Hideous!

I thought a flower with petals and a face in the center would look nice. But really! Maybe it's the color or the face or ???? But it's hideous! It's in the July art journal and will stay there! Yikes! I like the face and I shaded it nicely. But other than that it's disturbing. All right! Onward and upward! We can only hope!

New art

Today I had a plan to paint the flat flowers and also to sew them. The painted flowers were less than successful. I'm not sure why, but I didn't like them. But the sewn flowers I like! I cut fabric circles as usual and then sewed the fabric on prepared watercolor paper. I used purple thread and zigzagged the flowers on. Then I straight stitched the stem. I like this a lot but it is labor intensive for me. And one mistake and the paper will rip! I will try something else for a background.

On another note: I went to Zumba Gold class and I liked it. I think I will try it for a month. I need the cardio and this is actually kind of fun. For me to use fun and exercise together is an anomaly.

Trying to be my own artist

This weekend we welcomed Amy home from Africa with a barbeque at my house. What yummy food we had! Dan is a barbeque demon! Wow! I provided ice cream and Fresh and Easy corn (the best!). We saw Amy's pictures of her time in Uganda and heard her interesting tales of life in the third world.

Before that I had been suffering with my gall bladder. I took the gall bladder cleanse tea and that helped a lot! What would I do without herbs?

I watched a video of another artist and decided to "copy" her technique for an art journal page. As soon as I started I realized I hated, hated, hated what I was doing. I can't do the (for lack of a better term) grunge look right now. It just doesn't make sense to me. I need to make collages that have more organization (?) to them. I have to be my own artist. Hard reality!

Walking the dog and toddlers

Some days it's all I can do just to get the motivation to walk the dog. I would soooo much rather be in the studio making flat flowers or touching up the art journal entry that I feel needs a tweak. But I do try to get out with the Stan. Walking with him is like having a small toddler who, instead of wanting to touch everything, wants to smell everything. And he has a tremendous sense of smell! He can smell things a mile away! And everywhere in between! And he's excited to be out to smell it all. I honestly don't know how long it will take until he gets used to the smells and settles down for the walk. Maybe never? I'll give it some time and maybe he'll calm down. I hope so. The good thing about toddlers is that they grow up. With Stanley, well...

Flat Flowers Monday

Yes, more flat flowers! This time the backgrounds are in pastels. I like the pastel effect. So I think I may have done enough for a while and will now begin the flat flowers with petals. Let's see what those look like.

On a serious note. my grandson's great-grandmother died in her sleep today. She was in her 80's and was in ill health, but it was a shock nonetheless. She was such a nice person! Matt is staying with his grandmother while she is getting things ready for the funeral. I am so sorry that the family had to lose her!

More Flat Flowers for Sunday

Today I scanned the flat flowers I did yesterday and I started some more. I can't seem to move on from flat flowers yet. I have been trying to find something to make the stem and the outline of the flowers stand out more. I tried fabric paint, which I think is too dark and heavy. Let's take a look at them and see:

In other news, Stanley and I walked around Kuns Park four times today. We are getting good at the walking. I did forget to buckle him in on the way back, so unfortunately he was his obnoxious riding in the car self. There are days when I really, really, really want him to find a good home elsewhere.

Crafty Saturday

Well, usually, I like to do something "crafty" on the weekends. I decided to make fabric rosettes. I found a tutorial at A Day in the Life blog (http://anna-nichols.blogspot.com/2011/07/rosette-tutorial.html). Looked easy, but I didn't have burlap, so I tried fabric. As you can see, these are less than successful. I really hated the red one. It ended up in the trash.

So I went back to my flat flowers. I painted backgrounds and made four pictures. They are drying since I used fabric paint to outline them. I guess I need to stick with something other than flowers for Crafty Saturday.