Two pinks and an orange (summer of color week 2)

Kristin at the Twinkle, Twinkle blog is hosting her annual "Summer of Color" event. She selects a color palette and artists create using that palette - six weeks, six palettes, six creations - tons of fun! This summer, I'm working with plaster strips, as part of my creative focus on 3D mixed media this month. This week's combination two shades of pink and an orange. I used magenta, rose and pyrrole orange. I embedded some puzzle pieces into the plaster before I added washes of the colors. The images are from napkins; the feather is from the chicken coop. I really enjoyed the process, and it came together more easily than last week's creation. I think that's one of the wonderful things about working in the same medium each week - it gets easier and more developed.
Here are my creations from my first two weeks:

I think the both feel very summery, so I plan to continue with that as a theme. These are also pushing me to realize that I really like this style for 3D mixed media. I might experiment with a few other things this month, but I'm feeling like I may have found my groove early this month!
To see more pink and orange creations, go to this link.

Setting an Intention for June: 3D Mixed Media

This year, I am exploring the various types of art and craft that I have practiced over the last ten years, trying to decide where each fits in my creative life (or even if it does anymore). So far, I have focused on still life photography, sketching, scrapbooking, card making and art journaling. This month, I am setting the intention to focus on 3D mixed media work (such as canvases, assemblage and plaster).  I'm looking forward to getting my hands dirty and digging through my stash!

I think this will also be a terrifically fun way to participate in this year's Summer of Color event. If you've never played along before, you should definitely consider it. Details can be found at this link.  Last year, I made little houses but only completed five out of the six color schemes. I had actually selected paint, house parts and embellishment or the color scheme of tangerine, raspberry with a touch of lemon but never put it all together. So, yesterday I did, and here's the result (front and back).

And here are all six of my houses together.

 

Who else is doing summer of color this year? What are you planning to work with?

The State of the Flock and Photography Musings

Meet the Rockers! We recently added four barred Plymouth Rock Hens. We got them partly because we lost one of the Buff Orpingtons to a raccoon attack over the winter. But we still have two Buffy's.

As well as Laverne, our leghorn chicken.

And we have two Ameraucanus chickens. 

The older chickens are all laying really well, and we expect the rockers to start early summer.
This month, I'm musing a bit on photography. One of the things I sometimes consider is whether I can make an artistic photograph in the chicken coop. Of these, I think the one of Laverne could qualify. I think it helps when the photo is technically good, and I like the crisp focus, dreamy depth of field, color story and composition. I also think an artistic photograph needs some power and emotion, and I think I see it in the portrait of Laverne. What do you think?

Still Life vs. Nature Photography

In the still life photography class I'm taking, Kim Klassen posted a couple prompts on "found" still lifes or real life still lifes. Basically, scenes from your life which look like or qualify as still lifes. She included a photograph from her yard. It made me think about the difference between still life photography and nature photography. Kim's approach to still life photography is that it's about the process - about breathing and finding quiet, stillness and peace. And she suggested that you can find that without posing or choreographing a photograph. While I was in Oregon, I tried to find an appropriate nature still life.  I took the photograph above. What do you think? Is that a still life? I think it's a beautiful photograph, and it captures stillness and peace. I'm glad I took it and it's one of the types of photographs I love to take. But, to me, the thing I have liked about the still life photography class has been the creating, posing and choreographing of shots. It's kind of like creating a painting or drawing but using props and my camera instead. I didn't think nature photography could be still life photography.

And then this happened. I was walking to work, and I "found" this scene. The lighting, the colors, and the composition all screamed "still life" to me. So I got out my iphone and captured the image. And now I think I get what Kim was getting at. There are some still lifes, some vignettes, out there to be found in nature. They have been posed by an unseen hand, but posed nonetheless. Created to draw the viewer in and experience peace and quiet. And stillness.
Thoughts?

One Photo &Twenty Words: Still Life?

Photo taken during my volunteer shift at Guide Dogs. I'm wondering - is this a still life?
What do you think?
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Each month, Abi over at Creating Paper Dreams hosts a link up where people share one photo described in twenty words. I'm sharing this photo and and questions about the nature of photography. Come back tomorrow for more musings on the nature of still life photography and some answers that I found in nature.

Setting an intention for May: Photography

This year, I am exploring various aspects of my creativity and each month I am focusing on a particular form of artistic expression (while still dabbling in all the others). So far this year, I have focused on sketching, cards making, scrap booking and art journaling. This month, I'm turning my attention to photography. I want to consciously think about what photographs I take and what to do with them. 

Continuing Thoughts on Card Making

Three-quarters of the way through April, I am nearing the finish of my month-long focus on card making. And I regret to say that so far my card-making flame has not been rekindled to the same extent as my passions for scrapbooking and art journaling. So far, I enjoy making cards, but I find it a bit of a chore. It doesn't bring the same happiness to my creative heart as making scrapbook layouts or working in my art journals. And that's okay. I know that I will always dabble in card making now and again, but I'm beginning to think that it is not something I will try to integrate into my regular creative time. 
Before the month ends, I do want to try to make some stamped cards for Christmas, Halloween, birthdays and get-well because most of the cards I have made this month, the cards that have fallen together easily and have given me a sense of accomplishment, have tended to be those based on photography and ephemera, rather than stamped images. And the ephemera cards don't seem to be occasion or holiday related.  
I'm hoping this month long exploration will help me determine if I should STOP buying more card-making related stamps and PURGE more of my existing stamp collection. 
I'm also thinking that maybe I just need to get better at sending out cards. Because I think some of my disaffection for card making is tied to the fact that they tend to stack up in my studio, rather than making their way into the post.
As always, I welcome your thoughts and input on my musings.

Some final thoughts on art journaling

I spent the month of March exploring art journaling, and I have rediscovered my love of this artistic outlet. I have found that I really enjoy mixed media collage and simple sketching and water painting. I celebrated a little by buying some new water colors (Golden QOR). I made this page as an index sheet of sorts. It features flags and some Miro-inspired figures. I really like these creations and plan to incorporate them in future pages. 

The one thing I never got around to re-exploring this month was face-drawing. And, frankly, I'm not sure when I will. I will definitely continue to make art journal pages, but I will make pages that I find easy and fun and satisfying, rather than ones that feel like a lot of work. And right now, I think faces would be too much work. I see myself continuing to art journal a couple times a week. I'll add that to scrapbooking several times a month. And doing photography several times a week. That feels like a good mix so far.

I'm looking forward to focusing on card making this month, and I'll be back tomorrow with some initial thoughts and questions on that subject.

Setting an Intention for April: Card Making

This month, I am continuing my exploration of the various parts of my creative life by setting an intention to focus on card making. For many years, I taught card making classes and bought tons of stamps for cards. Now, the supplies sit lonely and unused. I purged a lot of them two years ago.  Am I ready to give the rest of them up? I don't know.  I really am not sure where card making fits in my creative life (or if it does at all), but I am looking forward to the journey.  

Art Journaling: Finding my Groove

"Our Time Together"

"My Garden of Life"

Most of the way through my month-long exploration of art journaling and what it means to me, I think I have hit my stride and found my style. . . well, actually, two styles. 

I love mixed media collage style art journaling for the way it allows me to play with my supplies and work out my feelings (like in the top page, which I made shortly after hearing that Paul had received good news on his most recent cancer check-up). 

I also really like pages where I make simple drawings that can be used as the backdrop for lists about things percolating in my head (like the second page where each leaf details one of the ingredients to success in my life).

There's still one area I want to explore: faces. I really appreciated everyone's feedback to my post with some initial thoughts about art journaling. My main take away from reading those is that I want my art journals to be fun and not hard work. When I look at pages where I try to incorporate more involved drawing in my art journals, they seem tortured and I realize they were not very fun to create (even if I did feel some accomplishment in their completion). I'm still on the fence about faces. I really want to draw faces in my art journals, and I want to get to the point where they are fun and easy. I feel like I can get there, but I still need practice which might be more work than fun. So, I will delve into faces a bit more between now and the end of the month. But I will also be creating pages in these two styles which feel really right to me just now.

Some Thoughts on Art Journaling

This month, as part of my year-long exploration of creativity and move to selfhood, I'm focusing on art journaling. I have over a dozen complete art journals - some focused on a theme, created as part of a class, but most with pages about whatever I felt moved to create on that particular day. I have about half-a-dozen incomplete journals. In many of those, I have some backgrounds and half-done pages. As I start to re-immerse myself back into art journaling, I find myself making fresh pages and working on existing backgrounds and completing half-done pages.

I like to use Strathmore Watercolor 140 pound cold press spiral bound paper pads for my art journals - I have them in lots of sizes (9x12 is my "go-to", but I also like working in the 11x15 when I want to work larger, and I also enjoy the 6x9 size). I also have two 6x8.5 artist books with cotton rag paper and a huge road atlas that I'm working in, as well as a few sketch pads that double as art journals. 
My initial thought about art journaling is that it's different than scrapbooking because I don't have a set project that I'm trying to organize and accomplish. Instead, I am simply . . . playing. I'm creating and seeing where the process takes me. Once again, I am really happy that I have a small art store in my studio and have everything I need to happily create art journal pages. Right now, I'm finding that my subject matter is very introspective (thinking about who I am, how I got there, and where I am going). I'm interested to see where else my art journaling takes me this month.

Some final thoughts on scrapbooking

During February, I focused my creative energy on scrapbooking. During the month, I've been sharing my thoughts and layouts on my blog (you can see them by clicking on this link). Before I turn my attention and blog space more fully to art journaling (my focus for March), I wanted to share a few final thoughts:
1. I really enjoy paper scrapbooking. I have a lot of albums (the book shelf above has two shelves of 12x12 scrapbooks, plus a couple 12x15 scrapbooks and a variety of other, smaller sizes tucked into the top shelf. I have about 10 more 12x12 albums and a dozen or so other, smaller albums on other shelves throughout the house. I make annual, chronological family albums (I'm "caught up" through 2011); albums for trips; birthday albums for the kids; school days and sports albums for the kids; December Daily/Christmas/JYC style albums every few years; and the occasional week/day in the life album. I like this organizational style and am committed to staying with it through next year (2016) when Clara graduates from high school. 
2. I like making photo books but not digitial scrapbooking. During this scrapbooking flurry, I made five photo books at shutterfly (three for Clara's running seasons; one for Clara's volunteer work with animals; and one from our 2012 trip to Barcelona). For each of them, I used the "simple path" version of the photo books. Basically select background (I went very basic - subtle black/white texture for track; themed for travel and animals); select photos; push a button and let shutterfly place the photos for you in chronological order; lightly rearrange photos to better tell your story and highlight the correct photos; add journaling; call it done. For my Barcelona book, I considered using their more advanced software or making a photobook at Mixbook with a variety of digital elements. I tried a few pages and decided it just wasn't for me. I am blown away by the digital pages that people make, especially now that I've tried my hand at it a little bit. But, that's just not a creative path I intend to follow. 
3. I love the fact that I basically have a small scrapbook store in my craft room and that I don't have to buy anything to make pages that I love. Also love the fact that I organized everything last year, so I could find things quickly and easily.

4. I love the stories that my layouts tell. On the left is the simple page for Clara's 15th birthday for her birthday album. When I discussed this album, here, I shared the page from her 14th birthday and mentioned that at the time "Clara was in a particularly difficult stage." And then I see her, at 15, running the half-marathon and raising money for the leukemia and lymphoma society and I say a prayer of thanks for how far she came in that year, and I appreciate that it is the scrapbook that marks that progress and tells that story.
5. Photo management/organization is a major task, especially if it gets too far out of date. I think I mentioned I had 2500 photos on my photo roll on my iphone. Huge mistake. It took hours to download, order, organize and delete them. The photos from my DSLR on my computer were easier to deal with, but still a bit of a pain. The box on the right hand side of the photo has what I believe to be all my photographs now printed out, organized by year and event and ready to be scrapped. Note to self: use your big camera more, and don't let things get so out of hand!

6. Not all albums have a natural ending point, and it's a little hard for me to live with that ambiguity.  I had assumed that Henry's sports album would end at the end of high school. Now that he's played a couple of years of Club Soccer at University of Oregon, I wanted to include that experience as well. Luckily, I was able to pull a few team photographs (like this one taken at the national tournament) off their facebook page. His sports album is a three ring binder type album, and it will be easy to add photos.When making Clara's Volunteering with Animals photobook, I realized that I would probably take more photos of her volunteering at Guide Dogs for the Blind, but that it was okay to make the book with the photos that I have now. The book covers two years of her experiences there and at the Peninsula Humane Society. It tells a story, even if it isn't her whole story. I guess that's why I like chronological albums and trip albums. I can gather everything and tell a story from beginning to end.
7. I enjoy all the various parts of scrapbooking (taking the photos, editing the photos, organizing them into events, choosing the appropriate paper and embellishments to go with each event, and the actual assembly). Right now, with all those photos printed and sorted, I hope to grab some time this week to do some scrapping. I'll definitely keep doing this, even as I focus on art journaling in March.

Setting an Intention for March: Art Journaling

This year, as part of my "one little word" (selfhood), I am exploring the various areas of my art work to see what I wish to do more of, less of, or abandon all together. In January, I focused on sketching. In February, I focused on scrapbooking. This month, I am setting an intention to focus on art journaling to see where that fits in my creative life.

Scrapbooking Pairs: Before and After

I've been doing a lot of scrapbooking lately, and one of my secrets to getting so much done is that I have a big bin of blank layouts/backgrounds. When I'm in a scrapbooking binge, I turn to these first to see if they work with any of my photos. It's a way of scrapbooking that works for me, although people are often dubious about how it works. So, for this week's photography pairs meme, hosted by Helena, I thought I'd show you the before and after.
Here's the blank layout:

And here's the layout filled with photographs from the kids' first day of school in 2011:

To see other pairs, check out Helena's blog here.

Thoughts on Scrapbooking (and rant against the iphone).

Honey and Lemons

Happy Monday! I hope you had a good weekend. It was a beautiful, sunny weekend here, and I spent some time outside. But I also did a lot of scrapbooking.

On Friday, I did a mountain of organizing. Most of my scrapbooks are chronological, but I also do some project or subject based albums (Henry's sports, vacation albums, December Dailys, Week in the Life, etc.). I reviewed all my albums and all my already-printed photographs to see where I stood. 

1. My chronological albums up through 2009 are complete. 

2. For 2010 and 2011 chronological albums, each of the albums needed about six layouts to be complete. 

3. Clara's and Henry's birthday albums each needed a couple of pages (these are simple albums where I scrap one layout each year of their birthday gathering). 

4. Clara's middle school album was started and then abandoned. I thought about chucking it, but instead rounded up the photos and memorabilia needed to turn it into a "done" (if not perfect) project. It needed about a dozen simple layouts (24 pages or so) to complete.

5. Henry's sports album needed layouts for senior year soccer and baseball and then all-star pages from back when he was 13 and 14 (I've been avoiding these layouts because I had been planning on finding more pictures). At this point, I decided to scrap what I had and continue with the "done is better than perfect" philosophy."

6. I plan to do photo books for our 2012 trip to Barcelona and Clara's junior cross country year. I'll do the latter on Shutterfly but may return to Mixbooks for the Barcelona one. The Barcelona one is bound to be a bit fraught because that was when Paul was diagnosed with cancer. The kids were only with us for a few days. Paul spent the whole three weeks while we there in the hospital, but he encouraged me to go on outings with my camera as a form of therapy, and I did. I'm not even sure if I have edited those photos yet!

4. For 2012 and 2013 chronological albums, I have photos printed for most things that I want to scrap but haven't started any pages. There are some things for which I need to order photos, too!

5. For 2014 and 2015, I'm just starting the process of ordering and printing photos of the things I want to scrap.

On Saturday, I dove into the project albums. I made 26 pages to complete Clara's middle school album. Super simple, but really cute (IMHO). I was reminded again how happy I am to have what amounts to a small scrapbook store in my craft room, with lots of appropriate paper and embellishments ready to go. 

On Sunday, it was time to turn to the last few lay outs for 2010 and 2011, as well as the birthday albums, because I love the feeling of getting unfinished projects done. I decided I wanted to complete these before facing 2012 and 2013. I did seven pages in Henry's birthday album, and now it's complete! I was only able to do one page in Clara's album because I need to order photos from her 15th and 16th birthdays. I also did six pages from 2010 to compete that chronological album! Then, I also organized the 2011 pictures and worked to complete journaling in Clara's middle school and the 2010 albums.

Layouts coming soon. 

But, for now, here's my big take away . . . 

I need to bring my big camera with me to more events. I love the ease of my iphone camera, but the process of getting photos off my phone is a pain in the rear. Before the iphone, I brought my camera and took photos at all kinds of events. And then I printed them. And then I scrapped them. The reason I don't have photos printed for 2014 and 2015 are because most of them are on my iphone. The bulk (75%) of photos on my computer hard drive from my big camera are of Clara running. Another 10% are art photographs taken for photography classes (like the one up top). That leaves very few DSLR photos of family gatherings, outings, etc. The iphone has definitely changed my memory keeping practices (and not necessarily for the better). This year, I want to take more photographs with my camera (and fewer with the iphone). I know the saying "the best camera is the one you have with you," but all that means is that I need to take a better camera with me.

Thoughts?

Thoughts on Sketching, Scrapbooking and Balancing Creative Endeavors

As part of my one little word for this year ("selfhood"), I'm exploring my various creative endeavors by setting a different creative intention each month and exploring where that bit of creativity fits in my life. In January, I focused on sketching and began to develop a style I liked. Here are my last two January sketches:

In February,I've been keeping up with the sketching, but in a faster and more relaxed style that fits me. Here are two recent examples of what I mean:

I did these two sketches in about 15 minutes while waiting for my daughter to be ready to leave for an appointment. They fulfilled my need for a quick art fix and are the types of things that I can incorporate into my art journals. I think this is where I need to go with my drawing/find arts. I don't think I have the patience or desire to learn how to draw better, paint, etc. As a result, I think I'm going to officially give up on the Studying Under the Masters class which I bought in 2014 and worked about half-way through. It was a good class, but not something which feeds my creative passions at the moment. 
In February, I've started to focus on scrapbooking. I made two huge photobooks at shutterfly for Clara, using her cross country and track photos from last year. I got these done during the 50% off sale on hard cover books. I need to make one more book but want to wait for the next sale. I also updated my Christmas card photo albums and ordered a bunch of current photos to scrap. I'm trying pernsnickety prints for ones taken with my big camera and ordered some iphone prints from shutterfly. I have found that neither the shutterfly nor the persnickety iphone apps work very well - they tend to crash half way through the ordering process. Very, extremely frustrating!  Look for some actual scrapbook pages coming soon. I also need to do some organizing to figure out what other photos I have to be scrapped (either printed already or on my computer hard drive).

I'm also very much enjoying the still life photo class I've been taking. 

Which brings me to the question of balance. I'm trying to figure out to make time for all my various creative pursuits. How do I fit in scrap booking and sketching and photography? Let alone art journaling, card making and the other intentions I have lined up to examine this year? Are you able to balance a variety of creative endeavors? If so, how? Do you do a "fly by the seat of your pants approach?" Or something more structured?

Initial Thoughts on Scrapbooking

This month, I'm focusing on scrapbooking, trying to figure out where it fits in my creative life. I really appreciate all the comments you left about how you are thinking about scrapbooking and memory keeping. I got out a note book and started to jot down some thoughts and to-do lists.

My thoughts drifted to three themes: the old Creative Memories Philosophy "Start Current, Stay Current"; the idea that "Done is better than perfect'"; and the need to get something completed while organizing and figuring out where I stand with my unscrapped photographs. So, I decided to start by scrapping the photographs I received in this year's Christmas cards. I kept the layouts simple. I took a couple 6x6 Christmas paper packs and used them on top of plain card stock to create my back ground pages. I used little cut aparts that were included in the paper packs as my embellishments. I have a sample above.

 I have been scrapping Christmas card photos every year since 2001, and I am up to four albums of photos. I love looking at them each Christmas. I had fallen behind in this project and scrapped about three years worth of photos at a crop earlier this year, so it was nice to get this year's photos done so quickly. 

I also did some clean-up and catch-up in my older Xmas card photo albums. Even though I scrapped three years worth of Xmas card photos earlier this year, I hadn't done the journaling on them. So, I needed to go back and do that. I also had to put some pages back in an earlier album and create the cover of my currrent album (above) because it was a naked cardboard album. I created a Christmassy background using patterned paper and cardstock and then added a variety of hand made Christmas cards and post cards that I have received. I do that sometimes - incorporate the artwork sent by my blog and scrapping friends into my Christmas layouts. I kindof wish I would have painted the album cover edges, but, hey, done is better than perfect!
The other thing I'm working on this weekend is making three very simple photo books at Shutterfly featuring Clara's track and cross country photos from the last three seasons. I'll probably print out some running photos and scrap them on paper, too, but I really want to get the bulk of her photographs printed in a format that she can keep.
I also ordered some photographs from Shutterfly off my iphone of recent events that I can work on scrapping once they arrive. It was a somewhat frustrating process and am looking for alternatives. I also worked (unsuccessfully) on figuring out how to order photos from a new photo lab because I really like higher quality prints of photographs from my big camera. I'd welcome ideas from people in the U.S. about which photo labs they use for higher quality prints and also where you print photos from your iphone.

Setting an Intention for February: Scrapbooking

In January, I spent time on sketching to figure out where it fit in my artistic life. I found that I enjoy it and plan to continue with it. But, quietly, in the background. I also spent a lot of time with photography (especially still life photography) and found that I definitely plan to continue with this in a fairly major way.
In February, I want to focus on scrapbooking: where I am, where I want to be, and how I want to proceed in the future. Scrapbooking (after photography) was my first foray into the world of art and craft. It's faded from my life in the last few years, and I want to figure out where it fits. And this is the month to do that.
Any advice welcome.

One Little Word 2015: Selfhood

{Mandala made with Deb's tutorial}

Selfhood:  the state of being an individual person; individuality.
Each year, for the last several years, I have been following Ali Edwards' practice of choosing a word upon which to focus; a word which could guide me in my journey through the year. My previous words include open (2007); flow (2008); accomplish (2009); horizon (2010); health (2011); home (2012); paramount (2013); and illuminate (2014). 
In thinking about my "one little word" for 2015, I was mindful of the fact that I currently feel like I spend too much time taking care of others and not enough time taking care of myself or feeding my soul. 
More importantly, I realized that I am beginning to resent it. And I hate that. I don't like the feeling of resenting caring for the ones I love most. And I doubt the building resentment escapes their notice, which can't feel good.
I also realized that this much hovering is not good for the ones that I love. It prevents them from developing their own ability to take care of themselves. It might even prevent them from developing and pursuing their own dreams because they feel like they have to pursue the dreams that I have for them instead.
It didn't take much thought for me to realize that this is not their fault or responsibility; it is mine. And so I need to take responsibility to change my behavior. It will make me happier and healthier, and it will be better for them, too.
So, I have chosen the word selfhood, which means the state of being an individual person. Its history includes claiming the right to be considered an individual and the development of your individuality and identity as a person.
At first glance, the word might seem a little selfish, but I know I will still care for my family. I'm not abandoning them. I also know that, out of necessity, I have spent the last few years taking on more care-giving than is healthy for me. And it's time to step back (a little)  and let go (a bit). Finally, I mean my OLW to include my wish that my children develop their own selfhood this year, and I will definitely be there to support and encourage that journey.
So, that's my word for 2015! What do you think? Have you chosen a word? If so, tell me about it or, if you've blogged about it, put a link in comments, and I'll come check it out.