Art du Beacoup Jours

Oh yeah, I forgot, I’m a self-declared artist, taking a long break from it all and then coming up with some very bad French.  The title is supposed to translate to “art of many days” because I’m pretty sure this creation could pass for art and it certainly was many days in the making.  But none of it can in any way be blamed on the French.  Just so that’s clear.

This is melted crayon on an old denuded clock face.  On an opposite wall the delightful mirror below, which survived the garage sale because I could not bring myself to part with it,  has been photographed to include the reflection of the above round shaped thing awaiting inspiration.  It hung there all white and boring for a very long time.  Weeks I guess, but eventually I got tired of looking at it and the reflection of it too.

Now I’m going to show you a photo of a big bucket/waste basket full of markers and crayons.  Only demented grandmas have such things, never mind the ones who pause to take pictures of them.

The plastic bag on top is one of those large freezer zip lock ones, (so a LOT of crayons in there) and when my granddaughters were here looking for something to do I suggested peeling the paper off some of them.  One of the girls wisely wandered off to watch tv, but the other one was wildly enthusiastic about the idea and stripped the paper off every last one of them. You never know with kids, so don’t be afraid to suggest totally bizarre and tedious activités to them which you don’t want to do yourself.

Then we messed around melting wax with an iron and a blow dryer.  This is my favourite result on paper.

If you heat and mix the colours too much they just get muddy but we saved this one with a lot of white on top.

Okay! One more snapshot in the series “ways I have been messing about for months”.

Another crayon creation on canvas, and below it three little, quite possibly completely useless, books I made.

You start off with a cereal box,  use the thin side for the spine of the book and cut out whatever book shape you want.  Then you cover them inside and out with glued on paper, complete with decor.  I had a couple of jewelry pieces left over from a failed jewelry making stage of my life and the playing cards are from a miniature deck which was a prize from one of our Christmas cracker snapper things.  I’m sure that’s not an accurate name.  Too bad I don’t know what they’re called in French.  The pages are arranged in bunches and sewn in using a needle and thread, after punching aligned holes with a push-pin in the paper and the spines .  It was pretty labour intensive especially once the novelty wore off and I was questioning my sanity for thinking three of the damned things was a good idea.  Probably won’t try that again.  So these should one day be ridiculously valuable because they are rare.  Remember that when you see them in a garage sale.

Enough sharing for one day.  Thanks for looking.  Now get back to whatever important thing you were up to on this beautiful sunny April Sunday.

Art du Jour 92

Food. Drink. Sleep. Books. They are all drugs. (Fay Weldon)

It has been over six months since my last art du jour post. I’ve missed that drug.  See, I would add Netflix and Making Stuff to that list.  I admit my addiction to all of the above.

These are the coffee pictures for my daughter.  Her colours are grey and turquoise.  There is a lot of black and white in her kitchen and I know she likes purple, so fingers crossed she will be happy with these.  I am trying to be less chaotic with my creations but maybe it’s just not in me to make something calm and normal.

It’s a lazy Sunday here, perfectly gorgeous fall weather.  We went for a stroll down to the mall and back in search of rimmer spices for Caesars.  Do we have our priorities straight or what?

When we started this ‘update the look of your ’70’s house’ project I professed to not like grey.  Then I said I didn’t like turquoise and I was really done with purple.  Then I chose pelican grey for the master bedroom and both bathrooms and NOW I’m thinking turquoise and purple are really nice and maybe those should be my colour splashes in the bedroom and forget royal blue or red.

So I guess my point here is you can believe what I say today but don’t assume it will be equally true tomorrow.  I’ve made up my mind to never make up my mind.  Or some such nonsense.  Posting this now before I rethink the whole thing.

Happy autumn Sunday.

Art du Jour 91

It’s the Fish Picture!  Or the Fishing Collage!  Or Angling in Hell!  I haven’t made a final decision on the title.

Normally I do ink spritzes to finish but W was so happy identifying fish species I decided not to obliterate them with colour.  There are no purple pickerel in the real world.

But there could be rainbow cats.

I got a how-to art book from Amazon and the first exercise is to draw a bunch of cats.  HAHA!  I am obviously SO ready to move on.

Hope your weekend was happy and fun!

Art du Jour 90

What do you think? Too wild? Would you want to live in this chaotic little city?

I don’t know whether or not this is finished yet. It’s one of the biggest canvases I’ve ever worked on so all that work makes me feel like I should be done.

And then I frown at it for a while trying to decide what’s missing.  But whatever is missing, there’s no room for it!  So I’m finished, right?

Anyway, letting it hang for a bit.  I used up a LOT of paper scraps creating my little village on crack.

Art du Jour 89

Even though this is not my art, it is the product of my art class, so it qualifies for the art du jour category.  My two amazing students (granddaughters O and M) when given free rein in the art corner always come up with some creative, artistic and interesting results.

They have done a lot of stickers and stamps and drawing and painting on paper, but this weekend graduated to mixed media on canvas.  I think I’ve got them hooked.

They had some help with the ink splashes (it’s pretty messy) and the addition of texture, but the rest – collage and colour choices – it’s all theirs.  I got to hang them on my wall for a day, but now the art and the artists are headed home.

I hope whenever they look at them they remember what fun we had putting them together.

Art du Jour 87

This canvas sat on my easel for weeks, faceless lady in monster hat, making me sad and wanting to watch murder mysteries rather than finish what I started.  Then I chucked her in with a stack of other stuff I still don’t know what to do with, except to keep it all in a stack under my paint shelves.

Yesterday I decided to at least fill in her face, and the rest just flowed from there.  This no longer makes me sad and I don’t hate it.  Yay!  Mission accomplished.  I love the purple and the turquoise but I have no idea what that hat is supposed to be made of.  Let’s just chalk this one up to January boredom and blues, waiting for the sunshine.

Happy Sunday!

Art du Jour 86

This might win the prize for most minimalist thing I’ve ever done in mixed media, supposing I stop now and leave it alone.  There is no sealer on it yet.  Like that would stop me if I decided to go nuts with the ink sprayers.

Nope, gonna control myself and start something else instead.

The page a day calendars which were supposed to motivate the hell out of me in the form of inspirational blog fodder have been disappointing.  Or maybe I’m just unmotivatable and it’s not their fault.

Take these, for instance, and judge for yourself.

When a guest, don’t be the first to arrive or the last to leave.

Stupid advice if everybody invited takes it seriously.  No one will show up at your door until they see someone else go through it.  Or, towards the end of the evening there will be a mad rush for the exit with no one wanting to be the last one out.  This is why I don’t throw parties.

A little attitude goes a long way.

What does that even mean??  Attitude comes in different sizes?  And where is it headed?

Here’s another funny thing, or maybe I haven’t said anything funny yet, but here’s something else anyway.  I have been blogging for SO long that sometimes people will like an answer to a  Wordpress Prompt that I wrote two or three years ago, because the prompts are being recycled and my post somehow pops up in a search.  And nobody pays attention to dates.  Or however that works.  The more I write today the more confused I appear to be.

So I will leave this alone too and go finish the laundry.  One of these days I will have something astounding to say and something brilliant to show you.  You will just have to wait for it.

 

Art du Jour 85

A couple of days ago I made a coffee cup template and then spent half an afternoon going through my paper jumble cutting out the mug shapes with scissors and an exacto blade.  I also had these two little canvases started with cut up pages of print glued on to them and covered in inky dabs as an experiment with colour.  In a burst of maniacal creativity I decided to pair them up.

And thus we have the result of plan as you go.  Or don’t have any plan and then critique your colour choices after the fact.  These either go with anything, or (more likely) nothing at all.

The good news is, the next one will be better!  Because I have about a thousand paper cups needing a place to shine.  Yes, a thousand is a gross exaggeration.  I have maybe a dozen more, and an actual idea in my head.  And then I think I will be done with stacked coffee cups for a bit.

Art du Jour 84

This is me attempting to be more disciplined and methodical. Let it never be said there was no method to my madness. Well not within my hearing at least. Sometimes it’s good to be less random and impulsive and end up with a piece that’s not bordering on crazy. Although I’m sure I’ll get back to those soon enough.

It’s terrible trying to finish these things in the cold and dark of January. They have to be sprayed with an acrylic sealer that smells toxic so I don’t like to use it inside. And outside it would rather freeze than dry these days so I bring sprayed things inside before the odor has dissipated and then the basement smells like insect repellant. My son said that long after the smell should have gone away. Or maybe our basement just generally smells weird. That’s also possible.

I have more coffee themed creations in the works. Stay tuned.  And have a happy Sunday.

Deep Thoughts on a Shopping Bag

It’s the attention to little details that make shopping at Chapters such a delight for people like me who love this kind of thing.  If there must be a shopping bag, why not make it say something wonderful?  I forgot to take a reusable bag with me and I was walking, so I reluctantly said yes to a bag, but happily this one will NOT go directly into the recycle bin along with my guilt about the environment.  I will use it again, because you don’t just recycle John Keats.

Not in any way trying to out-do Keats, and everything he mentions in this quote is lovely, but I would like to change the sentiment a little to reflect my own personal preferences.

Give me

a blank canvas, crispy bacon,

Argentinian Malbec wine

soft candle light

&

a little peace and quiet…..

Hmmm… are all these things meant to go together?  I’ve never had bacon with my wine.  Or painted by candlelight either.

I do have some other weird habits though, one of which is reading labels and product descriptions and getting bamboozled into buying them simply because they sound peculiar and interesting.  I bought a hair product once because it promised to deconstruct my hair in to loose textured beach waves.  It contained black figs and sea salt.  Really.  Eventually I poured what remained of it down the sink because what it actually made my hair look like was a very structured haystack.

What is a beach wave anyway?  And why did I think I wanted some of those?  Hard to complain to the makers of a product when you don’t have a clue what they are promising you.

Great books are just the beginning.  Isn’t that an awesome little statement?  Even though it doesn’t specify whether it’s the beginning of something amazing or the beginning of something horrifying we still want to have those great books.  Because beginnings, right?

And we want those great books in great bags!

Thank you Indigo.  For your bags and your words and your little in-store coffee shop making all your books smell like Starbucks.  I will be back for more.  But you know that, don’t you?  Yes, you do.