Amusing myself!

Sometimes one needs to find amusement whenever and wherever one can find it! The sauna-like-conditions haven't been conducive to evening watering (the drip system doesn't cover all of the areas, yet!) so I took my camera outdoors with me and took a lot of photos. I love close-ups that I can manipulate, but thought I'd share these instead. This yard has only been in for 16 months. Some of you may remember seeing photographs of the bare bones which in this case is horrible desert soil! Everything in these photos has ended up here after a lot of sweat; to say the least I'm quite pleased with the results. Upper left, the vine growing up the pole of the pergola that shades my bedroom and the dwarf lime tree. Upper right, the view from outside of my bedroom looking to the west. Bottom left, basil waiting to be made into pesto. Lower right, The mounded area outside of the dining room/great room which is also under the tree in the pic just above it.
White oleander nicely back lit. A cactus I brought with me from Monterey. Notice the two babies in the front of it, this plant multiplies like crazy!
A palm tree in the front yard next door, back lit. And a grape leaf in full sunlight. I doubt we'll ever have any grapes, but the vine is doing quite well.


Quotes: The real character of a man is found out by his amusements.
-Joshua Reynolds

The mind ought sometimes to be diverted, that it may return the better to thinking.
-Phaedrus

The only way to amuse some people is to slip and fall on an icy pavement.
-Ed Howe

In the mail!

This gorgeous glass mosaic button is from my a very dear friend Linda. Check out her work at her etsy store: and on her blog at: I chose it because I live in Palm tree country and am acquiring a fondness for the trees even though a mere 20 months ago when I moved here I hated them; what can I say, I lived in Pine tree country for 31 years!

Fleur-de-lis

On June 29 I posted the before pics of this piece.

I can't remember when I started collecting Fleur-de-lis motifs, but right now they seem to be very popular! Wouldn't you know it?! The metal embellishments are handmade; once they were aged with black paint they told me where they wanted to go. I was blown away by the way the fibers from the left to right, lower area, followed a sweeping swirling motion, subtle, but perfect for placing embellishments. Wish I could say that I'd planned it that way, but I didn't notice that line of fibers until I put the motifs in place. Anyway, this piece was embellished for Dale's online workshop. Lesson 2 of 6. Talk about being way behind. A few students are caught up with all 6 lessons, I hate them!!

I think that my problem with this piece was that I fell in love with the gold foil on the black felt base and then the painted cheesecloth that was embellished on followed by a layer of distressed silk gauze. I've always had a hard time working with layers, but it sure makes a difference. In person the gold foil is a little more evident, nice shimmery effect in a few areas some of which can be seen in this scan on the upper edge a little right of the middle. At first I thought that this was a vertical piece but the direction changed to horizontal once I started adding yarn to it.

We're having monsoonal conditions here in the desert! Thursday night there was an exciting thunder and lightning show with even some rain! I sat on the patio under cover of the extended roof and marveled at nature! The change in weather is playing havoc on our allergies! But at least the temps have fallen from 110 + to high 90's. Yep, one can feel the difference.

I found a collection of poems by Emily Dickinson amongst mom's books that I was sorting out to donate. (She seems to read the same 3 books over and over again. I think that she's drawn to the covers. I'm not a fan of romance novels so I'm clearing out a huge portion of them.) I opened the book to the page with this poem on it.

Quote/poem: Pain has an element of blank:

It cannot recollect

When it began, or when it was not.

It has no future but itself,

Its infinite realms contain

Its past, enlightended to perceive

New periods of pain.

Collaboration

Darlene started this box and I put the final touches on it. Check out how the box looked

when it arrived at my studio on Darlenes' blog at: We gave it our best shot . . .

(click on the image to enlarge it.)

Quote: The muse is born in pain, thrives on it and loves to inflict it. Warren Criswell.

What's it all about??

(about the 5th attempt on this painting!)
I often wonder why I end up going ballistic over things that really don't matter all that much. So what if it's so hot that it hurts or that the glass on the oven door shattered after the warranty expired or that appointments get changed or that Stacy still needs at least one more test before she finally gets onto a kidney transplant list? And how come I'm easily upset by the odd things mom does while wandering around the Alzheimer's abyss? Maybe it's self-protection to always be a bit angry or stressed over things? I let my guard down on Monday and feel as shattered as the glass on the oven door that exploded on the 4th of July! At least the glass can be replaced while I on the other hand need to dig myself out of the black hole once again. Watching mom slide into a place where I can no longer reach her is the most painful thing I've ever dealt with; I often think that maybe the timing was preplanned to keep me from the feelings I have about a kidney transplant. I'm still not sure it's the best thing for Stacy. But, she's at a cross-roads where she'll start to lose ground the longer she's on dialysis. The options aren't good. Either is the news about all of the things that could go wrong . . . So, if I'm a bit angry most days I can deal with whatever comes up, but if I fall apart I can't handle even the slightest thing like having a horrible spider bite on my leg without going to bed and sleeping for days.
This piece drove me nuts! Or maybe it was supposed to challenge me to think about something other than the daily dose of dealing with the wasted 4 hour round trip to Loma Linda (the last urologist didn't do enough tests!) or perhaps I needed to literally throw paint at something because I often want to scream about the latest "lost" item that mom has misplaced? She always thinks that someone has taken her things; I loathe searching for things, but then who doesn't?
(closeup)
Whatever the reason I can't get over the transformation of the blah lifeless painting to something rather exciting. At least it's exciting to me. For quite some time I have wanted to do a painting in shades of white with a some brown thrown in; nope, that's not black on the painting, it's chocolate brown, but nothing worked!
(closeup)
I also wanted the piece to look like a wall or the side of an old building. The textures were created with lots of gesso, tar gel, sand and layers and layers of paint that I painted over with gesso for a clean-slate each time I wasn't satisfied with the direction the painting was going. It finally came together when I let go of trying to make it behave. Letting go is what life is all about; when will I learn that?

I treated to myself to an IPod upgrade yesterday, before I found out how much the replacement glass for the oven is costing!, and while downloading Cd's I came across a Neil Diamond quote. "I never tried to fit in because that meant conforming what I could write or what I could do to a certain set of rules . . ."

Challenge

Not much of a challenge, but I tossed this one out to my yahoo group. Use puzzle pieces and rubber stamp on them. A few members played along. After trying a few things the pieces that worked for me were first spray painted with black then stamped with white dye ink and sealed with Future wax.

What's the difference between scanning and photographing? Sometimes there is a vast difference as in the case of a gesso textured mat board with a black acrylic wash and a touch of treasure gold highlighting. I didn't like the scan on the left so once I glued on the puzzle pieces for a cirque inspired effect I photographed the piece. The photograph is truer to the black and white of the piece but still isn't accurate and the puzzle pieces are barely noticeable. (click on photos to enlarge.)

Quote: Got a goal? Without a doubt you will succeed. With a doubt you might not. Sally Huss

So hot that it hurts!

The temps have been excruciating! This is the second time in two weeks that it's so hot it hurts to breathe or go anywhere or play in the garage studio! I'm frustrated! Who knew that 107 would feel cool? When the temps creep up to 115 and stay there for a couple of days not only do the plants in the garden fry and die, but I feel like joining them. A dialysis nurse in ICU told me that it's much easier to deal with the heat if you say to yourself, "this intense heat only lasts 16 weeks." Who is she kidding? The AC has been on since March, but at least it was only in the 80's - 90's then and cooled off at night. The night temps are now around 91 during the night. Yeah, I know, it's "dry heat." That doesn't matter when the pores are dripping sweat!


The thing that might save me is my new-found love for embellishing with the felting adaptor. I'm so far behind, three weeks, with the lessons for Dale's workshop that I'm beginning to think that the only way to catch up is to combine lessons. The first samples above are: gold foil ironed on black felt topped with dye-na-flow painted cheesecloth heavily embellished on both the back and front sides. A bit garish! Fortunately, I ordered black silk gauze from Dharma that I was able to tone down the colors with; I also distressed the black gauze with heat. Sadly, the gold foil is barely noticeable after all of the layering, but there is a hint of it which adds a nice glow. The next step is to add stitches or something which is where I'm stuck!!

The second piece is dye-na-flow painted pellon. Yep, I love dye-na-flow! I just got my order from Dick Blick so I now have a few more colors to experiment with on cheesecloth, lace, pellon etc. I'm hoping to do some felting on the painted pellon but so far the direction is alluding me. I painted the pellon before Stacy's ICU visit and find that most of the ideas I had have vanished. So, if someone finds them please return them to me!!

Thanks for all of the lovely comments here on the blog and personally! Means a lot to me. Liz, I find quotes everywhere and have collected them for years. Lots of them can be found by googling "quotes for inspiration" or "quotes for artists" but my favs are by Sally Huss from the local newspaper.

I can identify with this quote: I have a promiscuous muse. My muse wants to own every color, work in many media, and in numerous genre. Mary Klotz

Give Worry a rest. It gets tired too. By Sally Huss

Oh how I wish I could give worry a rest! Stacy spent three days in ICU last week when her BP was so high the top of her head nearly exploded, at least that's the way she explained it. Numerous seizures and BP readings all over the charts was more worrisome than anything we've experienced in awhile. Hopefully, I'll get some studio time this weekend.

Felting

A little needle embellisher piece.
-------------------------------------------------------


This is too large to ignore and obviously of great concern to me. Mom daily loses more ground into the Alzheimer's abyss.

24-hour helpline: 1.800.272.3900http://donate.alz.org/

Dear Gail,
I'm writing to you today with an urgent message. I wanted you to be among the first to know this news because of your interest in our goal of a world without Alzheimer's disease. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) National Center for Health Statistics today reported that Alzheimer's disease has surpassed diabetes as a leading cause of death. Alzheimer's is now the sixth-leading cause of death in the United States.
With our nation facing an unprecedented population shift of aging baby boomers, and Alzheimer's poised to strike 10 million of them, it is clear this escalating epidemic must be addressed now with your help.

Rust dyeing

Found some odd metal, roof tiles, at the home improvement store so tossed a couple into a vinegar, water and salt bath and the next day wrapped a scrap piece of muslin around the already rusting metal and drenched it with more vinegar. Two days later glorious patterns had printed onto the muslin including the price tag on the back side! At first I was upset by that and then I thought that maybe it might be a good idea for a resist. Yep, this is from one piece of metal. The folded muslin made 5.5 prints.

Quote: I have a promiscuous muse. My muse wants to own every color, work in many media, and in numerous genre. Mary Klotz

I'm immersed in an online felting workshop, nothing to show yet, but having a blast!

Color Lottery Challenge

Lucky me! I received the lilac, pink with a smidgen of green postcard in a color challenge lottery. Fun idea. The colors I drew were burgundy and lime green. We could add a third color so I went with black.

The background on mine is a monoprinting from a post below, stamped Fleur de Lis on paper towel, foam letters, a hand embellishment, ribbon, brads and assorted postage stamps.


The gorgeous PC I received is Painted paper towel, scrim, couched yarn, chiffon scarf, a few French knots and a little Angelina.




Quote: If a muse knocked at our studio door tomorrow, how many of us would even notice?
Carol Katchen

New Toy

Not a very good picture, but the felting adapter I purchased from Feltcrafts.com is pretty amazing. I had the metal plate cut to size by feltcrafts and that holds the foam into place. So, I decided to take the adapter for a test run today; the workshop I signed up for starts on June 4th.

I've decided that painted lutradur felted onto white felt might not have been a good choice, but I couldn't find any black. The colors, burgundy and lime green, were more vivid until they were toned down by the white felt coming through the lutradur, hard to explain! Felting happens when two pieces of fabric are meshed together by the punching with needles. Sometimes the back of a piece can be as interesting as the front because fibers are pulled through, not so with this one. Being that this was an experiment to try out the adapter I didn't have a plan in mind when I felted on yarns, a painted dryer sheet and finally black chiffon, so I'm surprised that the result is interesting. I love that the heat distressed chiffon allowed some of the background to show through. I have no idea why I added the white chiffon strip on the left, but this might become a journal cover.

I scanned my progress from beginning to end and the huge PDF is here:

Quote: Those who work only when the muse strikes them make little progress.

William Dunning

Handmade Paper

Another piece of two handmade papers fused together. This piece fused a little better than the one in the next post did. The bottom layer is rusted paper and the top layer started out life as a brown paper bag; when the sheet was dry an abstract of acrylic paints was applied.

Question: is anyone having a hard time getting daily updates now that blogarithm has changed? I love getting blog updates daily so that I could quickly go to them. Is there another service like that? The one that took over from blogarithm seems to be a bust.

Quote: Do whatever you do intensely. Robert Henri

Handmade Paper

Handmade papers and rust monoprinting. (Couldn't get this one to scan straight!) It seems that we're having a bit of a heat wave! 114 yesterday about that again today. Yikes! The monoprinting part of this piece only took about 2 hours instead of overnight. The background paper is my secret, rusted paper and the top layer is a blue speckled piece that was made from copy paper and blue card stock.

The transplant saga continues: My plan to load Dr. L. with as much info as I could along with my plea for help, and I'm positive the good thoughts and prayers from just about everyone we know, allowed things to fall into place in such a way that it now seems ridiculous that I was ever so upset! Faith!! We met with Dr. L at 1pm today and he said that he couldn't figure out why the transplant team needed his approval/clearance so he wrote on a prescription pad, "PT can have surgery." I wonder what the team will think about that? Then we started a plan to wean Stacy off of the Dilantin and increase one of her other meds which should take about 3 weeks. We're hoping for a balance that won't throw her precarious system into high-alert causing seizures. Sounds easy doesn't it?

Dr. L. was also in total agreement with me that it's not necessary to pursue the epilepsy surgery evaluation. Phew! What a load off.

Thank you readers for "listening."

Quote: Moodling, a combination of musing and mental doodling, can lead to floating over any number of obstacles . . . Jane Chanpagne

Urban and cirque inspired

The urban inspired piece on the top was completed two weeks ago when I was still feeling optimistic; the cirque inspired piece was nearly finished at the same time. I couldn't sleep last night, the second sleepless night in a row, so I finished the bottom piece. The scan is a bit off, the lime green isn't as yellow as it appears. The scan also didn't capture the depth. Notice the line on the left that runs through the circle, that's a surprise. The circle was added after the lines. Nice when surprises happen!

I have great friends. Wait, make that outstanding friends! One sent me in the direction of Eckhart Tolle's earlier book, "The Power of Now," which as it turns out is exactly what I needed now! Thank you Maria!

Ready for some humor?! Mom received a jury summons in the same mail that carried the news about the continuing saga for the kidney transplant evaluation. Can you just picture an 81 year old woman with Alzheimer's on a jury who doesn't know where she lives or what day it is? The devil in me nearly decided to take her on the appointed day, but the good daughter wrote the letter explaining that I'm her caregiver. Both of us have now received summons in the last two months, I imagine that Stacy will be next!

For those of us who run out of bubble wrap to pop there is another way!

Tina sent me this! Make sure that your speakers are on. I had a blast popping them!

http://tinyurl.com/ytszm

Quote: And how do I get to that point of realization?
When you surrender to what is and so become fully present, the past ceases to have any power. You do not need it anymore. Presence is the key. The Now is the key.

How will I know when I have surrendered?
When you no longer need to ask the question.

Ekckhart Tolle - The Power of Now

Monoprinting Challenge

Monoprint challenge. Spread paint onto freezer paper or sheet of glass. Make a design or not, lay fabric over the paint, brayer fabric to create a tight bond, pull the fabric off and you'll have a new piece of fabric to play with. I love this technique! It's been years since I've done any monoprinting and suddenly ideas are springing up everywhere. Tips: brayer from the middle out to the edges, this makes for less movement of the fabric and a crisper lift of the print. Use only a couple of colors, otherwise you'll get mud. Use a brayer or paint spreader to evenly apply paint to the surface, make a quick design or use stencils or rubber stamps. I find that I often need to spritz water over the paint before putting the fabric over the design, but then it is 100+ degrees here in the desert right now!
Thank you Carol Taylor for another fun challenge!!!

I'm working on a couple more rusted objects monoprints similar to one posted a few days ago; they're not quite as instant as using acrylic paints or inks are.

Another piece that didn't make the grade for the collaborative. This one was re-worked numerous times before I finally stopped. There is a peeling paint effect that was achieved with gesso over black paint, sprayed with alcohol and rubbed until I liked it. Depth surprisingly occurred when light and dark shades started playing off of each other. This piece didn't jive with the direction of most of the work for the collaborative so it's now in my collection.

Kidney Transplant Update: We received news by mail late yesterday that an important clearance had been overlooked. Who do I blame and shout at?!?! This important neurology status about Stacy's seizures had been omitted from our list of 14 things to have done! It should have been number one. Unfortunately, yesterday the neurologists office phoned and canceled the appointment Stacy for the 27th with the news that Dr. L. can't see Stacy until July!!!!! I wasn't happy about that, but once the letter from Loma Linda was in my hands I hit the roof! One of the anti-epileptic meds would interfere with a kidney transplant anti-rejection med so unless the anti-epileptic med is changed, and that could have been done over the course of the last few months while the other tests had been done, she can't be put onto a transplant list. I'm having a very difficult time coming to terms with how this happened and what can be done about it. Stacy is wounded beyond reason. We're not having an easy time with this news. Dr. L. is one of the few overbooked neurologists in this area, so simply saying that I'll find another one isn't of much help.
I've just spent the last hour putting together the information and my concerns into a thick package of materials that I will carry to Dr. L's office on Monday. Hopefully, he'll see the need to start doing something about the med and he'll phone me. Plan B is to do a sit-in . . . This particular medicine has concerned Dr. L. for quite some time and he has wanted to wean her off it while trying another med. We're just a little late getting around to it. So, the saga continues . . .

Quote: Sally Huss to the rescue again!! "Give up your concerns, not your attention, but your concerns."

Circles

Now that the collaborative I've been involved in has been submitted I can show some of the work I rejected for the project. This piece was done using Nevr-dull Wadding Polish to remove color from a magazine page. I normally use glue for the resist to make patterns, shapes or lettering but this time I used Gel Tar. Copyright issues are always foremost in my mind when I use pages from magazines so I look for pages that mostly have one to three colors on them that will work well under the resist. This time I got lucky; black that turned to grey when removed by the Nevr-dull. A wash of metallic yellow helped to create an interesting background. This piece will go into the works-in-progress bin.

Finally Friday! This week was very intense with doctor appointments and finally getting the urology clearance Stacy needed in order to be placed on a kidney transplant list. (she's not officially on the list yet.) It must have seemed like the perfect week for mom and Stacy to have melt-downs which left me close to having one myself. Instead I spent a few hours in the garage studio this morning working on some monoprints and backgrounds before the heat forced me indoors. 100+ degrees already!

Quote: Just the right thought can change a moment. Such a moment can change a day.
Sally Huss (to the rescue again!!)

Urban

I'm not crazy about cutting a picture in half with any kind of line, but for some reason this one doesn't bother me. The grid on the lower half is more textural than bold which otherwise would definitely not have worked.

I bought some spatulas at the dollar store yesterday to use as spreaders rather than a much-used credit card that seems to create the same textures over and over. Surprising the spatulas, 5 of them, do make a difference. Changing tools is something to consider more often . . .

Quote: I am interested in art as a means of living a life; not as a means of making a living.

Robert Henri

Urban

Urban: of, relating to, characteristic of, or constituting a city.

When I think about urban I envision the decay of buildings, graffiti, and architecture of a by-gone era. Patinas that create abstracts have always been of interest to me and the subject of numerous photographs. Returning to my interest of what Urban means to me suddenly entered my work at about 2am a couple of nights ago. I was putting gesso onto a couple of substrates before I crawled into bed and didn't notice the grid and line patterns that occurred. It wasn't until the next day when I started adding paint that the urbanness (no such word, but it'll do!) became apparent. Odd how a direction will present itself if one simply gets out of the way. Muse at work? Most likely!

On the left is Night-scape and of course "O" is on the right, graffiti perhaps. When I was working on Night-scape I was reminded of how Georgia O'Keeffe got to a point in her work that was not satisfying and began over by working with black charcoal. Her simple lines in charcoal are exquisite. Maybe it's time I start to think about simplicity rather than how much texture and color I can put onto a piece. "O" isn't about simplicity, it's about making marks in a variety of ways including stencils. Exploration is good.

Quote: Robert Henri. "Know that the old masters did. Know who they composed their pictures, but do not fall into conventions they established. These conventions were right for them, and they were wonderful. They made their language. You make yours. All the past can help you."

Untitled

Colors sometimes shift when photographed or scanned. This piece is just such an example; in life there is more of a rusted effect in some of the areas than this scan was able to capture.

The first bottle of gesso is now history! I was able to prim and texture more substrates than I expected which pleases me. Cracking open a new bottle today ended up being the highlight of the day! I ended up with more "mud" than anything inspiring or usable. A layer of gesso, hopefully, will allow me to start over.


Quote: Spend time every day listening to your muse is trying to tell you.
Saint Bartholomew

Mono-printing

Regarding a question posted, yes, I often use Quinacridone colors in order to get a rust color; I especially love Nickel Azo Gold over Payne's Grey or Turquoise and Red Iron Oxide over anything, but there's no substitute for the real thing. Washers and nails were used to create this composition. I've discovered that paper towels and muslin work best for mono-printing.

I'll be posting a few pieces in the next few days where I have relied heavily on Quinacridone colors for a rusted effect.

Quote: Thank you Sally Huss for this: Joy lasts as long as you remember that it belongs to you.

High-flying-act

High-flying-act, or act-of-despair? The idea for this piece came from a place of wanting to leave the scene on the home-front and not deal with mom's disappearance into Alzheimer's and waiting for news about Stacy's bladder function test. The urologist is insistent that we do a follow-up in his office. May 12Th won't arrive soon enough!

The figure in this piece is attempting to stay out of the flames of despair, the ochre and reds, but is getting a little bit too close for comfort. Working out emotions through my work is something new and I'm not sure that I like going this deep. I prefer to simply react to where the piece is taking me and not give it much thought.

Quote: If you have the perseverance, courage and the confidence to unleash your trained skills without too much interference from the analytical or left side of the brain, the spontaneity that results can be exhilarating.

Ken Strong

Red Zone

I've wanted to work with reds for quite some time. Red denotes many things to me including
rage, happiness, and just plain delicious. I was in a rage when I started this diptych, but the longer I worked on it the calmer I became, oddly enough. Maybe it's the richness of the shades and highlights of gold that was the deciding factor in changing my mood, whatever it is I don't wish to dwell on it.


Quote: Silence is a true friend that never betrays.
Confucius

Tar Gel Tutorial

I've been experimenting with Tar Gel a fun medium made by Golden. For a tutorial go here:

Both of these examples are some sections of larger pieces. The circle one was created for a collaborative and the blue textured piece is a portion of a 7x16 inch piece that is giving me fits.

I've been thinking about friends lately and how much cyber friendships mean to me!!
Who knew that one could have so many great long-distance friendships? I'm grateful for the Internet!!


Quote: "A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out."
- Walter Winchell

Whimsy

This is a close-up of a section of the piece I posted yesterday. To answer a question: The texture isn't as evident as it is is some of the pieces, but there is a lot of textured gesso followed by layers and layers of acrylic paint. There were a couple of areas that weren't working so I diluted gesso and painted stripes that were allowed to drip. All of the lines, textures and paint, are vertical which provides a dripping effect. The piece is sealed with Future wax that catches the light when photographed and glares where it shouldn't; I couldn't scan this 7x16 inch piece.

I love diptychs and multiples and have a couple of them in the works. A foam spiral stamp was randomly pressed into gesso creating the design. The performers in Cirque Du Soleil seem to swirl . . .

Quote: When the entire process becomes a prescribed ritual that does not allow for spontaneous variations and reactions, the vitality of the medium and our relation to it suffers.

Jerry Uselsmann, photographer

Gypsy Wagon

This one reminds me a section of an old circus or gypsy wagon that has been painted over and over and then started to peel. More whimsy than I usually do, that's for sure, but it took on a life of its own and I just followed along for the fun. The odd thing is that the one I worked on today also took me somewhere more whimsical. What's that all about? Cirque, Circus? Ah!

Quote: Spontaneity needn't suffer from pre-planning.

James McFarlane

Cirque inspired

So, it seems that the Cirque Du Soleil inspired work hasn't stopped. What looks something like a dream-catcher showed up in the upper right on this small piece.

Maybe my current fascination with circles has something to do with how chaotic life is; the circle often represents the need for formal structure. I've been obsessed with circle shapes over the years starting with mandalas that I wove and sold in galleries until the work started to become more assembly line than creative.

Upper left: three card cases I whipped last night. I love turning paper bags into something useful.

Quote: Creativity arises out of the tension between spontaneity and limitations, the latter forcing the spontaneity into the various forms which are essential to the work of art or poem.

Rollo May

Rusted bag

For some reason the fabric for this bag wouldn't rust the first or second time I dyed it! It's a fabric of indeterminate blend that I got in the $1 a yard bin at the fabric store. The weave almost looks like linen but its not; I liked it because it was off-white which I think is often better for rust dyeing than pure white is. If all else fails allow the fabric to rust for over a week.

I've run into a block regarding the Cirque Du Soleil series! Or, maybe it's time, already, to move on to something else. I wondered if I could maintain enough momentum to do a series.

Quote: I started out as a realist painter. I would paint that rock. Now, I paint the essence of rocks--what I feel when I see them. Pat Dewes.

Pat Dewes HERE

Tagged?!?!?

Moi?! Say it isn't so . . .

I’ve been tagged for a game where you share 6 weird quirks or habits you may have. So that means I am tagging anyone who wants to play along . . .!!

Here are the rules:

1. Link to the person that tagged you. Darlene at:

2. Post the rules on your blog.

3. Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself.

1. I don't understand milk chocolate! I'm passionate about dark chocolate, so much so that I have to have chocolate in my coffee. We're not talking Hershey's chocolate, but the best quality I can find.

2. I bite my fingernails; I stopped for 15 years but am at it again! Ugly!

3. I'm not fond of answering questions to the point of hanging up on anyone who phones saying they're taking a survey; and I rarely pass along emails that require answers. Yep, I hate tests!

4. I can't stand anyone near my space; elevators are pure torture! And forget about crowds!

5. What's with the phrase, "No problem." Isn't the response, "you're welcome." ??

6. I hope no wins the election for president!! We need to start over . . . There must be someone out there in the wings. Speak up!!

5. Let each random person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website.

TAG! You're it!

Yes, I'll vote; I'm just waiting to see how things play out before I make any decisions. I made the wrong choice years ago.

Cirque

I found this about "O".

I rarely use purples in my work but today when I was at Michael's craft store I picked up two shades of purple and a metallic red all of which I immediately put to use. The glow created from the metallic red is a nice surprise so much so that I'll be looking for more metallic colors. A little shimmer is always a good thing.

Quote: So while our art cannot, as we wish it could, save us from wars, privation, envy, greed, old age, or death, it can revitalize us amidst it.

Ray Bradbury from Zen in the Art of Writing.