A Day That Truly Sings

I have to share some of the highlights of my past few days. I will admit that I was in a bit of a slump for the past week but today I felt like the planets were aligned. Okay, maybe not the whole day. My day was supposed to start with my one month post-LASIK checkup for my eyes. Unfortunately for my doctor, it was not his day. He was in an accident on the way to work and never made it. According to the staff, his car was totaled but fortunately, he was not seriously injured. Anyway, I had planned to have lunch with my friend Penny on State Street and treat myself to a few "artist fieldtrips" along the way. Since I got downtown almost an hour before I was to meet Penny, I was going to check out an exhibit at the Overture Center but ended up detouring to a little shop that I had always wanted to check out. The name of the store is ShangriLa Collections and they carry all sorts of imported items from the Himalayan Region.
I have been fascinated by Tibetan Singing Bowls since I first heard about them a few years ago. I had looked for them online and at various shops but never found any. In this wonderful little shop, my search ended today. They had several different ones and this is the one that chose to come home with me. It has a wonderful sound and I can't wait to learn more about the tradition and beliefs associated with the bowls. The rest of my day included a few more fun purchases and then an evening spent with Kurt and the boys. All in all, it was a lovely day.

I also want to share one last thing for today. Yesterday I finished my last ZNE Book Club assignment. It was the first time I did something like this on a stretched canvas. I am really please with how it turned out although I need to get a better photo. Hopefully, I will fix that soon. So now I'm off to do some reading before bed. My book group meets on Sunday and I have a lot of the book left to read. This month we are reading Thunderstruck by Erik Larson.

GPP Street Team Crusade #16

Yippee! After many months of stalking Michelle Ward's Green Pepper Press Street Team blog and thinking "I'm gonna do that", I FINALLY DID A CRUSADE!!!

Crusade #16 was to "Journal your Blog" -- Pick a post and add it to a page in your visual journal. I did have an art journal that I had started late last year but it has been slow going. But earlier this week, I decided what I wanted to do for the GPP Street Team Crusades was to work larger (especially since I tend to work small). So I bought a heavyweight drawing pad that is 11" x 14" and I'm using that for my crusade entries. I will admit there is another reason for the use of the large journal but that will wait for another day. Because of my hard drive crash and the fact that I lost all but two (the ones I posted on the blog) of my photos from our vacation to Arizona, I decided to journal the September 8th blog post entitled "Time to get caught up". I only journaled the first part of that entry (just in case you check up on me) since it captured the extremes of the story. I also decided to handwrite the blog entry. It just seemed like the thing to do.

Playing with Glazes

I had joined ZNE Book Club last June when they were working through the Claudine Hellmuth book "Collage Discovery Workshop" but wasn't able to keep up with all the assignments, so when I saw one of the Art Techniques ATCs Yahoo Group was doing an ATC swap based on the book I thought it was the perfect opportunity to do some more work with the book. The first swap was to use a glazing technique with acrylic paints. I had bought some red rosin paper before Christmas and had used it to make a glazed background that I've used for a few other projects. Since I had the background made so long ago, I don't know why I procrastinated on making the ATCs. But in the end I finished them up and mailed them today. Now I will have my fingers crossed for them to get to California by Friday. Here are the four ATCs I made for the swap.



I'm also working on my first entry for a Green Pepper Press (GPP) Street Team Crusade. Hopefully I will finish it up tonight so be on the lookout for another post soon.

Stampbord Artist Trading Cards

First of all, can you believe that I'm actually posting a second entry in one day??? WOW! You can tell I must have had a very productive and creative day. Anyway, I finished up the last of my Stampbord artist trading cards for a swap I'm participating in through the Art Techniques ATCs group on Yahoo. This was one of those swaps were I did three totally different pieces. I am so glad that I am not the swap host. I would have such a hard time assigning pieces to each participant. Hopefully, no matter which ATC each of my fellow swappers receive, they will be happy. I have to say that I love all three and couldn't pick a favorite.


In case you haven't noticed from my last post, I'm using a new way of posting my photos on my blog. My brother just started alpha testing his company's new photo sharing service. I love how I just load my pictures one place and I can arrange them in portfolios to create slideshows. If you are interested in learning more about it, check it out at FocalPower.com When you see the multiple picture icon at the bottom of the photo, it lets you know there are several photos (so click on the photo and use your arrow keys to see the rest).

Doing my homework

I've had a very busy week but I did make sure to do my homework for the ZNE book club. The assignment for the week was a bit out of my comfort zone since it involved actually drawing my own picture. Not something I do much lately. It also involved me digging out some art supplies that are among the oldest I own (actually, I'm surprised that I have kept them all these years). The color on the piece is primarily oil pastels and just to let you know how old they are...they have a price of $1.75 on them. EEEEK! Can I be that old? Anyway, here is the finished piece.



This piece uses a 12 inch ceiling tile as the substrate, which was then covered with a page from an italian newspaper. After a coat of gel medium and gesso, I then drew the scene with the Vespa. Oh, how I really want a Vespa...but that is a whole other story. The original newspaper included an article with an image of a wasp type insect and while researching the history of the Vespa I found out that "vespa" is the italian word for wasp. So synchronicity was working when I decided to draw that image (which I did before learning that fact). Anyway, I had to include the quote that gave the scooter its name (located above the handlebars - next to the original wasp image). Since this assignment was outside my comfort zone, I would love to hear what you think of the piece (be gentle, although I am fine with constructive criticism).

Addendum: The quote I refer to above is the following "Sembra una vespa" ("It reminds me of a wasp!") which was said by Enrico Piaggio, the owner of the factory that designed the scooter, when he heard the buzzing sound of the engine on the second prototype. The name stuck and the rest, as they say, is history.

ZNE Book Club

Today is the last day to finish up my first assignment for the ZNE Book Club that is working through the Karen Michel book "The Complete Guide to Altered Imagery". As usual, life got in the way of my plans and I didn't get a chance to work on any of the techniques until today. My first couple of altered photos were great learning experiences but didn't turn out anything I would want to keep. I did find a few very dark photos from the early 80s that I decided to alter using a bleaching technique.

A couple of things I learned from this process are:

when using sandpaper or some type of scratching tool on photos, it is important to moisten the photo so that you remove only the emulsion. Otherwise it is very easy to damage the paper of the photo itself.

Staz-on ink is not permanent on a photo that has been bleached prior to stamping, even though the bleach solution was neutralized by rinsing in plain water.

bleaching a photo will create colors ranging from a dark orange-red to yellow since the cyan ink color is the first to be removed by the bleach.

Vision Notes: My eyes have been doing well. Other than an occasional lubricating drop, I haven't been doing anything. Yesterday I did try to take my glasses off (which I obviously don't wear anymore) for the second time since having my LASIK surgery. It occurred to me after I did it last night, that what I was really trying to do, was shut my brain down and relax. That motion of reaching to take my glasses off had become synonymous with sleep. Without seeing the world through blurry eyes, it has become harder for me to relax and rejuvenate.

An Inspiring and Generous Soul

Yesterday I received a treasure trove of inspiration and art supplies from the wonderful Sarah Fishburn. She was posting vintage images for her fellow artists before the holidays and I was thrilled to have found them. The day before Thanksgiving, my hard drive crashed and took all my images with it. So I began visiting her blog quite frequently to check out her posts. On December 20th, she posted on her blog that she was going to be giving away some jewelry made by Tiffini Elektra X that features her artwork. The cost of an entry was a book recommendation and a quote. Since these are two of my other obsessions, I couldn't help but respond to her post. Late last week I found out that she had picked my name as a runner-up for a grab bag of arty supplies. As cool as the jewelry was, I was extremely excited about winning some cool supplies from her since I love her work. I have to share a glimpse of what wonderful things she sent me.
Arty Supplies from Sarah

Inspiring Postcards of Sarah's Work

Sarah's Multi-piece Collection
Unfortunately, my pictures don't do it justice since I got a glare with my flash. Hopefully, I will get a chance to take some better pictures tomorrow. Thank you so much, Sarah!