Day 89 *Altered Photos

I spent the day yesterday taking some photos at my mom's.
Evidence of Spring!!
These are two of them. Altered crocus's, "The Awakening of the Flower Spirits", was fun to do.....doodling and putting little faces here and there.
My mom has her mom's Mary statue in her yard. It's pretty much in disrepair, her head patched on and worn from many winters. All the better for altering it. Her heart is actually from a photo of small rocks clumped together.
Talk about transformation! Actually, kind of interesting if you think of it, who else can transform something so hard into love. Mothers!

Day 88

Prayer in color :-)
May we all have a more colorful life.
May love surround us all and spread outward like a brilliant light shinning into the farthest reaches of space.
May we all be free from suffering.
May we all be at peace.
Om Shanti.

Day 87 * Prayer Pose*

Let these hands sow the seeds of love, creativity and joy. Hands together, I am grateful. These hands that bring life to my ideas, that manifest the art that comes from my spirit.
Plant seeds.
Sow that which will produce an abundance of love, beauty, happiness and health.
A prayer for peace, tolerance, compassion.

Tomorrow: *Color*

Day 86 New Moon

Some more prismacolor pencils on black paper. Almost the new moon and it's a partial eclipes. New beginnings. What will this new moon in Aries hold for us. What new ideas will we bring to fruition.
Be open to new possibilities.
Be open to passion.

Another one for the 85th day

called New Growth. I used a different paper for this one. It has more texture to it and the pencil took to it much nicer.

Day 85 Light from Within

Mandala on black paper using prismacolor pencils and silver gel pen.

Day 84 Altered Flowers

Played around with a photo I took. Black & White photo with colored pencils, another altered in Printshop and added to with pigma pens and the other was playing around with clipart... I think I can spend hours doing this..

Day 81,82,83

Day 80 was a carving day. Day 82, I played around with the carving some more.... whittling away at it. Made some cards at our stamp club last night using shrink plastic which triggered off some new ideas...and today, Day 83, I played with some photos. The last couple of days my art time has consisted of a" little bit here and a little bit there". Ideas bouncing around my head. I just need to sit and focus. Feeling very distracted because I have a lot going on......
I carved two images, but haven't done anything with them yet.
My husband brought flowers home and I took some pictures of them and altered them in printshop.
The idea that everything is made up of the same stuff....and if we look deeply enough at nature, we can glean all the answers.
"Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better".
Albert Einstein

Day 80 * Equinox

After drawing this, I decided to use the prismacolor watercolor pencils. I am deeply disappointed in them. They break very easily and the lead inside is not centered. I used to love when Berol made them. They were the best. Now, not so much. I should have left the egg without adding water. Liked it better with just the pencil shading. I like the idea, so I may play around with it in different ways.
I am having the worse time uploading, and publishing stuff with blogger lately. Mercury goes direct on the 25th....

Day 79 GREEN

I took some caran d'ache watercolor crayons and scribbled on some paper. I just wanted to play and use green for the first day of Spring.... I want to see GREEN. and it is starting to show. Still pretty cold though. I thought I'd do a collage, but it seemed like too much effort at the time. So I too out the marker and pulled out some images. I used to love to camp and miss it. We've moved on to staying in cabins. I just want to be in the woods surrounded by trees.

Day 78 Moon Dance

Moon Dance

Day 78 )Moon Dance(

I need to cut more paper and only had some black. I just didn't want to pull out the cutter, so black it was, along with a silver pen that kept skipping... ggrrrrr
For some reason, I can only upload pictures through picasa, which is ok, just not as convenient as the other way. John brought home flowers, so I may play around with altering them and maybe transferring some flower images onto something...not sure. I just know I am getting restless. It could be because of all these things (responsibilites! obligations!) swimming around my brain, but maybe if I did something different.....mmmmmmmm

Ready to Bloom 

Irish for a day.  

Day 76 & 77

Friday morning I had painted in the Dragon, but forgot and so came home friday night after a party, thinking I hadn't done my art for the day.... so I spent 15 minutes in the back room making some silly leprechans.
Last night, I sat and stared for about 10 minutes. I was so tired and not really in the mood to create anything. When I get like that, the best thing for me to do is a mandala. It's centering and it helps me to wander around on the page.
Getting an itch to do some collage.
a problem uploading pictures here... Drats! that MercuryRx

Day 75 Some Days the Dragon Wins

and then again...there's alway a bit of hope when the morning comes and it's a start to a new day. Today, Dragon, You will not win!
So, yesterday was not the best of days. Very emotional and was feeling a bit world weary. I didn't get home until 9:30, but went into my art room and drew. I didn't want anything nice and drew the dragon, but even that was looking pretty pitiful to me. My thoughts were, ok, I did some art, but I don't have to post it. This brought up some issues of embracing the bad stuff as well as the good. Maybe I just need to look at this creepy side, and instead of denying it, embrace it. I went to bed.
This morning, I painted it and I noticed the spines started to look more like sprouts of grass- new hope, new growth. Let it evolve and allow something good to come of it. Things are not that bad, and there are others out there that have it so much worse....as a matter of fact, my "stuff" doesn't even come close!

Day 72,73,74

I think I got my days mixed up a bit...and have been lax with dating and putting stuff away....but I've been working on carvings. We were to do a "signature" carving for ASW and I came up with three. I didn't do the name, Jody did.
http://www.cafepress.com/joTee I also did some playing around with the buddha stamp. I did a reverse image as well. Buddha to Buddha... (not posted yet)
The butterfly came from a dream I had. It was a dream of a huge monarch that was flying in my mother's kitchen. It lighted upon my fingers, but was pinching them and wouldn't let go. It was hurting and I tried to shake it off but it wouldn't let go.

Day 70 &71 - Temptation

We did the tree meditation in yoga yesterday, and I had this vision of me as the tree, firmly rooted, branches reaching towards the sky, but then this image came to me of two arms reaching out, one with an apple and the other a snake. One of the postures yesterday was Cobra.

So first I am thinking how I am rooted in indecision, always weighing one thing against the other and I thought it was done... but this morning I added the birds. "Think this through carefully" they seem to say. "Warning, this one decision can change everything!" "oh, come on, it's only an apple! and apples are good for you!"

Day 69 "unattached"

We have entered into deep waters here. In yoga class, we are now at the 5th Chakra, the throat area. This is where we leave matter behind, the elements of the earth and enter spirit, ether. The yama that we are relating to this chakra is
"Aparigraha" or Non-attachment. This is a big problem for me, for I am very attached to stuff.
As I was drawing this, I screwed up on hands being in prayer, so I cut them off and then continued to cut up the rest of the paper around the head... ok, so there's some non-attachment!
Ironically, all week, issues of loss and attachment came up. I really need to let go of stuff, up to my neck in it you might say. One of my favorite stamps is one with a quote by Steven Wright, "You can't have everything... Where would you put it?" Yeah, I know intellectually that all I ever need is provided, it's all here on the Earth. No need to hoard.. but I am so attached, emotionally. And as an artist, there are so many possibilities to all this stuff.
Interesting too, my throat has been my most vulnerable spot for sickness.. the sore throat. Maybe it's time to let go of being attached to the non-attachment...

day 68 just one more carving....

I saw this face of Buddha that cried out to be carved.
Now it cries out for a message on the side of it.

Day 67 Carving portraits

A carving I did yesterday from a picture my sister had from the art expo. I made a bunch of prints and this one I painted in the eyes. I have a cool picture of part of a Buddha face that I want to carve.

Day 66 - The Storyteller

Yesterday I painted in the drawing I had done and carved a portrait using that black and white photo I manipulated. I also worked in Jen's colorerratica book. Yes, I still have her book, but I will have it out to her by the weekend. It was nice to have some time during the day to create.

Day 64 & 65 "What's the Story?"

Sunday, after a long day, I drew 2 pieces. This one I did second but decided to paint it first, because I liked where it was going. I wanted her bathed in light. Brought back the "chickens", as my husband calls them.... Pondering this one, I asked John what he thought about it. He came up with an idea of a children's book of this type of work where you allow blank pages for the child to come up with the story, thus the title, "What's the Story?"
I've been in spiritual termoil again. I keep looking at this idea of many paths leading to the same door, but should I pick one path? And I can't seem to find ONE path, as I find some truth in all of it. Imagine selecting one color of the rainbow! I want the whole rainbow.
My Story:
She sits. She is Open.
Allowing the golden light to envelop her body and soul
It is her wish, to be bathed in this radiance.
Do we look up, outside ourselves for it...
Or is it already in us, this Divine light..
Can it be touched?
Can it be shared?
I call it "The Wish"

Day 62 & 63 * Bowls*

Today is the reception for Youth Art Month and I had an idea that I would use these bowls that were shaped like teacups. We made these in the afterschool program some years back. The kids used pariscraft over a plastic bowl and then shaped a handle. We used them for a center piece for the children's center function. We had some funky kind of scuplture come out of it, like it was a steaming cup of coffee. So I took them down and freshened them up with a new coat of paint. I'll fill them with pretzels and cookies and stuff. And luck would have it that Trader Joe's containers fit perfectly inside. Love it!

day 61 ASW -carved mudra

Yesterday was a snow day and boy, did I need that! I cleared up some more space in my studio and then did some carving. In the ASW, the lesson was to try various forms of printing. I played around with the bleach. I only had a bleach pen, so I squirted some out on a blank piece of ink pad I had. As I was stamping it, I noticed it was making small bubbles and the image wasn't so great. Then I tried brushing it on as it is thicker than bleach in a bottle. This was better. Fun to see how it reacted to different colors. Then i put some watercolors onto the pad and tried that. My favorite is using the resist technique. I stamped with a veramark pad, then brayered over the image. Another technique was to use paint, so I used the gratitude stamp I had carved before because it was bold and stamped on a fabric purse that was left over from camp. the other side is stamped as well, but I painted the backround first and stamped over it.

Day 60 - It's good to be Queen

Are there days when you just want to be treated like a Queen. A day when you are taken care of. You don't need to do anything, everything is taken care of for you. A day of self-nuturing - no worries - no obligations - no concerns.
A quiet day. A home made chicken soup day. Every little need is taken care of.
My husband treats me like a Queen. he takes care of me. Thank you.

Day 59- Mardi Gras Mandala

For New Orleans.

Day 58

Mondays I miss you the most. this is the thought I had. I wanted to be home, warm and with my husband. I was beginning to get a cold and there was no "breaks", so I plugged away... did a little drawing. I haven't been sleeping very well and of course that is when my husband snores the most! I'm fighting it, but the cold won.