Furry Children
It’s 7:30pm…
…and it’s basically my “Friday” night. I did the just work of the library, went to the gym (why is it always arm day?) and am now sat on my queen chair with Emily on my lap, and she is insisting that I do not move from here.
My coworker/gym partner/friend and podcaster, Sabrina (of Sabrina Monet.com) and me!
I want to paint…I took out the trash because it smelled like hair color remover (worse than a perm) and I have a renowned capacity to ignore dirty dishes, so I will sit here for a while longer (for Emily, you know…) then paint in my journals, like this:
or in my Book Of Days, like this:
Or on my new canvas, like this:
OR on one of the illustrations for my friend’s book of songs:
…so the options are open…hmm….
Welp…since I’m meeting with the author tomorrow, that decides it…
I’ll eat my leftover pizza salad (you don’t know pizza salad?! Get thee to MOD Pizza) and listen to my girl’s podcast while I make the art…have a great weekend!
Goodbye my Hobbitses
Although this bloggy is named for the other 2 cats, my hobbitses, my Merry & Pippin were the first I committed my care to, and this morning has just been awful.
After a quick decline in health last month, where they dropped to half their fighting weight, I decided to have my boys put down as I cannot, in good conscience, let them suffer more.
I have had my hobbitses since they were 6 weeks old…for more than 12 years now. They’ve been with me though grad school and 5 different jobs. 6 apartments.
I would be absolutely bereft were it not for my Emily, and for the knowledge that my furry family may be smaller but the love is bigger than anything.
Love never dies.
What HAVE you done?!
I’ve been stuck in a self-depricating spot lately, thinking that I just ‘piddle around’, never actually creating any art…so I decided to take stock of some things.
I have said that I’ve kept a written journal, since I was 15. Yeah, 33+ years is some time…
This stack of paper actually looks small to me, but that’s probably because I know how much time and life and mojo has been applied to the pages…
Then I thought about the Art Journals & Travel Journals that I’ve finished…
THEN I collected all the journals together that I’m currently working in, and realized, I need to cut myself a serious break….
Yeah…there are 9 (nine) journals here. Most pages have SOMETHING on them, so…
…I’ll just keep putting stuff & things inside these books, and I’m also looking into starting from scratch…making my own books, from paper I choose, then doing my thing, as well as incorporating some new ideas I want to try…
Not nearly as much lace as the junk journal junkies are into, but adding more to my books…
Putting paint down…
I’ve been artsing my pants off around the way, but haven’t posted a damn thing here.
I finished my mini journal last Tuesday and I finished my Journal 52 from 2015…17 months after 2015…TA-DA! Heh.
Whatever…
I have actually filled 4 complete journals…
And am nearing the finish line on 2 others (they are larger, though). I’ve committed to 6 (!) other large journals, a mini 8-pager for my trip (in 3 weeks, WOOT!!!), and I’m working out the logistics of filling the Fabriano paper pages of a leather covered, hand bound, mini journal a friend gave me in ’03. Now, this girl introduced me to MOTL*, so I’ll always thank her for that, but she’s really kind of a tool, and we haven’t spoken in years.
Example: She wrote on the first page of the journal she gave me. About herself. Who does that?!? Honestly!
In the end, I win…cuz I’m a lefty…so she wrote on the LAST page. HAH! First time I completed the last page of a journal first…
Oh! It’s spring postcard swap season…I sent my 10 away…have received 4 so far…but I’ll tell you about it when I get ’em all!
*MOTL = My Own True Love.
“Travel photos”
I’ve been out & about for most of June (17 days in Kansas & Oklahoma, 5 days in San Francisco) and I am JUST getting unpacked, laundry caught up, cat affection overloaded…
I’m going through my photos and I have some to show you…
These are “background” shots of random surfaces in Alcatraz prison and on Alcatraz island. I got to tour the prison on 6/26 with a couple of Librarian friends and it was SO COOL, and not JUST because I got to wear blue jeans in a prison!
Elizabeth and Me. If you get the chance to go most anywhere with a Librarian (or 7!) DO IT!
This is the spot that got me started on being the weird girl, taking pictures of walls and floors, at Alcatraz.
This is a GLORIOUSLY chipped-paint wall in the chow hall. It’s like cloud pictures, where the more you look at it, the more you “see.”
This is a floor in a “pass through” and the marks are from grenades thrown by the US Marines when the prisoners took over part of Alcatraz in 1946.
This is the floor in the chow hall. If I had not seen this section, I would not have known that the worn “floor” was covered in sealed canvas-like material.
Here you can see the different layers…red canvas on black Paint? Adhesive?, over concrete. I just find it so interesting that cloth was used in an eating area at all, sealed or not.
Part of a wall outside. I am endlessly fascinated by green things that grow, but that is most likely because I currently reside in a barren wasteland of a desert.
I have been working on some art journal pages, but I’ll post them later, once I get caught up on Journal 52 (no worries, only a week behind there) and I’ll share some fun stuff I made on my Midwest adventures…
Oh! And these “background” shots will someday become part of future art I WILL CREATE!
WOOT!
(Happy 4th of July, y’all…be safe and eat MUCH BBQ!)
The new book everyone is talking about.
I pre-orderd this book because I don’t always want to see how artists make their journal pages…I just want to see their pages sometimes. It’s like I can peer between the covers of THEIR journals and get inspired by the fact that there seem to be infinite possibilities for pages to make.
Even if I can’t draw.
I have no ambition to get any of my pages into a book someday. I just play. And playing makes me happy.
That is SO enough for me – but this is a very good book.
I have the first one too. Love them both…
