I finished up the ATCs showing the seven characters from The Endless. Whew, it feels good to get that done. I am having trouble scanning them so that they show the details well. I always have that problem with pencil work, so I think I need to research scanning techniques. Surely there are some tricks of the trade.

Yesterday, as I was recuperating from a recent trip, I happened upon a movie on the tv called “Once.” I missed about the first 15 minutes of it but I was quickly intrigued. It is a delightful, surprising small budget movie and it totally captivated me. It is about an Irish street singer who meets a young Czech woman selling flowers on the streets of Dublin. The young woman is also a gifted musician. They go on to get to know each other through their music. I think it is one of the best movies I have seen in some time. The way they interact seems so natural and the combination of their talents in their musical efforts is simply marvelous. The movie features Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová and most of the music was written by Glen Hansard. Apparently, the musician/actors got together in real life after making the movie and are now touring the states doing concerts. Unfortunately, they are not coming to a town near me. If you are looking for a good movie to watch, this one definitely gets a thumbs up from me.

I decided to join a swap at iATC on trees. I sat down today and did not even look at a picture of a tree. I thought I would discover what would happen if I just tried to convey my sense of trees rather than trying to realistically reproduce images of a tree. I really tired myself out on these and I think they ended up looking quite primitive. Being primitive can certainly be fun.

Here are two more pieces in my mixed media series.

On a Pedestal

Sisterhood

This is the third piece for the private swap. I am calling it “Tending the Garden.”

Here is the second piece of the pages I am doing for a swap in a private group.  It seems that a theme is starting to emerge that relates to my views about women and the roles we play.  This piece, which I have titled “At What Cost” seemed to evolve as I iwas thinking about what is required of us to fit in our worlds.  It is probably easy to tell from looking at this piece that I don’t feel that I do, or perhaps that I am unwilling to do what it takes.

This is a page for a project in a private group in which the participants have agreed to use common images. I felt inclined to tweak the images just a bit to create a slightly different perspective.  I have decided that this page will be called “Feminine Mystique.”  I think I will be having fun with this project.

I did a quick sketch of a bird over lunch today. It was done in graphite and pencil on drawing paper.

I have an assortment of craft paper lying around and I decided to alter some of it by combining similarly colored sheets and doodling all over them. Not being a ” cute pink” sort of gal, I attempted to make it my own. I had fun with it, even if it is still quite girly-looking.
 

 Here is the rest of the doodled ATC series I did last weekend.

Here are four doodled ATCs that I am calling my moon series. Playing with pen and paper with no serious intent is fun.


 

Seeing as I spend a lot of time on my front porch sitting with Asha and brushing her fur in a futile effort to avoid having to vacuum so much of it inside the house, I try to make the porch a comfy place to be and sit. There are the planters full of flowers and herbs, the bird fountain from my dad’s house that I have filled with shells, stones, marbles and water, and there is an ugly green plastic lawn chair that can withstand any abuse. Because the front door is four feet wide, it is hard to find a door mat that is big enough. I came across something a little different here and ordered a throw rug that is made entirely from recycled plastic bottles and chairs. This was my first introduction to woven plastic and I must say that I am pretty impressed. I think it adds a nice homey feel to the porch area and since it is all plastic, all I have to do is spray it with a hose to clean it. I am in plastic love.

Minor curve balls seem to be flying at me this week. My car is in the shop until Monday, so my feet will have to carry me anywhere I want to go. Asha will be stuck with me in the “hood” and there will be no wild, off-leash romps for us this weekend. The car has refused to start three times this week and I have burdened one of my friends to come and jump start it each time. Plus, it is chugging when it does run and the engine warning light has been on for a week or two. The shop guy says I need a new battery plus something called an “intake boot.” It needs the regular tune up, oil change sort of work too. On Monday I will be around $450 poorer. It didn’t help that I had to be at the hospital today for an MRI of my noggin. Luckily, I live only a few blocks from the hospital so my feet did their job and brought me home afterwards. I’ve been having some odd ball symptoms lately, so my doctor suggested a series of tests. It is probably nothing; but, to deflect my tendency to start contemplating the negative possibilities, I decided to take a moment and appreciate some of the good things going on around me.

One of the good things is that I have a nice little haven, which although it seems to be a mecca for ants and is way too full of “stuff,” is pretty comfortable. It is my refuge and the place where I putter and “art” and nest with my furry companion Asha Zoe. I am very glad that no tornados blew it away this week, as we’ve been having plenty of storms here recently and others towns nearby have been hit. Knock on wood.

I always enjoy Spring because that is when I buy herbs and flowers and fill the planters on my porch. I keep dog brushes sitting there so that when Asha and I return from our walks, she can sit and watch the world go by and I can give her a good brushing. It is a pleasant place to hang out with the Zoe girl.

This year, instead of planting decorative sweet potato vines in my tiered beds in front of the porch, I experimented and sent off for some of those roll out flower carpets from Walter Drake. I did not know if they would actually grow but low and behold I have flowers!  It seems to be mostly one kind of flower, but they do look nice I think.

 So, there are many things to be cheerful about and I am bound and determined not to be deflated by the minor frustrations that sometimes occur.  I hope my online friends are all well and safe in their respective bergs. 

EDIT: Yay, my noggin is okay…well…*smirk*…as okay as it is going to get anyway.  The MRI technician said to expect results next week but that if something was amiss, I would hear right away. Needless to say, when my caller ID showed the clinic number I thought “oh crap!”  Luckily, it turned out to be my *great* primary care physician who just wanted to give me the good news right away so I did not fret over the weekend.  I really like him. He has always been really good to me, showing concern and going the extra mile to let me know that he is there, willing to help. I haven’t met many doctors who are willing to take the time and make the effort that he does. Another good thing to appreciate and I do.

Here is another pencil sketch of Asha. The eyes are not quite right. They are a little stark looking,

I decided to do some sketches of Asha using some of the pictures I took last weekend. I haven’t picked up a drawing pencil in a while, so if nothing else, it felt good to do some sketching. I want to get my hand and eye warmed up for two weeks of vacation that will arrive in a couple of weeks. Aside from puttering around the house and yard, I really want to spend some time in my studio. I wish pencil work scanned better.

It has been a while since I took pictures during one of my jaunts with Asha, so last Sunday morning I grabbed my camera when Asha and I headed out. We went to roam the paths next to the governor’s mansion, which is a short drive from our house. At 6:30 in the morning, there was no one else around, so I didn’t worry about letting Asha off leash.  It really is a lovely area, with paths, ponds, open fields, rolling hills and trees. When we arrived, there was a lot of mist coming off of the ponds, but it doesn’t show up well in the photos. Asha does not like having her picture taken, so she is pretty serious looking in all of the photos, but I think she had a good time even though I was being very annoying. If you want to see some of the photos I took, click here.

I grabbed an ATC background card which I had stamped with a weave stamp long ago and I drew with gel pens this woman, based on some reference photo I downloaded from some long forgotten site. She had a look that said to me “the party is over” and so I have entitled it “Night Life.”  I never was much of a party girl myself. I was always ready to go to bed when everyone else was just getting started.

For the past week I’ve been ill and haven’t gotten any artwork done, but yesterday before work I finally spent a half hour in the studio and did this clayboard ATC. It is based on a portrait of a goth looking girl taken by the Rhino Studio. My rendition is not very faithful to the photo but I console myself with the thought that I was only doing it as an exercise. I have a lot of difficulty in controlling my marks and so compensate by making everything sort of loosely scratched. The more I work with clayboard the more I admire those artists who have really mastered this medium and do such incredible work. This sort of work really feeds into my love of working with light and dark.

I had used an image of a roman statue for a mixed media piece and so I had a few copies of it sitting on my work table. I also had an old book sitting there that I had torn apart for another project. My ink pens were also strewn around the table. The result of these random elements being there was that I sat down and very roughly sketched the statue on a page of text from the disassembled book. Then I cut it down to ATC size.  Sometimes, that is the way it happens. I feel in the mood to do something creative, but I don’t want to wait to clean up from my last project. So, I just look around at what is already there and find some way to use it.  Nothing special, but it is good to loosen up my hand and use it every day.

It is too bad there aren’t any life drawing classes around where I live that are open to artists in general. It would really be nice to be able to draw the human form from life again like I did in my college days. 

I liked the photo of my grandmother lounging in the sun with my grandfather’s hat perched on her head so I decided to sketch it this morning using some of my ink pens. I regret my initial use of an orange pen to lay in my overall shapes. The scan is less than optimal, but I find that is often the case when I try to scan work that has a lot of line work in it.  I am not too keen on the results here, but I do like getting in a little drawing before having to get ready and head off to my totally non-creative job. Asha’s been at daycare for a few days to enjoy the burgeoning spring weather with her canine friends while I toil away filing reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission. I miss her, so I think I will go and get her after work tonight. I am really ready for some time off and days of early morning dog romps, but I don’t know how soon I will be able to work out some time off. Too many things going on. I just might be able to finagle next week off, but the dilmemma is whether I should take a week off now when the forecast is for a week of rain, or wait until the end of May and take two weeks off. Decisions, decisions.

Here is another clayboard/scratchboard study. The scan on this one is not so hot. This one is 5 x 7 inches in size. I am still just trying to figure out how to work with this medium. The source photo is a photo of my grandparents sitting in their back garden enjoying the sun.

Now that I have fulfilled most of my swap commitments and finished my taxes (yay!), I finally feel like I can start working on some of the art projects that have been rattling around in my brain. I’ve been wanting to explore working on clayboard more and so I grabbed an ATC sized piece of clayboard and looked around for something to use as a reference source. Sitting on my desk was a Polish postage stamp of Stanislaw Szober someone had sent me. It had good areas of light and dark so off I went. Mostly, this piece was just about exploring how different utensils cut into the clayboard and how much control I have (or in this case, don’t have). I used a metal piercing tool and an exacto knife to cut into the clayboard to expose the white clay. These two tools were surprisingly different in how they felt to hold and use and also in the sorts of results they produced. My lines are not controlled, not like I see in some of the marvelous clayboard work around. I am simply amazed with what some artists can do with this medium. It has so much potential, but I will need to work hard to ever reach that potential. But, since I stocked up on clayboard supplies over the course of the last year or two, I should be able to work on my clayboard technqiue for some time to come.

More faux postage. This was done with paint and ink.

Here is a picture I snapped of Asha today as she snoozed in the sun streaming in through our front door. Poor baby has a badly broken tooth and is scheduled for surgery next Thursday to have it removed. In the meantime, she is on antibiotics, pain pills and antihistimines for her allergies. I need to pick up some Ambesol to put on that tooth as well. Asha, chillin in the drugged zone.

Here is another one of the ATCs for the pick a theme swap. The designated theme was Icarus.

I had some source photos to use for one of my PAT theme cards, but ended up using it to do this card instead. It is totally off theme, so I doubt I can use it for the PAT swap. But, I do like the blue on black paper. Again, it is not a good scan. It looks softer in real life. 

EDIT: I’ve decided to go ahead and use this card for the PAT swap for the gothic raven king. I am hoping this fellows looks regal enough to fit the theme. Eraserqueen, I hope you like it!
 

Let’s Play!

… do you insist on taking my picture when I so clearly dislike it?

Asha, Thanksgiving 2007

I have several art commitments, not to mention my cards and gifts for family and friends, that I really *should* be working on. Yesterday, I went into the studio with every intention of working on one of my art commitments. As typically happens, something caught my attention as I was trying to tidy up and here I am, twenty-four hours later, with only this to show for my weekend. It is a sheet of 24 2×2 inch artistamps. I sewed perforations into a background made from a wallpaper sample, punched circles out of some of the lovely, hand-marbled book liner paper I acquired online, and printed off scans of my hands that I took over a year ago. I printed the hand scans onto brown paper bag paper and then I spent many hours cutting out the hands, inking around the edges and trying out different arrangements in the squares before adhering them to the paper. Then I inked some more. Voila, another weekend gone and I am no closer to fulfilling my obligations or reaching my goals. Oh well, maybe someone will say that I am “handy” to have around. My scanner did not get the entire sheet, but you get the idea. I am calling this my “grubby paws” artistamp set.

I took my trash out back to the alley to put it in my trash can and discovered that the color and ambience of that spot was really quite lovely. There is a sense of altered reality that occurs when one is underneath certain trees as their leaves change color in the fall. When standing underneath this tree’s branches, the air is diffused with a golden glow which is delightful. I went back out with my camera and took some shots from underneath the tree. Of course, one cannot  replicate the “aura” of this spot, but I like the pictures anyway. They are not artistic by any means, but that’s okay by me.