Hats & Crowns & Wings & Things

Here's my entry.  Sorry so late, but this week has been crazy!  Watercolor, stamps, photos disolved with Citra-Solv, Neocolors and a little Pearl Ex.  Thanks for looking!

http://thethreemuseschallenge.blogspot.com/

Sunday Post Card Art - Spring Time

Whew!  Nothing like sliding in just under the wire.  Crazy week, no time to art, aggravating.  Here it is: watercolor, stamped, but then hand colored with Prismacolors and outlined with a micron pen.  Shrinky Dink goddess in the center.

http://sundaypostcardart.wordpress.com/

Random Acts of Art

Someone in the neighborhood where I teach creates these marvelous stone sculptures on an abandoned lot where we are otherwise treated to a forest of political signs (as seen to the left).  I'm not sure when these random art attacks occur, but they are pretty frequent, as the set-up continually changes.  Whoever you are, thank you!  I always smile when I drive by.

4x4 Friday - Spring Garden

Here is my entry for this week's challenge.  For the background, I wove together two magazine pictures.  The border is silver metallic tape that's been embossed with a stylus and painted with acrylic paint.  The letters were cut from random magazines.  I covered the whole thing with clear embossing powder and blasted it with a heat gun.  Thanks for looking!  Now I'm off to play in my garden...

http://4x4friday.blogspot.com/

Follow Your Bliss

Joseph Campbell was fond of telling his students to "follow their bliss" as a guide to finding what they wanted to do in life.  I always loved this piece of advice, but could never narrow down exactly what my "bliss" was.  So many things interest me, none of which are able to put food on the table or a roof over my head.  So I dabble with a zillion different activities when I'm not at my "day job."  But I don't think any of these things are my "bliss."

I was talking with my drumming teacher and he suggested that a good starting point would be to find the thing that makes time stop for me and do that.  A lot.  And then I immediately knew:  art and drumming.  When I'm immersed in a piece of art, hours can go by without my knowing it.  When I'm practicing my drumming, it's the same thing.  The next hurdle is allowing myself to do those things without being distracted by all those mundane "shoulds" and "oughts."

So what about you?  What makes time stop for you?  What is your bliss?

Three Muses Challenge - Maps

Here is my entry for the maps challenge.  I used an old CD as the support and a map of the moon.  I've been getting into the steampunk thing recently, so I guess you can see some influence there.  This was fun!

Huzzah the Quilt!

The Quilt...finally finished

This thing has been lying around my workroom literally for years (yes, I must admit that I start a lot of things and often don't finish them...)  However, this weekend, I dug it out and actually got it done.  So happy.  One less thing in the workroom, one more functional piece of art being used!

4 x 4 Friday - Ornate

I LOVED making this!  Sorry the picture's a little caddy-whompus - I haven't quite gotten all the technical stuff down yet...

April in Paris

I can't think of Paris without thinking of Gene Kelley.  The background was made by pouring Citra-Solv onto the pages of an old National Geographic.  If you haven't tried this, I recommend it, just for the mind-blowing experience of looking at the results. 

Sunday Postcard Art

The Easter Bunny's off-season job?

Patience...or lack thereof

The earth has many lessons to teach.  My garden has become quite a focus for me.  After 20 years in the desert, I am determined to grow food.  Growing up in Ohio, gardening was taken for granted.  I pretty much just threw seeds on the ground and everything came up in abundance.  Imagine the shock of moving to a brown, barren land, scorched by sun and ravaged by wind, where nothing but tumbleweed and other spiny, scrubby, unidentifiable things come out of the ground.  I tried to grow things for the first several years, then gave up when all my tender young seedlings were repeatedly burnt to a crisp by this infernal climate.

But the desire for intentional living and knowing where my food comes from (along with the Polish peasant genes that awaken each spring) have renewed my determination and efforts.  So now I have five raised beds in the front yard, all in varying states of growth.  The potatoes, onions, garlic, and shallots are a bright green patch that seem to be thriving.  The tomatoes and peppers have blossoms.  The herbs have awakened and lend their scent and flavors to our food on a daily basis.  I am happy each morning when I walk out the door to inspect the beds, except...

...(here's where the patience part comes in) about two and a half weeks ago I planted some bean and sunflower seeds.  I'd come out every day to water and weed and wait, but they did not put in an appearance.  I had seen a mockingbird perched on the edge of the beds and began to wonder it it had eaten my seeds.  This past weekend, I decided I'd better get something else into those beds, so I put in some cucumber seeds.  As I was digging, I found a bean seed that had sprouted, but not surfaced yet.  In my impatience, I had meddled with something that was coming along just fine.  I checked where I'd planted the sunflowers, and sure enough, two have poked their leaves out...

The Mother surely runs on her own schedule and there is no hurrying Her.  It occurs to me that impatience is a form of violence which leads us to do things that we wouldn't normally do if we'd just learn to wait.  Lesson learned.  I'll just wait and watch for the corn and squash and pumpkins to arrive when they are ready...Hopefully, I'll cultivate patience along with my vegetables.

The Shawl

Here is the shawl I've been working on forever for my aunt's 80th birthday!  She and I are both quite pleased with the results, so I guess it was worth all the time spent.  Now on to the next project...

Playing in the Garden

David and I got the new bed finished this morning,  It's ready for corn and squash to go in.  I believe I will also transplant the bay laurel, as it seems to enjoy this sunny space.  I snapped a picture of the lettuces before I put them into salad.  They're so beautiful, it's almost a pity to remove them from the ground.  And, much to my delight, the mint survived through the hideous heat of last summer and is ready to have another go.  i am the mighty gardener!  i WILL grow food in the desert!!!

happy lettuces

mint!

the new 12' x 5' bed

A New Adventure...

Here are my first steps into ATC World.  I began messing about with making backgrounds last night and these are what I came up with.  They were pretty easy.  I used torn scraps of different papers and applied them to the card (watercolor paper) with a glue stick.  Then I added some embossing powder and blasted them with a heat gun.  Now to figure out what's next...