m.o.M - mother of Michael

Life Happens

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

 

An ATC I did for Swap-bot in January of 2016

I'm a mere three weeks shy of the last time I touched this blog three years ago. What happened? Life, I suppose. Life, procrastination, fear disguised as busyness, sorrow at not having kept up and not recording certain milestones...pick your poison.

But, you know what? Life happens. Stopping is not an option and sometimes we have to practice purposeful neglect.  That little angel/devil child in the banner is now 16 years old, drives and is a sophomore in high school. The daughter for whom the "swim" in my URL was meant is now 27, has her Masters Degree in Applied Behavioral Analysis, is married and living in Colorado, and in the next four weeks will be moving to Hawaii to start a new job. Life happens and stopping in not an option.

My kidlets, Michael and Lizzy on April 2, 2018. Lizzy was home for her birthday before leaving for Hawaii.

I'm not entirely sure what direction my blog will take these days. It will most assuredly contain some of my adventures in "arting" as this is my current passion, it will absolutely include before and after pics as I decorate our "new" house, and odds are there will be more than enough about Hooch, my Great Pyrenees dog and best buddy. Oh yeah, and baseball.

Getting Hooch hugs. March 2018. Hooch was seven months old.

Life happens and sometimes we get unexpected nudges to do the things that we've been meaning to do. That's what happened today.

I signed up for both Life Book 2018 and Journal 52 2018 this year and I am determined to see each of these through. I cannot say enough great things about each of these. They are FANTASTIC! I'm learning so much and while I seem to be consistently outside my comfort zone, I am not going to be stopped!

This morning I stumbled upon a blog that I fell madly in love with and had been reading each and every post written by a journal artist named Ginny Markley. I began thinking about my poor dusty blog. Then, an email popped up from Effy Wild of J52 and Life Book this afternoon, saying that each year, in April, she blogs every day. I decided the universe was trying to tell me something.

So life is happening. I'm blowing the dust off this 13 year old tome (13 years! Yikes!!) and I'm going to dedicate more time to it. I think it deserves it.

 

 

 

The Definition of Insanity

Albert Einstein said the definition of insanity is doing something over and over again and expecting a different result.

Except that Einstein probably didn't say that. Who cares. I hope when I'm dead and gone, I am misquoted in such fabulous ways!

Every time I take a trip, I grab the same zip-lock bag containing the same yellow moleskine journal and the same mini-sharpie set in the same pencil bag that's contained the same colored pencils for approximately four years. Based solely on "as the crow flies" mileage between Titusville, Fl. and Guyaquil, Ecuador, not including driving within Ecuador (which we have done a tremendous amount of over the years) and assuming that no additional trips were taken with this bag (which I doubt), this bag has traveled over 17,000 miles.

The pencils have never needed sharpening and less than one quarter of the journal is filled.

Yep. The definition of insanity.

This time I'm doing something different. I made a book based on the travel journal I saw here. A combination travel journal, smash book and art journal. The only item that is a hold over from the old zip-lock bag is the pencil bag. That now has my zentangle pens in it.

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Inside are pocket pages, kraft paper, and scrapbook papers. I fully anticipate that by the time the trip is done, the cover won't look like what it really is - a cereal box.

I'm really looking forward to adding to this as we go and coming home with a keepsake full of those papery bits of goodness that I love to accumulate on trips. Not just another bag of ephemera that gets thrown in the box in the corner!

Here's to breaking the cycle of insanity!

At least in one area of my life!

Even a Fool Can Have an Epiphany

Happy April Fool's Day! Happy birthday to my darling daughter! 24! Holy Cow! Sorry I'm not going to see you today - I'm going to geek out at a Welcome to Night Vale show!

Right. So I had an epiphany and finished the never-ending Moroccan/Gesso page. I did get carried away with the gold paint and therefore lost a lot of detail in my image. What I think I wanted (if it exists) was some kind of gold wax that would just get caught in the ridges left by the gesso.

The sari silk that I used on the page was from one of the balls of yarn that I carried in my backpack through a trek in the Himalayas. Yes indeedy. A knitter can find yarn anywhere and will buy it no matter the cost to spine and sole.

This photographed quite poorly. Maybe it's all that gold paint because in "real life", the colors are somewhat deeper and there are more of them!

Mom, This One's For You

I hate March 31st. I think I've posted about it before. If something truly shitty is going to happen, it always happens on March 31st.

Today has actually been pretty good. Maybe the curse is lifting!

Today is the seventh anniversary of my mother's passing away. I miss her - a lot. She was funny, smart, pretty, a great gardener and one of those people who is what I call "a light". She brought light everywhere she went and when she passed away, the light and the color seemed to be diminished.

SO - Mom, This one's for you! I love you!

Step Away From the Page

Sometimes that's the only thing that can be done. Step away. I got stuck on the "Moroccan/Gesso" page so it was just time to step away.

The third challenge in the Documented Life Project has to do with color. The challenge was the color wheel and the prompt was a quote by Georgia O'Keeffe "I found I could say things with colors and shapes that I couldn't say any other way..."

This, so far, is my interpretation:

Little by Little

This is taking FOREVER! But ooohhh baby! I like it!

I Can't Lift My Arms

A quiet day today. Moving slowly, waiting for the Aleve to kick in. I think that house will allow me to cancel my gym membership.

I'm trying to dull down the background I was working on the other day. I've added some glazes and fingerpainted with black gesso in an attempt to grunge it up just a bit. I am liking the texture that was left by the stencil.

We'll Always Have Paris

Week 2 of The Documented Life Project has to do with gesso. Using it as a base, using it as an element...using it.

I now have the beginnings of a background for this. I stenciled with the gesso and then turned the stencil over to tamp it off, creating the reverse pattern. I like this stencil that really isn't a stencil, but a sheet of metal from a kit to make a candle cover. It looks so Moroccan to me.

There's a Moorish tower in Guayaquil, Ecuador that has a design very similar to this at the top and when you look through it there is a hill in the distance with houses of the most amazing colors. It's called Cerro Santa Anna.

I was trying to get the sense of looking through those windows but was about as successful in achieving this as I was in getting a good photograph through them.

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Oh well. We'll always have Paris.

Stretch

The completed Goal Keeper page for week 1 of The Documented Life Project.

My word for 2015 is "Stretch". This is the year that I'm going to stretch myself creatively.

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No Time Like the Present

On the eighty-third day in the year of our lord two thousand and fifteen I began the Documented Life Project 2015.

I'm pleased with the background that's starting to happen here. I like that grungy kind of look.

 

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I don't know if this happens to you, but when I watch tutorials that are done at high speed, I find that I'm working in double time when trying to emulate them.