Thing-A-Day

Now that the kids have finished up their incredibly busy "school year" activities and I've got a little free time on my hands again, I've set a goal of creating one thing a day for the summer. I get up two hours before the kids in the morning, meditate for a bit, do yoga and them make something. Some days it's something mundane and domestic like cookies, but most days it's something a tad more creative. Not quite full blown art, since I don't have the space for that yet, just something to keep me from whithering away into a creative black hole. Here are a few of the things I've made in the past couple of weeks:

Two New Zentangles

I love doing zentangles! They're quick and fun and help keep my creative juices flowing, so when someone on one of my lists posted a zentangle swap I had to join. I decided to do a couple of things differently with these though. I typically do zentangles in black sharpie. Don't know why. I just do. But this time I wanted a little color. I also usually do zentangles with no recognizable images, so this time I decided to start out with something recognizable. Im still playing with that idea of having a starting image, but I liked the way these two turned out okay and doing them certainly got me in the mood to start doing my "daily doodles" again.

Fairytale Tryptich

I made this ATC for a swap this week. I liked the way the outside was turning out,but the inside was bugging me. I never did get to work on it any more so I sent it as is. Not happy with it though.

Divination Swap

I've been working on several things over the last few months, but couldn't post them. We had a really nasty computer virus a while back and we still don't have all of the programs on the computer because all of the discs are hidden somewhere in the many boxes still sitting around the house from the move. I still don't have Photoshop, but I now have Corel, so I can add pics to my blogs again! Apologies for the aweful glare. It was late and the only light I had was a desk lamp.

These were from a divination themed ATC swap that I finished this week. Not the most inspired cards I've ever made, but at least I'm creating again. I'm posting them here mainly because of the type on some of the cards. Years ago when my husband and I moved into the house that had been his parents', we found a little stamp set. I had forgotten all about it until I ran across it the other day while unpacking some art supplies. It has a set of wee little letters, numbers, and symbols with which you can spell words, phrases and even whole sentences...if you have tons of patience to get those teeny tiny letters to stay put! I decided to play with it and added the name of the type of divination to the front of the cards with it. I really liked the way it looks. Although I don't normally like to use stamps, I will definitely be playing around with that set again.

Up and Running...sort of

I've finally started creating again!! I was lamenting the fact that I have no space in which to create again the other day when I realized that I've been creating on the dining room table for years now and, although not ideal, it *worked*. I had this idea in my head that when I moved into my house after so many years of apartment living, I wouldn't "settle" for anything less than an actual studio room, but sticking to that ideal was doing nothing but making me miserable because I "couldn't" create. What a line a crap I was feeding myself! I have NO EXCUSE for not creating simply because my "studio" is still the holding place for tile, paint cans, drywall, unistalled doors, and whatever other house projects we've got going on. The same day I came to that realization my son saw that one of our lists was having a magical creatures swap. He is very much into magical creatures, cryptids and the like so we immediately sat down and created our first ATCs for a swap since we moved. It felt *SO* good to just DOODLE!! I was very happy with the way my cards turned out, but unfortunately I can't share them with you all. We just had to totally wipe our computer because of a nasty virus and our photo programs haven't been re-installed. I've signed up for several other swaps this month though, so as soon as we get our computer fully up and running I'll be posting ATCs again!

Finally...an update

We've moved!!! After six and a half years or restoration/rehabbing, we're finally living in our house. I'm sitting in what will be my office/studio at the moment. The walls are unfinished and none of my studio furniture will be here until tomorrow when the truck comes, but I'm that much closer to getting to do art again. I've signed up for a couple of ATC swaps this month just so that I have an excuse to put my studio area to rights before everything else.

Participating in a swap will also give me a starting place. I've been sporadically doing my morning pages ("The Artist's Way" by Julia Cameron) for a while, but nothing more creative than that. All of my creative energy has been used up on the house. I haven't even had any *ideas*, which is unusual for me. I'm usually so full of ideas that I don't have time to act on all of them. I'm sure I'll have a serious case of artist's block when I first sit down at the easel. But I've learned that the best way through it is to just put brush to paper. Even if what comes from it is crap, it gets the energy flowing again and then the ideas can come.

Long time no see!

I can't believe it was MARCH when I last posted here! I've missed my arting adventures *terribly* these last few months. I haven't done any painting (wahhh!), nor have I participated in any art exchanges. We originally were told that we needed to get our house done by June, and then when June came we were told there was a mistake and it was September afterall (when we originally thought our permit expired). Now September is here and guess what...we're *STILL* not done!!! *sigh* I am so very, very, very weary of putting everything on hold until we get moved. I hate living in apartments while we work on our house. And some days I just don't think I can go another minute without some space to CREATE! But the good news is, I'm *not* depressed! Maybe it's because I can see just how close we are to finally moving in, or maybe it's because I've been working on reversing negative thought patterns. I don't know. But it does feel good to not feel myself slipping down into that dark abyss even though things are not going the way I'd hoped.

I haven't let myself be totally un-creative all this time though. Thanks to several friends who have had or are having new babies, I got to use the excuse of "needing to make baby presents" to do a lot of crocheting and knitting in the evenings. I'll save those pics for some time in the near future just so I have *something* to post. The kids and I have also been getting crafty recently. We whipped up these funky sock monkeys in about an hour and a half this past week. The kids picked the socks out a long time ago and I found them the other day while going through the craft closet. I did the sewing and the kids helped design and stuff them. Didn't they turn out *SWEET*?! The black stripey one was dubbed Skully Crossbones. Cameron requested a skull mask accessory, so of course I pulled out the crochet hooks and came up with this number that allows his glittery little eyes to peek through. The pink monkey is Strawberry Rose. Catherine had no specific requests other than "clothes" so I took the liberty of designing a hippie inspired ensemble with a crocheted apron top (open back) and long crocheted skirt. The pics aren't the greatest, but hopefully you get some idea of just how sweet they are. The funniest part about this project is that I normally *HATE* sock monkeys. LOL They're creepy little buggers. But I think these guys are pretty darned cute!

More 1x1s & Another 4x4

Here's the second of my 1"x1" sets. I would hope my color choices would be obvious, but just in case they aren't this one was limited to blues and browns. I decided early on that I would have to allow black as a non-color in order to do words. It's difficult to find or even create just the right color of type. I made this decision after creating the first one - the "Time of Wonder" one in the lower right corner - because the type on that one looked more brownish gold in the package, but when I used it it turned out to be much brighter. Black seemed like a better choice rather than trying to get the "right" shade of brown or blue, whether by pen, printer or pre-made letters.

The 4"x4" is one of my other favorites. I feel this one says a lot about me as well, but I'm out of time, so I'll have to leave it up to the readers to guess what it might mean. *grin* (I'll give you a hint though...it's pretty self explanatory.)