The year is almost over! Wow!

#176

#175

#180

#177

#178

I had fun altering these floral paintings that my honey got for me on his trip to London last spring. They called for just the right additions, and I'm pleased with how they turned out.







Here are more of my Inktense festive cards. I have a lot of fun with doing these, also.

I can make several at once, then after I cut them up, do the black lines.

Very meditative, as I might have mentioned before.

#179

The holiday season is just about over. We've had our share of Christmas festivities, but Chanukah does continue, so it's not quite over. However, it's a very low key holiday, with just candle lighting and tiny gifts for the grandgirl. For instance, we got her a tiny sticker book with sparkly Nutcracker Ballet stickers, and another day she'll get a Nutcracker Ballet sticker book of Clara with a wardrobe. There's a theme here, as you might see. The grandgirl got to see the ballet in person this year and was quite taken by it. The final gift will be a book of the Nutcracker Ballet that has a little pop up stage and figures that one can place on it.

She'll like that, we think.


Here's hoping we all have a good year ahead, in whatever way we can find that is good for each of us.

As my mother-in-law used to say "Take care on each other."

Hello, where have I been?

#161

#162

#163

 I don't know where the other pieces of Mail Art, numbered between these and the last group that I posted.

They are somewhere on my computer, I think.
I'm still having a time of it, learning how to get my photos onto google photos or my drive or where ever, in order to make
the appear here on my blog.




That, said, I'm so happy that I got these up here.

I made them while at the beach over the USA holiday called Thanksgiving! I like it better in Spanish.
Dia de accion de gracias! Much better - action of thanks!

We had an impormptu trip to our favorite place to have that holiday.



The Outer Banks of North Carolina. For those of you unfamiliar with them, they are a thin strip of sand bar that runs along the coast of North Carolina, separated from the mainland by Pamlico sound. It's very peaceful there. There aren't tall hotels along a boardwalk or tall hotels anywhere. Those probably couldn't be built on sand.

#164

We stayed closer to the sound than the Atlantic ocean. We saw beautiful sunsets and I even took photos of them, but heck if I know how to get them on here to show you.

So I'll show you these instead.  I took a large sheet of watercolor paper, cold press, and made scriggly lines across it in different colors of Derwent Intense pencils. I applied water.  It's so meditative. Try it! Then I turned the paper over and marked out the 4" x 6" pieces and cut them out. Then I went over the shapes with black pen. Such fun to see what turned out.

#165

More to come.
oh, and let me know if you try this.

#166

Some Randomness

 A Bauhaus postage stamp that I gleaned from the internet and like a lot.

 A brass buddha hand that I saw in a shop that no longer is in business. I wish I'd bought this hand. I need calming images and things around me.

 The cover of the book that my offspring will have published this coming spring. I think it'll come out around the time of the next on-line challenge. It can be pre-ordered on Amazon and I've already ordered two for myself. Why I need two, I'm not sure, Guess I'll gift someone with it, or make it a prize for something. Who knows. I was excited so I ordered two. You know how that goes.

 I recently came across this old photo of me. We were in Copenhagen in March of 1967. We'd just gone through a religious wedding ceremony for our parents where they lived, after having a civil ceremony months before where we lived. It was cold in Denmark. My cheeks were rosy all the time. And check out the travel costume! A dress, stockings, high heeled shoes. Oh dear!

A friend of my sister's sent her this photo of a painting of mine that she somehow had. I'd painted it in the early 1960s, while still a student. I barely remember it, though I do remember painting a series of heads and I do remember that yellow ochre oil paint was a favorite of mine. 

 Here are some mitts that I made awhile ago, and sold.  It's knitting time again and I'll be participating in a pop-up gift shop again at my friend Keithley's. She's the owner/maker of Bad Girl Art and has an annual shop in her home. She invites a bunch of us to join her and sell our wares. We bring beverages and food and customers can eat, drink and shop. It's a lot of fun. This year, it's December 9 in the evening and December 10, all day. If you're in or near Richmond, VA, come visit us.

and another peaceful image. I took this in Paris in 2012, I think. It's one of my favorite images. It's calming and romantic and holds such memories. The really fun thing is that I'm planning our anniversary trip to Paris for early 2017. It'll be 5 years since we've been there.

Meanwhile, I'm still struggling with my new Chrome Book. I don't know how to get all my photos onto Google Photos. Some get on there and some don't. puzzling. AND my iPhone won't let me take anymore photos!! And I only have 270 images showing up on that device. Puzzling, it's all so puzzling!!

Have a good week.

The Creative Sprint is over!

Here's a bit from my past month's fun with Creative Sprint. I hope that some of you will join me in April for the next Sprint. This is a global art game that my daughter created for her and her brother's business. They have a book coming out in the spring, too. I'll be promoting that for sure. BUT Creative Sprint is a lot of fun, and I got to meet a lot of new people from around the world participating in it.

Day 29

  Day 29, I revisited a previous day where I'd made something in a box. My honey chose the day I was to revisit. This box has a poem in it by Adam Lindsay Gordon, which is a favorite of mine.

Day 27 was to be inspired by another sprinter, and I was inspired by Estafania Garcia, who did a melted crayon thing one day and another had her little boy recreate Munch's The Scream. Such fun doing this with my grandgirl.

Day 30 - award ourselves for doing the sprint. This is my trophy.  Join me next year - sign up a CreativeSprint.co

Day 27

Day 30

A new directions!

#147

#148

#149

 Do you ever have a happy accident that makes you so happy?

Well these cards are my happy accident.

I'd scribbled, literally made some scribbled lines on a piece of paper, using my Inktense pencils. Then I brushed on some water. The paper was not water color paper so the color didn't come up intensely. I cut the paper into two postcards and started to work the forms with a gel pen. (#147 and #148) I really like the results. A lot.

A couple days later, I got out some water color paper and tried again. While I think these are NOT as successful for some reason, I still like the process.

I'm going to continue with this "experiment" to see what else happens.

#150

Such fun!

Let me know if you've had something like this happen; What was it and what resulted from it, this happy accident.

#151

On another note, Autumn is here! It's cool out in the nice, crispy air, crunchy leaves underfoot kind of nice.  Is it autumn where you are?

Mail Art, of course, and eMail Art, and my son

#145

#146

eMail Art

 I had some fun using color sample papers, which I haven't done in ages. It felt good to just do simple color designs.

I think I'm going to do some more of these. Reference my older work.





















And then I found some lovely autumn leaves and I scanned them to use as eMail art. I played with a dark background, a figured ground, and plain whiite which was most effective. Love autumn leaves. What about you? Do you have them in your neighborhood?

On Monday, our son's project for the VCU school of business was unveiled, as it were. He's the artist in residence there, the first such a position ever. The school is quite pleased with this and so is our son. He created one of his anamorphic portraits in the atrium using clothing donated by faculty and students. The portrait is of Maggie Walker. Quite appropriate. You can hear an interview HERE.

Anamorphic portrait

Recent Mail Art collages - IF I can get the hang of posting on my Chrome Book!

#141

#142

Oh my dear friends, I can't believe this but I think I've got this figured out! I was just able to upload two images. Woweee.



I created the Paris one because I'm anticipating our anniversary trip to Paris in January. Yes, you read that correctly. January, where we're most likely to have weather issues. Is this crazy, or what? I'm buying travel insurance for sure.

The second piece, with the music was created this morning for my #creativesprint prompt. The prompt, to make something about one's favorite teacher.
Without a doubt, my favorite, most influential, earliest teacher was my piano teacher, Miss Rachel Marrs. She came into our home when I was a toddler to give my older sister lessons. Mom told me that I would sit by the piano during the lessons and make drawings that I'd give to Miss Marrs. I wanted to take lessons badly but was told that I had to read first, so you can bet I learned to read pretty quickly. I thought she was beautiful. She work lapel pins that were jeweled and seasonal: flowers, American flag, christmas wreath, and such. She brought a little clock with a roll up cover. AND she drove a car!!! That was a big deal, as my mother didn't drive one. Once, when I was probably about 10 or 11, Mom had me deliver some cookies to her as she lived only a few blocks away. I rode my bike over to her house and she invited me in to the living room for a few moments. Oh the thrill! She could never know the ways she influenced me.
We moved from the neighborhood when I was 16 and but I continued to take lessons from her until I was 18. I didn't realize then what a distance she had to travel to come to our home. I went off to college and we never communicated again. Later in life, I sent a letter to an address that I found for her, including some copies of old photos and current ones. I never knew if she got it, but she lives on in my memories.

The music bits are from a very old sonatina book that was my sister's before me. It's pages are yello and fragile. That is Miss Marrs handwriting.

Do you have a favorite teacher?

Mail Art and my struggles

I'm still learning how to get photos onto this blog using Google Photos or from some cloud or wherever they are. I like this new Chrome Book but there are things that are different, that's for sure.

I've completed a full week of Creative Sprint. Are any of you, my blog readers, doing it, too? It's been fun.
This is a piece of mail art that I did for a prompt. The prompt was to be inspired by a children's song or a nursery rhyme. As usual, I had to let my mind mull this around. Then I started to look through my rubber stamps and found a tiny globe and a star. I, then, searched my stamp pads and found my gold one. FUN!
I'm thinking I need to do more like this.

Bear with me, I'll figure this out eventually and will get more images up and running.

So what's happening in your life?

Mail Art, I hope

Well, my friends, I"m not sure how to get my photos onto this blog using my new Chrome book! Aaagh. I'll keep working on it.

Join me on CrestiveSprint.co in 4 days. It's a Global Art game and it's free and it's fun. I'm doing it, why don't you?

This is what I posted for MAM, Mail Art Monday. It was five days to the start of Creative Sprint. Get it. FIVE shapes!

An altered Mary Cassatt postcard. I love the depth created here. 

Using a new computer!

I've gone ChromeBook! There's some learning needed to be able to figure things out as there's no manual, but there are, fortunately for me, lots of things on the internet to help me. People are so generous to put up reviews, and how to do its, and I'm grateful for their time. There was even a page about how to blog using ChromeBook. It was a bit complicated but I'm learning.
Here's my first attempt to add a photo. Can I do it? Let's see -   I DID IT!!
I had to learn where the images that I took are, since they're not on my desktop on this machine.

So, here's my first attempt on this machine - a photo of some morning glories that I took on Friday at the Virginia Museum of Art, as I was going to Zona espanola. My Spanish language social group, where we laugh a lot. And I"m happy about this post, too.

Besides the challenge to be minimal, as in my previous post, there's the challenge of learning something new. I'm happy that I can! And I'm fortunate that my challenges are this minimal.

Having fun with minimal and small collages

#130

#131

 With this series, I wanted to be minimal and see if I could use only 2 or at most 3 pieces of paper.
I decided to add a circle to #130 and several to #133 while still keeping the minimal feeling.

There's a challenge to myself to see if I can create a good composition with very little.

 

Do you set up any challenges for yourself?

#132

#133

Here's an opportunity to participate in a global art game. Creative Sprint starts again on October 1. Sign up at here: CreativeSprint.co and participate.
 It's a lot of fun.
It's free.
People all over the world are doing it. School groups, businesses, individuals, friends, families. It challenges and sparks creativity. Even if you think you aren't creative, you ARE!
Join this event. If you can't do every daily prompt, don't, if you can't finish, stop. But at least, start. You'll get a lot out of it.

And here's the cover of the book, which will be released in the spring of 2017. Disclosure - my offspring wrote it!

Guess what? More Mail Art!

#125

#126

#127

#128

#129

 I wasn't going to write anything about these. I was just going to let them speak for themselves, but I wanted to ask you if you have

Sunday eMail Art

 a favorite among the altered Mary Cassatt cards.


This piece, labeled eMail Art, is another of the pieces that uses the same scraps but rearranged, photographed, and posted but never glued down. I'm having fun doing that and then e-mailing them to people to whom I can't post mail to for various reasons.