Beads

Paper Beads 

My latest obsession. 

For some reason I am really into paper beads right now.  I am not very good at getting a nice tight roll, or keeping it centered and even.  I'll either get better with practice, or move on to something else when I get sick of these.  Either way, I'm just having fun  -  I'm not going into the paper bead business.  In fact, I may never even string them  -  I love the way they look in this little white bowl.

The paper I used is book binding paper, scrap paper, and magazine pages.  It needs to be thin enough to roll, but thick enough to make a substantial bead.

Now if I can tear myself away from all the pretty paper, I need to get creative with some promotional material.  That sounds like it might be a little too taxing on the brain for a weekend, doesn't it?

Are you creating something this weekend?

Birdhouses

Colorful Little Birdhouses

What fun  -  I got to paint them twice.  Once to really, you know, paint them, and then illustrate them in my sketchbook.  They were a dollar apiece.  That's pretty cheap entertainment. And see, they gave me something to blog about to make up for the previous post's glass of water.
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I may put them on the fence  -  maybe the side of the garage  -  or maybe plant them in the garden on a stake.  Maybe that's a little tacky, but .  .  .

It's raining again and in the 40s.  I am craving sunshine and color!!!  I keep plugging away at my to-do list, getting ready for summer, and those birdhouses were actually on my to-do list.  I have a fun list, don't I?

Our Creative Project of the Weekend

Her Name is Oceannie

(Ocean -ie)

She has a gold. glittery belly button! Yes, it's a female. This was middle granddaughter's family project as a school assignment.  I think it is clever of the teacher to assign family projects that are more fun (for ME anyway) than math or spelling or whatever.  I did notice, however, that no one else showed up for this project. That's okay  -  the two of us had a great time, and can you imagine what this turkey would have looked like with any more people involved?!  We think she is perfect.

What is your creative project for the weekend?

It"s All About the Journey

Creativity Overflowing

 Or Something Like That

With three little girls in the house today, the paint brushes, watercolor palettes, acrylics ETC. were a big draw.  Using the long classroom tables, we had room to paint pictures, roll out clay dough, paint rocks, make coffee filter leaves (a fabulous shade of blue!) .  .  .  Not a lot was finished.  In fact, maybe nothing was finished, but I guess that wasn't the point.  It's all about the journey, isn't it?  I needed this today  -  a day to just be.  We weren't trying to get anything finished, we were just being.  I've been fretting a lot lately about how my time is spent, and worrying more about what doesn't get done, instead of enjoying what I am doing.
Listening tonight to Jeff Talmadge's "Wrong Train"  -   "It (time) isn't lost, it's only spent another way."
Tomorrow I'll spend a little time cleaning up these tables and think about how much fun it was to make this mess..

Makes Me Smile!

Just Hangin' Out.

Are these the cutest things you've ever seen in your life?!


When the California grandkids were here, one day they sat out under the backyard canopy and painted little clothespin people.  Yesterday, as I went to grab some more clothespins, I walked past these guys.  I just couldn't resist using them.  They made me smile every time I walked past them on the line.

Rosemary and Onions

Thank God for Baked Ziti.

Are we paying attention?
Do we really look at the everyday things around us? A year ago I was having my classes paint a series of themes. They could pick what they wanted to do for eight weeks, and really pay attention to that theme. It makes us aware of the everyday things around us - our food, doorways, barns, chairs, shadows, figures. Our everyday life enhances our art - our art enhances our everyday life.

I don't think a painting starts with a sketch. It starts with observing and appreciating. It starts with the way you see and feel everything around you. Nothing is too trivial to stop and appreciate - whether it's a handful of paint chips just because you like them together, or rosemary and onions on the cutting board just because you like the way they look against the wood.

Tuesday night I made baked ziti - enough for an army. The next day I was very involved in a project that really wasn't going all that well, and I just wanted to keep working on it. Thank God for baked ziti. It's the simple things in life, isn't it? And the ziti.

Fun.

Playing With Paper

Some friends came over today and we played with paper all day long. We made some slip cases for sheets of watercolor paper folded into "sketchbooks", and made little bitty paper boxes, and accordion fold 10 panel folders. and of course ate muffins and coffee cake.

What a nice relaxing day!

We never outgrow our need for play dates.

From My French Journal

Everything I did today turned out - well - blobby. I did some small landscapes that just got out of hand. I tried doing a monotype and after I spent all that time inking it, I got the paper too wet and it turned into a blurry mess. I can't say I didn't enjoy myself though. I enjoyed every minute of the process.

The journal page here is from my French journal from 1993. 1993! Wow! Really!? How time flies. This is what started the whole "journal thing" for me.

My daughter and I had a conversation today about how writers have to write (she's a writer) and painters have to paint. It's "in there", and you have to do it. Of course there is writer's/artist's block, but it's always temporary, and we keep pluggin' on. Even if it's a blobby mess.

In yesterday's post I was trying to decide about the foliage in the left hand corner of the painting I posted. The studio fairies didn't take care of it after all, so I did.

Apparently my muse has left the building and taken the studio fairies with her. That's okay. I have plenty of paintings waiting to get out, whether she's here or not.

Happy Faces

This is the kind of art work done at our house this weekend. Fun!

The little kids have gone home, and my husband's sisters and dad are visiting now for a couple of days.We had a good time checking out the new JoAnne Fabrics store, EATING, and playing cards.

We know how to live, don't we?

The Neighborhood Map

This was my creative endeavor today. I helped Middle Granddaughter make a map of her neighborhood for a school assignment. We used watercolor, Pitt Brush Pens, acrylic gold paint, and sand. I really thought we could use a little glitter here and there, but I didn't have any.

What kind of a grandma doesn't have glitter?! I don't think I ever had any glitter in my life, but I have three granddaughters - I really should have some glitter.

Paying attention to the everyday stuff

Journal Page

As you can see (click on it to see it larger) from the date on the top of this journal page, it was done quite awhile ago. I was going through some old journals trying for some inspiration from back in the days when I felt really creative. The past few weeks I have felt more like nesting than creating. Anyway, this was an idea I picked up from a book I borrowed from a friend - I think the book was called Art Escapes. I liked the idea of tuning in and expressing everyday things going on in my life - paying more attention and translating simple events (such as eating an apple fritter!!!) into an illustration. There were a couple different formats that I used at different times.

I'm not making any promises, but I may give this a try this weekend. Right now I am heading out to the grocery store to stock up for a long weekend. Our project of the day(s) is to break up our old cement front steps and build new ones. Maybe I will just stay at the grocery store today. And eat apple fritters. Or cherry.

MAKING ART IN BED

"So take a shower, read a good book, then go to sleep. And do it now!"
A friend emailed me this advise a couple of nights ago when I told her that I was going to bed with a stack of papers that I had let pile up for toooo long.  Who knows what might be in that stack  -  bills to pay, checks to cash (YES!)
So under what category does making art fall?  Is it work or is it equivalent to reading a good book? 
This is a small mono-type with colored pencil.I inked the "plate" ( a piece of plastic), let it dry over night, and then printed it on a damp piece was 90lb hot press watercolor paper.
I love doing these  -  so I guess it falls under the category of reading a good book. 

Looking for color?!

These little sketches were done as an experiment using markers and colored pencils. I read somewhere about someone using markers for the base colors and colored pencils for the shading. Bright, huh! The colors, I mean - not the idea. Well, the idea isn't bad either.

I was using the kids' Crayola markers, which are, of course, very basic, bright colors. Someday I'll get some Prismacolor markers and give it a try. Someday.

I didn't do these recently, but I was looking through my sketchbooks for COLOR - it is gray and icy and snowy here and I'm sick of it! Well - this is Michigan - tomorrow could be 70 degrees.