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

Clean Hard Fast: 1

CLEAN: part of the living-room floor that had been covered by greeting card stuff, drawing books, and       misc. papers. Now to KEEP IT CLEAN! Dusted under card racks in studio - yes, all the way to the wall.

HARD: to believe how quickly tomatoes ripen once they put their little green head to the task. Have made sauce, tomato basil soup, given some away, & yet a number lie rotting on the ground. Will harvest more tomorrow, and probably give them away - hooray!

FAST: how that first three-mile hike in a long time went. Radio headphones helped hide the head's constant ding ding ding. Got to walk with Bach for a while. Can't go wrong hoofing along to all those great and lovely notes. Made it back before dark. High-point of walk was an in-shape dude striding along in white muscle shirt and red shorts, sporting a really good mohawk haircut, and  accompanied by a gorgeous black German Shepard Dog.

We're prepping for River Falls, Wisconsin's "Art on the Kinni" - Sept. 7th. Because The Grand Hand Gallery in St. Paul have hung so many of our originals I've been "forced" to work on new goodies. Yes, I know it's a good problem. I don't know what will be done by this weekend, but we have five more shows in following weekends so the work will be shown SOMEWHERE. And it's been fun to play with acrylics and mono-prints. Might have to frame the large rabbit drawing done during rand Hand event a week ago. It should hold it's own against the bruins!

Here are two of the small mono-prints now part of a Fine Print Show at the Stillwater Art Guild. These are made by layering acrylic paint on plastic, flipping plastic onto printing paper, then burnishing paint on to paper. Some images printed easier than others, and I kept adding more paint where it seemed to be needed. Darned judgement calls! But I'm excited with the technique and plan to do some larger pieces soon.

Colors included black, brown, and the Magic Touch - GOLD. Can't go wrong with a golden dancing bear. But I still love the shapes of sitting bears, so had to play with one here. Playing with a brayer created the large area of dark on lower center bear. What to do? What to do? Why press a gold bruin over the area. Yay for Play!

Now it's time to watch live-streaming of U. S. Tennis Open and cheer on Rafa Nadal. AND keep working through the competition. Little yellow balls and little golden bears.

And don't forget the tomatoes....

Fare-thee-well,
Sue