In Love with Pencils

So I'm busy drawing again and it's so much fun. I had forgotten how much fun I can have with pencils in my hand. I committed to providing at least one illustration for a friend's story and I'm working on that. I sent her a scan of a preliminary sketch yesterday and she was fine with the concept, so I'm good to go. I'm ready to dive into the real thing beginning this morning and I'll bring my travel easel home from the shop with me for Sunday and maybe get some more work done on it tomorrow too. I wish I was a bit more practiced, it would take less time. But I was getting the look I wanted in the preliminary so now I get to go crazy. I want to watercolor one copy and have a pencil copy also, so I'll actually do two versions.

There are other images that I also want to have in the story, but I think those are things that I can Photoshop successfully. I'll work with that on my next day off so that I can be uninterrupted. Sometimes the computer programs take more time than just picking up a pencil or eraser. I'm quite excited to be drawing again. What fun!

Today, of course, is Saturday, so I get to work one hour less and I get Italian food for dinner. All good! I don't think DH and I have anything planned in stone for tomorrow, so maybe we'll go to the Minneapolis art supply store....or....who knows. The weather has been great here (Denver, however, got pounded with 24 inches of snow yesterday), so the sky is the limit. Have a wonderful and productive weekend. Tell someone that you love them today - it will make them very happy. Oh! And there is a little event called the Superbowl going on tomorrow. Guess I'll be eating lots of calorie-laden food and watching fun commercials...oh and watching some football too :-)

Improvements and Storms

Things are a bit better with DH today.  He just gets into such a twit when it comes to money.  He wants to find out if we can survive and what expenses we will have when we retire, I just have faith that we'll be fine.  Somewhere between the two of us is the probable reality of our lives - LOL. 

So I left him a note to please find one of the air brushes for me to use tomorrow.  We have owned two different air brushes for years, but have never used them.  Well, I need that smooth blending of color that I can get with that tool for the current project.  I have three weeks to get this complete and that's not a lot of time.  I'll also be working on the enamel work, so we'll see how far I can get.  I also have several stories in the works....ack!!!  Too much with too little time.  But...on a positive note, three more of my stories were nominated for a Middle Earth Fan Fiction Award.  I'm thrilled and flattered that people like my work. 

Thunderstorms woke me at 2am today, so I turned off my alarm clock and went downstairs to finish sleeping on the couch.  I had a weird dream about three birds - large ones, not little songbirds - taking refuge from the storm in my living room having flown down the flue.  That actually wouldn't be possible, but it was a really weird dream.  And then the power flicked off for a second while taking my shower at 3:30 am.  Spooky.  The computer seems to have escaped unscathed, however, and the storms have mostly left the area now.  Have a cleansing day on this Solstice.  Good Litha. 

Happy Weekend

It is Saturday.  For most people that is the start of their weekend.  They will sleep in this morning, wake when they cats walk over them or their dogs ask to be let out.  Or maybe their children will turn on the TV in the other room and the volume will wake you up.  You'll have your morning coffee, think about what tasks you have mentally scheduled for the two days, and get dressed.  The chores of the weekend may include planting your garden, mowing your lawn, volunteering at a charity or soup kitchen, going to a concert, going on a bicycle ride...what about art?  Does art or craft play a part in your weekend plans?  Are you going to paint?  Do a mosaic?  Melt some glass?  Throw a pot?  Compose some music?  What are you planning to do that will help your creative side?  Here's an idea for you - build craft or art into your weekend plans.  Make sure that you indulge yourself by allowing your creative side to have some expression; not just throwing basketball with the kids, but thinking about those arcs that the ball makes and putting them onto your paper or computer screen later.  Set your kids down to practice their music and sit down with your own instrument, keyboard, or voice and work on a new composision.  Open the tempra paints for the kids and take the last easel for yourself - see who can express their views of summer better or in a specific time frame.  Then get the sprinkler out and run through the sprinkler - it will help get any paint overindulgence washed off.  Play this weekend. 

I'll be working today, but I'm already looking forward to my pasta for dinner and a relaxed evening and Sunday.  I haven't put the resist down on my silk yet because I've been too tired after a day at the shop to sit down.  I hope to get that done on Sunday.  Then I could paint the center tree on Sunday, set the paint on Monday and wash the resist out of the silk.  Then I could put the new resist onto the fabric on Tuesday and do the next painting on Wednesday.  It will be pushing things to stick to that schedule, but it would get me a bit closer to schedule.  So we'll see if I can get Step 1 done tomorrow.  Have a creative weekend. 

....Back to Work

Someday I will have two days in a row off again, but I don't see that happening anytime in the foreseeable future.  I had a really delightful Sunday.  I had a 40% off any regularly-priced item coupon for Dick Blick's Art Supplies.  I can't resist a coupon like that, so I got some more water-soluble resist for my silk and because brushes were on sale at very good prices, I picked up three large paint brushes for my watercolors.  It's getting down to crunch time for my silk painting.  I'll wash the silk tonight to get rid of any sizing or other chemicals and I'll cut it to size and hem it.  I'm not 100% sure if I will hand sew the rolled hem, or use the sewing machine like I did for the lid lining satin fabric.  The rolled hem foot for the sewing machine isn't cut and dried - it is a bit tricky to get it to work properly.  I might be better off with hand-hemming the top since it will be "front and center" and the focal point of the entire project.  All that I know is that the sizing has to be exact. 

After our excursion at Dick Blick's, we wandered over to Barnes & Noble and wandered through the stacks.  We ended up with some magazines of interest and one bargain book with some amazing photographs that I would like to bring into silk painting and enamel work.  We went out to TGIFriday's for a couple of drinks (he had his usual beer, I had some wine) and then home for a light meal and the "Survivor" final.  Sandra won the $1 million.  Personally, I think Parvati deserved to win.  Russel received no votes, but once again won the "Sprint Player of the Game" and the $100,000 prize that accompanied that.  It makes two times in a row that he has won the $100,000 but not the grand prize for the game.  DH thinks that Russel should have won, but I am grateful that in the end it seems that evil does not get rewarded.  It reaffirms my basic faith in humanity which has been bashed and battered at the hands of current events and intoleration throughout the world over the past few years.  I can hardly wait for the fall session which will be in Nicaragua. 

Back to the Grind

Studio Day was VERY productive. I picked up five new boxes. I had gone to my box supplier with the intention of not buying any unless they had a specific brand, but ended up with five. Bad girl (hand slapping other hand). I got the office supplies purchased, had breakfast, reloaded my Movie card so that Chickie can pick my ticket for "How To Tame Your Dragon" which we're going to see on Monday, and went to the grocer. At home, I stripped the signage off one box that I will be enamelling, sanded my BFAC box down to silk texture - VERY nice, and did my first watercolor painting - ever!

It's odd that I haven't ever painted with watercolors before, but I had not. I have painted with almost every other media, including oils and acrylics, but I had never tackled watercolor before. I see what the fascination is with the media, and I think it will work well for my project. However, I'm using silk paints, not actual watercolors. I ordered my silk and my silk paints yesterday and tried my first mock-up of my project. I'll do a second one later in the week. I got my weekly Beta in for my friend, Iris, and started re-organizing my craft supplies into more permanent storage bins.

Today's Beading For A Cure auction items are by Kookie Bassett (top) and Dana Gentry (bottom). Dana's sewing box is adorable, and so very functional. Kookie's butterfly is a wonderful centerpiece for her necklace. Both are well worth lots of money, so bid high. Remember, all funds gathered are donated to help erradicate colorectal cancer.

Date Night - Not :-(

Supposedly "Date Night" is supposed to aid in a marriage. Giving the spouses an opportunity to meet away from the home and do activities that are more out of the ordinary - i.e., not just coming home and turning on our computers which is our normal evening - is supposed to help strengthen relationships, etc. Well, DH and I were supposed to go out for dinner and a movie tonight, but he backed out yesterday. Now he's all grumpy because my friend Chickie and I are going out to the movies next week. Apparently he doesn't want to join us, but just wants to complain. How boring!

I picked up some blue tape yesterday, so I will get to work on my watercolor tomorrow. I want to do a mock-up of some silk that I will be painting to make placements and colors clear in my mind. My mock-up is 1/2-size from my actual item and I have a lot still to do, but I hope I can get quite a bit done tomorrow for my studio time. I also have to make sure that I get the household budget completed. That may help elleviate some crankiness. At least I'll get some art in - LOL. And DH is threatening to clean up my studio if I don't get to it, so I guess things are pretty extreme. I bought some boxes for my supplies, so I'll start on getting my supplies repacked and labeled on Wednesday also. Maybe I'll find some of the items I need for a project later this month - LOL.

And don't forget to visit the Beading For A Cure auctions. Today, my bottom picture is Theresa Olin's wonderful piece, and the top necklace is by Kathleen Wright. Bid high - it's for a wonderful cause!

Studio Day 52

Ideally I will have 52 studio days this year. That's not very many, is it? 52 days in which to accomplish many things. I have four cloaks to sew and embroider (and I am NOT a good embroiderer and am very slow at it). I have six enamel projects in my mental pipeline, some of which are in the process of being sketched out and finalized, others of which have barely made their whispers heard. I have at least two beading projects to do this year - both of which are quite unknown as of yet. One for Beading For A Cure, and one with my friend Shruti. (Note to self...better Email Shruti and get our subject matter under serious discussion-LOL.) I want to draw more. I want to paint more. And I still have a house to clean and a craft room to reorganize. I asked for more days off for a Christmas gift. I was given one extra day. I will use it - most absolutely will use it. But I sure would have liked even more days.

But for today, my inner spirit is singing. I have the ability to spend 5-6 hours on projects of my choosing and I will be sawing silver, finalizing images for two different enamel projects, and figuring out whether the fabric pens that I purchased on Sunday will actually work for transferring my embroidery design to my current cloak project. If it does, I can get back to work on the embroidery and that will make me quite joyous. So....this is going to be a great day, and day 52 of this year, as we count down towards the last day of the year, will only be good!

Beginning Again

A new week begins today. According to the calendar on my wall, it actually began yesterday. But I always think that my weeks begin on Monday. In fact, I think that most people consider Monday to be the beginning of their week. So...why do calendars present Sundays as the first day on each linear row? Just one of the odd things that can sometimes clog up my thought processes :-)

Yesterday was a calm and fun day. We had breakfast at McDonald's (my DH loves Mickey-D's breakfast, and I can handle an Egg McMuffin and a Yogurt Parfait), then headed over to the shop for a couple of hours of working with wire. We had received a large shipment of heavy-gague brass and nickle wire that needed to be re-packed into one-pound coils. It took us three hours, but we got most of it done. Then we went to Dick Blick's Art Supplies. I had a simply lovely coupon for double discount plus 20% off, and I needed a new Size 0 watercolor brush. I also picked up a few other things to play with. I still had slightly over $25 left on my Verizon rebate card, so I used that and had to also put in $5 of my own money. Not bad - I certainly got my best from the rebates I got for the new phones I purchased in September. The night was spent on the computer reading fan-fic and editing a chapter for Iris. All in all, it was a wonderful and relaxing Sunday. Now to get back to creative production for the week, after all - my Wednesday is coming quickly!

The Sound of One Hand Clapping

What is the sound of one hand clapping? It's a zen question, but it comes to the front when two are suddenly one. My DH left on his trip yesterday, and as independent as I am, and as much as I am looking forward to some time alone, it is still odd to not have to interact with someone 24/7. The bed was lonely last night and I don't have to alter my desired schedule to mesh around anyone else's desires. That's a good thing. But I also don't have anyone to converse with and don't have anyone to bounce ideas off. That's bad. I think the amount of time he'll be gone will be just about perfect, but it will take me a bit of time to get used to it and get full use from my unstructured time.

We had a stunningly beautiful day yesterday - blue skies and temps in the 60's. But today we're back to the cold temps that are more common for this time of the year. Autumn is here and the trees are turning golden and scarlet. Really wonderful. We usually peak around Columbus Day, so I'll be looking happily at the last burst of colors over the next week. If the weather is nice on Sunday and I can get the mailbox fixed, maybe I'll take a Sunday drive to look at the leaves. I haven't done that for a long time :-) And maybe I'll carry my portable watercolors along with and play for a time.

Starting to Drag

I always worry when I am really tired. It is so easy for me to fall asleep, that I can fall asleep while driving - NOT a good idea and quite frightening. This week is really wearing on me - I can't go to sleep early because my DH needs his medications at 10pm, so I'm stuck stayiing up even if I am exhausted. And since yesterday was a work day, I ended up having to do a load of laundry last night - that also kept me up late. So I'm really dragging today. I usually would be able to grab a quick 30 minute nap on the couch, but not on Thursdays because I have breakfast with my friend, Eleanor.

But on a positive note, I have a one-day 25% off coupon from Dick Blick's that I can use tonight. I'll record "Survivor" and go shopping. We need watercolor brushes and DH wants a set of watercolors of his own to play with. I'll let him use the coupon and maybe I won't have to spend much money since I really don't have much to spend this time. But it's always a joy to go into a shop geared towards play. What....you don't consider your artistic pursuits to be play? Maybe you should change your mindset and enjoy the fun of it again :-)))

Stress Filled Week Ahead

I really work hard at keeping my equilibrium and allowing things to slide off me rather than affect my daily viewpoint. It doesn't make a lot of sense to worry about things in advance of the appropriate time to worry about them. It also doesn't make a lot of sense to stress about things because my body doesn't react well to stress. So I try to stay mellow and concentrate on my art and projects when I do stress to pull the stress out. But this week will be a hard one. My DH is having ear surgery on Friday, and Wednesday is our 30th wedding anniversary. Both of these are stressful - the anniversary because it usually is a day that my DH spends regretting (nothing like regret for the past 30 years to make a person feel really wanted and cherished ) and of course surgery is always stressful.

I hope that the surgery will be beneficial. His hearing is getting worse and worse and he develops ear infections which also are a serious problem. The past two ear infections led to some major surgeries and the doctor is hoping that this smaller one will nip this current infection in the bud and keep us from requiring the more major surgery. Either way, it still will be painful and will require me to have the shop closed to the public on Friday while I am at the hospital with him. So my Assistant Manager will do inventory and packing and will answer the phone on Friday, but our doors will be locked. I have had signs posted for a week, and I hope that people will not be too disappointed, but sometimes we have no choices.

I don't think I'll be brave enough to bring my watercolors with me to the surgery waiting room, but a sketchbook would probably be OK. I think my cloak might be too bulky, and they don't have Wi-Fi for my laptop (or at least they didn't the last time I needed to accompany my DH to the Day Surgery clinic. But I have a few days to work out my logistics for how I want to spend a few free hours :-)

Cleaning, Packing....Priorities

It turns out that while I am cleaning for my houseguest and thinking about bringing up my suitcase to start packing, my thoughts are actually turning to how I can easily carry my art supplies along with me. I guess clothes are secondary to creativity for me.

One of the projects that I want to work on during my week at the conference is ribbon embroidery. I want to bring some of my cloak fabric, some french curves and an embroidery hoop, needles and some scrap ribbons that I bought for practice, and try to determine the patterning while learning the stitch. As the final goal, I want to have ribbon embroidery up the center plaquets of my cloak, and possibly around the hem as well. But I've never done ribbon embroidery - LOL, so it's time to learn the spider roses that I want to have as my embellishment.

I also want to pack a mid-sized sketch pad - not my larger ones, and not the small ones that are my usual carry item. I want to actually be able to work on my drawing and maybe my watercolors, so I need portability. I'm thinking I may grab my lime green backpack. It may be a bit low-key, but it will hold what I need and leave my hands free for my handbag or laptop bag. It looks like class supplies will be pretty minimal - pliers and cutters along with safety glasses will take care of 90% of my class supplies, so most of the backpack could be my art stuff. I'm starting to look forward to this trip. Now if I could just get some sleep .

Best Laid Plans....

Saturday's plan was colors and pasta. Nice idea, but life got in the way. I didn't get a chance to play with my watercolors (although being busy at work is actually a VERY good thing), and my weekly pasta had to be postponed so that some yard work could be accomplished and a visit to the local Target for some basic staples was done. A quick meal at Micky-D's (McDonald's) ended my Saturday, along with playing Lord of the Rings Online until almost midnight. It actually was a great day, even though none of it went according to my morning plan.

I think that I may do my pasta tonight instead. I really miss it when I don't get my pasta :-) And a good friend also recommended the watercolor pencils. I actually do have some of those and probably will play with them after I get more used to the properties of watercolor on paper.

Spring is certainly here. We had thunderstorms yesterday, but just south of us in Iowa and Oklahoma, they had tornados. I have friends who live in earthquake zones, volcanic areas, and hurricane areas. I live in a tornado zone. But, as frightening as heavy thunderstorms and rains can be, tornados generally have a small path and localized damage. It is amazingly destructive, incredibly beautiful, and I'll take that over a large-scale earthquake anytime! Here are some tornado photos for all of you.