a rose is a rose...

...is a polaroid transfer

Slow Start

Getting off to a slow start this week. Visiting grandchild. Refrigerator art. Bead necklaces.Sleeping late. Trips to fun places. Beach. You know. Vacation Daze. Slowly unraveling.

Sparkle Plenty

I'm going to be very busy this weekend using up all the leftover fireworks. Please come back later. Your visits are important to me! Maybe next time I'll serve tea...

Starting Something New

Wouldn't it be fun to imagine a visual... ...manifestation of the spirit of a flower? I got a deal on 10"x 10" canvases with five of 'em staring at me right now!

Looking at my photos of flowers a little couplet flew up my nose:

When a flower dies

Its lovely spirits rise!

I am calling this flower a Larkspur, whether it is or not. (My artistic license is up to date.) Because I want to call the painting "Spirits of Larkspur".

What it could be...

http://www.bubblevision.com/underwater-videos/index.htm

Ahhhhhhhh!

Dive in!

Swim around...

See those bubbles behind the rocks? What is it?.

Being There

I think that I shall never see

a sun that sets beneath a tree.

One good thing about my paint -

It can go where nature ain't.

Abstractly Happy Summerdays

surfing...
sunning...
Sailing...

At Last!

Follow this link for a legitimate reason to be playing with your cell phone all the time.: http://clicks.robertgenn.com/lonesome.php I have had the same no frills phone since Van Gogh died. I feel an upgrade coming on...

The letter under the video is interesting too - about artists, creativity and aloneness. Fits in my Cocoon.

Looks like voodoo fun to me!

Check out this link for inspiration:

http://niemann.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/14/master-of-the-universe/?emc=eta1

Too Busy

You can see I'm too busy to post today!

Just For Fun!

Once upon a time I drew with my mouse in an old version of the Paint program. The resulting little characters looked like they invented themselves - my brain was not in control and the mouse was totally out-of-hand. Hey! I drew them with my Muse.

So I decided I'd be a famous illustrator of children's books and took a class in that at UCSD Ex. I might as well have decided to illustrate the Sistine ceiling. My mouse played dead and my Muse hid in the cupboard.

Here I am waiting for another idea...

"merm"

Yesterday I got reacquainted with my mat cutter which has been collecting lint in the garage next to the dryer. It took me twice as long to figure out its language than it did the first time several years ago. (Senior artists can relate). When we finally got past acknowledging my lack of mechanical savvy we made friends again and had fun matting an edition of six prints.

This version of "merm" comes from an Athenaeum silk screen class taught by Amber George, who is into encaustic and monoprinting. I want to take another class from her. She's a gentle, fun, knowledgeable and helpful teacher as well as an enjoyable lunch companion!

"merm"s original form is the acrylic painting living in my bathroom with the other mermaids. I painted her laying a spray of fish-like eggs in the water. People kept embarrassing her by assuming she was peeing. In the silk screen version the eggs have all grown up and swum away. Swam? Swum? Whatever.

Confession

I have been having a shameless and inappropriate affair with Rick-rack. I tried to surround the elephant with it and the class screamed NO!! Then I tried it on the Chinese Magpie Cafe and got thumbs down consensus, especially from the cute framer at Aaron Bros. who couldn't figure out what the 'H' I was thinking, let alone what it was. And here I am standing with a hank of it in my hand, searching for...what?

When my mother was teaching me to sew back in the dark ages before Michael and Jo-Ann, (the stores - those aren't the names of my children) rick-rack seemed to be the only embellishment available for a girl of tender years. When you get really old you tend to look gently upon your tender years, no matter how stupid you may have looked.

Okay, now I'm begging for approval of one last kiss before I return to the sane world of beads, ribbons and trinkets. The rick-rack really belongs to these paper-cuts (please!) doesn't it?

Finger Zoo

A while ago I went through a fun, self-inspired period when I painted front-facing animals in acrylics entirely with my fingers. I'd put on surgical gloves and push the paint around, using photos as reference. I have rarely gone back to brush painting since. There's something spiritual about creating with fingers on canvas (and I have no idea how to explain what I mean by that).

These are 12" square. The chimp and the lion were accepted into "one-foot" shows at San Diego Art Institute (SDAI), entitled "A Chimp Off The Old Block" and "Lion in Wait". Do ya think it was the puns that did it?

Cocooner's Watercolor Family Tree

Viva La Bookworm!

Before the Cocoon there was the Bookworm. This was a project for a class in The Creative Process at UCSD Extension. It's a book-arts construction sometimes called a "flag" book, and once even "the Cincinnati Three-way". ??? If I could remember how to do it I'd turn them ALL into Flutter By's.

small colorful thing

my camera pouch

For Children

Once a mermaid, very shy,

hid behind some kelp to cry.

Soon some fishies came to visit,

looked behind the kelp -

"What is it?

What's the matter, Ladyfish?

Can you tell us what you wish?"

Do you know what happened then?

Please tell me -

once more,

again!

Mini Art Crawl

Just spent two lovely days with my Bay Area friend (sculptor and woodcarver!) checking out Balboa Park and Liberty Station. Went to the S.D. Mingei Museum for India Adorned and California Modern exhibits. Looking forward to the July 25th offering: Sonabai: Another Way of Seeing. Sonabai Rajawar, a self-taught artist "lived in enforced isolation for 15 years in a remote village in central India, creating her own joyous sculptural environment". For lovers of folk art it's not to be missed.

After seeing the July Watercolor Society's show juried by Linda Doll, and the Visions Art Quilt Gallery full of awesome quilts, as usual, presenting "Seeing Green", Visions of a Changing Planet, we ran into Rachel Grant who lured us across the street where she and Kenneth Greene (both grads of Jane La Fazio's Paper and Cloth classes) have just opened their studio. They're excited to be in Suite 209 at 2690 Historic Decatur Rd. Visit them in their classy new atelier!

And about this sketch - the first one in my new sketchbook devoted to "small, colorful things." It's the gorgeous bonsai tree on a table upstairs in the Mingei. Now does that look small or colorful to you? It grew off the page like it wanted to be in Muir Woods or adopted by sequoias. And there's not a dab of color on it except for gray bark and green leaves. I wonder if there's an opening in Jane's upcoming Encinitas sketch journaling class ?

Scenes from a Sketchbook

These remind me of the places where I drew them even more than photos. I can feel the sun and breeze on the spot where I stood and remember some of the people who walked by as I was sketching - even the birds who flew by too fast to get into the picture!

I like my old sketches, but I really want to start recording small, colorful things as well.

I've made up a watercolor kit with the waterbrush from Jane's Journaling class and tube paints I squeezed into the empty spaces of a teeny travel palette. For now I'm going to fit two 6" sq. sketchbooks in my purse. One for scenery and another for objects. Heavier, but...

...what the heck. One shoulder's already lower than the other!