m.o.M - mother of Michael

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.