Little Scraps of Magic

Happy Mother's Day!

I miss the Mother's Days when my own kids were just that...kids who poured every bit of their love into handmade gifts. I loved those quirky, colorful, funky, and decidely unprofessional gifts. Cost factor: minimal. Love factor, pride, and sense of self accomplishment: over the top!

Yesterday, Dom and I found ourselves in a world of "cheap art supplies," happily creating egg carton flowers. A bit of snipping with the scissors, washable paint (Thank you, Lord!), pom poms, and glittery pipe cleaners. A recycled creamer container, stripped of its plastic label, and covered with washi tape became a vase.

End result? One proud happy young man!

Happy Mama's Day to all of you...I really do believe that so many of us "mother" someone each day.

 

Possiblities

Pom poms for art.

Beads for stringing.

Seems obvious, doesn't it?

Not to a four year old!

Toss the string.

Grab the pom poms and stuff them into the holes in the beads.

Create a really really cool graphic design.

Smile at the results! You've just made art.

Digging the Process

Friday night and we rocked the art supplies!

And, if you'd been a fly on the wall, you'd have seen a perfect example of play and sheer enjoyment of the process.

Mixed media artists talk a lot about that, the "just enjoy the process" bit. Truth be told, if we're honest, there's almost always a control factor there. We have an image in our mind of what it "should" look like, or we simply don't think the end result is "good enough." It's terribly hard to just play and watch what happens.

I did a lot of tongue biting last night.

Dom would create the neates design of lines and texture with the combs and sponges, and then cheerfully grab more paint, glob it over everything, and start anew.

And, I wanted to shriek, "Stop! Do you know how cool that is? Don't ruin it." But, it simply didn't matter; he just wanted to play. He wasn't one bit interested in the final result; he simply kept going to see what would happen next. What a lesson to be leane for Baba (Grandma) here!

I think we used every comb, paintbrush, dabber, and "tool" on the table.

And, when we got tired of the art, the dancing began!

Here's Alex doing the "monkey" with his mama!

Enter the Cranky Birds

In early October, I quite admired these fine fellows but pretty much figured that they weren't going to happen, at least not in my journals. You see, I knew that if I tried to purposely create a blob which then would magically morph into a cranky bird, I'd tie myself up into knots of pure frustration. Why? Because I'd be thinking way to much about how to control that blog and to make sure it could become a bird, cranky or not.

So, I put those cranky birds out of mind, or so thought. Turns out, they thought otherwise.

Hurricane Sandy, for all the destruction up and down the East Coast that she caused, gave me the gift of time. I happily puttered away in the studio, playing with watercolors and building backgrounds in a journal. Just play, looking to see what might happen, and heat gun blasting away to dry the page, I spotted him, my cranky bird.

Back to Carla's blog I went, and followed the instructions of Carla's guest blogger, Dar Hosta, and began to work on my bird. One wing is definitely wonky, but I love him, none the less.

In her post, Dar explained that cranky birds always have something to say, and mine was definitely telling me that if I wanted this art career to happen, I needed to get cracking and put in the time. I haven't been, and it's my fault, plain and simple.

I could explain to you all that I have had to do, and it's a lot...just a lot of administrative work, meetings, conferences, lesson plans and so on.

Yeah, I need to unwind, but I don't need to fall into hours of random wandering through blogs...and I do mean very random, just following link after link after link...and end up doing nothing of my own. Too many ideas bouncing in my head and never making their appearance via camera or journal page. Pretty stupid, 'cause I know better.

So, this post is a promise to myself to get moving, to make it happen, I know it's possible because this happened. Time to stop dreaming and make it start happening!

Getting Our Hands Dirty

August Break: Day 16

Fingerpainting, making a mess, and laughing ourselves silly!

In the Studio

Why not come play with us?

 

Use Your Stuff

Stuff lurks in my art room, even after a serious destashing of said art room.

It perches on my windowsill, resides in drawers, sits on my table.

This stuff gives me the evil eye, sighing in desolation, claiming to be abandoned, ignored, and stating that yes, it too, wants a purpose in life. It wants to travel, to make someone smile.

"Please use me," it cries. "I was made for better things!"

So,needing to tuck some money and address labels into a larger package, I gave into stuff's demands.

From a non descript coin envelope to one worthy of the runway, all thanks to "stuff."

My stuff had one last request: "Please use us. Create magic and send us on our way. There's a big world out there, and we want to see it!

July Journal Pages

Just thought I'd share:

Thinking about going to see the lotus blossoms, capturing words from blogs and poems, a bit of a mish mash from here and there!

 

Arting up and altering a Somerset "art to share" page, using up bits of leftover paints from the spread above.

 

Completed over the course of several days after going to see the lotus blossoms and playing with my macro lens at the gardens. So very hard to capture the magic there...

Focused on the Destination

I'll 'fess up...I can be a bit of a magpie, distracted by anything that's shiny and glittery, at least in the mixed media world. So many courses, so many things to try, and I want it all.

And, in the past, I tried it all....metal, jewelry, collage, sewing, journals, photography, etc. Some I thrived on, and some...well, those results hit the trash can for the most part!

And, so many workshops, both in person and on line. And, again, I want to take them all. Never mind that I have to earn a living, I still want to sign on the dotted line. If I signed up for every workshop that caught my eye, I'd never complete them, even if I quit work.

And, so with some coaching from the marvelous Lesley Riley and her Artist Success program, I'm beginning to figure out what it is I really want to do (photography and journaling), figuring out how to combine them, and learning how to ignore all that glitters.

I'm figuring out how to make things fit into what I want to accomplish, and to quote Patti Digh, I'm learning to let go of the monkey bars, get off the ship, and follow my desire lines.

It doesn't mean that I don't get tempted now and then and do something for the heck of it. I do.

But, thanks to Lesley, I'm not only having fun, but I've:

 - redesigned my blog and am continuing to do so

 - destashed my  art room, big time

 - taken a few chances and plan to take even more

 - learning to do more with photoshop

 - sent away to create postcards using my photos (Look for a give away soon!)

 - beginning to get off of the automatic settings on my camera

 - and so much more!

Now, the technical part of all of this makes me want to cry at times. Just cry. The stubborn Russian in me declares that it is not going to get the best of me, and I am figuring it out. Sometimes, it takes longer than I'd like, but I get there. Not always on the path someone else may have designed as the express route...I tend to take the scenic path...but I get there.

What's even cooler, I'm learning to apply some of the same lessons to what occupies me in the workplace.

In less than a half a year, I turn 60, and honestly? Well, to use a cliche, I figure "the best is yet to come!"

I'm linking up with Kim Klassen's "Texture Tuesday," and for a bit of technical jargon, I used:

 - Kim's "I Am" texture, applying color burn at 69%

 - Kim's "Dream" texture applying color burn at 57%

 

 

Just a week ago, I spent the last few days of my "away time" with my sister and best friend, Denise. As with most of the country, it was "stupid hot." No other words for it.

We spent a great deal of time just rocking on her back deck, beginning our days with cereal and coffee or tea, and ending them in the cooler night air and sharing a glass of wine, curled up in our chairs and chatting about everything and nothing. I could just see these flowers from where I sat, and the bright colors made me smile.

Today brought temps in the high eighties, and I've felt like moving for the first time in days. I'm determined to scale down my stash in the art studio; I could not use all my stuff if I made art 24 hours a day for the next year! And, so, much of it will find a new home elsewhere, and I'm keeping what I truly love and what I know I will use. Whatever stays needs to fit both those categories, but I imagine I'll do another purge in a few months. I still have an abundance of goodies, but I really do need to get a grip on my "stuff," art room and otherwise. I'm promising myself that I'll live "lighter."

More time tomorrow for the destashing, and I suspect the next day as well. I often watch our Alex, busily moving the same objects to a new spot and then back again. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. When I realized that we basically occupied the same page here, I had to giggle. Right now I'm at the stage where it looks far worse than when I began, but I'm focused on a path right now. There's art to be created, photographs to be shot and edited, journals to be made and written in. And, I can't really do any of it well, when I'm struggling to find what I need. I have a list of goals, and this is my first. It's the least pleasant of all of them, and the one I'd rather skip right over. When I get overwhelmed, I retreat and read a bit, or allow myself some fun time reading a few blogs or editing a few pictures, then, back I go. Several trash bags have been dumped, others filled for a Goodwill run. And, I'm thinking I may just journal in a bit!