Category Archives: Community

Non-Art Posting

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Making art every day has taken a lot of my energy, so much that I have virtually nothing to say otherwise. The days are full with Bean. We were all able to get seasonal flu shots last week, and I feel much relief as we are about to embark on our Big Trip next Monday. I realize other bugs might come up, but at least — I hope — not The Flu.

I am knitting. I’m still working my way through The Last Child in the Woods and am steadily reading Home, Marilynne Robinson’s second novel. I’m also gathering supplies needed for our trip. Despite the fact we aren’t lugging a lot of big items, thanks to my sister-in-law’s efforts, there still feels like a lot to remember.

Stayed up too late last night, and Bean woke at 5:30 a.m. today, so I’m headed to bed.

As Tigger would say, TTFN!

Art Every Day Month – Day 14

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I played here with paint and image transfer. I’m not so keen with the green dots, because they have more blue in them than I’d like, while the painting has more yellow. By the time I realized this, though (I made it in my dimly lit office at night), it was too late to remove them without ruining the piece. I really enjoy image transfers, but they are a challenge to get the paper off (even after a long soak in warm water) while keeping the image intact.

dream in flowers - art every day month 09 - day 14

Dream In Flowers / 2.5 x 3.5″ mixed media collage on card stock

Art Every Day Month – Day 13

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Feeling a bit rushed and at a loss for ideas, I rummaged around my paint drawer. I found my old palette with dried circles of red, sienna, and brown paint. I peeled them off as I pondered what to make. Rather than throw the bits away, I decided to experiment with cutting them up and arranging them on this background. So yes, these are dried acrylic paint chips!

mosaic 1 - art every day month 09 - day 13

Mosaic 1 / 2.5 x 3.5″ collage with acrylic paint on card stock

Art Every Day Month – Day 12

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I decided to play with paint for a change. I have a postcard of Joseph Mallord William Turner’s painting, The ‘Fighting Téméraire’; I love the colors. What’s interesting is that there are many images of this painting on the web that render the color in vastly different ways: some are paler, some darker and more foreboding. This one most closely resembles my postcard. My rendition certainly doesn’t hold a candle to the original classic, but it was fun to do, and I’m mostly pleased with the result.

at sunset - art every day month 09 - day 12

At Sunset / 2.5 x 3.5″ acrylic paint on card stock

Art Every Day Month – Day 11

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Some days — heck, most days — all my child wants to do is be read to, all day. I think in part it’s because it’s cozy and close, and she’s avid to understand the world. When we are around other kids, she likes to play with them. But her main favorite activity is to take little adventures through the worlds between two covers.

discovery - art every day month 2009 - day 11

Discovery / 2.5 x 3.5″ card stock collage with fabric, ink, and embellishments

Art Every Day Month – Day 9

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My sister-in-law and brother love Paris. Bean’s godparents (why isn’t there a better term for atheists? Our other phrase, Emergency Backup Parents, is kind of bulky) recently went and loved it. Another friend also visited Paris a couple years ago. And I? Well, I stayed in an unremarkable hotel on the outskirts of Paris overnight on my 15-countries-in-2-weeks tour back in 1999. I visited Marseilles; toured Fragonard parfumeur; waved at the Eiffel Tower; toured (by bus) the Boulevard de Clichy (past Le Moulin Rouge) and the Arc de Triomphe on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées; breezed past Le Jardin de Tuileries; toured (in person) the Basilica of the Sacré Cœur and Notre Dame; and ate an incredible meal at a forgotten restaurant before riding on through the countryside on the way to whatever country was next. Maybe someday I’ll go back there for a longer visit, with Bean when she is older. I need to update my passport, though.

always paris - art every day month 2009 - day 9

Always Paris / 2.5 x 3.5″ collage

Art Every Day Month – Day 8

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I started this ATC on a bright green background and used tissue paper to collage. I got stuck along the way, feeling uninspired. I was thinking of fall colors in New York state, and also of how incredibly green and rural it is, and how easily lost one can get in some of these places. Where I live now is dense, urban, and covers a valley floor mostly with concrete. So this ended up being a piece reflecting my own uncertainty in the creative process and my longing for sparsely populated places.

lost - art every day month 2009 - day 8

Lost / 2.5 x 3.5″ mixed media collage

Art Every Day Month – Day 4

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My very first cat ever was a butterscotch (or marmalade) cat named Kiki. She loved to watch outdoors. We lived on a busy street, so for many years we let her go outside in the back yard during the day on a light chain under a huge pine tree, stocked with food and water, an experience she loved and hated. We also took her camping with us. In her later years, we trusted her to have good sense and stay close, so we began to let her out back unfettered. She loved to sit under the garden ferns, watching and sometimes catching birds. She was a good cat, and she put me on the path to being a cat lover since.

moonwatching - art every day month 2009 - day 4

Moonwatching / 2.5 x 3.5″ collage on card stock

Art Every Day Month – Day 2

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I was playing with stencils in this one. I wanted to keep things clean and simple. I was in the mood for green, because I am still waiting for the mountains to turn into that gorgeous winter emerald color, if the rains ever come consistently. The word “listen” came to mind, because there is so much to hear in the natural world. I’m try to bring Bean to as many natural spaces as I can, and give her the chance to move and get messy and hear what the world has to say.

art every day month 2009 - day 2- listen

Listen / 2.5 x 3.5″ ink and embellishment on card stock

Art Every Day Month – Day 1

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This is my fifth year participating in the monthlong event. I’ve been ambivalent about it this year; every year I feel a butterfly rush in my gut, but this year I’ve waffled about doing it at all. What stymied me is my personal requirement that I create one complete piece every day. AEDM is not structured this way — Leah (the originator of AEDM) particularly encourages rule-breaking — but I don’t want to relinquish this one goal. However, with travel in late November, how will I create and upload daily? Well, I decided to break one rule. Since I will be gone the last 8 days of the month, I’ve spent the last 8 days of October making art for those dates. This way, I will have made art for 30 days and still have work to share for the month.

I decided to work in a very small format — 2.5 x 3.5 inches, also known as Artist Trading Cards or Art In Your Pocket. These mini canvases call for simplicity, and one would think they would be quick to make, but they aren’t for me. Just as writing a short, concise document requires careful thought and editing (and therefore time), working with space constraints presents challenges that take time to work on. As Leah said,

“A lot of people have mentioned being a little nervous, a little jittery. Me too. It happens every year. And I think it’s interesting, but also telling because I think those things that give us a bit of the jitters are also those things that are very important to us. So notice if you feel those jitters and know you’re on the right track. And then go create.”

Without further ado, here’s my first piece.

art every day month 2009 - day 1 - house

Home / 2.5 x 3.5″ collage on card stock

Princess Bean

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We went out and covered a few blocks. Bean had fun and got lots of comments about how cute she is. She was a little shy about saying “trick-or-treat” at first but soon got the hang of it. People were very generous! She became obsessed with a giant spider decoration. We had to walk back two blocks to see it a second time; she named it Mike.

winkie wendy & princess Bean
princess Bean
a spider named mike

Happy Halloween

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I ended up carving a pumpkin after all. Bean named it Wendy because it is winking — Winkie Wendy. Bean is doing much, much better. Her fever broke yesterday. She’s still tired and has a cough, but she is well enough to say she wants to go trick-or-treating, even though I suspect she really doesn’t know what that means. I’m not sure we will go, but if we do, it will be for a very brief outing. She doesn’t really want to wear a costume. Perhaps we’ll don her in one of my blouses (long enough to be a dress) and costume jewelry, and she can go as a “lady.”

She has been waking at 5 and 5:30 a.m., so we’ll see how early she gets up tomorrow after we fall back an hour on the clock! (Please please please sleep; don’t wake up at 4 a.m.!)

winkie wendy