This was me most nights for the last month. Waiting for something. Time to work? No. For the TV to go off. For the chores to end. The heat to abate. For the last swim meet job to get posted. For the call that asked for a ride home. For the email with the high school registration link. For August to come and then to end?
I got wrapped up in Facebook too and so I was on the computer aLOT. It sure is fun to socialize like that and it is a great distraction when there isn't a long period of time to work. I got all these artist friends now and it's an amusement park of activity.
My kids go back to HIGH school on Wednesday. I've got them some new clothes, some shoes and some supplies so they are ready for their first day, the 26th. I am so ready!
In the mornings when it's been quiet (because my teenagers like to sleep in) I have been getting ready for MY AUTUMN - my favorite season. It's started getting cooler here and I am excited about that. I've been doing little things any time I get an hour to myself.
I got a lovely painting from Sharon Tomlinson and finally got it framed.
It's called "Sing" and it's an original and so great to look at and see all the tiny little secret words she put on it and appreciate the texture. I love it in this frame!
I got a surprise copy of the latest Belle Jewelry Magazine
because of an interview in there with Kelly Snelling and Ruth Rae about the book "A Charming Exchange" and the auctioning off of the jewelry that was made for the book. Three of my charms are included in the eight page article.
I got a work station set up for carving small designs for future PMC charms and pieces.
and I discovered a new line of spray paints at my local Blick store called "Montana Gold" and had a little while to play yesterday while one kid was at a party.
You have to ask for the little spray nozzles at the checkout counter. They give you the regular ones and they also have special ones (like skinny spray, fat spray, calligraphy and one for fades and an outliner) for sale for about 50¢ each. Here's what I did with them so far:
This (above) was sprayed on an Abercrombie catalog page. Have you ever gotten one of these? The paper is pretty thick and bound like a book, great for a journal if you cover the pages with gesso, paint or collage.
I used stencils that I have been collecting for over a year, ever since I saw people spraypainting and using stencils online. You'd be surprised where you can find things to use as stencils. I got one on a pair of jeans.
I used peerless watercolors and laid a wash down and let it dry and then used a contrasting color to spray on.
This next set of pages below were inspired by an artist named Ingrid Dijkers whose class I will be taking at "Journalfest" in October. She cuts out some of the edges of her pages and I just had to try it. Isn't it great how one page shows through the next and the sprayed design carries through as well?
The design on the left page above is the silverchrome and here it looks white but it is very shiny silver when sprayed. I had a bit of trouble with the nozzle falling off here and I got some big drips of silver at the top but I like it - looks like a Rorschacht blot.
These were grids I had leftover from a time when I was making those inchies and use them here as a stencil. I sprayed them over watercolor on top of absorbent ground.
The pages above are a book within the book and I sprayed the paint over gesso. On the left I overlapped onto the page before it.
These pages were primed with black gesso and then I sprayed the silver, window and pastel pink on top. I used some straw netting on the left side of the right page as the stencil.
This one above is pretty fancy. I used one of those translucent plastic journaling templates for drawing lines on your page as the stencil and the center is one of those brass embossing templates. I got a bunch of brass templates at the last stamp show I went to. There was a whole booth and that's all they sold.
Just seeing what the paint looks like over acrylic wash and tissue paper and collaged elements.
Above on the left side I cut out some lopsided flowers and used the bits and the paper with the holes both as stencils.
The last page with the message collag-eed on because we all love a quote~
SO THEN-
I found a new app for my ipod called "colorsplash" and what it does is it turns your photos to B&W and then you get a fat brush tool and when you swipe it over parts of your photo it brings the color back into the parts you want. Look at this!
I like this!
Of course I still feel like I should be doing more and there are so many things I could be doing but I need to be able to concentrate and want some bigger blocks of time to do them. I'm trying to be patient. It has been difficult to be patient lately.
I lost touch with reality a couple of times and tried to tell myself that things were not going so well and then after a heated discussion at a restaurant last night with my husband where we both think the people sitting next to us must have gotten an earful, and were probably glad when we left, my husband said "What are you INSANE?" I said "I don't think SO!", we calmed down and finished our food, went home and when it was time to get our kids to go to bed (how do you get teenagers to actually go to bed anymore?) he flashed that our argument reminded him of "Ren and Stimpy" and we laughed for about 15 minutes, the tears rolling down my face and he couldn't stop laughing. He is still laughing, smiling at me - now he's sleeping.
So back in touch with reality today ( I think), back on Facebook, responding to 50 emails a day?, and eating some chocolate, life doesn't look so squished together and slanted to the left. I think I'll be able to handle it.
Oh, did I say that I registered my daughter for Artfest? And she's learning to drive?
REALITY, what is it anyway?
