red, white and crafty

This USA flag project can be quick for your kid but requires a bit of work on your end...depending on how you want to do it! 

I made a stencil out of a piece of black craft paper and then cut out the shapes with an X-acto knife. I am not anywhere near a perfectionist so I eyeballed the lines and used a ruler to sort of make them straight. If you are looking for perfect you can get that with some more effort...I just wanted to finish drinking my coffee.

You don't even have to make a stencil! Use some painters tape or washi tape, something that easily peels off the paper when you have finished painting.

Once your less than perfect stencil is cut out tape it down to a white piece of paper with some tape that is easy to remove. Also, tape that piece of paper to some other paper or material you don't mind destroying. And then tape that material to your surface. You'll thank me later.

Now the fun part, painting everything in.

There are so many possibilities for the stars, a qtip dipped in white paint, stickers, stamps, drawn on with a white pencil or crayon, anything that vaguely resembles a star works. I glued a small wooden star to a clothespin and let my kid dab away to give the idea of stars. This was his favorite part, along with destroying the makeshift stamp which is why I have no photo of it. 

If you are feeling festive and want to vacuum, add some glitter! I was not feeling festive.

The end result is really cute, kind of messy and imperfect, just like my life :-)

If you peel the stencil off carefully you can reuse it to make multiple flags. My four year old was done after one flag but I'll save it for later because four year olds forget nothing. Happy Fourth of July and happy crafting!

froggy craft

My son has a theme at school each week to correspond with the letter they are learning about, and last week the theme was frogs.

I gathered some craft items I had around the house to make a cute little frog project. 

This is what I used...

...but get creative with what you have. Lots of things would make a great frog body, painted egg cartons, cut up paper towel tubes or leftover plastic Easter eggs.

I made a sample for my preschool aged child to give him an idea of what to do but I encouraged him to do his own thing. If you use anything plastic you will likely need superglue to reinforce everything. I let my son use elmers glue to place the pom poms and pipe cleaners and then I added a dot of super glue myself to make it all stick. My favorite addition is the little fly I made by wrapping a piper cleaner around a pom pom.

I used a green paper plate for the lily pad. You could use anything or have your kid color something green. This was great practice for cutting skills. He also cut up the red strip for the tongue and cut the pipe cleaners in pieces for the legs.

Fold the piper cleaners into frog legs. Again, you will need to reinforce with super glue if you use a plastic eggs. I wouldn't give the super glue to your kid unless you are feeling brave or they are older than a preschooler.

These googly eyes had sticky backs making them easy to apply. My son's frog ended up with three eyes. There might have been more if he wasn't distracted by the pom poms.

When he was done we glued the whole deal to a piece of blue construction paper. My son really loves gluing things, especially pom poms, so I let him do his thing to make flowers on the water. I was impressed with his composition! He liked the fly so I made him one too.

We finished the project with some writing practice

It's amazing what children can do. I love where he placed his eyes, how he folded the legs and his addition of the pom pom flowers. 

If you make this frog craft leave me a photo with your kids creation, I would love to see what they come up with! 

rainy day project

We have a had a lot of rain these past few weeks. I love the rain, I could sit around all day and drink tea, snuggle up under a blanket, and bask in the gloominess. That's not really possible with a wild four year old. Rain makes the glorious park wet and dangerous and it also makes SAHM's kinda stir crazy. This is an easy rainy day activity for kiddos to help make some Easter (or spring if Easter isn't your thing) decorations. It is as simple as drawing or tracing some shapes onto construction paper and letting your children (or yourself) draw to their hearts content. My son chose an egg and a bunny. I steered him towards pastel colors for a spring vibe but he really wanted brown (for chocolate bunnies) and dark green (because it's pretty) Who am I to stand in the way of creative genius?

When they are done with their creations, cut the shapes out, punch a hole in them and either thread them through some ribbon for a quick decoration...

Or add some letters to make a cute banner. Make a fold on the back of some rectangles or triangles of construction paper, place the ribbon and then glue the fold down to hold the ribbon in place and keep your banner letters facing forward. I used pipe cleaners to attach my cut outs so they would also stay forward facing. Make sure you leave enough ribbon on the ends of your banner to hang it. And if you don't remember, just tie some other ribbons on the ends and pretend you did it for aesthetic reasons. Happy crafting!

it's sunday at dusk

the absolute perfect time to start some creating...I have been working on our living room, clearing out my usual love for warm reds and earthy tones and replacing with some cooler blues and greens. 


part of that project is recycling some things I already have and making them new.


number one is this mirror that has been in my family for as far back as I can remember...I do remember standing in front of it as a little girl and staring at myself many times!  I decided to keep it after my parents parted ways and got rid of virtually everything from their former lives.


I don't have a lot of physical things left to fully remember my growing up. I think this mirror should live on as a memory...it just needs to be perked up a bit.


Here is the before...a final shot of this family mirror in all it's original glory. I will post the after once I get to sanding and re-painting it to mesh with our living room.

Another project I'm working on is some wall decoration for my art room. I have a lot of words and ideas floating around so I decided to incorporate some words into a few small paintings.


This will be a work in progress because it is a little tedious but here are the beginning stages...

it's been a little rough

The new year high kind of wore off quickly. Immediate exhaustion set in, too much work, not enough time and when there is time...just so tired.


so tired.


stuck in my head again and searching so hard and deep for my heart. I know the answers sit in there somewhere just waiting to shake me awake.


one thing that stuck with me the first week of the new year was my resolution to laugh more. I did laugh more and I know because I thought about that resolution every time I laugh. 


suddenly there was sadness and sadness tends to stay with me. Maybe it's the Pisces in me that absorbs emotion like water in my gills, I'm not sure. All I know is when there is heightened emotion it weighs on me for a while.


for now I am focusing on the things that have made me smile lately...or feel something outside of myself. Is that even possible?




I do love this video:

we started our memory jar for the year...I saw the idea on pinterest and wanted to try it. You write down memories and funny stuff or whatever you want throughout the year and then read everything aloud on new years eve.

I keep looking at these beautiful decals Jenn sent me for Christmas...I know exactly where they will go in my art room so Jeff just needs to hang them up since I am not allowed to touch the walls :-)

a thousand years later I finally stretched "Jalaine" from my women's series. Now she can actually hang it up!

I took a break from reading about research and writing to paint this frame a rough green. I am in love with it.

A in a frame and it makes me smile.

Jeff's Dad and his sweet Grandmother as she looks at photographs of her family. She is the sweetest and funniest, saw a very young David Bowie on PBS and said "who is that woman?"

This is something that made me cry and smile...cry for the powerful words and memories of Veterans and also smile that my brother is able to have some creative outlet for his own experience. To learn more about Warrior Writers or to purchase a copy of the collection check out the website. 

and of course when all else fails...who always makes me smile?

why do I keep hanging on?

I promised myself I would do this one kind of big thing after we moved this year...and now on the very last day of the year...done.


It's so funny because as I was in the process I was listening to my new favorite artsy mix that includes Olivia Broadfield ( I think I professed my love already, probably for this song too)


The words:


when all is lost
when all is gone
why do I keep hanging on?


just give me space
I'll give you time
why do I keep hanging on?
say you will
just hang on


I won't let you go this time


Okay, so I definitely get this is probably about a relationship but I am relating it to my art work.


I have this kind of, buildup of art you could call it. A mass of colorful, nonsensical pieces that I have stacked in my various basements/storage rooms/closets for far too long.


They do reflect my history as an artist. My growth as a painter and my shift in both technique and talent.


But they gotta go.


I started doing series of artworks a while back, a way to get myself on track and create pieces that work together in one space and are generally cohesive for me, as the artist. I have kept all of those pieces as well as the first two abstract pieces I ever did ( in all of their lime green and primary color glory) I also kept my first landscape that made me love painting. Of course there are also the various pieces given/sold to friends, family or donated to other causes...they still exist to that represent that history.


So here we go...I started with this stuff pictured below (this isn't everything, some things were damaged or not archival worthy so I scrapped those and recycled the canvas and bars.) I have also purged or re-used several things throughout the year. These were the remaining ghosts of my art graveyard that I couldn't seem to bury.

yes, that is me in all my own glory snorkeling... my senior year I chose to paint a series of snorkeling/underwater things...it was fun but why hang on to them now?

I labeled everything with sizes. my starving artist budget needs to have standard sizes for framing works...in my art student haze I stretched canvas to any size I could imagine. Anything not standard or without 1.5 inch bars that I can gallery wrap had to go. Custom framing? I wish but no thanks.

Now my pile of random work looks like this:

I am ecstatic. I actually really enjoyed slapping the gesso over everything. I am so excited to finally let go of the things that kept me hanging on. I have heard of artists burning their old canvases and while that would be very cathartic I am so glad I can create all new work that fits with my recently defined style.


See this one? I worked and re-worked this one sooo much. I never really liked it but I could never let it go.

I painted over it with white and went back in with some lighter blues and greens. It is literally ghostly and it fits perfectly with what I wanted to achieve. Now I want to hang it on my wall instead of burying it behind a bunch of half finished works.

This doesn't mean I won't touch bright colors again. (I admit I am in a blue/cool mood right now) I love color, it is the essence of what I do and what makes me happy. I love the fire and the light, the depth of a brilliant purple and vibration of colors that don't seem to fit but somehow work. But the difference is there will be unity and purpose in the work I paint for me to show and hopefully sell, and for that, I am beyond thrilled.




I will definitely see you next year. 


Love,
me.

its almost...christmas!

Well, not really but it's something I say to Jeff every year as a joke and to start to express the child-like excitement for the autumn feeling merging into all of the charming winter holidays. Autumn is my absolute favorite time and I wish it was a constant state all year, kind of brisk but still sunny with all of the colors popping out as the green fades away. And Halloween is coming up fast. I love that day and all of the childhood joy it conjures up. The magic, the scariness and of course...the candy. This year it's been pretty hot up until last week so the fall feeling hasn't quite hit me full force, not enough to make me bust out the Waldo costumes and the candy corn. (who am I kidding, we had our first bag of candy corn back in September)

Today we actually had our first little bit of snow.

It made me think of Christmas ornaments...one of my goals was to paint ornaments by November in hopes of selling some this year. Guess what...it's October 8th and not an ornament has been purchased or painted. Whoops.

It's okay though, I have been busy with school and living life...my goals were hard and fast and I am still working to accomplish some of them and trying not to beat myself up too much if I don't finish everything. Change is in my blood and throughout the year some of my goals shifted. I took on new projects and ideas and my goals changed him some ways.

There is still time left in the year and I hope to make the best of it. 

I kick the leaves in the driveway every time I walk into the house, noticing how many more fall and cover the ground each day. You would think it would worry me but I just smile and sigh and get back to...life.

Oh, and I swear I'll get my Christmas cards done by Thanksgiving...that's a goal :-)

FRAME! I'm gonna live forever..

Before

apple red seems like a nice color...

After

I cannot wait to fill all of these frames.

I heart my journal

oh yes, I have had many a journal over the years. I have kept most of them, especially the ones I wrote diligently in through high school and my first year of college. Mysteriously I stopped writing my feelings in a journal when I was nineteen and starting dating Jeff...before that I must have had a lot to bitch about!

It is fun and silly and kind of sort of embarrassing to read old entries. Some are touching, others tragically over dramatic and some just plain sad. I have had a few sad moments in my life and I managed to chronicle those with a great intensity. There are also some moments that were just too hard to bear with and I never had the strength to write them down. I guess I never wanted to give those feelings a face and a name, even tucked away inside my private diary.

I have had journals of my poetry and journals where I wrote down other writers poetry and things that just spoke to me, things I wanted to remember. I have had journals full of pictures and bits and pieces I either collected or were given to me by friends.

I have had journals where I detailed everything I ate, what I weighed and my exercise, one I kept for almost a year. I threw it away because I didn't want a physical reminder of recording that kind of thing. Not saying it's a bad thing to do...just not the best thing for me.

I have a journal where I write things I want to include in my novel, little thoughts or phrases that form sentences and eventually inspire chapters or character actions essential to the story. I started writing potential song lyrics in there too.

I had a journal that was a notebook between me and one of my childhood friends Katie. We elevated the high school note writing to notebook status and wrote each other back and forth all year long. I was always so excited to see what she wrote me that day.

I decided I needed something like that for Jeff when we were dating and not living in the same city. We have a little journal full of notes and silly drawings, poems and thoughts between each other.


I have had many sketchbooks that doubled as journals because along with drawings I included scraps of other inspirational types of things and sometimes notes about what I was thinking or feeling at the time.


I have journals detailing trips I took, one special one from my life changing, thought altering alternative spring break in Chicago. 

Other than notes for my novel, I stopped writing in a journal for a long time and instead wrote things on pieces of paper. I made lists and reminders to myself. I even taped sticky notes to my phone (I have yet to invest in any kind of awesome phone due to my not answering the one I have) of things I wanted to remember. Some of these scraps of paper ended up folded and quartered and shoved in my purse and a few months ago I found myself digging through them, unfolding them to see what they said. Then I realized I had a new journal, one that Jenn made for me.

It's so pretty and perfect. I came to the realization I needed to start a journal again. Badly. This journal could have everything in it: my art wish list, goals for the week, recipes, reminders, lists and fun thoughts.


I have carried this new journal around with me everywhere. It sits on my desk at work and I find myself flipping it open to write all kinds of things, ideas, questions, new recipes I want to try and personal thoughts. Sometimes I will just glue stick different things in that I think are pretty. It goes in my purse and home with me too. I am learning to never leave home without it.


I especially love the bird cage and the reminder to spread my wings. It always makes me smile. 

phases and changes part two: what is abstract anyway?

believe it or not, abstract art is not just something your kid could paint. That would actually be non-objective art. Haha, just kidding! I am in love with the abstract and I would say most of my work is non-objective, a type of abstraction where you don't see any recognizable object or anything really when you look it. I tend to view this type of work from an emotional perspective and allow my feelings to help me understand the potential subject matter. 


Abstract art actually does stem from something real. That something is just transformed in a way so it is not entirely recognizable. There are varying degrees of abstraction as well.


I mean, really isn't all art abstracted to some degree? You can't possibly have every person on earth look at a piece of art and instantly define it, even if it is a realistic picture of a bowl of cherries. Sure, they look like cherries and they seem good enough to eat but why are they there? Do the cherries represent something? And what if I took that image of a bowl of cherries and I ran a brush through the wet paint, rendering it unrecognizable but maintaining the cherry red color. Would it remind you of cherries? Maybe it would make you think of pain, or of love. Perhaps if the painting had two cherries resting in a bowl together you would also think of love or of innocence or seduction. I could go on an on but the point for me is art is what you make of it. I think I do have a responsibility as an artist to know what I'm trying to convey when I create something. I have to be honest and say I don't always know. Sometimes I paint based on my mood and just reach for the colors that feel right at the moment. Lately I've created non-objective pieces based on a feeling of calm or a rush of serenity or energy and than later painted, very clearly, a not so abstract butterfly or two hovering around. Is it abstract or non-objective or both? What does it mean?


Let me start with how I started to understand abstraction. I took a drawing class in high school that really helped define it for me. We had to start with a realistic image. I chose a snake for some reason. We had six stages to transform this real image into an abstracted piece. We had a few guidelines, like using complimentary colors in one stage and secondary colors in another, incorporating lights and darks and breaking up the image into shapes. This is my assignment that I found tucked inside an old sketchbook. (excuse the poor quality. these are *gasp* over twelve years old!)

The final stage we used to create a painting. And "Snake" was born. 

I did have an anxious time painting this. I remember it like it was yesterday, it's so clear to me. I had my painting propped up on an easel at the back of the art room and I stood there confused and wondering if I was doing it right. How could I know if I was doing it right? It wasn't supposed to really look like anything! This was the first abstract painting I ever did and it scared me a bit. I did dive back into landscapes in college and painted some of the landscapes I showed you in my last blog entry. They didn't hold my interest too long because the fun of abstraction tickled the back of my head and made me wonder what else there was to explore outside of the natural world. What kind of world could I create for myself?


tomorrow... part three: freedom of expression