I joined a swap on ATCards.com in which each participant picks a theme. All of the other participants must create a hand drawn or painted card for each of the other participants using the participants’ chosen themes. I thought this might be an interesting challenge. One person picked the theme of “Beethoven.”  Here is the card I created for her.

The others picked themes I found a little difficult.

Another potential swap piece.

Additional possibilities for the “black and tan plus one other color” swap. I only need three, but since I prepared a bunch of black “canvases,” I figure I might as well do a few and then pick the ones I want to send in. The pieces are kind of funky looking, especially in the scans. They look better in person. I am still enjoying the process of thinking differently about my empty (in this case the black) spaces.

I decided to join a swap on ATCards.com in which we are to make 3 cards and restrict ourselves to using the colors black, tan plus one other. This is my first effort. I drew it while looking at a picture of my uncle Jene, who was a WWII navy fighter pilot who died when his plane crashed after taking off the ship. He was my father’s twin brother and my brother Jene is named after him. It was fun to work on black drawing paper because it forced me to think in the opposite way I am used to thinking about the use of light and dark spaces on the page.

I also did a couple more small landscape series, which may be viewed by following this link:

http://pics.livejournal.com/sutospeak/gallery/0003xyeg

So far in this past week, I have finished 21 pieces, which is more than I usually do. Some of them I like and some of them I think are rather putrid; but, it feels good to be pumping the creative well.  This week is the commencement of the traveling journal round robin on Paper Traders. So, for the next year, I should be facing some new challenges on the artistic front. There are 12 participants and we have a month with each journal before we have to ship it on to the next person. It is one thing to work on a piece of my own as I can trash it if I want to do so. It is another matter to work in something that belongs to another person. Hopefully it will be more fun than stressful.  I guess I will find out soon enough.

Asha met foxes for the very first time this morning. We were out for our Sunday morning adventure and went to the southeast end of Lake Shawnee. There is a lovely little stone structure at the point where one can look out over the lake and which is surrounded by trees and grass and water. Asha discovered a threesome of foxes, who were quite beautiful, but rather scary sounding. Asha followed them, but kept a safe distance after hearing how ferocious they could sound. I did not get any good pics of the foxes, but there is one where you can see it in the distance.  More photos from the morning’s ramble are below.