Texturize!

Howdy folks!

It's time for a little texture here...something different, something bumpy, something good.  So, I'm starting a new piece by Mod Podging some cheesecloth on a canvas, as well as a piece of shelf liner.  Here are the materials I am starting with:

A big ol' blob of Mod Podge:

Cheesecloth and shelf liner Mod Podged on the canvas:

A close-up of the shelf liner and cheesecloth:

Once this dries, I'm going to take the plastic doilie you see in the first picture and some sort of fiber paste (or something similar) to smear over the top of it while on the canvas to make the doilie impression on the canvas, too (I know, I know...it doesn't make a lot of sense right now, but I'll show you how I do it).

Simple stuff, but lots of fun with some really great texture.  Not sure where it will go from here, but that's half the fun!

Until next time, enjoy yourself...summer is all too short!

New fun this summer

I am excited...a few days ago, I signed up for an art class that will go from June 2 through November 2 at bravegirlsclub.com.  It is called the Art School Summer Fun package, and I am hoping this class will help jump-start some much needed creativity and fun in my life.

You see, I am experiencing difficulty with work/life balance right now (work is winning) and thought that something new and fun in my "real life" might give me a little more incentive to work on the balance thing and not let work win all of the time.  While I love my work and the people that I work with, I am ready to have a little balance back.

I am also looking for a good on-line photography class to help with taking pictures indoors.  My outdoor shots seem okay, but the indoor ones leave a lot to be desired (in my mind).  If you know of any, let me know!  Otherwise, I'll let you know how my search goes.

Until next time, I wish you balanced and happy days ahead and that you'll be busy doing things you enjoy like the little bee below!

Butterfly Haiku

Indoor butterflies
speak of the dead, and yet
are very alive.

(These butterflies were posted all over campus at the end of the school year to honor a famous artist [not sure who it was...I believe it was a writer] who had passed away.  Sorry the pictures aren't a bit better...they were taken with my camera phone in dark spaces [the first being a bathroom, the second being a stairwell].)

Happy Memorial Day!

Goghing, Goghing, done!

Hiya peeps!

I finished my "Gogh and Flourish" piece (it's done, but not gone)!

I'm excited to have this one done now, too.  I am pretty happy with it...happier than I am with my "Road Map" piece.  Not sure if it a good piece or not, but that's okay.  I'm still learning!

Now it's on to new things...what, I'm not sure, but it will be something new!

I'll sign off today by saying congratulations to Joe's daughter, Valerie.  She graduated from college today!  I hope she will "Gogh and Flourish" in whatever she decides to do from here!

Until next time, I hope you'll "Gogh and Flourish," too!

Beauty and Inspiration

I am a magazine lover.  I'm not always big on reading them, but I AM big on looking at them.  And in looking at them I find many beautiful, inspiring things in them...pictures, quotes, passages of wording.  The bad thing is that I find good stuff in almost every magazine I look at, which makes me want to keep them all.  As our house isn't that big, I can't do that (our house would look like one of those hoarder's homes...yikes!).   So, to appease the girl inside that simply can't throw those things away, I have become a clipper.

I am also a fairly organized person (well, mostly...I am finding that as I age, I am becoming less and less organized, a bad sign for a small home :-) ), so I don't like to see the gallon-sized storage bags with these clippings in them with no rhyme or reason to them.  So, I have started to organize those clippings in small binders.  They look like this:

The pages are filled with the pretty things, quotes, and passages of wording that I found.  I use the small scrapbook papers I find at craft stores (and yes, even Walmart) to make backgrounds for some of the pages, making them even more beautiful to me. And all it took to create these pages was a glue stick (or one of those glue tape gizmos), some clippings, sheet protectors (to keep the clippings safe once I have glued them on the page), and scrapbook papers.

I love to look at these books...they never cease to inspire me to either feel good or want to create something else beautiful whether it is my artwork or more pages in these books.  I have taken something I thought was beautiful, combined it with other things I thought were beautiful, and made them all accessible.  It is as easy as picking up a book and in an instant, I am inspired and happy.

So if you are holding onto magazines, pamphlets, papers, etc. that you love, think about combining them in this way or other ways that speak to you to make them more accessible and relieve some of the space stress in your home.  You never know what interesting combinations you can come up with that are even greater than the originals on their own.

Until next time, stay warm and happy!

Frustrating beginnings and unsure endings

Happy Saturday (or whenever you read this!) to you!

It has been a bit of a frustrating week in my studio.  I am progressing with projects, but not quite how I planned.

First, I started a new batch of rocks tumbling (lapis lazuli...can't wait to see how they turn out!).  I thought everything was going great...until...things weren't going great.  The barrel that holds the rocks, water, and grit started to leak.  Everywhere. I was fortunate I found it when I did.  There was still water in the barrel with the rocks, so the grit didn't end up solidifying into cement with the rocks encased in it.  The bad thing is I had yuck all over the floor.  It took a while to clean it up.

Not a pretty site at all.  Thank goodness for Amazon...a replacement barrel is winging its way to me as I write this!  By Tuesday night I should be up and running again!

So, needless to say, the beginning of this project was not a happy beginning (VERY frustrating).

I also finished Scattered Time.  I changed the name to "Road Map" instead...it just seemed more appropriate.  I added the poem I wrote to the front (not in the original way I had thought I might...my original idea was too complicated...slow and methodical was the way to go on this one!).  I ended up printing the poem on tracing paper and ripping the edges around the poem and Mod Podging it to the front.  Here it is:

I like how subtle it is.  While it is important, the piece didn't need to be complicated any further with billboards or anything like that.  Here are close-up pictures of the poem (written as a haiku first, then a lune [a lune has 5, then 3, then 5 syllables], then another haiku):

Not too bad.

Here's the back:

I put the poem on the back, too, just in case people have a hard time reading it on the front.  The picture of the lighthouse in the upper left-hand corner is one I took (it is Gray's Harbor Lighthouse in Westport, WA).  Not bad.

It isn't bad...I'm not sure I like it, but I'm not sure I don't.  I'm just not sure.  So, this project's ending is...unsure.  It is slowing growing on me, but I'm not sure it is right yet, either.

I think I am learning to become okay with uncertainty and lack of "loving it" with my art.  I am new at all of this and am doing stuff I have never done before, so it only makes sense that all of it isn't perfect.  I think that is part of the process of becoming a better artist.  "Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes.  Art is knowing which ones to keep."  I'm starting to get this quote...little by little.

And on a final note...the flowers keep popping up in the yard!  Here are the apple blossoms from one of the trees in our backyard:

So beautiful!  It is hard not to be inspired by what Mother Nature can do (and fortunately does almost every year like clockwork!)!

So, until next time, stay patient and keep your mind and heart open to like or not like (or somewhere in between) the things you create.  You never know what might happen!

Take care, everyone!

And now for something completely different...

Welcome everyone...it is time for the philosophical hour here in Linda's studio.  The question of the day is:

Is it better to be slow and methodical or quick and done?

I have been thinking a lot about this lately.  I am finding that I tend to be slow and methodical about things.  I really do not like to be pushed to go fast.  At work this is a blessing and curse.  On the one hand, being slow and methodical allows me to be precise, accurate, and thoughtful in the things that I do.  When I can take my time, I feel like I do my best work.

On the other hand, I am often asked for quick answers to problems and expected to process parts of my work rapidly, as there are always deadlines and people waiting for the things that I do.  I hate this!  It always makes me feel like I am missing something or that I am going to make a huge mistake some day by going too fast.  However, there are times that, when I push myself for speed, I feel like I do my best work.

What?!  Seriously?!  Yep...I can do my best work being slow and methodical AND quick and done.  It just depends on the situation.  Given a choice, I would choose slow and methodical, but I have also found this isn't always the best choice.

So what does that mean in my art world?  I am slow and methodical there, too.  Some of the pieces I am working on have taken me months and months to complete.  The ideas are always flowing, but most of them focus on the START of projects.  Not many show me the finished product.  

I am frustrated by this.  I want to FINISH some of these pieces.  It's like ENOUGH ALREADY!  Just finish the darn thing.  Don't wait until just the right thing hits you; don't wait to be perfect.  It is okay to just plow ahead and make mistakes.  Really.  Really it is.  No, really, it is.

Really.

And so that is where I am sitting right now.  I want to finish a piece (my Scattered Time piece), but I am stalled.  The bad thing is I don't know that waiting longer for something to hit me is going to work either.  I have an idea, but the slow and methodical in me says, "Wait!  Don't do anything until you are ABSOLUTELY SURE it will work."  I want to tell the slow and methodical girl to take a hike.  Far, far away.

So, here's my idea: I wrote a poem (composed of a haiku, followed by a lune, followed by another haiku) I want to put on the piece and I'd like to break it up into three "billboard" looking things placed as you see here:

I like it..mostly...and would like to move forward with it, but the slow and methodical girl is holding me back.  Ugh!  Where's my brave girl when I need her?  I think the fed-up girl is about to take control and tell the others to shut it and just do it.  I hope she does it soon.  I'd really like to move on!

So, back to the original question.  Is it better to be slow and methodical or quick and done?  I think we need both to do well in the world.  I just need to cultivate the quick and done more so I can have a better balance.  I need to save myself some heartache with the uncertainty and over-thinking I impose upon myself.  Right?  Well, let me analyze that first...I'll get back to you when I am sure...  :-)

In other things, the flowers in the yard are blooming like crazy.  It is so beautiful!  It makes me grateful for all of the work I did to plant the flowers in years past.  Here's a couple of pictures to show you what's blooming:

Awesome!  Now that's a great way to end a philosophical hour...with great beauty!

Until next time, let the slow and methodical and quick and done parts of yourself make peace and as a result, live beautiful days!