Winter Wonderland

Last week we had an ice storm here in the Midwest. Temperatures hovered near 32 degrees F and it alternated between rain, sleet and snow. It was a cold, white Christmas Eve we woke up to. But what a beautiful sight! I'm trying to establish the habit of having my camera nearby at all times and I'm glad I had it with me that morning. I walked around the yard amidst the frozen downed tree branches. While I snapped away, the ice melted and dripped. The pictures I took without a flash were just ho-hum so I tried "flashing" them. And this appeared. The tree is a swamp maple and I don't know if these are buds or what. (And if they are buds, what the heck are they doing out in December?) The branches are usually way above my head but the weight of the ice brought them down to eye level. It was breathtaking. Each bud was encased in a magical "snow globe" of ice, which magnified their beauty. Within hours the ice was gone and the branches ascended and the world looked normal again. I am grateful I had the opportunity to see and record this bit of magic before it disappeared. And to be reminded... it's always around us, isn't it?

DONE! Bye-bye Sketchbook Project!

First I thought... I can't do a project like this! I did it. Then I thought... I am NEVER going to get this done in a month! I did it. Then I thought... HOW can I send my original art away permanently? For thousands of strangers to see? I did it. You know what, negative voices in my head? PPPHHHLLLLTTTT! I DID IT! And you can't stop me anymore!!!

Now that my inner dialogue is out in the open, I feel much freedom. Actually, it might be that this project is DONE and over with. Don't get me wrong... I am SO glad that I committed myself and completed this sketchbook. It proved to those negative voices in my head that I could do it. Those voices that said "You suck. You're not good enough. No one wants to see your art. How are you going to fill 20+ pages with a theme of Past-Present-Future? Hmm?" (PPPHHHHLLLTTTT!) I had fun for the most part. Some pages I LOVE. Some pages are just ho-hum. I learned A LOT of technical stuff like... don't put gel medium over colored pencils or your pages will stick together and tear up when you rip them apart. Use matte gel medium to seal pages instead of gloss gel medium or the pages will stick together (except in above colored pencil fiasco-just don't use anything!) Don't use Perfect Paper Adhesive to glue on magazine pictures to the pages... it has too much water content and will wrinkle the hell out of your pages. And NEVER squeeze an old tube of Rub-n-Buff while it's aimed at yourself and/or your furniture. These lessons also taught me how to salvage pages in a creative way when I was ready to toss the book out the window. And it taught me that Rub-n-Buff does not come off of clothes or plastic storage carts.

But the BESTEST part of this whole project are the new friends I made. I like to think of them as the "Sketchbook Ladies" and without their invaluable inspiration, talent, kindness, motivation and sense of humor, I don't think I would have had the courage to finish. Or at least I would NOT have had ANY fun doing this project. I feel like I have known them for years and I hope they will be a part of my life for a long time. You are awesome ladies, thank you!!

Here are a few of my favorite pages:

The Kingdom of Odd

Most of you know I love to Reduce-Reuse-Recycle. Well, that involves "keeping" things around in case I need them, right? (Ok... hubby says I'm a huge pack rat!) But take a look at these cute little guys. They used to be CLOTHES. Every since that second issue of STUFFED magazine came out, I've been enamored with Stuffies. And what better way to reuse clothes that would be thrown away? Now, don't get excited... I would never throw away perfectly good clothes, I am a big proponent of donation. But the Stuffies made out the red fabric came from a shirt I bought at a resale and tried to alter so it would fit my daughter. I really screwed it up. So Monkey, Lulu and Olive were born. And then the dutch twins, Skar and Hapi. (All out of one little shirt!). Blue guy Hiram was made from a really ugly pair of blue velour track pants I got at the resale shop. No, I never intended on wearing them but I thought they were so ugly they probably wouldn't have been sold. Ever. So I saved them from rotting in a landfill. A lot of stuffies can be made from one pair of pants... Hiram is going be a big brother many times over. The leopard print Stuffy, Sookie, was made from a perfectly good shirt I bought for 50 cents at a resale. Gulp. Yes, I bought the shirt for the sole purpose of making a Stuffy.

Why do I love making these guys? They are all unique. Sure, I make the patterns myself, and may even use the same fabric (like the dutch twins) but no face ever matches, so they are all one of a kind. Unfortunately I fall in love with every one. I am such a sucker for a cute face.

Now... what to do with them? They're not really appropriate for small children because of the buttons sewn on them. I'll probably end up putting some up on etsy (as soon as I figure out how to list stuff!) I'll probably keep a few. Right now they are all sitting on top of my quilt rack. They look a little bit like the 7 muses...

I should be on Project Runway...

...she says with a laugh. Thursday night at about 8:50 my daughter informs me that she's supposed to wear something Christmas-y to school the next day. Well, she has no holiday wear, I generally don't agree with themed clothes, call me a grinch, call me practical. BUT we did have 2 yards of beautiful Christmas fabric we bought several weeks ago. SO... I got out the paper and scissors, an old Christmas tree skirt my daughter has been wearing as a girl-skirt the last few Christmas's, my trusty sewing machine (best gift ever!) and got to work. ONE hour later and she had a beautiful skirt to wear to school for the holiday party. I had her twirl and twirl for the camera. She got dizzy. But it's so TWIRLY. It's basically... well, a Christmas tree skirt! It's a complete circle. With an elastic waist. I like it. She loves it. And she can't stop twirling.

Love is a Battlefield

Well, this page looks like a battlefield! I was making a page for my sketchbook journal about the heart, love, science, emotion (all timeless) and ended up with a mess. I used Perfect Paper Adhesive to glue some thinner collaged pages into the sketchbook. The PPA gave the pages a beautiful matte finish (with no tackiness) but I ended up with a disaster. Serious wrinkles. Think elephant butt here. I had to put the book away for a few days to avoid ripping the pages out. I took it out the other day and on a whim, started sanding it and grunging it up. Then I took some blue, black and red china markers and started scribbling all over it. Being silly. Well, guess what? I like it better now than before, even IF I didn't have all those wrinkles. That just goes to prove that sometimes creating on the fly and not thinking too much about it is good for the soul. I think I'll keep those pages in the book.

Ta-Dah! New Look

Whew, the emails were flying today with my girls over at Sketchbook project! Two new blogs were born today, congratulations to Janet and Joanna. I'm so proud of them! I'm not going to link to their pages because I don't want to freak them out. But they took the big step into the blogosphere, with encouragement and a bit of help. Which encouraged me to learn more about Blogger. You know all those tabs and boxes that I ignore because I have no idea what they mean? Well, it's time to learn. I'm watching a tutorial at the moment. Well listening while I type, obviously, because as much as I'd like to do two visual things at once, I only have 4 eyes. (Just kidding.) Seriously, some of it is pretty basic so I can listen while I type. Anyway, the site is called Lynda.com and has TONS of tutorials about everything and anything that has to do with computers/software/www. I'm talking about any software, any subject, any vendor, and any author. They are broken down into manageable sections, from a few minutes long to a total of up to 20+ hours long for the whole lesson. Sure it costs something... but it's worth it for real video tutorials. You can't put a price on education. Besides, hubby needs it for work.

What brought this on? I decided I wanted to put a header on my blog to "pretty it up". I see a lot of blogs with pretty, colorful headers. Well, of course it wasn't as easy as edit: add header because I picked a difficult template. But after playing around in photoshop and trying different things I finally figured it out. I just used a photo I took of our garden angel as my background. One of these days (when I figure out how to use photoshop better!) I want to make a header that actually reflects my artwork. But for now, I LIKE IT!

Her Wings Were Small

Well, after all the great comments and encouragement I received after posting my FIRST attempt at sketching I decided to try my hand at another page. It was funny... I was drawing my Girl from the back and it looked a little funny. My daughter walks in the room and looks at it. She says "the shoulders are too high. Move them down and make the arms smaller." You know what? Without questioning her, I got my eraser and "fixed" the Girl and she looked so much better! Hmm. Art advice from an 8 year old. I tell ya, the eye on this girl amazes me. She is always teaching me something. I should have her finish my sketchbook, hehe.