Hearts and More Hearts

Today held way too many options.
But I have spent most of the day prepping papers and cutting out Hearts. For hours.... Perhaps I was finally in The Flow? Perhaps they were excuse to not do other things? Too late to reason now. But there are more Heart Shapes in the universe now. Enough that I can go on to other things and not care these little things for a while.

Now - garden? Go to a coffee shop and draw a bunny? Consider what Memorial Day Weekend means to me?

Simply be thankful that many of us HAVE options, when many do not?

On to a combination of things. And to post this in between router going offs.

Click.

Hearts have powers of many kinds. May ours be filled with caring and kindness. Hugs to you who want one.

Fare-thee-well,
Sue

Sheep

Sometimes sheep just need their own attention - 

This lady posed at the recent Shepard's Harvest fiber's festival at the WashingtonCounty Fairground.

I was at The Daily Grind yesterday - trying to stay sane. Drawing is a big help. Has always been. So out came the the Altoids container now containing bits and pieces of Prismacolor colored pencils. It's always amazing how much art can still be made with the smallest nubbin of pencil. Three or four blues. A too-pink pink. Some white to blend and mute. I tried taking care to note correct anatomy, but also wanted to catch this ewe's calm demeanor. Then there was the wool..... Anybody can draw this wool - haha! I could STILL be drawing this wool.

But I'd set a timer and the timer ruled. This does help force one to FOCUS and not care so much - both at the same time.

Now it's time to focus on getting our window air conditioner into the main studio.

And see if we can beat pending thunder storm.

Fare-thee-well. Draw a sheep.

- Sue

Poem

No thoughts

but ninety degrees

ninety degrees

ninety degrees

And feeling

not good 

for the gardens

Ninety degrees

Time to head out to the dirt

Play

Yesterday was Senior Discount Day at our local co-op. We also get free coffee and cookies. I've been not eating the cookies - yay! And buying the kale - yay! And looking forward to eating kale from our garden... Life is not all about kale, but last night's super green salad mix was Delicious And Pretty - with bits of red strawberry and white cauliflower in amidst the many ways nature makes green stuff.

Anyway - this photo was taken at the co-op - but the images were not created at the co-op. The Heart was from a free box small stash of paper doily hearts. They was free. They were hearts. I never treat me to doily hearts, but have loved them since those early elementary learning years in Gurney School. We were one Making Bunch of kids - most likely so that Mrs. Meredith could take a break from teaching twenty five kids in eight grades in one room the reading, writing (cursive!!!), math, geography, and history stuff. Really. 

So one day at the Grind I found a paper doily in my stuff and just started adding gouache paint to the cutouts. It was Fun. The Heart became a bit alive. It might not be finished yet. 

The other part of the photo shows one tiny bit of doings at the Visual Journal group night at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts. It's most every third Monday evening of the month - from 7 - 9 PM, with a $3-5 fee to use the very useful space.

We learned a number of things to do with Gelli Printing Plates. I'd heard of them before, but had never wanted to investigate the various ways one can use these. Oh, well. After our fearless leader gave about five different ways of playing with acrylic paint, brayers, stencils, lace, bubble wrap, etc, etc, etc, our group started in. I used a full-sized plate all evening, lent by a kindly member, but it was fun to see what people did with the smaller ones. We shared supplies and suggestions.  I love to add a bit of "gold" to paper, so brought some gold paint. Yes, shared! 

Some people concentrated on adding color to their journal pages. I mainly worked on printing on colored card stock and other weight papers. And even on a manilla hang tag. I now have a stash of stuff for collage or pages to be worked with in other ways.

After about an hour we cleaned up the plates and work spaces and went around the room seeing what others had creating. What a different bunch of images! Stenciled butterflies! Bubblewrap circle back rounds! The Wipe-off-your-brayer pages were lovely, too!

One woman said that she will now get back to working in the one journal she added to - yay! One said that she'd purchased this printing system, had done a couple "plain" color pages and put it away - not knowing the many wonderful ways to put her new toy to work. NOW she is excited - yay!

I am still wondering if I "need" to add a gelatin printing plate to my too many art supplies herd. I know it would be put to use, but there are paintings waiting, and art festivals still to be applied to, and The Garden - late in being but in...

It is good when life is full, but even if it's full of Wonderful Stuff it can be too full. My heart goes out to those whose lives are full of Not Wonderful Stuff. I hope you can find a few minutes in your hours for You Day time.

Not blogging tends to make me nervous. It's a thing I want to do, but I seldom know if it helps me or others. It's just a thing I want to do. And then weeks go by without posting. Because almost everything is interesting much gets not typed about. I did give two Hearts to a young couple on Monday. I was working at the antique shop and we got to talking... about making a living in the arts business and old wood and being a professional blogger (not me!) and mixed media and.... Yes, one of Those Conversations. (A good solid chat is one of my "drugs.") So they each chose a Heart - gladly - we exchanged social media stuff - and even if we never cross paths again, crossing paths once was a lovely thing.

Now this has been enough typing. "Blog" can get crossed off of SuperBetter/Bullet Journal day list, and other things can be accomplished.

Clinky Mayhem is still to be documented - mainly because I want to mentally return to that bell jar weekend of amazing everything.

But the art festival acceptance notifications are piling up, and new art has not.

On to bears and bunnies!

Fare-thee-well,
Sue

Prep Time

Work just started on priming a large, for me, three foot square piece of Masonite.

Base underpainting is combination of gesso, violet, and red acrylic paint. Sponged on. Semi-meditative to do. But then.... deciding on subject matter....

Thinking it will be grizzly bear I "shot" two years ago at the Minnesota Zoo. Or a portrait of a sheep. Still deciding on pastel, acrylics, or oils.

Eeek.

That is all.

Bunny!

The California Grand Adventure is over - but the brain is still not back to whatever "normal" is around here.

The living room and studio are filled with model horses and bubble pack and the brain is trying to write down memories of Clinky Mayhem before they, too, go on to other places. Stories were such a large part of the long weekend, but also stressed was the writing down of why we have the horses that we have collected. Of course, this can be used for other collections, as well. Some people have detailed archive records. Many of us do not. More decisions about how to spend our time.

To day I hiked thirty minutes down the hill to sit and write and paint. Max the Bunny happened - thanks to a rabbit photographed by the very talented Laura Rock-Smith.

Here is the Max:

He, like many of us, is not content with being who he is. I have no idea of what adventures he might find, but he is determined to quit sitting and get doing!

As, I, too, should be.

Welcome to this wacky world, Max. And Best Wishes and Good Luck!!

Fare-thee-well,
Sue

How I Spent My One Day Vacation - Day One

Because I did not know that Tara's apartment door did NOT lock unless one used a key to LOCK it, I spent a lovely California day in her apartment - with Beautiful Cat Freya.

However, because of the exhausted brain and body after doing Clinky Mayhem (more abooout that later...) about as hard and good as we could do it, this may have been for the best.

Otherwise, residents of her apartment complex might have come upon me fast asleep on the concrete near the pool.

Sometimes "failure to communicate" can be a Good Thing.

__________

On to Day Two:

Planning to Sloth in Old Pasadena Coffee Shops

__________
Now I'm wondering if real sloths have real plans.

Fare-thee-well!
Sue

Poem - Another

Through 

odd circumstance

The River 

holds both

loons and pelicans

together separately

A friend watched

a loon tease

a pelican

It paddled

the pelican followed

The loon dived and disappeared

And popped up 

in a different spot

The pelican followed

Over and over 

they did this

Till the loon paddled over

And 

nipped the pelican

in the side

The pelican

swung it's huge beak

around

and did

no damage

to the loon