second of three

Here are the stages. This morning I put on the head and got myself a figure and then I did some more playing around - this is the girl who can't draw so I needed to be VERY careful. I think I prefer the first one - oh well too bad! The blue look is both the time of day and that I have added quite a lot of Micaceous Iron Oxide. I have SO enjoyed doing this. Really really enjoyed it. After lunch I am going to start on the blue one. And - if I find my heart still sings for red I'll do another red one. Just realised that the base for this dancer is further down this blog under the heading Going under the gesso.

 And this is the last one. I had another picture up here but changed the picture in the middle on the morning of the exhibition, so am putting that one up now and getting rid of the first picture. Somehow feel naughty doing it! YEAH!
It's amazing to me how excited I was about them yesterday - and this morning - now they're 'finished' they are OK. Yesterday and this morning they were great!

First of three

10" x 10"

This is the first "finished" red painting. Scroll down to   to see what it looked like last week. I will have three by the end of tomorrow.

Beading with a friend

I had my first visit from four year old Zuva today. We had fun. We played with her stuffed toys, looked at my 59 year old teddy bear and 61 year old rabbit - both much the worst for wear - read stories. Yeah she liked Katie the Kitten best. Then played with the beads, which was the original enticement.. She made the longer string which is curled round the outside of my fussy one. We finished off the visit with a session of Where's Wally...and a good time was had by me and I hope her. Four really is a delightful age, especially in a delightful child.

Art Class homework

And at least I have done some this week. Part of my problem is I don't know what to paint. This is the third coat of this 'style' I didn't take a photo of the one I came home with. It was gray and murky. I spiced it up with red yesterday and enjoyed it so much I did another two. This is the first one. The colour on all of them is terrible. They are much more subtle.

And these are the next two. Put together as two, That's a first for me. Anyway, watch this space as I am sure they will change and I'm not so sure about the blobs. Terry thinks they should be 3D. Maybe they shouldn't be there at all. Note the bottom one doesn't have a blob.

Hee hee

Citra Solv and doodling! How come I only see monsters?

Citra Solv Landscapes - just a few

These are the "landscape" Citra Solv results. I have done nothing to them except crop.

Citra Solv experiment # two

Cooking dinner for 20 tomorrow as am in town all day tomorrow am doing most of it now, but have found time to do some scanning and cropping and wonders of wonders play around with brightness and contrast. I do wish I could do computer standing up. Anyway here are my images. And I am pretty crazy about them.

This looks like some sort of weird village.

I played with brightness and contrast and its more like the orginal

I call this the Chinese girl, but its from a story about Iceland

And this strange face

I love this

I think this one looks better as a whole rather than cropped

Original scan

Brightened and contrasted

Logs

Original scan

Brightened and contrasted

Lightened from original scan

Somehow this one just looks weird but is great in the original 

This is very interesting. I am no where near knowing what to do with them. Art class tomorrow and I have done nothing since last week. I don't think Liz is much into collage but I would like to take them tomorrow and see if I can come up with an idea.

Citra Solve Grand Experiment # One

This is one of the whole pages which kept its look. I have scanned and cropped and am now playing around with printing. I am on Terry's computer so apparently I can up load just like this. Lets see what happens.

More Citra Solv

 

It's so random. I just did a 2000 + Nat Geo and the first few pages didn't work at all and then they were over "cooked"! I took pictures before and after but haven't been able to match them all up. I thought I might be able to learn what makes what but with some not working - well who knows! I wanted this writing at the top but am not willing to muck with what I have sorted so far. 

I am finding this blog harder and harder to deal with. Pictures used to be easy and now they take forever. Getting two together - takes forever. I don't like this new system What ever I don't put in first time disappears into Picasa and so then that needs loading. Whats happened to one at a time. WordPress here I come I think!

Citra Solv - at last

I've done it. I bought Citra Solv from Ecohip in the UK It came fast and I've been playing iwth it all afternoon. It seems to be me to be very hit and miss. You really have to slop it on but even then sometimes it just doesn't do anything. The 80's National Georgaphic's didn't seem to do it at all but the 2000's mostly do but not always. I have taken a couple of pictures of what I have done today but really I left taking the pictures too late so they are a bit blurry cost the flash is too reflective. I have about 50 pages and will go through them all properly over the weekend. This first one didn't dissolve properly so while it was still damp, I used a brush..

This one which I hope is below, I need a little workshop on how to get the pictures where I want them, is the only one I have a picture of that you can't see anything of the original picture. Thought it has made its own.

The next one two and three - I seem to need to write a whole line to get the pictures to come after the words are all partly 'cooked'. I will put others up soon that are wholey cooked.

Going under the gesso

Having a gesso moment. One down so far, the flower one further down and now this below. How may to go? No new canvases for this little black duck. Terry liked this one, he had it on his wall before I took it back again.

New painting class

I did my painting class with  Liz de King on Wednesday. It was fun, a good group, I'm near the bottom, as usual but it was fun. We did some chat and then she said PAINT. I made a red one then ended up scraping it all off and made a blue one which by the time I came home looked like this

Then yesterday I had another go at it, in between making a SoulCollage card, it ended up looking like this

I have now gesso'd out the base, I will have another crack at it. Its darker than the picture shows. A wonderous fluke really! Just for the record, I am editing this blog to show you what it looks like a few minutes later!

Have ordered the Citra Solv and now just need to wait and wait and wait. So frustrating. Its a glorious day and I really should plant the beans but I think I will do it tomorrow. Its a Saturday. A more bean planting day.

SO many ideas

I'm coming to the end of a four week stay with my Papa, it is his 90th birthday. I am itching to get home. I have so many ideas bubbling around that want to get on to paper or canvas. I am very keen to use the rice paper technique for illustrations. I want to illustrate my most favorite childhood book. It was read to me so many times I can still quote all of it. Gung ho on the citra solve idea. There is lots about it on the net. Some one printing onto cloth with citra solve why not canvas? I asked my brother to bring some over from the States, he couldn't get it in time and its only just occured to me to see if I can find it in the UK and of coure I can BUT it's all on line ordering and I leave in 36 hours so there is no time to get it here. GGGRRR to me. I start my art class next Wednesday. I think there will be a whole burst of creativity which I am really looking forward to. Holidays do have there uses!

Great show

Human Slinky During Half-Time Show - Watch more Funny Videos

New backgrounds

I haven't written about the affirmation art for a really long time. But here I am with some words and pictures.

I had a long go at trying to master Adobe Illustrator. I did sort of get it but realised I was still discouraged and depressed after my best day with it - and it was not a harmonious house hold. So I decided, spurred on by Kim's success with finding an illustrator through guru.com, to give it a go to find a graphic designer to do the whole thing including the words. I had lots of offers but didn't like any of the samples. As the samples came in and I didn't like them I realised that I could do the letters myself - or at least Stu can cut them out of vinyl so that I get back to the whole thing of the child putting the words down them selves. Which gives both ownership and a kinaesthetic experience which cements their affirmations in much more strongly. So I thought maybe I should go for an illustrator not a graphic designer and then I thought no, the whole thing was to based  round my art so I'll do it. These are the first two tries. Feedback given is that they are too busy and maybe they are. I will make simple ones and get the whole lot printed on vinyl and stick letters on top and see what looks best. Will this be done before I go to England? Maybe not.

And, I have been and continue to be busy with being a fledgling funeral celebrant, helping with the organisation of Heart Politics this summer and joining the VES committee. Plus of course playing with SoulCollage.

My first reading

I did this reading yesterday morning as part of my morning pages.  I seemed to read from both the main figures in the card. Once I wrote it out and read it  I edited a bit. ( I like nice edit!)

I am the one who is pretending to scare you but, I am just a mask. I have no arms. I am strong and menacing but I am static and cannot move.  I am powerless except in your mind. I am the one who menaces your thoughts. I am easily devoured by flames and I have around me beauty and new life if you can just see it. I am the one who watches over you while you have your head in the sand.

I am the one who has buried my head in the sand and left my gold exposed on the earth.

I am the one who holds the world in my hand as a memory.

The gifts I bring you are to remember that I am in your mind. I am your thoughts. I only have the power you give me, I have none of my own. Because I can do strange and powerful feats, like not breath for a long time, the gift I have to offer you is to remember your strength and your power. Remember that you can do or be anything you want as well as, as healthy as you want to be.

We both want you to rise up like the flame in the middle and become like that flame, pure, bright, vigorous and unfettered by fearful thoughts.

Flowers

Not having a great time at the moment. I feel stuck. And have a lot of self talk about not being a good artist. Which we all know becomes self perpetuating. I need to make pointless play an end in itself. I seem to be on this whole thing about making flowers with my fingers. So, here is what I have been doing for the last few days - on the canvas with tissue paper on it, which has gone through any number of incarnations. Oh and in the desperate attempt to use cut out roses so I can justify cutting out more, I have placed them on the picture. I actually did some more on this before I put this up and now I see I could do something quite amusing as the back of someone's head! Well, we'll see what comes out next.

Stage 2

Done the first paint over after cover it with rice paper then scraping some of it off again. Colour not so good on this photo and still along way to go.

Picture up before it gets the big going over

I get that I am trying to do something new and in fact it could take 6 months to get it right. I'm back to hand painting and rubbing off color on a differently textured background with things on top - or at least things on top is the plan I would put a picture of one of the bases up but the purple looks blue on the photo as does the green so it just looks blue. I see that failure thinking rather than learning thinking was what made me stop all painting for a couple of months. So, new broom and I am now into learning thinking.and if that means 'wasting' paint and canvas then so be it. The picture here is going to be covered up and I am going to start again. I like it, sort of but its on a wall I don't look at so I obviously don't like it that much. I have also learned that 24 x 24 is too big an area to waste paint on. so 18 x 18 and 20 x 20 will do. I've spent the morning outside on the deck on the 3rd of July - middle of our winter - sunning myself  near naked  cos its so hot. I thought I should stop cos I could well be getting sun burnt. I'm sure all that vitamin D is very good for my pretend chest infection. My volunteer stint at the movies - Toy Story 3 - calls.

I'm painting again

Np picture yet - I'm into something new and want to see how it progresses before I show off. The 24 x 24 I put up the other day has been painted over. I oil pastelled it and I think, no I know, it was the nastiest thing I have ever made. The colours were diabolical. I don't know what happened but I didn't like it. So tomorrow I try hand painting it. Had a very down couple of days re the kids affirmation art but feeling positively back on track again, Thanks Lynda. After Heart Politics I will do a bit of a motor and get things happening. But for now, well its go slow, keep my immune system as healthy as possible and do some painting tomorrow. No gym in the morning if I feel like this tomorrow. and now the soccer is on. Yoo Hoo