Decisions, decisions: Part Deux

I worked on this a little today after my appointment with the eye doctor (corneas of both eye were scratched by a velcro strap in the Recovery Room). Because I'm still not allowed to drive my son drove me to my appointment.  I then tagged along with him while he did his Christmas Shopping giving him the benefit of my unsolicited advice & opinions.  Then he brought me home   After all that  'getting all up into his business' I was exhausted and in pain so I took my pain meds and took a nice wee nap with 'The Girls'.  When I woke up I worked on my little project here but now I stumped over 'colors' and blending.

I lack imagination for blending 'colors'

I'll work on this a little more tomorrow

Oh, I can't think about this now! I'll go crazy if I do! I'll think about it tomorrow. ... After all... tomorrow is another day!
~Scarlet O'Hara

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Decisions, decisions...oh my

This is the outline of what I am working on now (obviously I'm no sketch artist). I'm having a wee bit of a problem working out the colors. Do I want to paint/marker them in or do I want to mix up my medium more by using some really colorful paper stock for the cats, maybe paisleys and florals ?
decisions, decisions, oh my...

I'm still not allowed to drive so I had to work really, really hard into 'guilting' my son to take me to the store (exhausting work that was). I need two paint brushes, styles that I don't have. I also need to buy some canvas materials to make my canvas panels.

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Calling All Artists... Save Money, Starve Less~ How To Make Your Own Canvas Panels

I love 'art' and I have this burning desire to make art, even though my art is very bad art.  I have plenty of desire but precious little money ~so~ 3/4 of my creative juices are directed towards getting what I need for as little money as possible (hummmm....perhaps that's why my art is so bad)? but I digress...
This morning I did a web-search: 'how+to+make+your+own+canvas+panels' and I was fortunate enough to find these youtube videos buried amongst a gazillion search results.

..plus, this lovely young lady is a wonderful teacher..








This makes me happy...

Chai Tea & Deep Thoughts

Tomorrow I am scheduled for surgery. This particular surgery is small potatoes compared to several of my previous surgeries yet somehow am particularly disturbed by this one.  I feel like it's interrupting my life and my creativity.  I want to stay home and make art...and write bad poetry...and sit in the cemetery and brood....

I made a batch of instant chai tea to give as gifts for the holidays and while I was at it,  I made myself a cup to pout and ponder over...

Instant Chai tea

INGREDIENTS:

1 cup nonfat dry milk powder

1 cup powdered non-dairy creamer

1 cup French vanilla flavored powdered non-dairy creamer

2 1/2 cups white sugar

1 1/2 cups unsweetened instant tea

2 teaspoons ground ginger

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground cloves

1 teaspoon ground cardamom



*** can add 1 teaspoon Allspice & Nutmeg,

1/4 teaspoon White Pepper


*You may choose to omit the French vanilla creamer, and use 2 teaspoons

vanilla extract instead. To do so, mix the vanilla into the sugar, let it dry,

then break the sugar into small lumps. Follow the same procedure as above.


DIRECTIONS:


1. In a large bowl, combine milk powder, non-dairy creamer, vanilla flavored

creamer, sugar and instant tea. Stir in ginger, cinnamon, cloves and cardamom.

In a blender or food processor, blend 1 cup at a time, until mixture is the consistency

of fine powder.


2. To serve: Stir 2 heaping tablespoons Chai tea mixture into a mug of hot water.

A Message From Mother

This grey day speaks to me. I can sense her message floating on the wind.

Whispering as she pushing through the naked branches of trees surrounding this house.

Soft urgent whispers swirl around and around...

through the mournful cry of Black Bird and the pouring out of the sky, She weeps out loud for her children; all inhabitants of Earth...

before it's too late....

before it's too late.

p.najafabadi

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There's this Tower... in a Cemetery.... in Scotland..

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My Very First Painting ~ Tree-Hugger

Okay, so it's pretty awful...but not too awful for a 'first-timer'. hopefully I'll get better.

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Marker Rendering

In 1994  I studied Commercial/Graphic Arts at The Art Institute.  Unfortunately, due to illness I had to drop out about half way through the course.  The only medium I ever worked with was Professional Markers.

This got me a B grade.  My Instructor said that I 'overworked the Jacket losing the highlights in the process.

I am going to try my hand at Mixed Medium Art.....

I don't expect I will be any good at it but that's not really the point, is it?  Art is cathartic....

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Back To The Drawing Board...

...but not really because it's missing in action.

Several months ago I dug up my old art bag from when I was a student at The Art Institute (Pittsburgh) just to discover someone has rummaged through it.  Much of m y work was ruined plus my 'drawing board' and  aluminum T-Square missing.  Now members of my family just don't get that as far as I'm concerned,  this is a 'Hair-on-Fire' catastrophe.  My income is  well below the poverty level -and- T-Squares & Drawing Boards are obscenely, ridiculously, unjustifiably  expensive.

So...I went to Home Depot and bought a piece of plywood 24 X 24, duck-taped the borders and papered taped  poster board on the front the same as I did while going to The Art Institute.

Drawing Board:
Arts & Craft Stores:  $50.00 & up
but a 24 X 24 piece of plywood from Home Depot: $8.35

The T-Square was $9.00  at Michael's with a 50% off coupon.

Happy as-a-pig-in-shit:  Priceless

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To Any Reader

(IMAGE TO BE ADDED LATER)

Whether upon the garden seat
You lounge with your uplifted feet
Under the May's whole Heaven of blue;
Or whether on the sofa you,
No grown-up person being by,
Do some soft corner occupy:
Take this volume in your hands
And enter into other lands,
For lo! (as children feign) suppose
You, hunting in the garden rows,
Or in the lumbered attic, or
The cellar - a nail-studded boot
And dark, descending stairway found
That led to kingdoms underground:
There standing, you should hear with ease
Strange birds a-singing, or the trees
Swing in big robber woods, or bells
On many fairy citadels:
There passing through (a step or so,
Neither mamma nor nurse need know!)
From your nice nurseries you would pass
Like Alice through the Looking-Glass
Or Gerda following little Ray,
To wondrous countries far away.
Well, and just this volume can
Transport each little maid or man,
Presto, from where they live away
Where other children used to play.
As from the house your mother sees
You playing round the garden trees,
So you may see, if you will look
Through the windows of this book,
Another child, far, far away,
And in another garden, play.
But do not think you can at all,
By knocking on the window, call
That child to hear you. He intent
Is all on his play-business bent.
He does not hear; he will not look,
Nor yet be lured out of this book.
For, long ago, the truth to say,
He has grown up and gone away,
And it is but a child of air
That lingers in the garden there.

~ Robert Louis Stevenson A Child's Garden of Verses 1885