DC: Crystal

Our wonderful Norma, The Fairy Yellow Bug Queen, is the mastermind behind the Drawing Challenge this time, with 'crystal'.

One of our more prominent landmarks in the area is called Crystal Mountain.

Crystal Mountain reflects beautifully in Blind Slough, right above the rapids.  On Thursday after work, we encountered a nice flock of trumpeter swans gliding around on those glassy waters.

On Friday, we took the afternoon off to enjoy a rare crystal clear day for a winter picnic out at Green's Camp.

The Sailor built us a great beach fire.  Flossy helped, of course.

 The sun set was spectacular.

 We lingered until the stars started to come out.

Later, in my sketch book, this drawing appeared:

I advise heading over to The Fairy Yellow Bug Queen's lovely place for links to other wonderful artists' interpretation of this theme.

Wearable Art Extravaganza No. 1

Hard to concentrate on creative work in the studio recently.  Most of the energy has been poured into sorting out 15 plus years of accumulation and redistributing my possessions back into the community.  Art-making has been confined to drawing in my sketchbooks and working on my project for the Wearable Art Extravaganza.

 

I will give no hints of the meaning of my piece yet beyond saying that it is both fun and funny.  My rule to myself is to buy no materials and use only what I have scavenged or already have on hand.

Hope you are having creative times this week. 

Numen - DC

Our hostess, Tammie Lee presented us with the word 'numen' for the first drawing challenge of 2014. Looking for the Numen of the place I live, I had this vision:

Earlier in the week, I drew this:

Riding confidently on her flying Totem, I think this represents my personal Numen during this present time of preparation for our major move. 

Go to Tammie's spirited blog for lots more interpretations of numen.

Red

This month I have joined Jennifer and Julie's search for Mr. Roy G. Biv by noticing and capturing one of my favorite colors, RED.   

Got a favorite color? 

Storage Idea for Rubber Stamps

Flossy and I conceive some of our finest ideas on the Morning Walk.  

Our move is taking up a bit of my present mental space and on this morning's walk I hit upon a cool plan for storing my smaller soft-cut stamps:

Remember when slides were the currency of the Art World?  (Maybe you don't, and I have just completely dated myself... oh well).  Whatever, I have had this package of slide sleeves since pre-digital camera days! Time to put them to better use.

The pockets hold 2" and smaller stamps perfectly. 

My larger stamps are also organized and ready to move - I will try to remember to take a quick shot of that for you next post.  

Feels good to be 'in control' of at least ONE thing this week!

Using What I Have

What to do with the ubiquitous 'less than successful' gelliplate monoprints stacking up in my studio!??

 These little folded cards are fun to make.

The directions are to be found in Alisa Golden's marvelous compendium of book making mentioned here and here.

One leads to another and another...

...and ANOTHER!

These will be flying away as thank you cards soon.  

Working my way through 'Making Handmade Books' using surplus gelliprints is a constructive and fun way to make use of what I have.

Happy mid-week to all!

The Sunset - New Year's Day

After raining savagely all day, the sunset on the first day of 2014 seemed like a really good omen.

 I took these from our beach and deck looking across the Wrangell Narrows to Kupreanof Island.

Time: right about 3pm - we are gaining daylight slowly but steadily.

Back in my studio the end of the week, I worked on mono-prints.  The sunset I witnessed seems to have slipped into my work.

Not quite my own yet, but I have a good sense of where to take the process next.  What are you starting the year with?

Expansion and Balance

I doubt there is anything more effective for weeding out inessentials than the specter of a major move and The Sailor, Flossy and I are planning a big one.  We will be expanding our territory to Seattle early this spring to live nearer the Port of Tacoma where the Sailor ships from and closer to my parents and our kids.  We are keeping our home here in Alaska, making this more of an expansion than a permanent relocation.  

Cleaning and organizing my studio has occupied the past several weeks.   

I’ve enjoyed making discoveries of treasures I had stuck away in cupboards and boxes over the past 15 years since my last studio move.  

The New Year is a good time for change.  The decision to leave our comfortable home and dear friends on this Island – even temporarily - is not an easy one.  Sometimes I feel I am setting my life on fire, but hope it will turn out to be the lighting of a Roman candle. 

To help me stay in balance during this upheaval, I signed up for an on-line class recommended by several of you here in Blogland: Carla Sonheim's 'Gelli Plate Print Making'.  Yesterday I did the first lesson and boy was it FUN.  

 

Here is where I ended the first print session, all set for the next lesson in which I will continue to add layers to these starts.

Carla's teaching style is marvelously low-key, friendly and warm.  As you may know, I have some gelli plate experience, but am getting a ton of fresh new ideas for mono printing  and highly recommend this class no matter what your level of experience with the medium.

close-up of one of the prints I began yesterday in Carla's class

Our roots here are deep – Alaska will always be home, no matter how long or far away I am. 

I hope you will hang in there with me as this adventure progresses.  Best wishes for 2014 and good luck to all in this year of the Wooden Horse.  

 We’ll need it!