Baby Steps

I'm taking baby steps today, back into the world of art. Well, brushes of gel medium, anyway!
It's amazing how you forget the feel of the brush in your hand and the way the paint and gel feel so natural flowing out from it. Clumsy, I was, getting gel medium all over the sleeve of my shirt.
I'm following the directions of Katie Kendrick in constructing a magical, framed, hidden piece of art - entirely of cardboard and glue. (And joint compound, when I get some.) I have the frame, with an extra layer around the edges underneath to lift it a bit off the page. I believe I will put a mica frame on it because I found some pieces of mica laying on the art table.
Now here is where I believe I am successful, only BECAUSE of my messy art table. I MUST have everything around me - all at the same time. That way, it sometimes seems, I can find just what I wasn't looking for! (but needed) Because of my messing about with the mica and trying to separate the pieces as fine as possible, I found out be accident how you make the sparkly mica bits to glue on artwork. Crumbling the fine layers up make this magical substance!! Love it.
The two doors will open up to reveal the frame, inside of which will be ... well, who knows? Not me; not yet - femminismo

Paint Under My Nails

FIRST things first, we show the "Grandman," the best looking grandchild in the world. Just ask my daughter, the grandmother. Yes ... that, er, makes me the great-grandmother. Life is stranger than fiction (or something like that).
Saturday I was out shopping for art supplies and Sunday (today) I was at Art & Soul from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. using the supplies. I took Katie Kendrick's class, "Every Face Tells A Story."
What a place Art & Soul is, with rooms full of people creating wonderful things, treasures, gifts and new careers, I'll bet.
The hallway was full of women in aprons but no one was cooking food. Everyone was cooking up Art!
There was transformational painting, "Skulls, Wings & Rusty Things," "Funky Found Object Canvas Village," Tiny Treasure, Spinning Bead Pendant and lots more. And there are classes tomorrow, too. Oh, don't think calling in sick and getting a hotel room didn't come into my pea brain! Maybe next year I will do four classes in four days. I could eat for two days on the turkey club sandwiches from the hotel. I hear that Nov. 7-11 they are doing four days at the Inn at Spanish Head. Not many spaces left though.
So, what did we paint? Katie asked us to bring Ampersand claybord and it was great to work on. Gosh, I felt almost professional. She also wanted us to bring high contrast printed pictures of faces.
Here is my first picture from Google hosted Life magazine photos. We used light, medium and dark values of collage materials ripped from magazines to lay down for texture and then painted over them.
I was having fun with this one for quite a while. She was "speaking" to me and my fingers were covered with gesso and acrylic paint. It was like a pair of gloves! Then the fun stopped. I became self conscious and she got a bit testy, not liking anything I was doing to her. Fortunately Katie's method includes working on two or more projects at a time and so we all began another picture.
This time it was supposed to be mostly paint. Water-soluable crayons were used and stabilo pencils and sometimes a little collage. I didn't use a photo for this one, but just drew a face on my own.
You'll have to look sideways at this one. It forgot to rotate it and I'm too lazy to stop and do that now. I had big trouble with this one, so after Katie finished a "demo," I stood in line for help.
Here she is showing a bunch of different methods - transfers, stamping, shading and magic. She just jabs brushes into this paint and a little bit of that and they take on magic colors. The outlines on the faces she paints are just amazing. To watch them transform in front of you is like watching time lapse photography. Practice, practice, practice. That's all it takes. Well, not strictly all.
So after she took a hand in helping me with my face and the story it had to tell, this is what showed up in the hallway for our group show. (Mine is No. 2 and 3, both in the middle.)
I tell you what, I was going to show them all to you, but it is 9 p.m. and there's a workday tomorrow and more painting if I get home on time. We'll talk painting then, OK? - femminismo

Good Grief! It's Raining Eggs!

HOW could I allow you to worry all this time about my electronic devices, my dear blog!?
I found everything - phone and camera - shortly after posting the picture of Sir Laurence and was actually going to immortalize him as a saint through some nifty Photoshop work ... but then that plan fell by the wayside. The universe did look out for me once more.
I had better post something tonight, however, because I have a meeting tomorrow night and may not have the time.
-The picture of eggs is from a magnificent collection at the Pioneer Museum in Tillamook, Oregon. Go if you ever have the chance.-
Today I listened to a voice mail from Barb in Michigan, one of my dearest, dearest friends and she said she reads this blog (oh, isn't she the dearest?) and she said it sounds as though I'm leading an interesting life.
I had to laugh since I have been feeling quite recently (yesterday) that my life is depressing and meaningless. I have been (still) reading "Reading Lolita in Tehran" by Azar Nafisi and in the book she quotes from Henry James' "The Ambassadors" as Lambert Strether, the hero of the novel, tells a young painter, little Bilham, whom he has unofficially appointed as his spiritual heir: "Live all you can; it's a mistake not to. It doesn't so much matter what you do in particular so long as you have your life. If you haven't had that what *have* you had? I'm too old -- too old at any rate for what I see. What one loses one loses; make no mistake about that. Still, we have the illusion of freedom; therefore don't, like me to-day, be without the memory of that illusion. I was either, at the right time, too stupid or too intelligent to have it, and now I'm a case of reaction against the mistake. For it *was* a mistake. Live, live!"
And, yes, there were times when I was too stupid or too intelligent to take a different path than the one I'm on right now, and there certainly are some regrets. All the time I've wasted for instance. Some would say I'm doing that again right now, but not me.
The Mister and I spent Tuesday, Sept. 21, celebrating our 14th anniversary in Oceanside, Oregon. We walked through the tunnel carved into Maxwell Point and came out on the other side to dig through rocks to find another heart-shaped one for our collection. Lots of great finds and it was a beautiful day on the coast.
This Friday I am joining a friend to hit the Art Harvest Tour in Yamhill County. That area of Oregon looks a lot like Tuscany, only the hills are farther away from each other and the lanes are much longer and dustier with no impromptu boccie ball in the fields. And on Saturday the same friend and I are taking a travel writing workshop. This is our second one together and soon we will have to do some traveling for research on an article to $$ sell $$! Then we can take more trips.
And I've saved the best for last: On Oct. 10 I am taking Katie Kendrick's Art & Soul class in Portland, "Every Face Tells a Story." If I don't have actual artwork to show you after that I don't know what my excuse will be. Check out her blog if you want to see some of the wonderful work she's produced. So now I guess I'm not living a meaningless life. It's a self-directed life toward more art and travel - femminismo
p.s. The sunset picture, with fishing boat and gull on pole, was taken after dinner at the coast on Sept. 21, 2010, in Tillamook.

So Much Going On ... Living Life.

YES, there has been a lot going on. Good and bad. One of my favorite teachers died. I attended her funeral this past Friday, June 13. It was like going home again, there were so many familiar faces from my childhood and teen years. My teacher, Mrs. Nyberg, would have been 99 years old this month. She knew it was time however, and so ... she let go of this world.
At the life celebration for her it was obvious, looking around the room, that she drew only the best people to her. We will all miss her. She was full of fun and lived LIFE - not the pale imitation, but the real thing. So, in her honor, let's LIVE it!
WELL, for starters, our family is going camping on the property this weekend and so it was only "natural" that we would need ... well, you know. A proper outhouse. (There's the "starter," above.) There are going to be small children along and we wanted to make this wilderness adventure a little more civilized.
The Mister said I could get a construction job now since I got so much on-the-job training holding the plumb up to make sure his building was ship-shape. Verrrry funnnny.
I decided to try out the balance beam on a tree that stretches from the road across the creek. The Mister estimated it is maybe an 80-100 foot long fir tree that blew down years ago but has been suspended in the air so it has stayed solid and hasn't rotted. I may have mentioned before my lack of balance - Meniere's syndrome (spelling?). But I made it across to the creek, pulling nettles that lurked along the log waiting to sting the next log walker. It's a really cool log.
The other end is shown too, with the mister pulling off some of the smaller branches. The ones sticking out sort of help those of us with balance problems along the way. We need to figure out if the "path" goes any further, or if this is the end. The ground is damp here because there is the creek and a spring, too, so the ground is real wet.
Last picture tonight and then it's off to other chores.
Jen: I painted my new lady's eyes green. Not sure if she looks hypnotic or just a little insane. I think maybe I have her nose the way I want it. I was studying Judy Wise's and Katie Kendricks' artwork to see how they "did" noses. So I guess this is the way I "do" them. Painting on glass is turning out to be lots of fun. I am learning as I go along, and as usual I want to do it perfectly right away. Argh! Grow up, self!
There's still shading to do, but I'm getting closer. I love throwing on the paint - femminismo
p.s. Just one more photo. I found a new flower on the property: inside-out flower. Here's a picture I stole from the Web site Rainy Side Gardeners.