11.11.11 :)

Here is a picture of my constant companion here in the office: Bee my Cockatiel. I've had her about three years or so now.. making her five. A gift from a dear friend. She's a nut, can be noisy and leaves fluff all over my keyboard but I love her. Bee.. that is, not the dear friend. :) Though I love her too.

I thought you might like to meet her.

I don't know if today should be important because of the date but it's fun. And I'd like to take the time out to thank the Veterans and members of our Armed Forces for all their sacrifices. One might not believe or support in the politics behind things but one can't deny the bravery of those that defend us. My late Father was one of them.

I've been a bit unproductive lately. I'm trying to sort through my feelings about my oncology reports. Seems I have to have at least one more surgery in the next month or so and more then likely radiation. For some reason these things more often then not happen to me during this time of year. Astrological? My late Mother, the Astrologer, would have known.

I've spent the last week indulged in watching mindless TV and reading mind candy books (my vice in life is reading paranormal suspense novels and historical mysteries. I know enough about history where they have to be good ones though. :) )

On the one hand I told myself I wouldn't hide this side of my life here (the Leiomyo Sarcoma side; not my reading habits :) ).

On the other hand I don't like focusing on it either. While I don't believe in being a “Pollyanna”: that is acting like everything is ok despite hanging off a cliff edge... I don't like to dwell on the peril either. Keeping a positive outlook is, in my opinion, one of the many reasons I'm still here. Balancing a positive outlook with a sense of reality actually.

That and Medicinal Mushrooms.

Anyway.... even though I'm still waiting to see the surgeon about one tumor (fortunately a simple extraction) and hear back from the radiation oncologist to tell me if I should have another surgery before the radiation;

I feel it's time to get off the couch, so to speak, and get back into my life.

In other words, to once again, get over myself. It really is damaging to sit around and feel sorry for one's self and dwell on the “what if's”. Better to dust one's self off and get on with what one loves to do.

And for me that's the garden and studio primarily and cooking and hanging with my family and friends. With occasionally reading books and a computer game or two :)

However, I haven't totally ignored the studio or garden.

Now for the updates:

Studio update:

Mostly I worked on framing some of the paper mache prints. I have a friend who is a former frame maker who gave me some good ideas about how to go about this. I got myself some rectangular shadowboxes to experiment with. They are plastic unfortunately but I sanded one and painted it with the iron paint. I didn't rust it though: I thought that would be too much.

I then mounted one of the Ravens on unbleached craft paper, attached that to ¼ inch foam board and put it into the frame.

It doesn't look half bad.

I'm thinking I may have to learn how to build frames. Though where I will find the room (and time?) for such a big project at this time I don't know. And I don't think I need another big project at this point.

Another issue: and your feed back would be appreciated... is the quality of the images of my work. I've been scanning them on my computer and for much of the work it works great. But I noticed many of my paintings, particularly the batch from the Raven a Day Challenge don't do the paintings justice. The colors are wrong for one thing. I'm not sure if you can pick up the textures with a camera even but I'm going to start experimenting. I'll post the results here when I get to them.

The above is the first. My main problem I think is not having the camera reflected in the glass.

I'm thinking next week I should start a small Challenge. I'll spend the weekend deciding what that will be and report back Monday.

Garden update:

The greenhouse still needs watering every other day or so. Things are coming along well. The greens probably won't be mature enough until later this Winter. As always I was a bit late seeding. I'm thinking of seeing if I can grow some lettuce mix in the growing shelves under lights in the kitchen before that.

I'm still dealing with the straw/grass seeds in the mulch.

I'm hoping the weather will cooperate and I can get the garden beds tucked in for the Winter this weekend.

Oh... and I changed the format a bit in the blog. Let me know if it doesn't work on your computer. I have a large monitor so I can't really tell. Blogger is coming up with some interesting new formats for their blogs that I will be experimenting with soon but I'm waiting to be able to put in gadgets. (all those little windows on the side bars). A feature they say is soon to be.

See you next week.

Studio and Garden Update and this weeks Art Challenge.

Studio update:

I didn't write here last week. I think I was still acclimating from the long weekend in Maine. I did work in the studio though. I've been working on rusting more of the paper mache prints (see previous posts) as well as I finished the last canvas from the previous weeks Challenge. I'd only been able to do four due to the trip and the last was still drying.

It was another experiment with crackle paste. I painted a layer of acrylic paint and collage papers first. Then I put crackle paste on part of the canvas and painted it a turquoise color. Then I copper leafed the crackled part and some of the texture from the collage. I used the adhesive lightly as I wanted the acrylic layer to show through. I finished it with a layer of acrylic faux encaustic goop I make up with matt gel and paint.

It's different and I like it. The image is to the left.

I'm sticking with 9"x10" canvas this week, as well as Ravens. I going to do a Raven a day for 5 week days. The first which I did yesterday has it's molding paste drying so I'll start a new one today. The paste should be dry on the first one tomorrow.

Garden update:

So far no "Black Frost". I still have some beans out there and if I get them in soon I'll have at least a serving. Not bad for October. I still have some in the fridge I'm eating. And carrots.

The mulch in the greenhouse has me ticked off. I've used this same companies shredded straw in the past with no weed issues: yet this time it's full of them and I'm pulling grass stems out of the entire bed.

The lettuce is up; the celery is looking very good after it's transplant; the artichokes are perking up some and hopefully survive the winter in there. No sign of carrots or spinach but then it's hard to see with all the grass.

I'll report back on Friday on the Challenge and the grass in the greenhouse issue :)

This weeks Garden, Studio and Kitchen update

I seem to be running late on everything the last couple weeks. My excuse is getting ready for the trip this weekend. And I'm sticking to it :)

The greenhouse is all planted for the Winter: Mesclun lettuce, Tyee Spinach and a mix of orange, yellow and red Carrots. I transplanted the 3 Celery and 4 of the 8 Artichokes. I left 4 of the latter in the garden as I'm told by a friend in N.VT that sometimes they will over winter outside. And the ones I transplanted didn't seem to like it much. I'm hoping they will revive.

I put a layer compost and composted manure down, seeded and then a shallow layer of chopped straw on the seeds and a couple inches around the plants.

You'll also see in the above picture that there is now a drip irrigation system which is great. I just have to remember to turn it on and off. I'll get a timer set up at some point. I'll have to remove it in a few weeks so it doesn't freeze but for now it makes life easier.

Studio update:
I got 3 8"x10" canvases finished and a fourth drying. The fourth I'm trying out crackle paste and it needs to dry a couple days in this weather. I'll post it when I'm done. Below are the two I did Tuesday and Wednesday. The first is in the previous post to this one.

Both of them I was just "messing around" with color as well as gluing duck cloth torn to fit the canvas; then painted. The first I then glued tissue paper over that and continued to paint and embellish with oil pastels and crumbled gold leaf. Then I varnished it with Satin Varnish which seems a bit shiny to me for Satin.

I'm going to try experimenting with different varnishes now to see.

The second one I like a lot. Done the same as above only I stretched and glued cheese cloth under the tissue paper and then collaged. And instead of varnish I used a faux bees wax acrylic formula over the top. This gives it a very nice, soft look. Much better then the shiny varnish.

Here are the images:

Kitchen update:
Big thing out of the kitchen this week was Coq au Vin. Chicken cooked in wine. I've tried it a few times and not been satisfied but this time it came out great, if I may say so. (others do too :) )
I'll post the recipe sometime I promise. There are a lot of recipes out there: beware the really complicated ones. It's basically chicken cooked in a wine/broth reduction. Here is an image (beans are from The Garden):

All in all a fun week. Again: I'm off until Tuesday. Back to Maine (yay!)

Updates on last weeks and this weeks Art Challenges

I'm a bit off schedule this week.
I didn't report on last week's Art Challenge finale on Friday as I'd planned; which was simply I had to do something creative for 5 days of the work week.

What I did was mostly “rusted” some of the paper mache prints I'd done in the past few weeks. I explain where I got the idea and how I was doing it in 'my last post's Studio update.

I really like the way they turned out. The image above and the next two are the rusting experiments:

This week's Art Challenge I'm going back to my first challenge: an 8” x 10” canvas frame a day for 4 days. (I'm heading back to Maine for the long weekend! So 4 paintings instead of 5). Any medium I want but it will probably be acrylic and either/or mixed media.

Here is the first canvas this week (yes, I'm still on my Raven kick :) ):

As stated in the past I'm trying to avoid spamming those that read this (and the Face Book posts) so I'll report back on the challenge on Thursday. I'll try to post a garden update on Wednesday too.

Updates for my trip, The Garden and Studio

I'm back!. Here are the updates for my trip, the Garden and Studio:

I had a wonderful time in Maine. I didn't do much creatively. A few photos, a bit of journaling. I'm looking at the whole week as an “Artist's Date” (see Julia Cameron's Artist's Way book).

The photo above is sun set on our pond.

I went to the Common Ground Fair in Unity Maine. I had a great time. If you're ever in Maine I can't say enough about going there. There was a wonderful lecture on no digging gardening, which is something I started a few years back now. The speaker was right on about both the positive and negative issues of gardening this way.

So far though: the only negatives were slugs the first couple years; which as she pointed out, were followed by frogs, toads and snakes to eat the slugs. Emphasizing that working with and trusting the ecosystem works out in the end. Those first couple years of using this method, I had a million slugs; all testing my resolve for working co-creatively. But it's balancing out again out there.

I also, for the first time, went to the Coastal Maine Botanical Garden. It was one of the best I've been through; and I've been through a lot of gardens in my life. The children's garden alone is worth the trip. Check it out even if you have no kids but if you do I'd say it's a must to go.

Garden update:
Before I left I harvested a ton of tomatoes. Froze some and will be freezing more as they ripen on the shelves. (another use for the growing shelves I made last Winter). Also froze at least 6 meals of green beans and hope to get a few more. I got three Acorn Squash (Burgess of course :) ). Not a huge harvest, like last years Butternut but it will do.

(picked up some fresh crab meat and Maine shrimp whilst I was there; froze them, packed them in ice and they are waiting to be made into cakes, chowder, stir fry and tempura)

It's time to start cleaning up the beds and getting them ready for Winter's sleep. As well as get the soil in the greenhouse ready for winter. While I was at the above mentioned fair I got seeds from the High Mowing Farm and Fedco booths. Lettuce, greens and carrots. I need to plant them this week.

The carrots I harvested a couple weeks ago are still being eaten and I have never had such sweet yummy carrots. I've had them almost every night I've cooked since harvest and I'm not sick of them yet. I even took some to Maine, with some beans and had them with my crab cakes (recipe below).

Studio update:
I've decided to go easy on myself this week in terms of an Art Challenge. As long as I do something creative then I'm on track. Yesterday I worked on both a canvas as well as three of the paper mache prints. The latter I'm trying out “rusting”. Painting with iron paint and using a rusting compound once it's dry. I saw Darlene Olivia McElroy use it in her Fiber Paste You Tube video and thought it might work great on the prints. I'll report back here when I'm done. They have to dry 24 hours between coats of paint then another 24 hours before you can put the rust on; so 48 hours total.

I finished the Artist's Way book/workshop while I was there. I have to say it was very enlightening and liberating. Not just for my artistic life but it also trickled into all the other aspects of life. I can't recommend this book enough to help kick start a creative life; not just for artistic types either. Creativity is a part of all of our lives and letting it free can only enhance our lives and lifestyles.

Next week I'll do a full Challenge; maybe canvases again. I really had a great time with those. Actually, I've had a great time with all of them. :)

And here is Tephyr's Crab Cake recipe:
(all ingredients are assumed organic; do your best)

one pound of crab meat
¾ to 1 cup crunched up crackers (saltine types are best as they absorb some moisture). Use a heavy bottomed glass or mug to crunch them in a bowl. Don't worry about some chunks.
1 egg; beaten well.
Salt and pepper,
Paprika if you like (hot to taste) Try ½ teaspoon at first. (you can sprinkle it on top at serving if you want too)
Panko bread crumbs (you'll need more or less a cup; probably more. Pour it on a plate and put to the side)

mix the first 4/5 ingredients well.
Form into patties about 2” across and 1/2 to ¾ inches thick.
You should get about 8 cakes from a pound.

Place the patties gently into the panko, gently press. Gently flip over and press again. Get as much of the bread crumbs to stick as you can but some will fall off again. Whilst you are doing this try and keep the patties together; they'll try to fall apart a bit.

Either broil until brown on one side and flip gently (5 – 10 minutes: keep an eye on them).
Or pan fry them in a small amount of oil; flipping gently.

Broiling them works well but they tend to be a bit dry.

Mix a couple tablespoons of lime or lemon juice into a cup of mayonnaise and serve on the side of the Crab Cakes. Lemon or Lime wedges work too.

You can double or divide in half.

This evolved from just making them and reading different recipes over the years.

5 Day Challenge : Block Prints!

Challenge Two!
This challenge is a minimum of 5 block print projects. The basic rules are the projects must involve blocks I've already created or new ones. I can make prints, carve new blocks or at least the blocks must be used in a finished piece.

This is day two so there are two projects to report on. (I missed yesterday due to the Holiday here in the USA)

When I first put this idea into my list of future challenges I thought I would be just doing block printing. Then one day I was reading a chapter in Pam Carriker's Book “Art at the Speed of Life”. In it she uses single ply toilet paper as a paper mache technique used over forms she's made that when dry the paper has fit the form. If you want more information about it: and it's very cool, I recommend getting the book (or check your library system). The “ah ha” for me was I could do something similar with the blocks I've been carving over the years.

It worked well with some: not so well with others. Older ones the paper stuck to the block. Newer ones not at all. I think because of old ink and paint on the older blocks.

What happens is the paper fills the “negative” space and when dry and pulled off create a relief of the block. I found some that make great prints don't make great paper. Others do. One thing I tried this morning; and haven't quite finished is to print the infamous lizard block onto a blank block. I then carved it reversing the positive and negative spaces so that the paper would fill in the lizards body rather then the space around it. (hopefully these photos will help explain).

I then painted it with acrylics. Turquoise and silver. I think I'm going to redo it with copper. As soon as I buy some :)

The photo above is for the first project. You can see the original lizard on the left with the paper mache made from that on the bottom. The new lizard, made as described above and it's paper mache image on the right:

The next project was done to a block I call Owl's Roost. I loved how it looked and I painted it with Iridescent Bright Gold (fine) acrylic paint. Then sprayed it with red alcohol ink and watered down burnt umber to give it a tarnished gold patina. I'm really happy with the results. I'm going to try to actually gold leaf the second one I started at a later date to see how that looks over the faux painting style below. The image here doesn't show the gold showing through very well as well as I apologize for the glare. The image below that is the finished project, with the block in the center and on the left the paper mache dried, removed from the block and ready to be embellished.

Tomorrow I'm going to return to doing a regular block printing. I had an inspiration this morning while writing my morning pages today. I'll report back on Friday; the last day of this weeks challenge.

And for the gardeners I'll be reporting on how the garden is doing during my crazy summer. So stay tuned!! :)

Day 5! Last Canvas for this Challenge

Day Five and Canvas 5! Last day of my first self challenge.

And I think it's my favorite. I knew right from the start the direction I wanted to take and that I wanted to experiment with molding paste. I also wanted to do something dark so starting with dragging Titan Buff and Black horizontally. Adding the same type of collage papers I used in the others. I drew a picture of a Raven (from staring at photos online of them: no Ravens in my hollow that I know of). Then I cut out a stencil of the drawing on an old manila folder and used that as a mold for the molding paste.

Painted the Raven black, used some alcohol inks and highlighting areas with acrylic paint and water color crayons and then made a glaze from Interference Blue (Fine) over the whole thing. The image is a bit more white then it actually is.

I actually named this one: “Raven's Treasure”. The collage paper had some old bits of acrylic paint for texture that I think looks like stuff Raven might keep in it's nest. I like how the spiral left over from the collage paper from another project looks like a moon.

Next week the challenge is going to be projects with Block Printing. Carving, printing or other projects that involve the blocks I've made in the past or new ones in the coming week.

I'm also going to change the format a bit and only post the art work twice a week: that way I have room for reporting back on The Garden and the kitchen and the infamous Random Thoughts.

And, please, let me know what you think of them all as well if you have favorites.
Thanks!

So... here is the final canvas this week:

Day Three of 5 Days/ 5 Canvases

Day Three of my challenge! This one is rather simple and I'm not sure it's totally complete but it may be so I'm going to leave it alone for a bit and come back to it in a week or even more. Sometimes one finds that yes it's done. Other times you'll be sitting there thinking about something else and it will pop into your head exactly what the next stage is.

The other thing about it is I'm playing with color. Color can be a scary thing. I was raised in a beige house with the occasional colonial blue. I'm very color inhibited and I find I can escape this in my painting. I remember as a child my father gave me a “real” water color pan (rather then a kids). And I fell in love with yellow. He had a hard time understanding why I used it all up painting yellow all over a ton of paper but I just couldn't get enough of seeing it come out of the pan, onto my brush and paper. Unfortunately, by the time I was a teenager I was too inhibited color wise to do such a thing. Also by that time Art was now spelled with a capital “A” and I had to be Serious.

As Picasso is constantly quoted “All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.” There is a reason that is one of the most common quotes you'll find in art books.

The back ground of this painting is green/blues and yellows... which is very shocking to my eye but I love it. Contrasting it with reds was really daring for me :) But I like how it turned out. Acrylic, alcohol inks, water soluble oil pastels and india ink.

5 Day/ 5 Canvases Art Challenge

I meant to start this yesterday but I got side tracked. (Dentist)

I decided to start giving myself a weekly challenge in the studio. I didn't think I'm up for a big long one like in http://makesomething365.blogspot.com/. So I'm going to do something small and manageable to start.

My first is going to be small canvases: 8” by 10”. I only have to make 5 as I don't usually work in the studio on weekends (family time). But if I can I'll do more. But no pressure.

This being the second day I have two to show you today.

This first one I rather like. Turned out better then I thought when I started. It's acrylic paint, alcohol inks, water soluble oil pastels and collage.

When I'm working I leave bits of water color paper near by and I use it to check colors before I use them in a piece or stamp on them first to weaken the ink before I use them. Try out pens, etc. So they become an interesting hodge podge of colors and textures.

I tore one of these up and clued it in about the third layer of painting then continued with washing with acrylics and added some water soluable oil pastels.

This second one I went in a totally different direction. A farm stand near here sells the most beautiful Sunflowers and I got two bunches and put them in a crock and brought them up to the studio and painted them. I paint and draw a lot of flowers in this style; more often water colors and people like them a lot. I call them my cutesy paintings. :) I use them for individual greeting cards for people too. This is the first time I tried it with acrylic paint. Highlighted with india ink pens.

So... there you have the first two days of my challenge. It's a great way to kick start your creativity. The only rules I made are I have to do one a day and I can't fuss over them. No Thinking; just Doing. One can fuss over other projects.

We'll see what tomorrow brings :)