun and I was able to get close to the boy I may have never had the chance to know well had I not acted like “a Twirp”.  (Unfortunately he met his demise a year or so later but that’s another story altogether.) The lesson it taught me was that sometimes you have to risk getting embarrassed to get something you want.

I took that same type of risk some years later when I first laid eyes on my husband. He walked in to the bar where I was having drinks with my girlfriends, I took one look in his eyes and knew I wanted him in my life. I immediately wondered how I was going to meet him and still not look too forward or trashy. As he stood talking with some friends, I walked past him and as I did, I reached over and lightly touched his hand with my fingertips and said Hi….That’s all, just Hi and kept walking.  Lucky for him he followed me (LOL), and the rest is a 25 year history.

Have you ever wondered what would have happened had you taken the risk you were too afraid to take? Or did you take the risk and reap the benefits? Tell me about it.

Starting Over

I bet you though I’d disappeared never to return.  Nah, just been so busy I haven’t had the opportunity to create art.  Although I have been working on a big project, not a painting, that I can’t discuss or show you just yet.  But I will when it’s complete.

If you’re a frequent reader of my blog you know that there has been some turmoil around Casa de LittleBit. Well, decisions have been made and all for the better I might add.  Except that while I know intellectually that the changes will be good for us, my emotions are still fighting it.  Giving up on this life is H-A-R-D. 

We will be putting our house on the market soon and are now in the process of cleaning, decluttering and purging ourselves of unnecessary household goods. How do you collect that much stuff in just 4 years?  Unbelievable.

To what end?  We have decided to move back to our home town in New Mexico. That is where my husband and I are both from (although we never lived there as a married couple.) My daughter lives there with her husband and her soon to be born son as does my step-daughter..  While I am beyond thrilled that we will be living close to our precious children and grandchild…… I never planned on living in NM ever again.  It’s not the place I really want to be. And yet…we’re going because that’s where we should be … with our family.  We decided we need to be in our grandchild’s life much more than we hate living in NM. So that’s where we are going to be starting over.  But I don’t know when just yet.

My journal page reflects the conflict that’s been plaguing my mind:

“We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us. “

 

Have I told you that I love the movie “The Crow” with Brandon Lee? No? Well, last weekend as I watched my 10th or so viewing of it, I took this photo of the TV screen with an Iphone app called Procamera, then used the PSMobile app, to alter it. I think it’s cool. :)

 

What’s on your mind these days?

To my Dad and Father-in-Law

And especially to all the men and women who have

died in service to our country. 

Thank you !

Don’t just stand there gyrating.

I know some people don’t like to dance, they feel silly shaking their bootie.  Me? I love dancing.  I just wish I was better at it.  My Guy and I only go dancing once a year or so on New Years Eve (except this year, we didn’t go this year because of the job situation.)

We’re from the baby boomer generation and because there is no *dance* that goes along with “Purple Haze,” we didn’t learn to dance. We just kind of stand there and gyrate, as my dad used to say. 

My Guy and I tried dance lessons about 20 years ago but we both wanted to lead. LOL ( My motto is if you’re not going to lead, I will….LOL) So we didn’t learn much.   But now I’d love to take Salsa lessons and we have actually thought giving lessons another try. Someday, when we actually have a place to try what we learned, we just might.

Anyone know where we can Salsa dance in Sacramento?

 

And in the late but better than never category is the page inspired by the Mother’s Day card I got from my guy. I still haven’t told him I cut it up the same day he gave it to me. Sshhh!

Beauty comes in small packages

 

 

Yay!! I just got these beautiful tapes in the mail from Tapeswell.com. A week or two ago, someone on Twitter mentioned that Brides Buddy blog was having a tape giveaway. So I hurried myself over there to enter and I was the lucky winner.  Aren’t they gorgeous?

I want to thank both Tracy Kuethe from the Brides Buddy blog and Eileen from Tapeswell.com for their generosity.  They are almost too pretty to use but use them I will; in my journals and art mail.

OK, gotta go put them to good use…..

The Girl, the Bird and the Pipe

 

Here are some new journal pages that I have been working on. Nothing fancy, just something to keep me creating.  I’m having fun with the colorful geometric designs but I decided to try something else too. Don’t want to get in a rut. :)

The Girl:

I’ve been questioning my decisions a lot lately.  I guess it has to do with our financial situation, which is still not good.  I will probably be second guessing myself until things normalize …. whatever normal might be in the future. I know normal will be very different but I’m hopeful that it will be better even if it’s scaled down. 

The Bird:

I could never be a bird; I hate worms.  I’d rather have coffee.

The Pipe:

I almost feel like I should add text to the pipe. Maybe later. I’m not feeling very wordy right now. Although I’m sure my husband would disagree considering I had a few with him a while ago.  :)