Play Day

Yesterday, Tuesday, we went to Busch Gardens - Tampa. A while back a bunch of the kids had a series of yard sales to raise money to offset the cost of big field trip to Busch Gardens. This was a case where they thought of something they wanted, it cost a bunch of money, and they made it happen for themselves anyway. Well, on that trip some of the kids took the opportunity offered them and upgraded their tickets to a yearly passing expiring on Dec 31.

This trip yesterday was what's known as the final hurrah.

I was fortunate enough to have some free tickets given to me by my mom (thanks Mom!) and was able to go and invite Heather and Ivy. I love free theme park tickets. Free is good.

We all headed out early in the morning and had a great day. Makenna could hardly settle herself down to sleep the night before just thinking about the roller coasters. It was one big, scary, thrilling ride after another. The kids essentially just ran around all day in a big pack - it was Sadie (thank you Sadie for being the wonderful adult for a lot of this) and Cheynne, Nic C, Gareth, Eliot, Ivy, Amalie and Makenna. Cynthia, Heather and I watched a lot of rides, hit the beer tent, um, Hospitality House a couple of times, and strolled around, a lot.

Cynthia and I did the Sandstorm ride. I was reminded how, in my aging, that I no longer tolerate the round and round so well. Ohhh, it makes me sick to my stomach. I can go forward and backward much better than round and round. Makenna and I did the Scorpion roller coaster. That's the only one I did. Ever since I've become claustrophobic being in a harness is intolerable to me. Little cars spaces. Anxiety about the ride. Ugh. It's all a bit more yucky than fun now. But I did it. And it was fun. Except for the extreme spiral at the end, I could have done without that. Round and round.

Oh, we did the train ride around the Savannah and the Rhino Rally, which is a safari tour in a car and the bridge goes out and it's all gloom and doom, but lots of fun. It was fun having a whole car full of just us, just people we knew. There were some wonderful animals, giraffes and lots of zebras, hippos, elephants, and lots of other more exotic animals that I cannot even remember the name of but loved looking at! It was a great day to go, the weather had hit a cool spot (lovely lovely) and it was hardly busy so the kids could go on any ride over and over and over. That's a bonus. Time spent in line is time not spent going round and round and whip it up good, so..well, you get it.

We stopped at a Jason's Deli on the way home for some comfort food. I'm so glad we didn't have to eat at a Steak and Shake or some equally awful place. Jason's has complimentary ice cream. And muffins on the salad bar. Complimentary that is. And baklava, not complimentary, but they had it. Amalie loved it. It was a good end to a great day.

I hope Sadie sends me some of the pictures she took!

change

I'm not reporting much.

I'm just saving the space of a day.

Life changed today. Maybe life changes everyday, but Life with a capitol L changed today. Truths were spoken. Illusions shattered. Maybe honesty is setting in.

We are well and not well, strong and weak, we are. We just are.

We are living this life, and at times I am not sure how I got where I am.

Sunday

I haven't posted in so long, and it's the beginning of December....so, new month, new commitment to try to keep posting.

But then you knew that, didn't you?

Yesterday, Makenna and I had a beach day together. We went to Flagler Avenue at New Smyrna Beach. It was a gorgeous day. Unfortunately, the red tide wasn't fun to deal with, but it was a great day nonetheless. Makenna was mostly driven to go to the beach because she is always looking for an opportunity to ride her skim board (see previous post), and because she just loves the beach - her words, and I do too and love to be there with her - my words.

We had a discussion on the way to the beach about how, because I grew up in the north, once summer is over I forget a bit about going to the beach. Around here in Florida we mostly avoid the beach in the heart of the summer, it's just way too intense of an experience, so things are a bit backward in that regard. It seems to me that remembering where I live might be a good thing at this juncture.

Some memories of our day at the beach...sniffling, burning nose, coughing, nasty taste in mouth, sore throat...Thanks red tide!

Other memories...cool sand drip castle which looked more like a forest of wild wacky trees than an actual castle.
Getting washed out on our blanket by a rogue wave, then going into the ocean with the quilt to rinse it off, trying to hold onto it as the waves came and went, carrying Makenna like a little boat, then wringing the quilt out playing tug of war.
Tiny little olive shell given by older man-shell seeker. I love olive shells.
Makenna and I finding interesting ways of writing our names in the sand, piling the letters inside each other, attaching letters to other letters.
Just sitting in a beach chair, feet in the sand, watching little sandpipers and gulls, people, reading my book. sigh.
Makenna doing hand stands into a bridge, then laying down to get out of it.
The joy, the buoyancy, the energy. Just watching M run, skip, cartwheel through the waves and the water just for the sheer fun of it.
Playing the "add one word, make a story" game waiting for our food at Breakers.
Going for a walk, window shopping, looking in a shell shop at all the cool shells and dried sea life.

I guess that's mostly it. It was just a very nice day, even with the red tide, and I'm thankful for getting to have it!

Makenna turns 11

This past Monday was Makenna's birthday. She turned 11. Hard to believe, but true. We spent the past weekend helping her to celebrate. On Saturday night we took Makenna and her friend Kristen to Cape May. No, not Cape May New Jersey, but Cape May, the restaurant in the Yacht and Beach Club at Disney.

Here's a shot of Makenna and Kristin on the beach outside of the hotel. Makenna likes to go to this restaurant mostly because it's a buffet and on the buffet they have steamed clams.

Makenna loves steamed clams, don't you Makenna? All you can eat? Um, ok.

What Makenna didn't count on was having our waitress, Karen, make her stand on her chair and have the whole restaurant sing happy birthday to her. Oh well, it was fun!
After dinner we hung out on that beach watching the fireworks from Epcot.

On Sunday we went to New Smyrna Beach for a bit of family time in the sun. Rich and I had gotten Makenna a new skim board for her birthday, so we put a big bow on it and packed it in the back of the van with all the other beach stuff. When we got to the beach Makenna got her new skim board. Makenna was happy then.

Very happy, see.

Here's an action shot.

On Monday, Makenna's actual birthday, we hung out and played Clue a lot. Makenna wanted to have a really low key day for her birthday, mostly playing Clue, going to the Cat Protection Society (her new fav place!) and watching a movie. We did all that (National Treasure was the movie) and had her friend Amalie over for dinner and more Clue.

What a nice birthday and birthday weekend Makenna had.

We all had.

Happy Birthday, Makenna!! We love you.

Katie's Wedding Weekend

We spent the first weekend of October in Cherry Hill, NJ for Katie and Billy's beautiful wedding. Katie is my and Rich's niece, his brother Joe's littlest. Well, not so little anymore, remember when we played Barbies, Kate and I french braided your hair?

Oh, she's not listening, she with her HUSBAND. Clue, got one right here.....oh well.

Rich, the girls and I flew into Philadelphia on Friday afternoon, rented a car and met my brother in Philadelphia for lunch at Jones Restaurant at 7th and Chestnut. Comfort food at it's finest.
We spent the afternoon trekking around Philly, we walked to Chinatown and saw the archway at the entrance. It was cool being there. Lots of things to look at, smells (not all good!) live turtles by the box full, and fish in tanks and on ice, produce, lots of Chinese cats waving one paw.

Two of the most interesting things to me were #1 this little scoop like thing in a curio shop, cute, about the size of a toothpick, sweet little alien looking thing on the end made out of bead painted very primitively. I asked the woman behind the counter what would you use this item for, what little bit would you be scooping up with this. She replied by pointing to her ear, ok, so I said it a little louder, more pointing, then she says the word "ear". Ahhhh, now I get it, you clean your ear with it. Ok, ewww. I think I was better off thinking it was a cute little mustard scoop or something. Well, I guess it sort of is. Ha!

Oh, I left you a note on the bulletin board, did you get it?

There it is. Ok, second thing that was interesting to me was that I spent the whole of my time in these shops all through Chinatown trying to find some traditional Chinese stationary and couldn't find any. I love stationary sets from different countries. I love paper from different countries. It was fun, actually, because it gave me something to converse with the shopkeepers about.
Me: Do you have any stationary?

Shopkeeper: Yes yes, right this way....
Shows me the dictionary section.

Me: No, no, stationary,writing paper, what do you call it when you write a friend a letter (gesturing, smiling) put in an envelope (more gesturing) send it...
Them: Shoulder shrugs, no word for this. Hmmm

At one shop the shopkeeper and I went through some of the fun animal flash cards because this was as close to the section where the stationary set might be as she could get and she wanted to show me about how to learn Chinese. I said all the Chinese words phonetically printed out on the cards, some of them not so phonetically correct in English, but trying. It was fun and she only laughed a little at me. We had a nice time together.

All this and no stationary.

After the Chinese fun we headed over to this awesome gelato shop on 13th and Sansom, Capogiro Gelato. It was unbelievably yummy. From there back to our car at 8th and Sansom and our tired dogs get a rest as we head to New Jersey to stay the night with Rich's dad. That was a great day.


The wedding was on Saturday and we drove up to Cherry Hill Saturday am, checked into the Crown Plaza- Cherry Hill and got ready for the wedding. Here's a couple of shots from the wedding. It was gorgeous, wonderful, Katie was gorgeous and wonderful, it was fun. Here's a shot of Jordan in her dress, nice huh.



And me and my gal.
And my two gals together.


I'll have to post a pic of Katie and Billy when I get one, they were a hard couple to catch that day.

We hung out at the hotel Saturday and Sunday. On Sunday morning Rich, Makenna and I did a little Letterbox I had brought along with us from home. I want to gather some letterbox stamps from out travels so I thought this would be a good start. We drove to the letterbox site and did the whole treasure hunt, enjoying the woods and the creek along the way. The creek was loaded with iron, it seemed. We had fun in it. One nice thing about doing the letterbox here in Cherry Hill was that it showed us this private little "locals" park we probably would never have seeked out or stumbled over even if we tried. We got out of our hotel, spent a couple of hours outside in nature and had some good time together. Here's Makenna at the site of Box #1

This is the muddy, iron-y creek. Rock throwing and positioning was definitely happening here.



We hung out at Jess's house later that day. Jess is Katie's older sister and she's married to Rob and has Kayla Rose(3) and Olivia Grace(10 months). It was fun seeing her house and hanging out with the girls.
We flew home on Monday afternoon, what a long weekend. Long and wonderful.

Art Class Notes, Class 6

Well, this was my final art class and Diana was bound and determined for us to "have something" for the Student Teacher Exhibit in the gallery. This worked out well for our final class because it enabled us to take a lot of what we had been learning for the session and put it into practice. That might not seem like much, but experimenting with lots of products and processes separately, not in an actual piece of art, is quite a different animal than actually putting it into practice with a piece you care about.

So, this class was mostly about coming up with an image or images on the spur of the moment and turning it into something. It was fun, and I do believe I learned a lot by doing this. Abstract techniques started to gel into something workable.

A few notes on the process......

• I started by just ripping out images I liked from magazines. The really didn't have to match or mean anything, just be something I liked. I came up with a handful and then chose the ones I really liked more than the others. Again, they pretty much weren't related, but I would work on that.
• Then, I painted the background of the painting, a bit of green, etc. nothing too great, just background.
• I started adding in some images with paint, circle, stars...things I didn't mind if I painted over, etc, just stuff. I also added some paper that had been painted earlier and that I had ripped into shapes. This was paper that Diana brought to class, phone book pages painted and layered with the medium (like the tissue) or just painted. One of the cool, and dangerous for a pack rat, things about this class was seeing how just about anything can be painted and used in a mixed media painting. You can paint tissue paper, brown paper bags, advertisements, phone book pages, sales circulars, anything really. The sky's the limit! Paint it all!! Stock pile it all in hopes of painting it! Oh, no, skip that part.
• So, laying in paper, repainting, etc, magazine images in there, and the whole thing is coming together a bit, Then I started painting borders around these images. That really made them look a part of the painting as opposed to just being like a collage, floating around in there somewhere. Dabbing paint here and there, highlighting, etc. I added some cheese cloth, put it in with soft gel medium, painted a bit of white luminescent paint, pink....leaving it in for the texture.
• Just keep tweaking and adding, blending until it feels like a cohesive something. Good luck on that last part, it's the hard one. It'll happen, so stick with it.

That's pretty much what we did for the class. It was a good one. I'm not sure if I ended up with something that will go in the exhibit, I guess it's this or maybe the chickadees. I let you know.

The whole session was good, it was one of my favorites and I'm sad it's all over. I really enjoyed it, the whole class, the creative time, painting again. Diana was great and she brings fun and play to her work and her classes. She's thoughtful and intentioned, but playful and I really like that mix for myself too. I'm so glad I did it.

Dalai Lama Renaissance

This past weekend Lisa and I went to see Dalai Lama Renaissance, a film that was part of the Global Peace Film Festival here in Orlando. I loved this movie, it was so thought provoking and interesting. Please click on the link for a very good description of what the movie is about. In short, The Dalai Lama of Tibet invited 40 of the West’s leading, most innovative thinkers in their respective fields to his residence tucked away in the Himalayan mountains of Northern India to discuss the world’s problems and how we can solve them. The Dalai Lama comes across as a very kind, intelligent, humble, and at times silly and child-like man. After having seen What The Bleep it was interesting to see one of the Quantum Physicists, Fred Alan Wolf, in this film. He and Amit Goswami keep things funny and "spot on" with their very ego centered, human responses. Loved this movie, thanks Lisa for inviting me!

I wished I could have seen more movies at the Film Fest. There were so many that I wanted to see, but that hour long drive each way, ack.

The idea behind the festival is so good, not just anti war, but pro peace, and peace as it relates to the individual, the community, peace in your heart, peace in your home. From the website "The Global Peace Film Festival was established to utilize the power of the motion picture to further the goal of peace on earth. With a mission to expand the definition of peace beyond anti-war, ideology, activism or specific causes, the Global Peace Film Festival films and events suggest a more personal message as reflected in the daily lives of individuals and communities the world over. "
I liked it and I wanted more.
I read an article about the woman is instrumental in making this film fest happen and she said one of the founding ideas of the festival is from the quote by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr where he says "True peace is not merely the absence of tension, it is the presence of justice. "

Art Class Notes, Class 5

I had a bit of fun this week with tissue paper, liquid gloss medium and liquid acrylics. We made a paper that can be used for many purposes. It all started with cheapo dollar store tissue paper and ended up a stronger, sort of plasticy, thicker type of paper. I could use this for gifting, or even for background in a painting or card. It has a translucent look to it so light passes through nicely and it could be used for wall hanging or maybe even in front of a window. It's actually very lovely to look at and I'm looking forward to finding some uses for it.

The process was pretty basic. What I did was take butcher paper, or freezer paper and lay it down on the table with the shiny side up. Place the tissue paper on top of this. For the class we used very very thin tissue paper but I also brought a piece of tissue I bought at Target for a gift bag. This tissue was a bit thicker and I liked using it a bit better, it wasn't so terribly fragile. Anyway, mix some liquid gloss medium (enough to paint the tissue with) with few drops of the liquid acrylic. The liquid acrylic is very concentrated so go easy at first, then add more if necessary. A side note, I used the Golden Liquid Matte Medium and it as just a bit too thick for this process. The Liquitex medium was a bit thinner and that made it so much nicer to not have my paper ripping at every brush. So, gently gently paint this mixture onto the tissue paper. You can do this however you like, blending, adding other colors, etc until you are happy with the result. I then added stamps, ultra super fine glitter, etc. The stamps I used with the liquid acrylic came out more transparent than the ones I did with regular acrylic. You can see this by looking at the blue paper. The spirals and dots sit right on top of the tissue. The others seem to blend in a bit better. Both results are nice, just different from each other.


This class definitely focused on playing with the acrylics and the mediums. One of the other things we did in class was to take brown paper bags and cut them up into pieces for painting. We then used the matte medium to paint the paper with. This helped seal the brown paper making it much less absorbent, and allowed the lovely brown color to still show through. If you were looking to block the brown out painting first with gesso would be the way to go. We then used this prepared brown paper to do all sorts of painting on and also using texture with. Bubble wrap, cheese cloth wadded up, regular gel medium (not soft) spackled on with a pallete knife....all of these produce lovely textures. I did my brown paper with some blue acrylic, then translucent white liquid, then laid the cheese cloth in and painted the blue acrylic over that. I was planning on removing the cheese cloth to allow a texture to show through, but by the time I go home the paint had dried too much and the paper started ripping when I was removing it. I just let it stay and I think what I'll do is make it into a painting involving an angel or something like that. This is a pretty horrible horrible picture but I had on so I'm adding it...try to overlook it horribleness.

I said try.

Well, that's our 5th class in a nutshell. It was fun and hopefully I'll be able to use some of this stuff in future art work. That's mainly what this class has been about, playing with the medium to learn how it handles, how it works, so that when I want to create a certain look or have something in a piece of work I will know a bit about how to go about achieving that.

Sunday Sunday

Oh, it's a nice day in Florida! Last night we got a great rain storm and I think this brought us some clear (read lacking in humidity) air, a great breeze (another novelty), and some lower temps(whoopee!). So, I opened the windows and listened to the rain last night, left them open all night and haven't closed them yet.

This has not happened for many many days, many months actually. I'm sitting out on my porch right now and the wind chimes are gently blowing. Indigo, our bird, is outside in his cage hanging from the chain I installed so he can hang off of the eaves outside of our garage. The door to the kitchen is opened and the breeze is blowing through the kitchen, from windows out back to kitchen door/garage out front and back again. Not only that but I can see outside.

Usually, during times of air conditioning, long long times of air conditioning, the kitchen door remains closed, the windows are all closed. I can't hear any outside noises, no birds, no breeze through the trees, no wind chimes, or kids or anything. I find the times of summer where I'm entrenched within my house, succumbing to the guilty pleasure of the chill, to be like my dark winters from up north in regards to being shut off. It's where I come closest to a feeling of cabin fever. Today, having the first full week of Autumn under our belts, feels almost like a northern spring to me where the melting of the snow encouraged venturing outside. Ah, muffins in the morning, breezy coolness and parts of me coming alive. I love the first teases of a cooler calendar.

I read this article by Naomi Shihab Nye in Organica Magazine. It's a freebie magazine of arts and activism that is so interesting to read. Go there and read it if you can. It speaks of education and inspiration and learning and life and kids and freedom and life lessons. I loved the poem at the end, and I loved the poem created by the children on spoons. I totally loved the part when Naomi talks about the testing of children in the schools and how it's what the teachers have to spend so much time doing with children, priming and practicing. She then goes on to say how she flunked the questions about her own essay that were included on the Texas state test two years ago because six of the eight of the questions appeared to her to have more than one right answer. How very tricky that was. God, I loved that part!

I hadn't seen the magazine before, but I'll be looking for it again.

Here's a little blog I love going to when I can. It inspires me so. Two women, 3191 miles apart, taking one picture of each of their own mornings, posting them side by side and oh, it's so lovely. I like noticing how they can seem to shoot the same theme, or color, or shape on the same day, without even having any contact with each other about what they're going to shoot. I keep imagining an exhibit with the photos side by side, 365 days worth and how lovely that would be.

Yummy!

Alright, I better get to work or I'll spend all day in my pj's, sitting on the porch, playing with the dog, eating muffins!

Hmmm, I guess worse things could happen.

Photo above was shot by Jordan (with Torin standing behind her, see?) in Burnsville North Carolina. It's the door to a shop. September 2007

Art Class Notes, Class 4

What a great class!

Alright, to start I ate breakfast. Good idea number one. No large coffee with a shot of espresso and calling that breakfast. Good idea number two was just feeling good and strong and confident heading into class and letting it flow, being experimental, and having fun during class.

Here are a few things I worked on and learned.

This is a little chickadee painting I did in preparation for a faux encaustic lesson we did in class. I painted gesso on watercolor paper, a couple of layers front and back, then painted these little guys in acrylic. The words were a contact paper transfer of a photocopy that I attached with soft gel medium. When I got to class we covered this in a faux encaustic mix (very buttery looking, dries like wax). I'm supposed to paint on top of the dried waxy layer, then add another layer, etc. to build up the layers like encaustic.

I'm still working on that part.

This class we talked about a lot of stuff and worked on using Fluid Acrylics. The fluid acrylics were so much fun, so much fun. We were required to bring to class a canvas prepared with Polymer Medium. This made the canvas very glossy and water resistant. The fluid acrylics were very concentrated and for the purpose of the class we mixed them with a bit of water to help them dry on the canvas more quickly. Usually you would mix them with a bit of medium, which makes them a little less "beady" than the water mixing but does extend the drying time. The fun thing about fluid acrylics is that they are very much like watercolors and you can layer them with a transparent result. Layering, then wiping off, dotting, spraying with alcohol, all of these are so much fun and give a different result.

I learned some great design tips at this class as well.

1. Use mostly warms or mostly cools in your art, then add a splash of the opposite for a strong POP.


2. Focal Point of your painting draws your eye to it and should be where the darkest dark and the lightest light meet.

The chickadee painting is a good example of both design components. The chickadees are mostly warm, the background is warm, etc BUT the purple ground is a cool and makes it pop. Also the focal point in the painting is the chickadees heads, which are made up of the black and white next to each other. Ta da! It's as if I knew what I was doing when I painted it. Not so, not until later, but I did like it right away, and I think the design elements are why.

A few notes:

• For writing in your acrylic paintings CrayPaz kids crayons are supposed to be good due to the high wax content.


• Light molding paste can be used with a stencil in your painting to create texture. It takes a good long time to dry, though.


• Another way to write in the painting is by using glaze mixed with your paint color and a stylus or scratching tool. The words are sort of etched in.

This week at home I'm going to keep working on my chickadees, maybe make a few little paintings using some of my learned techniques, and prepare for next weeks class. We are going to learn how to turn tissue paper into sturdy wrapping type paper that's decorated like fine art wrap!

I'll leave you with this photo of Jordan on a river in the North Carolina Mountains. Breathtaking. Cool water, slippery river rocks, waterfalls, and my beautiful beautiful daughter. Such Blessings all around.

Felted Rocks

Can you believe how flipping good I'm doing on my promise to myself to blog more!! I rock!


Here is my latest fun project!



This is a picture of my dear sweet honey pie sugar bunch Kristine holding the felted rock I made and that she got in her Summer Sampler 2007. I love this one!!


This was the second time our group of folks did a Sampler and it was a great one as usual. For more information on what a sampler is go to Home of the Sampler. It's primarily a marketing tool for DIYers and small business crafters, etc but our group has adapted it for our own purposes (just like us!) thanks to Sue Dolamore.

Go Sue!!

So, this is what I made this year...13 felted rocks! I gathered the rocks from the Falmouth Beach in Cape Cod on our summer trip. God they were beautiful rocks, lovely shapes, lovely textures and ah, the speckling and colors. It was the easiest rock gathering I've ever done.





Very cool project. Here's another shot with the rock that Kristine's daughter Elizabeth got along with Kristine's.

First day of Autumn, a little bit of orange

Here's a shot of the oranges the girls were selling back in May. These are freshly picked oranges from our neighbor Elizabeth's tree out in the back of her house. Makenna and her friends Kristen and Amalie decided to try to sell them to passers-by from a basket at the bottom of our drive.

Trying to sell oranges and the girls had so much fun with it; throwing the oranges around, drinking the juice out with it going all over their arms and faces, just good, plain Florida OJ fun! I'm not sure how many they actually sold, but I think that was beside the point.

Here's a lovely shot of Makenna squeezing the last bit of juice out of one of the oranges. Amalie is on the left and Kristen's right behind Makenna.

This is Dried out Oranges Still Life #1.

Now this is what happens when your daughter puts the basket of leftover oranges in your garage, right in front of the bikes, behind your loom, and forgets about it, and maybe you put stuff from the car you cleaned out, and stuff from the garage you cleaned out, stuff that's waiting to go to the thrift store, and the doll house that needs to be cleaned out before it's sold is there too and well....here's what happens to that same beautiful basket of oranges when you notice it in the garage in September when you go back to finish that job you started in June, that clean up job.

This is what's known as roach motel, roach banquet, or very happy roach home.

Need a close up shot? Well, here it is. That's some good roach work, there. Yes it is.

Dried up Orange Still Life #2.

So, there you have it. We don't have pumpkin patches here, or fall leaves, no siree, no apple cider or apple picking, but boy-howdee we do have some rotten ol' oranges and that sure says First day of Fall like nothin' else can. Don't ya think so? Uh huh.

Happy Fall!!

Art Class Notes, Class 3

Hello. This class was a bit challenging for me. Even leading up to this class was a bit challenging.

Why? Good question, one I'd have to think about, but revolves a bit around the issues of doing artwork, expressing creativity, and feeling a bit insecure about that.

Why insecure? Another good question. Probably because we were supposed to bring in some stuff to use to create a collage with and #1 I'm wasn't really sure what type of theme or collage I wanted to make and #2 I wasn't really sure actually how to put together these separate elements we've been learning about into an actual piece of work.

So, resulting insecurity.

We all worked separately on our work which added a bit of confusion to me. I'm going to sort out some of what we did today, and share what I learned in the process...yup, process. I'm sticking right in my original assessment that it was going to have to be about that for me, which today was a Prime Example Of. lol

ok...a few notes.

• If you have parts of the gesso lift image that you don't want in your painting then just use a bit of sandpaper. It sands it right out!


• Here's a new transparency method: Take your photocopied or magazine image and put it on a piece of clear contact paper. Brayer it on the back good and thorough. Let it soak for a while in warm to hot water, then rub the paper off the back. There you go, easy peasy!


• Let's talk Isolation Coat. An isolation coat is a great sealer for the different layers of your work. For example, after doing a gesso lift use polymer medium and paint it over the image so that the paint and other things you do to the painting don't make the lifted image keep coming up due to moisture, etc. It seals it in there for you. Isolation coats can be used for other things, but, hey...I don't know what for yet. I mean, I know by reading my paper, but don't really know.


• We learned a bit of a blending technique today, too. Mostly it seems that the keys to blending are a light touch and cleaning your brush well. Lay in two colors side by side, the two colors you want to blend. The use your glazing liquid to brush a nice strip down the middle of the two. Now, go back and lightly feather your brush between the two colors, cleaning the brush frequently and going ever so lightly. This is the technique as I saw it and understand it, lol. Haven't perfected this one yet.


• Use A nice heavy gel medium for sticking all sorts of collage type stuff into the painting. Just lay in a bit of gel medium in the painting, brush it on the back of whatever you want to add, I used buttons (what else) and flattened dried leaves (again, predictable).
  
• Ok, remember the transparency I made using the soft gel in class 2? Well, I used that same soft gel to get that transparency into my painting. Lay the medium into the painting, put the transparency onto the painting in the gel medium, brush gel medium over the transparency. Done!

Here is the painting I did in the class. I learned a lot by working on this painting.

First off...Laying in the transparency on top of a dark background, which can be seen in the close up here on the right, is not such a good idea. The darkness is very difficult to over come. I added polymer medium to the transfer which made it very glossy and that helped it to pop out a bit. The darkness made it sort of fade into the painting instead of glowing out.

Here is the detail of the transparency I did using the contact paper method. As described above I rubbed in a photocopy of some writing I printed out on the computer. With this area of the painting I made the background very light with pinks and yellows, white, etc. After laying in the lettering with soft gel medium and allowing it to dry I painted around it, adding darker colors, etc. This worked a lot better.

Art Class Notes, Class 2

Class Number 2 happened yesterday and it was a great one. The pics will be coming, right now Jordan and her camera are in Cape Cod, lounging around and generally having a good time being sixteen with her best bud Sadie. So...no camera in the house right now. I'm going to go ahead and post my notes though. If you see pictures sometime soon, ignore the no pics note! [pics have arrived]

Content of this class was color blending and types of transfers. The class was pretty funky and wonderful and the transfers appear to be something that is going to be fun to do in the future. I've been wanting to understand color better for a long time now, so that was awesome as well.















The types of transfers we did were (1) Gesso Lift and (2) Transparency. See pic above for examples of both. Gesso lift is shown with the woman, transparency is the map on the right.

The gesso lift is a technique that uses a photocopied item and gesso (hence the gesso part of gesso lift!). The basic procedure is done by starting with canvas or watercolor paper prepared ahead of time with gesso and allowed to dry. Apply gesso with your paintbrush, not lightly and not heavily, just in a medium sort of way, to the canvas. You don't want it to bubbly. Place the image face down into the gesso and rub gently but consistently for a while, maybe a couple of minutes, until you feel it's made good contact. Try not to get any gesso on the back of this image. In the place that it happened to me the gesso dried as a dab right on top of the image, blocking it out. Allow to dry for one hour.

When it's, dry spray with water from your spray bottle and start gently rubbing the paper off. You'll get all these little paper balls, and rolls, etc. Just brush them off gently, continue spraying as needed, continue rolling...get into a zen place, enjoy it...until the paper is all gone. Please be advised: you can rub the image off, and you might actually do so, if you are not gentle and careful. So, please be gentle and careful. Unless that is of course that you want to rub out the image in places. Who knows, you might. If you are not sure if the paper is all gone allow it to dry for a while and if there is still paper there it will appear as a white image. Just re wet and keep rubbing!

Ok, so with the gesso lift you get a backwards, printed image of your copied image that's right on the paper/canvas, it actually seems to become a part of the canvas. You can now proceed to use this for whatever purpose you'd like within your artwork.

The second transfer we did is a transparency. We used soft gel in either regular or medium. I used a gloss gel, but matte is fine as well. In this transfer you also start with a photocopied image, but in this one you won't be reversing the image. So, words or a map or something like that won't need to be adjusted. So get your photocopy and paint the gel right onto what you want to make a transparency of, right onto the paper. Coat it in a medium way, not too heavy, not too light. Allow this coat to dry and repeat this procedure for an application total of four times. Allow the last coat to dry for 24 hours.

Once this time has passed, soak the whole thing in a container of very warm water. Let it soak, and then when the paper is dissolving or getting soft, start rubbing. Rub, rub, rub the paper all away. You might want to have a place to dump this water, or at least plan on straining it so you don't make a good papery gloopy mess down the drain. It might not happen right away, but it's better to be cautious on this account. Accumulation of time, et al.

Alrighty then, back to rubbing. Once the paper is all rubbed off you have essentially what looks like a rubbery version of an overhead projector type transfer. It's cool.

One thing about comparing the two methods. With the first method, the gesso lift, you are left with something directly in your art, something that you can build up on. With the transparency you can lay this in your artwork over something, something you've collaged in, or paint, or anything really, and what is behind it will show through. Amazing, yes!?

Then next thing we did in class was to make a color mixing chart. Everyone is using different paint in the class so we all chose our red, blue, yellow and green paint that we were planning on using. We then put small brush strokes of each of these at the top of our chart, which is essentially water color paper covered in gesso on both sides (to help in not warp). Basically the entire mixing process was relatively logical. If you start with yellow, make a puddle of yellow, now add one dab of blue, mix that all up and paint it on the chart, now add another dab of blue and mix it all up, paint that on the chart, do this for a total of five times so you get a value chart of yellow mixed with blue. Now you start the whole process again using the next color, say red. Puddle of yellow, one dab red, mix, paint, add another dab, mix, paint until five are lined up across. Repeat with all colors mixed with yellow then start with your next color, say blue. Start with a puddle, add dab, mix, paint, dab, mix, paint. When you mix all of the colors together it makes black. Diana says that transparent colors are more wonderful to work with because they are essentially color mixed with white. Opaques are mixed with white and black, so they tend to get a bit muddier. I can now attest to this statement. But, using what I've got, yes? yes.

So that's it for the color chart. Color is so fun, it's so awesome. I made the most fantastical wonderful purple by mixing the red and adding blue more and more and more. It was gorgeous.
Next week we are supposed to bring supplies for collaging, using elements from this week and our ideas and other stuff from home. It's been a bit challenging for me to think about because I'm not sure if I can do all of the elements I'd need to for the ideas I have. Also, I'm not sure I have a good cohesive idea I'd actually like to work on. I have lots of time though, so I'll keep thinking about it.

Hope some of this inspires you!

Hey, It's Jack!

Hey, It's Jack!

Jack is growing up, and getting to be a big puppy.

He's around 7 months in this picture taken last month.

Isn't he getting to be a cute dog?

We think so.

Say "Bye" Jack.

Ramadan

Last night the girls and I attended an event put on by the Islamic Center of Central Florida Center for Peace called "Building Bridges, Breaking Bread Banquet". For us, this event held a high significance.

We were lucky enough to be included in the event due to the organization of our fellow LIFE member and good friend, Sue Dolamore. Last year Sue's sister, Julie, included Sue and her daughter Ivy in this event and Sue had so many good things to say about it that we were encouraged to attend this year. Last year, Sue, Ivy, Julie; this year Sue, Ivy, Julie, Me, Jordan, Makenna, Cynthia, Sadie, Eliot, Lisa, Torin, Gareth, Tammy, Hannah, Nick!

The evening was so very respectful, interesting, gracious.

It started off with Outreach Director, Bassem Chaaban, welcoming us. Imam Muhammed, the local Imam, welcomed us. Then the first speaker was a female college student telling us what Ramadan means to her, how she integrates the "traditional" meaning of Ramadan into a more personal meaning. Imam Muhammed spoke about Then Bassam spoke about Ramadan, giving us more information about Islam in general and Ramadan in particular and explaining why the banquet has meaning to him and to the Muslim community.

We were then served a lovely meal of rice and hummus, bread, chicken, shish ke bob, salad and drinks. After dinner a visiting Imam from Baltimore spoke to us about his program, his personal program and work involves traveling and sharing with the world about what it like to be an Imam in America. This very educated man was born and grew up in Syria. He came to the United States and has become a US citizen. His experience in the global world is amazing. He described to us how important one of the 5 pillars of Islam, Pilgrimage, is and how he translates that to mean travel. By travelling, he has the opportunity to interact with Muslims all over the world. Let's just say that as an American, he is not always warmly welcomed. "Death to American!" is sometimes how he is greeted. But, one thing to say, one thing to learn, is that by doing his traveling, he can speak to others, he can share how America has given him many opportunities and how not every American supports George Bush's stance on the war. The are amazed and shocked, first that a Muslim can even practice in America, but then that there is education, openness, acceptance, etc.

This Imam, and many of the other Muslims there last night, share the feeling that many of us do that the working together, the peaceful gatherings, the cooperative behaviour do not make the news. But in the words of this Imam "no one will report of this banquet tonight, of this gathering, but if, God forbid, someone gets hurt, it will be all over the news." Yes, it's true. In many ways, and in many places.

For me, the overall feeling of the evening was so wonderful. There was a respect of all religions, a general practice of seeing that we are more alike than we are different. And, moreover, a feeling that killing and hating and war in the name of God was not how to be a good Muslim, not the intention set out in the Quoran. I most certainly share this feeling. It was a very hopeful and healing and educational experience. I left with the feeling that this is the way to peace. It may be slow, and it may be small, but it is there.

I was very thankful for this moving opportunity.

The Painted Drum

Hi, this is us in downtown Burnsville, NC., taken on September 2, 2007. We made a spontaneous trip to visit our friends Kristine, Todd, Elizabeth, and Tucker. Spontaneous trips rule. More on that later.

I just finished a book called The Painted Drum, by Louise Erdrich. I have not ever read a book by her before, but I do believe that I'm going to start working my way through her collection of fiction and poetry. The Painted Drum is the wonderfully worded, painting like writing that I love. The story involves a mother and daughter, both older, and tells he story of their lives~ the nature, the rhythm of life, of nature and the occurances of their lives. And what happens when they find this very old important drum in a private collection.

It's rich with metaphor and also with wonderful descriptions of the natural world and Native Indian culture. The drum is very powerful in the indian culture and so is story telling. This book speaks to that, tells the story of now, but brings us backward and forward in time, and from the plains to New Hampshire and back. I loved reading this book, loved the words, loved the way the author brings you along, brings things full circle. It was rich.

Latest change for Makenna

Hey, here's a picture of Makenna with BRACES!! She got them on the 22nd of August.

I have a renewed commitment to myself and my blog to blog more. I have really let some time slide, as seems to happen with me with blogging and journaling. I have, all of my life, wanted to stick with journaling. I start them and drop them, buy a new cool one, start it, let it slide...and on and on. Well, I've sort of realized that maybe this is a bit of a pattern with me (duh) and maybe I should not beat myself up or decide to not even start a journal if I can't stick with it, that sort of thing.

I've decided to just do the journaling thing like meditation, start, focus on the breath (intention to journal) and bring myself back to the breath when the mind wanders (pick up the journaling again after being distracted from it and having months of inactivity!).

So, here we are again, being brought back to the breath.

And that brings us back to Makenna and her braces. August 22nd, almost 2 weeks ago. Poor kid was in pain, big pain, for a while. I knew she was hurting because I've never seen her so unhappy and miserable for such an extended period of time. Sad puppy. Tuesday she got her braces and by the weekend she was perking up, but still not able to really eat much. By the time a week rolled around she was doing very well. Today in the car she said "I just forgot I have braces!" So, here we are. Life is getting better for the brace faces! Cheesy Braces Smile Alert!

Art Class Notes, Class1

Hey, I gotta put them somewhere!

I am taking an art class at the MDCA entitled Acrylics: Techniques, Tips and Tricks with Diana Barringer. I've been a fan of Diana's work for a while now and am pretty excited about getting the chance to be in a classroom with her. It seems to me that this class is going to be a lot about figuring out and learning about the medium, so therefore very process oriented. I suppose I mean as opposed to being product oriented.
Just figuring out what a technique or trick does is just the first step and it requires a bit of PLAY! See....process, not product.

Ok, so for me a bit of space is needed for note taking.

• First Class: Gessoing watercolor paper on back and front makes for a great "canvas" and doing both sides creates the tension needed so the painting doesn't warp.


• After gesso, we used our Watercolor Pencils to draw on the canvas and then used our nice, soft watercolor brushes with Golden Acrylic Glazing Liquid to "paint". This made the watercolor pencils look like acrylic paint. A great idea for travel, or laying in colors, or just layering.
  
• After this initial layer dries, start laying in the acrylic paints. Lush! -OR- add charcoal -OR- let first layer dry and add another layer of acrylic mixed with thick medium.
  
• Notes: Alcohol removes dried acrylic paint, either on the brushes, or on the painting. A great tip. Wet Canvas online for Woodie Watercolor Crayons - very rich and leave a lot of color and Cheap Joes for other items.

Ok, so that's the first class. Yeah, ME! Next week we are supposed to bring in a black and white photocopy for a class project about transfers and we'll see a demo using acrylic to simulate the luster of oil. I'll keep you posted!

Wren Hens

We have a family of House Wrens that have built a nest in a pitcher hanging off the back of our hose reel. I originally hung the pitcher there so I didn't have to lug the hose over if I was just watering our key lime tree. It was only there for a week or so before Makenna noticed it filling with sticks. She kept an eye on it then announced, "Mom, I think a bird is making a nest in that pitcher!" It seemed unlikely to me because it's in such a high traffic area on the side of our house. But, when I checked it, sure enough it was an official nest. I looked like a pile of sticks and grass, but if you looked closely you could see a tunnel down to the bottom. We quickly hung a bird house that Makenna had built and was in the process of decorating right near the pitcher. Our thought was that if we gave it a safer house to build in maybe it would actually not get frightened off, and also wouldn't abandon chicks or eggs should things get that far.

Shows you what we know....the birds have no interest in "our" nest spot, and proceeded to lay eggs ("Mom, you're not going to believe it, but I see Eggs in there!") and the eggs actually hatched ("MOM, there are baby birds in there!!!).

We've been watching these little guys and their lives and it's been so much fun and such a treat. We've all had a facefull of retreating Momma as we've tried to poke our heads in to check on them or get a better look. When they first hatched they were just hairless pink wonders and we all just couldn't believe that they actually made it that far. Now they lay in there quietly, heads close to the edge, waiting. If momma comes near it's peeppeeppeepeepepepeeeeeeep.

If you look at the picture above, you can see the mom ready to feed the little guys and they have their mouths wide open waiting. I was pretty lucky to get the shot. I had been looking at the nest with Jordan's camera, playing around, trying to see if I could get a good shot when she started coming around with their dinner. I stood still as could be and didn't move all the while holding the camera in the same position. When she got close the babies started their peeping and begging but when I took the photo she flew away. I left immediately so she could do her job but I'm so pleased with this shot.

It's been great. We love our little Wren Hens (as Makenna calls them).

Three Bad Backs and a Van

Today was yard sale day, a day debated over (is it good, fun, horrible, awful, a treat, a drudgery) by all family members. Makenna, Jordan and Amalie made homemade chocolate chip cookies and lemonade last night while we were at cafe da Vinci. Hard working girls!

It wasn't a huge success. The girls split the $15 in lemonade proceeds, and received $12.50 each for the yard sale. Usually they make a bit more, but like I said it wasn't that profitable. Makenna put her yard sale money in our Kayak Funds Jar and kept the lemonade profits.

We are, as a family, trying to save for a kayak. We're planning on buying a used tandem kayak. If you have any connections let us know!!

At the very end Rich and I were loading up our computer desk, disappointed that we didn't sell it, struggling to get it into the van, knowing a call to Dan (Heather's husband and our 3rd bad back) was going to be in order so we could borrow his bigger van, when a couple pulled up to the house. "You're not looking for a computer desk are you?" says I with my fingers turning red and a desk hanging out the back of a van "yup, exactly what we're here for." says they.

Unbelieveable!!!

And, he paid me $30 dollars for it.

Double bonus!

All in all, it was a good sale, mainly because the garage is clear of all of that stuff, which makes more room for my June project of cleaning out the garage an easier, more enjoyable thing. Makenna is doing Kids College for the month of June so that's what I have in mind for working on. It's a big project but Jordan swears she'll help. Yeah!

I had one of those moments yesterday when I was walking Jack. I was swinging his leash, just strolling along, walking because it was a beautiful night and the breeze was blowing. Makenna and I were chatting, mostly about nothing, just being together for the joy of it. It was one of those moments when I feel the connection with who I was as a kid, or a teenager, walking my dog, not much to do but whatever I want to do, and what I want to do is just walk along, and with who I am now, an adult, feeling very much like a very different person compared to then, but, yet, really, am I? I'm the same person, just grown up, having the same type of experience, many many years later. It's interesting to me how I feel this delineation of then and now, but there they are, side by side, one bringing me back to the other. These are just moments of awareness and yet they can be signposts, or lights shined on the pathway, or even touchstones.

Two Fat Bastards and an Old Dead Guy....ah the company I keep.

Tonite, Heather, Rich and I went to the Cafe da Vinci in Deland. If you went to Stetson University you would know where this is, or if you were on your way to New Smyrna Beach, then you would pass right through Deland on 44E. It's a cute, funky, hip little town that its locals seem to love and care deeply about.

We were in town for the Salvation Arty Returns event. 17 local artists used pieces of architectural salvage to make art in whatever way their heart desired. They had an opening reception tonight and the artists were there, along with the Wynn Brothers Band, an Orando band, who played outside. Cafe da Vinci has a fantastic outdoor seating courtyard area composed of salvaged slabs of marble, slate, tile, and miscellaneous other items for the flooring and old salvaged outdoor furniture, twinkly lights, and all sorts of lovely, homey, funky additions to make you feel like you never want to leave. This is where we saw the Avett Brothers after Suwannee Springfest.

Check out the kind of necklace I got from Jess, a great gal, talented artist and Wynn Brothers family member (by marriage, I think!). My necklace is black and tan and I love it. Go to her shop on Etsy, check out her myspace, enjoy her. She was great and her button necklaces are simple, but very mod, vintage-y looking. A great use for great buttons.

It was a nice night, well worth the 40 minute drive. Heather and I originally ordered Two Fat Bastards for ourselves, and an Old Dead Guy for Rich. Unfortunately, we ended up with some form of Shiray, since they were out of Two Fat Bastards. No mind, it was worth it to order that anyway, and I got a good title for this Blog Post!

Valentine's Day Heart Bookmark

Well, I've been noticing a distinct lack of creative show-n-tell in my blog. It was one of the reasons I wanted to have a blog, to show what I've been working on or been inspired by, etc. So, in light of that, here is what may seem like a blast from the not so distant past. This is the "Valentine" I made for my girls for Valentines day. My daughter girls and my girlfriend girls, too.

I found a knitted heart pin pattern from frugalhaus.com and turned it into my own little bookmark valentine. Aren't I crafty?

The pattern for the heart is at the bottom of the blog.

For the other parts of the heart, I used a really nice ribbon I found at the fabric store and sewed it to the bottom corner of the heart. I folded it over twice to tuck in the raw edge and bind it, then used a little button as a detail. Another option would be to sew the ribbon into the heart as you are sewing the two sides together. I wasn't ready with the ribbon and was involved with a little heart factory for a month or so to get all of these done so I didn't do it that way. But I might have if I had the chance to do it all over again. One note on ribbon, don't scrimp. I was making a lot of these and of course ribbon costs by the yard so maybe I did scrimp on a few of them. Bookmarks require length, so plan ahead.

I looked for some nice beads to add a bit weight to the end of the bookmark but was unable to find anything I really liked that didn't cost too much since I needed a lot of them. I think I made about 12 all together. What I came up with was making my own "beads" out of Sculpey clay. I bought on white and one glitter red, and out of that came pink. I made all sorts of different shapes for the beads; corkscrews, free form hearts, cubes, cylinders, etc. Then I used a straw to make the hole the correct size, baked 'em up, and cooled them down. Good to go.

Makenna's bookmark

Here are a few examples of what I made. Makenna's bookmark was made out of the yarn that she used to knit Grandma a scarf this Christmas. There was a bit left and I thought she'd like to have something special to remember that project by. This was the first full out gifty knitting project she ever finished and on a deadline, too! Go Makenna!

I used a cotton yarn for my bookmark which, in my opinion, did not work out as well. The hearts were nice, but a bit more woolly or fuzzy type yarn seems to work best. That's my bookmark on the lower right there, see what I mean? It's not as soft and lovely.

After I made all the bookmarks I taped them to a piece of heavy gauge watercolor paper and water colored my Valentine's message right on there. Voila! And that is my Heart Bookmark for Valentine's Day Project. Enjoy.

Knitted Heart
Ok, gauge, yarn and needle size are basically all variables that don't really matter here. Find a nice yarn in a color that seems like what you want. I didn't like the novelty hairy yarns, the heart gets a bit lost for my taste, but you may like it. Woolly or fuzzy work best.
Needles: any kind - single or double point sizes 2 or 5 - I used 3 needles for the top of the heart.
Yarn and needles will change the kind of heart and size of heart you like so just play a bit.

Directions:

Cast on 1 st.
Row 1: Knit into front and back and front of st., for 3 stitches
Row 2: (and all even rows) purl across.
Row 3: Knit into front and back of first st., K across to last st., knit into front and back of last st.
Row 4: Purl across
Repeat rows 3 and 4 until there are 11 sts. on the needle, ending on row 4.
Next row: Knit across, binding off center stitch, turn purl across 5 stitches, *turn, K 2 together, K 1, K 2 together, turn. Bind off.*
Join yarn at center (wrong side)and purl across
Repeat between *'s above.
Repeat from beginning to make another heart piece.

Finishing: Sew sides together, back to back, stockinette side out, stuffing lightly as you sew.

An Ongoing Project - Yup, another one.

Hello,

Well, today is Sunday, and I am on my back on ice trying to recover from the little "pop" heard round the world, or at least 'round my backside, which does seem worlds away, but that is yet another story.

So. Friday as I was looking in the fridge, bent to the side, head cocked, trying to see into the deep crevices for what I know is not even there (Java Chip Frap from Starbucks, still not there) a pop was heard/felt. I was ignoring what my mom says is the mantra of the back-challenged "always face your body to what you are looking at" or something like that, you get the idea anyway, thanks mom, I know that NOW! Ack....so therein starts my happy, happening, full of fun and adventure Flat on my Back Weekend!! Yes. Groan.

Well, what's come of this weekend is that I've delved into the basket set aside sometime this winter. The girls and I got the fabulous, wonderful, creative idea to totally copy our friends Elizabeth and Kristine's (mother and daughter, respectfully) idea to make a mother/daughter knitted blanket using some of our beloved yarn collection. So, Makenna jumped right on the idea, picked a color theme of blues/greens/purples, collected all the possible yarns and we threw them all in a basket. Jordan, Ken and I hung out, knitting and saying how great this blanket was going to be, and who was going to get it when we were done, how we would share it, etc. then promptly lost our happy knitting train of thought. I've made a few squares, they both have squares started on their needles, and there it has sat.

This weekend, as I was lying on the floor on ice, my face right next to the basket, being forced to not do anything remotely on or near any of my lists of things to do (things to do today, things to do this week, things I can't do until after I finish all these other things to do - prioritized, numbered and waiting, now you're getting the idea) I decided to pick up this project and kick out a few squares. You still with me. Go ahead, catch your breath from that last run on sentence, I'll wait.

So, mother/daughter blanket....back in action.

Here are a few pics.

This is the basket with some of the yarns.

Here are the squares already worked on.

It's a free form type of thing, we're just going to make the squares whatever size we want, and whatever size needle, and whatever stitch we want to do them in. Free Form. No rules, just follow your fancy. You want it, we got it.


Wish us luck!