Down
I woke up feeling icky and got worse. A gastrointestinal thing. Husband stayed home and I slept most of the day. Bean refuses to take milk from anyone else but me and only in a bottle still. So this afternoon there were storms of tantrums, because I wasn’t available. I guess we need to get serious about the switch to sippy cups and eliminate the bottles (she drinks water out of sippy cups). My reason for hesitating until now has been: she won’t eat yogurt, cheese, cottage cheese, or ice cream, so milk is her only dairy and significant source of calcium. She rarely eats meat of any kind and refuses eggs and tofu; thus milk is her protein source. She is still underweight for her age. She eats a lot of fruit, veggies, and bread and cereals, but won’t eat pasta. She is an active child, always walking, climbing, dancing, etc. So I’ve continued to give her a bottle and not restrict the amount. I recently weighed her (last week), and in two months she only gained 12 ounces. She is still shy of 19 pounds. (And believe me, I’m getting real tired of all the comments on how small she is. How ironic that in about 10 years she will feel tremendous pressure to weigh less and may obsess about extra weight!)
I hope I feel better tomorrow. It’s no fun for any of us when I’m sick.
Art Every Day Month – Day 18
Art Every Day Month – Day 17
Art Every Day Month – Day 16
Art Every Day Month – Day 15
Art Every Day Month – Day 14
Today’s effort was a random (and ineffective) experiment with watercolor (I so don’t know how to work with watercolor paint). I didn’t have time to really get into something and wasn’t coming up with ideas. This is the kind of creation that may someday be reincarnated into another work, like this one, which also started as random swipes of paint and sat for a couple of years until I saw something in it. Today’s work is the kind of art that my friend Gerry looks askance at (a five year old could do this, there’s no real skill or technique involved, and I don’t necessarily disagree with him). This effort fits with Illustration Friday’s topic Pretend. Pretend this painting is about something. Consider it a kind of Rorschach test; what do you see in it? I saw sunlight on the water of a lake.
Art Every Day Month – Day 13
Art Every Day Month – Day 12
Art Every Day Month – Day 11
This wasn’t the best day for creativity. I spent the morning at the doctor’s office waiting (much too long) to get a TB skin test. Bean and I will start a parent-participation preschool class next week, and because I’ll be in contact with other kids, they need to know I won’t visit a plague upon them. The rest of the morning and much of the afternoon were spent with my friend and her little girl, and I cooked as well. So my inspiration today was what Bean was wearing — teal pants with little pears and hearts and cherries on them. I’m not particularly happy with the result, but the effort and process have equal value.
Just Today
In just this day, Bean added more words: hammer, pliers, wrench (from her chunky puzzle), happy, crying, climbing, sad. I’m actually awed. I don’t know what is “normal” or “average” for a 14-month-old in terms of language development (articulation and comprehension), but I’m just impressed at how each day she increases her understanding of the world.
Art Every Day Month – Day 10
This Child Of Mine
I’m raising a little sponge. Bean has more words now. What’s so fun is she is game to attempt to say anything. If you ask her, “Can you say [insert word]?” she will try it. It’s uncanny how well she pronounces words too. Here are her latest acquisitions:
achoo, back, beans, book, boom, bounce, bubbles, bunny, cracker, cuddle, dolly, down, Edgar (her elephant), empty, fork, front, full, gate, jump, mouse, Obama, over, people, pineapple, puzzle, spoon, tick tock, toast, toy, under, up, water, wheel
She also has started calling her little friend (whom she sees most often) by her first name, except she shortened it from a three-syllable name to one: Fee (Sofia).
And she cuddles her stuffed animals and snuggles into our embrace with intense affection. She’s a bright joyful little beam of energy in our lives. How I adore this kid!
Art Every Day Month – Day 9
No Inspiration
I’m spinning my wheels today regarding what to create for AEDM. Every idea I have I feel is too complex for the time I have today, I feel stale and uninspired, and I feel unskilled to bring forth some of the ideas. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. I have very little free time today.
Art Every Day Month – Day 8
This week’s theme for Illustration Friday is wise, and owls were my first thought. Bean adores owls and loves to say the word, though she has yet to catch on what they say (who? who?). So here is my attempt at drawing a barred owl. Owls have such improbable faces.
Art Every Day Month – Day 7
I traced my hand. I tried not to over-think what to do with it. I wanted contrast and boldness. The result brought to mind a mandala.
Representing the universe itself, a mandala is both the microcosm and the macrocosm, and we are all part of its intricate design. The mandala is more than an image seen with our eyes; it is an actual moment in time. It can be can be used as a vehicle to explore art, science, religion and life itself. The mandala contains an encyclopedia of the finite and a road map to infinity.
Carl Jung said that a mandala symbolizes “a safe refuge of inner reconciliation and wholeness.” It is “a synthesis of distinctive elements in a unified scheme representing the basic nature of existence.” Jung used the mandala for his own personal growth and wrote about his experiences.
It is said by Tibetan Buddhists that a mandala consists of five “excellencies”: The teacher • The message • The audience • The site • The time
An audience or “viewer” is necessary to create a mandala. Where there is no you, there is no mandala. (from: You Are the Eyes of the World, by Longchenpa, translated by Lipman and Peterson).
I have a world in my hand. So do you.
“World In Hand” / 7×10″ sketch paper with ink and marker
Art Every Day Month – Day 6
Art Every Day Month – Day 5
After Eight Years
For the first time in eight years, I feel hopeful about the future of our country. I am thrilled with the historic presidential election results.
In his famous Gettysburg Address, President Lincoln urged every American to take on “the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far nobly advanced.” That work remained unfinished, though, for a century and a half. For despite decades of civil rights legislation, judicial interventions and social activism — despite Brown v. Board of Education, Martin Luther King’s I-have-a-dream crusade and the 1964 Civil Rights Act — the Civil War could never truly be said to be over until America’s white majority actually elected an African-American as president.
That is what happened Tuesday night, and that is why we wake up to a different country. Yes, the struggle for equality is never done. But we can start afresh now from a whole new baseline. Let every child and every citizen and every new immigrant know that from this day forward: Everything really is possible in America.
–Thomas Friedman, Finishing Our Work
It’s not looking so good for Prop 8 and Prop 4 here in California, though.
















