Birthday Assemblage

I started picking up old "G" print blocks when I saw them, to make something for my Mom's birthday (her name is Gloria). I wasn't sure what I was going to make, but her birthday is this week so I was forced into action. After quite a bit of playing around and rooting through my boxes of miscellaneous rusty hardware this is what I came up with.  She loves birds, as I do, so it seemed like the perfect thing to perch on top for a Spring birthday. 

CRUSADE No. 61 ~ Restraining Order

Michelle Ward's last Green Pepper Press Street Team challenge (only for a little while, we hope!), is about using restraint, not feeling the need to cover every inch of a journal page - that it takes bravery sometimes to leave blank areas.  I found this to be so true after I'd read her post when working in my journal.

This page I had sketched out a couple of weeks ago and made a little bit of a start on.  I started on it again, and was planning little fish cut out of an old dictionary, and I was going to put things in the boat, things she carried with her on her journy, and birds in the sky etc, but then I realized that this was exactly what Michelle was talking about.  Why not stop, and let the focal image just speak for itself, why clutter it up? So, it wasn't easy, but I used restraint, and am happy that I did....

Confession

I must confess, when my man takes off on a weekend morning to go golfing, I do not sit around pining for his return.  As soon as he's out the door I throw clothes on, throw the dogs out, grab one of my journals and usually an Anthropologie catalog and head to my favorite local cafe, Old Soul.  There I settle down with a delicious latte and do some journaling and some people watching. Then I find a picture I like in Anthropologie (the women usually have very interesting faces, with different kinds of lighting).

This is as far as I got today before I got tired of sitting, and feeling guilty about the dogs, who I'd promised a trip to the park. Much more work to do, but a decent start. This has been a very dry winter (I miss rainy days at home), but it does mean weekends have been good for golfing...

Jenny Doh Fundraiser

Jenny Doh, the lovely creator of Crescendoh.com, has created a fundraiser for a wonderful cause, Water.org. A donation of $25 gets a family safe water for life - the details are here.  She has also invited everyone who donates to send her a handmade accessory, with which she'll pose in the dress she has committed to wear for an entire year for this cause.  I don't normally make art to wear, and I didn't think she'd want to hang a canvas around her neck, so I figured I'd dig through my mixed media stash to see what I could come up with. This is the result...

It started out as a pin, but I was afraid it would be too heavy, so I made it a necklace. I used an old game chip as the base, a rusty metal piece not sure what it is exactly, an old knob, a piece from the inside of an old pocket watch and beads. The piece from inside the watch amazes me - it's carved with a beautiful ornate pattern and it was from INSIDE the watch. They sure don't make things like they used to.  Anyway, it's kinda funky, but I had a lot of fun making it, and hopefully Jenny will like it.

Mt. Shasta

I've been jealously enjoying gorgeous pictures of English countryside and cathedrals on some favorite new blogs, and thought I'd represent this side of the pond with some pictures of our trip to Mount Shasta last weekend. My parents gave us a night at a wonderful cabin on Siskiyou Lake there for Christmas, and we wanted to go while there was still snow on the ground.  It was a beautiful clear weekend and the mountain was stunning, as you can see. We went to Castle Lake, which was frozen over (I've never seen a lake frozen over before - and there was no way I was getting out on it!).

In the parking area there was a group of about six pre 1967 VW buses - fabulous!  A big group of them caravan around the country every year, breaking down frequently from what they said. The goal is to spend the least amount of money aquiring one as you can, and then somehow get it running and keep it running on these treks. They looked like a bunch of hippies having a great time!

This is a view from the the deck of our cabin, and we took a ridiculous number of pictures of these birds - I wanted a good enough one that I could draw it later. I proudly showed the pictures to my Dad, who loves birds, and he immediately deflated me by telling me they're mean and he's seen them snatch baby birds out of nests and kill them. Oh well, they're undeniably pretty...

GPP Street Team - What I love

This month's crusade on Michelle Ward's Green Pepper Press Street team is to do a journal page about what we love.  I've been wanting to participate in this fun monthly crusade for a while, as I love Michelle Ward and this seems like a really great group who do great work - the website is here. I've finally gotten my act together this month enough to do it!  Here is the challenge:

I decided to make a page (in my new journal I just made, my first attempt at making one) with things I love to make art with. It was a lot of fun digging through my stash to find things that could go on a page, and of course I love it, because it's made of all things I love!

Back to Basics

Between work and my online Misty Mawn class I was taking, I haven't been up for air in a while.  I haven't really made any "finished" pieces, mostly just working on going back to the basics and learning things in a different way, as I've been entirely self-taught. It's been wonderful just to get to watch her work so much... Getting out of my comfort zone and trying new things, or trying things differently is very good for me. I still have much work to do in the class, although it's technically over.  She's leaving the site up for a year, which I'll need if I want to actually accomplish all the homework assignments. I'll post a couple of pictures of sketches I did for the class, just to prove I haven't been a total sloth!

FYI, I ran out of room for the skeleton's feet, and when I came home from work the next day my significant other had taped brightly colored clown shoes to the bottom. He was quite amused with himself...

This is from a picture of me holding my nephew - there's something a little off with my nose...