Summer Movie Time

I have to admit that I am a huge “Sex and the City” fan.  I never watched it when it was on HBO as I didn’t have HBO but my daughter would watch it at friends’ homes.  We would rent the season’s DVDs and watch an entire season at a time.  I still watch the reruns on TBS at night.

Of course, I was thrilled when I found out that the original cast had signed on to create a feature film.  I wasn’t sure, if there were major upheavals in the cast, I could watch it.  Instead, I have been keeping a countdown on when the release date is and making plans to go see the movie.

The other day I was at Sam’s Club.  I routinely spend about $20 in May or June at Sam’s buying summer paperbacks to read.  I usually bookcross these when I am done reading them or pass them on to my kids.  I was looking over the selections that were in stock - nothing great for the summer reads yet - and, lo and behold, I saw Candace Bushnell’s Sex and the City.  I am normally a big read the book first fan.  I had never read the book so in the cart, with the four cases of water, it went.

It was really difficult reading the book.  I could picture the episodes of the television series that the book is talking about as I read.  The problem is that the characters are different.  I managed to get through it but it took a lot more concentration than I wanted to put into reading it.

I am still anxiously awaiting the end of the month and the full-length feature film.  I have seen trailers and teasers and will be in line the first night.

Celebrate Your Creative Self - Seascape

In the workshop I am doing this year that is working the way through Mary Todd Beam’s Celebrate Your Creative Self, we are working on a seascape this month.  I have been behind due to some unforeseen and some foreseen life circumstances.  I just started mine today.  This post will be a continuing one with the various phases of my seascape.

 

 

Well, the initial work - gesso and making some imprints and salting - are dry and I have worked on the watercolor part of my seascape.  I had a Pearl Ex-Press palette from some years ago so I decided I was going to use those as my watercolors this time.  Below is the result.  This is still not the finished product.

 

 

Leather Paper

I know it sounds odd - leather paper.  This is a paper technique in Julia Andrus’s Paper Transformed.  I did not have the Perfect Ink Refresher called for in Julia’s original instuctions so I simply spritzed my cardstock with water.

My first attempt did not turn out in any way, shape or manner to look like leather.  I didn’t even bother to try to put it online.

My second attempt was a lavender cardstock to begin with.  It was not a real heavy cardstock so wrinkled up easily.  I did have some issues finding the right ink to highlight the wrinkles with.  This was a part of my first attempt problem.  I also found that I liked the way it looked if I used a stipple brush to apply the ink as opposed to direct to the paper from the ink pad. 

I am also working on a piece that looks more like real leather as it is brown.  You can see how it looks more in the image below.  I wanted the lavender for something specific I have in mind.  The brown was a heavier cardstock.  I had to really get it wet to get it to crinkle and wrinkle up good.

 

Simple Abundance - April 2008

As I began to read April, I was drawn to the introductory page that discusses how sunlit April is.  I realize it is only day 2 of the month but it was sunny both days and my disposition is starting to improve already.

This month we are travelling along the path to Simple Abundance and discussing beauty.  We will touch on personal style, verve, color, art and that bane of all female discussions - weight loss and body image.  Some of these issues will be easy - what color looks best on each of us and how to possibly get the best look for the least money.  Other issues - body image - will be less easy to discuss.

Deal gently with yourself and take from each day’s reading what you can.

Please also check out the joyful simplicities at the end of the month.

Simple Abundance - March 2008

I know you are all probably thinking I am nuts.  March is almost over, as I was reminded this morning by my mother who was wondering if March came in like a lion or a lamb as it is looking like it is going out like a lion.

This month Sarah Ban Breathnach is discussing the principle of simplicity.  I always find this to be one of the hardest principles for us to grasp in our world.  We seem to collect “things.”  Materialism seems to be rampant.

 In looking back over March, I want to point out a few important readings.  I also want to remind you all to use your Gratitude Journals.  If you have been remiss in this area, please dust it off and get back on track.

The very first reading of the month - about restoring our sanity to our lives - is not one I could have read on March 1st.  I was the whirling dervish that SBB discusses.  I was up at 4:30 am that morning and out the door, even though March was coming in like a lion and there was still a snow-covered road by my house.  I dropped my 13 year old at the local diner to have a “pre-event” breakfast with his Science Olympiad team.  Then, I was off to the high school to set up for the tournament that would find seven middle schools competing for the chance to advance to the state tournament.

The next discussion on meditation moves me more now than it did at the beginning of March.  I am currently reading Eat, Pray, Love  and am in the section on meditation and prayer.  We all, regardless of who we pray to or why we meditate, need to revive these practices.  The quiet time in our souls will help our creative selves come out and play more easily.

 The discussion of what appearance we put forward and can we find the inspiration in it if we are not “pulled together” intrigue me.  I am one of those who can sit at home and work in a hoodie and sweats.  I go out for a run in old warmups and ratting baseball hats.  I do, though, try to look together when I am heading out for other things as can be seen below in my “Easter” outfit.

The mid-month discussions of self-nurturing and self-acceptance always make me smile.  How can we nurture those around us and help them build self-acceptance if we cannot do this for ourselves?  I have often wondered how the mother who cannot nurture herself, even if only occasionally, can nurture her young ones.  

I also love the discussions of style and fashion here at the end of the month.  I am slowly finding my “style” and have gotten rid of a lot of things that were in my closets and drawers for I don’t really know what reason. 

If you have not yet taken part in the Joyful Simplicities for March, please read them over.  Many can be done in April!!!

Canvas with Tissue Paper

With an online group, I am working my way through Mary Todd Beam’s Celebrate Your Creative Self.  The portion we were working on this month was to add tissue paper to an illustration board or canvas and then paint it. 

 The workshop leader was so smart and decided to break this into three weekly parts to make it easier.  And I am sure it would have been if life didn’t get in the way.  I started this last Thursday and still think I need to put some additional color on it.  I want the third that is basically in the center horizontally to have something else on it - a different color to contrast, something.

The first step was to get the tissue paper on the board.

While this does not look like much, it was harder than I thought it would be.  I knew what I wanted it to llook like, but really wanted to let the tissue have its own “life,” so to speak.

I have three pictures below that have the item with its first coat of acrylics on it.  I did gesso over the entire canvas once the tissue was dried on, including the tissue.  The acrylics I used were crimson, deep turquoise, and phthlato green.  I also used a pearlescent tint in the bottom area which tends to show as a bit of glare off my flash on my camera.   All three images below are the same canvas.  I just haven’t found a good way to take pics.

         

Water Webbing

In one of the last lessons I have to do for February’s working through Paper Transformed by Julia Andrus is webbing.  I knew, from the start, just what stamp I wanted to use and what I was going to do with it.  I just needed the time and a water bottle. 

I have several squirt bottles but they are all large ones for cleaning solution, although they do not all have cleaning solution in them.  I grabbed one and cleaned it up, made sure there was no cleanser left in it if that is what was there to start with and filled it with water.

 I, then, took my Marvy Le Plume markers and used the brush end to color my stamp which is from Anita’s.  I stamped first and second generation on this one piece to be sure I had one finished item for my project.  Then, came the water and squirt away I did.  I finally realized I love the technique but do not love the large squirt bottle.  I am putting a small squirt bottle on my list of things to get next time I am at the dollar store.  This one just put too much water on my designs.

February Projects

In the two workshops I am participating in this year - Paper Transformed by Julia Andrus and Celebrate Your Creative Self by Mary Todd Beam - have some wonderful projects for the month of February.  Unfortunately, February is a very short month and very busy so I spent a day doing some paper transformation.

All of the colors in this are done on white cardstock.  The colors are watercolors that are manipulated.

I set up six half sheets of card stock on my art board.  I used masking tape to keep them from curling from the moisture associated with watercolors.  Each piece or part of a piece of cardstock has a different technique used on it.  Most, actually all but one, are from Paper Transformed.  The wax resist is from Celebrate Your Creative Self.

This particular technique involves putting Pearl Ex mica powder in the watercolor as I painted the cardstock.  I used a mahogany color watercolor and a antique gold Pearl Ex. The picture does not do the coloring justice.  It is much more gold looking than here.

Above are what will become two different plastic wrap altered watercolors.  Neither left the amount of design in the paint that I thought it would but I do like this technique and will continue with larger and smaller, tighter squeezed together and looser plastic wrap until I get what I am looking for the watercolor to look like once dried.  The finished products are below.

Another wonderful technique was the basic watercolor wash.

Next up was salt.  I don’t know what I was thinking.  I have two containers of sea salt - coarse for making bath salts and reminding me of the rock salt I put on the driveway here in upstate NY during winter.  I figured this was what I was going to use.  I guess I should have thought about it more so in the second art board full of techniques I used both the sea salt and table salt.

             

The first two of these have the coarse sea salt on them.  The right end has the table salt on it.  The results are below.

      

Another technique that I fell in love with was the watercolor with watercolor pencil shavings in the wet watercolor.  I did this with deep green pencil shavings in a yellow watercolor.

Finally, I utilized a wax resist from Celebrate Your Creative Self.  I have tried a wax resist before, using the wax from a dripping candle for wax and ironing off the was when done, and not been happy with the results.  I am not sure I liked the results this time either but below are two examples, one with a yellow crayon and one with a white crayon.

    

I am going to keep trying the wax resist.  I also still need to try the water removal of paint to reveal white space.  If it doesn’t get tried in the next week, it probably won’t as I have a big event coming up March 1 and need to work on that for a bit.

Simple Abundance - Feb 11 - 17

I realize I should do these second time through readings of the daily meditations in advance of the week, not in retrospect.  Anyone who is reading along may not come back to look now for the past week.  I am going to seriously try to do this for the upcoming week later today.

 I truly love our search through ourselves for our authentic selves.  The discussion of “spiritual electricity” resonates with me.  I have been trying to create some varying backgrounds and works of art but have seemed to feel there was nothing there.  I did not work on Friday of this week as my son had a sectional diving event and, then, decided not to play catch up on Saturday.  Instead, I flipped the switch of my “spritual electricity” on and did some painting and creating.   My first creation was three and a half dozen ginger cookies for my visiting 21 year old daughter to take back to college with her.  Then, the work from Julia Andrus’s Paper Transformed began.  That is another post altogether, though.

And, that 10 year old girl…. oh my!  I do not have this picture but I can see it in my mind.  It was on my father’s desk in his office, when the office was behind an old barber shop.  I had hair about mid-back, straight as a board and pulled back in a partial ponytail.  The chestnut colored hair is a color I yearn for these days but it is not the hair color that speaks to my authentic self.  I was wearing a high necked green plaid dress.  This dress does not speak to my authentic self either.  It is my face that speaks of who I really am.  I had the remnants of two black eyes.  I had spent the summer camping with my grandmother and tripped over a wagon tongue.  In the process, I fell - hitting my forehead in a very precarious spot.  The doctors said I could have been blinded had the point of impact been a fraction of an inch in any direction.  The blood from the huge egg on my head drained the only place it could - into the whites of my eyes.  Then, the bruising came.  I had these huge black eyes for weeks.  But getting them was fun!  I was playing with the boys, a tomboy at her best.  And, that is truly me.

Wanderlust and travel are also explored in ways now that could not be previously.  Do you dream of travel?  I have done the travel in a small part.  I spent one fall travelling up and down the eastern seaboard.  I went 13,000 miles from August until November.  I saw many wonderful places and beautiful people but I loved it most when I came back home.  I don’t think this is where home will always be but it where it is now and I love it!

Simple Abundance - thru Feb 10

I know - I should post first thing in the morning all these thoughts I have on the daily musings.  I have been very wrapped up in politics lately and those have been my first, and sometimes second and third, posts of the day.  I will try to fix that starting Monday.

If you go back to the beginning of the month, on February 2nd, Ban Breathnach discusses creative excursions but of a slightly different note.  I love this particular excursion to a home furnishings or decorative accessories store.  I have three that I go to for these particular outings but my favorite is Pier 1.  If I cannot make it to the actual local store, I could spend hours going through things on their web site. 

I like to go in, walk around.  Then, I start thinking about my house and which items here I could use.  I think about the changes I have always wanted to make to my kitchen - a tile backsplash in Tuscan colors behind my sink, painting of the one set of cupboards a gold and green.  I think about what I could do to make my living room look much less like an office and play area - more on the wall, a nice way to have candles lit all the time.  I think about how to make my bedroom, which doubles as my craft room, more of a sanctuary - throw pillows, maybe a screen to keep the craft stuff behind.

After I walk through, I go out to the car and write down the items I like.  I print pictures off at home of them with pricing information so I can purchase if I get a small windfall.

On the days of February 3rd and 4th, we are introduced to our “authentic self.”  I do understand the keeping her available for those important moments.  I think I did this earlier in my life.  Now I feel that I am at a point where I am more comfortable with myself than I have been in the past.  The light is on daily.  I do know this is hard for women.  We invest so much of ourselves in others.  As a mother, we invest ourselves in our children.  As a wife, we invest ourselves in our husband.  As a worker, we invest ourselves in our job.  We need to be able to take those pieces of us back and make ourselves whole.

I think I relate most to the discussions of being an artist.  I do create art.  It took me a long time to think of myself as an artist.  I make crafts, cards, scrapbook pages.  I do painting, molding of clay, bending of wire.  I bake and cook.  All of these things are creating art.  So I really enjoy reading February 7th & 8th.  I also love reading the 9th where SBB talks about each day being a fresh canvas.