Create Every Day Week 3

Again, life loves to suck time away from my creative allowance. But I did manage to make a couple of cool pieces, both related to a man I admire and love to listen to: Frank Turner. If you don't know his music, and you love intelligent lyrics and good old fashioned rock n' roll with a splash of punk, you really need to check him out.

The first piece is from my Photoshop class. We were supposed to focus on using and manipulating text...so I chose a favorite song lyric, and then just let my muse take over, creating a background for the words.

Isn't he beautiful?

The second "piece" I have to share is a T-shirt I made (no, I do not sew) covered in favorite Frank Turner lyrics, to wear to, you guessed it--a Frank Turner concert this past weekend. This took a couple days to do. The fabric markers did not flow well on fabric, which made it very slow going to write anything legibly. The picture here is the aftermath of the concert, so it's a wrinkled, rock concert mess. 

Front Side

Back side

Yes, Frank Turner's music is an inspiration. Proving that putting creativity and beauty out into the universe is the best way to make sure it grows!

Create Every Day 2017

I need to be creative as much as I need to breathe oxygen. When life gets so busy that I let my creative time get eaten by the stress monster, I begin to feel like I am dying inside. I'm not using hyperbole here. I believe my soul starts to wither if I can't make something that, hopefully, adds some beauty to the universe.

I decided I wanted to challenge myself to create every day; and interestingly enough, so have a number of my artistic friends on Facebook. I guess our world needs as much beauty created as it can get right now.

I tend to work small and fast when I am in my creative mode. My mind begins to race, in a healthy way, and I allow the muses to take flight and guide my hands. It's freeing and restorative, and allows a short window of time that is all about feeding my soul.

This first week of 2017, I played with two mediums. First is alcohol inks. I had taken an alcohol ink mini-course last winter, and love the free and unexpected nature of the medium. They can be a you-know-what to control, but that is what I love. I might start out with an idea when I first drip the inks on the paper, but end up with something completely unexpected. Here are the first few pieces I made, some of which will be used as background for mixed media pieces in the future.

Practice with blending colors and using a felt pad to create texture

More practice creating texture, and trying to create some floral motifs. 

An attempt at a sunset...I like the texture on the beach, but that's about it. 

This started as a landscape-oriented piece, but I extended the path too high on the piece. I ended up rotating the piece and creating a field of flowers instead.

Another piece that started out with a landcape orientation. My idea was to create a Northern Lights effect. It wasn't working, as I wanted, but I kept playing. Then when I rotated the piece, I saw the face profile...do you?

More attempts at an aurora, but using a different technique. I picked contrasting colors on purpose, and have plans for using this in a mixed media piece about dreams.

This was the most recent piece. This one started out completely upside down...and as I played, it turned into more of an alien landscape of cliffs and a gorgeous green sky.

Finally, I am taking a Photoshop class. Here is the piece I like most from this week's assignments. Fun with masking, filters and making composite pieces.

 I plan on playing more with the alcohol inks, and begin to add some techniques using brushes to add details. And who knows what Photoshop assignments might strike my fancy this week? Or I might make some glass beads, or a piece of jewelry? As long as I create every day, the possibilities are endless!

Best use of a new camera...EVER!

Wow, it's been a month since I posted? What the heck have I been doing? Oh, that's right...enjoying my summer! I should warn you know that if you love dogs, you will love this post. If you don't love dogs...what the hell is wrong with you?

Sadly, my old trusty, refurbished, 5 megapixel camera decided to bite the dust recently. I had planned on getting a new camera, just not right now. Being a teacher means being broke the last couple weeks of August and the first week of September, and shelling out a few hundred for a camera right now was not what I had planned for. But the universe doesn't really care what we want, so it killed my camera. Thanks, universe, you're a peach.

Why I am babbling about a camera? Because my new one has a setting where you can take "rapid burst" shots; that is multiple shots of moving objects within a second or so. It's amazing if you have a moving object in front of you. Which I usually do. Enter Zoe, the world's craziest chocolate lab.

So what have I been doing with my new, expensive camera? Taking multiple (OK, hundreds) of pictured of Zoe. she now knows what it is like to be stalked by the paparazzi, though she puts up with it, because the paparazzi also feeds her. Maybe the real paparazzi should take the hint, and start bringing burgers and fries with them as a peace offering when they go on "assignment".

I'll shut up now, and share with you some of the goofier snapshots. I dare you not to smile.

 

 

And Happy Dog is Happy. =)

Fresh, hot crabs & ditching Ellicottville

So my "40 by 40" list is progressing painfully slow. Painfully. Slow. Which is why I started it over two years before I turn 40...because I'm a procrastinator like that. But I have managed to cross a couple off of the list!

Number 8 was to eat fish caught that day from the ocean. Which I kind of did. Only they were crabs...tasty, tasty blue crabs. On vacation in Delaware, I had to opportunity to attack a mound of these babies, twice, with a little help from some friends.

Fresh, hot, crabs...mmmmmm

Eating these crabs was proof that the "food can be fun" experience can still be had when you're an adult. In addition to the crab, I had the best fresh salmon ever, and a fresh cod fillet. Considering I live in Buffalo, NY, I'm a little worried about the fact that fresh fish is hard to come by, and will be forced to resume eating the frozen kind once more.

Another item on the list was Number 9: Visit Ellicottville for the day. I had always heard others speak of Ellicottville as a great place to go have some fun. I drove through Ellicottville recently, on my way to another destination, and frankly, I was unimpressed. So I visited Ellicottville for the 45 seconds it took for me to drive through the main part of town, and I'm declaring that enough. Unless someone wants to show me the other side of Ellicottville, which makes it something special.

Proof you're never too old to act like a giggling 14 year old girl.

I am way behind on my blog here. Waaaaay behind. Sorry about that. I wish I could say my absence was due to the fact that I rescued and rehabilitated a multitude of blind, three-legged puppies, but I was just being lazy. After the school year ended, I didn't want to do anything that required more thought than, say, breathing.

But I have been having fun. I read a post by Johnny B. Truant which simultaneously reminded me that I am but a blip on the screen, and caused me to grow a pair of cojones for once. I may be a blip, but I was going to start doing epic shit.

Enter The Lowest of the Low. I've mentioned them before, when I decided, if I was going to buy a Canadian, it would be Ron Hawkins. They were playing at Buffalo's Thursday in the Square, which was moved to the Central Wharf. That's Buffalo, always changing their minds.

They were freaking awesome.

Nice close up of Ron on the jumbo tron...

After the concert ended, much too early, people slowly filed their way out of the wharf. My friends, Amy and Janine had enjoyed the concert with me, albeit, I don't think either one of them ever gave thought to actually buying Ron Hawkins. But I'm used to be the oddball, and frankly I don't want anyone else getting ideas about buying Ron, because then there would be a bidding war, and I am working with a teacher's salary here, people!

So as we are slowly filing our way out, we see him. Amy and I start giggling like a couple of choir camp nerds running into Josh Grobin at the supermarket. OMG! It's Ron Hawkins! And because we can sometime be really, really lame, we first tried to do the "fake" pic with a celebrity thing. Notice Amy looking suave, trying to appear next to the blob that is Ron Hawkins' head.

Very smooth.

Looking at this pic on my phone, I began to feel disgraced. I was supposed to be doing epic shit. Not lame-ass shit. So I said what the hell...and actually spoke to Ron Hawkins, even if it was just to ask if he would take a pic with two middle-aged broads.

He touched my back, y'all!!!

Thank God we held it together until he was out of earshot, when we began shrieking like a couple of hormonal teenagers. But, we were epic, AND we had photographic evidence. Take that, universe!

The ring that makes me want to puke...

Photo Courtesy of AMagill

America, our priorities are whacked.

I just saw a "news" story that Kim Kardashian is getting engaged. Go Kim. The story was actually more about her engagement ring which costs over $2,000,000!!!!

Yes, folks. Over $2 million dollars. In an age where schools are going without supplies and there are children starving in our own backyard(s) and we are supposed to swallow this without choking? Why don't you rub our faces in the excrement of our pride while you're at it?

You know how long it would take me to afford a $2 million dollar ring, working at my current salary? 40 freaking years!!!

I've been at my job for 11 years already, and it would still take me that long. What do I do? Nothing much. Just a teacher of your children. Nothing worth a basketball player's salary.

Way to go America. If you ask one more time why we can't recruit good teachers to the schools, you can go choke on Kim's ring.

The Zombie Rapture...fun for the whole family

Unless you've been hiding underneath a rock, you've probably heard about two earth-shattering occurrences this week that can help change the face of the world as we know it.

#1) The CDC has finally decided to take the impending Zombie Apocalypse as the serious threat to humanity that it is, and released preparedness guidelines for the imminent attack.

#2) Some geniuses have used new math to figure out that Judgement Day, also known as the "Rapture" is scheduled for tomorrow, May 21st.

Both of these have been revealed to mankind at the same time. Coincidence?

I think not!

Obviously, if you have one ounce of intelligence, you will realize that the so-called "rapture" is the cover for the fact that the Zombie Apocalypse is about to be unleashed upon us. It's coming. Tomorrow, God will come and call home all those who don't have brains. Why? Zombies don't care about people without brains. This leaves all of the rest of us to be prime Zombie bait. Thanks, God. Way to hold a grudge about that stupid apple-thing.

Photo Courtesy of alifeinbits

The Tin Man is a total Dumb Ass. Just saying...

Courtesy of fractured-fairytales

 Man, I thought last weekend sucked.

Thanks for showing me you can always one-up yourself, universe!

I'm sitting here now, wondering what the hell the Tin Man was thinking--he wanted a heart? Really? I'd gladly give him mine right now. Except, I'm busy sweeping up all of the little pieces off the floor (hold me back, I may be going emo).

The human heart is a strange thing, indeed. It's memory is frighteningly short. It regenerates--slower than a freaking snail in molasses. It threatens to usurp your brain at every turn. It's kind of like a kid let loose in a candy shop--it's going to over-indulge, forgetting that too much candy makes you crazy, ignoring the brain's message that you will make yourself barf if you don't stop sucking down the crap, right now!

And so you barf. And then your heart sits there, crying, wondering why something bad happened. Stupid organ.

So back to this idiot Tin Man. The Wizard gives him a freaking clock in the shape of a heart, and he gets all emotional. The thing ticks and he thinks life is good. You know what else ticks? Bombs. Nice one, Mr. Wizard. Give the metrosexual, metal man a heart that you know is only going to explode on the poor sap.

Reasons why this weekend sucks

I think I am declaring this weekend as the suckiest ever for 2011. Why?

1) I actually was sick enough to have a fever. Lovely.

2) Apparently, I am dating someone who is more complicated than the Death Star Lego set.

3) My car has decided it wants a new catalytic converter, no matter what.

4) I was supposed to go see my cousin star in his school musical, until foiled by reason #1.

5) I started #35 on my "40 by 40" list only to fail within 36 hours. Damn you to hell, Diet Wild Cherry Pepsi.

The only thing about this weekend that didn't suck?

The fact that I still have a mom to celebrate Mother's Day with. Happy Mother's Day to all of you moms who let us live to adulthood!

Even your mother was young, once!

No. 35 is in effect by default...

Photo Courtesy of Dottie Mae

Number 35 on my "40 by 40" list is to drink only water for a whole week. This is one of my more health-driven goals, since, even diet drinks are full of crap and chemicals. And homo-sapiens appeared to do pretty well at surviving a few millennia without any G2.

Did I plan on attacking this goal right now? Nope. But I have been slammed with a vicious cold/flu-evil-virus-thing, and water is all I *should* be drinking. So I figure, why not now?

Now I just have to figure out how I can get Ice Capps (if you don't have a Tim Horton's near you, you'll have no idea what I'm talking about) to count as a food, and not a drink!