Merry Christmas!

 

I Wish You All of the Blessings of this Christmas Season

 

 

and

 

 

And an ART FULL New Year!

Mish mash and cold weather........

We have had five days of temps below freezing......this is Oregon, for heaven's sake.  Someone posted a map on Facebook that showed it was colder in Oregon than in Alaska, must be global warming!

In any case, Captain Jack Sparrow's Mom still walked him everyday even if it did take as long to get dressed for the cold as it did to walk around the park!  Jack had to wear his coat, Jack does not like having that thing put on him........

Is that a heartbreaking look or what?  As soon as he out the door....he forgets the humiliation his human has placed upon him and runs through the park without a care, coat tails flapping in the wind!

The cold has kept us pretty close to home and has been an opportunity to do a little Christmas decorating........I do mean little.  Our tree is very small but I like it.

I love my '40s hat tree topper and the angels that I bought years ago.

Also, I've had some time for art.  I signed up for Teesha Moores's new Artstronaut's Club and have found myself inspired and greatly influenced by their work.  This was her husband, Tracey's, suggestion and that was drawing a shape and then when ever time permits, filling in around it.  I started with the fish and I'm doodling my way around the page.

 

Now that is some journaling fun!  I have about six or seven Tombow pens that I don't use them very often but this has been a way to experiment with them and with some fine tipped colored pens that I  have.

I've been playing with it for a couple days and I'm still not finished but I'm doing another similar page, for sure, when I finish this one.

Hope you are keeping warm and enjoying you holiday season!

 

Drawing practice........

My grandson who turns eighteen in  a few days, pictured here with his cousins, is a pretty good artist.  Of course, I'm encouraging him to stay interested and practice. 

When they were here on Thanksgiving, we had a brief lesson in blind contour drawing....which he thought was fun and did well.

This was his drawing of the table after his "warm up" piece, the drawing  of the vase on the left.

This is Grandma's drawing.....the scribbles on the side were done while I was waiting for GS to finish his drawing.  They look amazingly similar, don't they?

Here is what we drew.  Some of you may not know what "blind contour drawing" is, so I'll try to describe.  It is drawing an object's outline/contours while not looking at the piece of paper you are drawing on......keeping your eyes on the object you are drawing while moving the pencil on the paper.  Got that?  Not sure I do......but it is a fun exercise in slowing down and looking at what you are drawing.

So, while in the drawing mode I found this old water soluble pencil among my drawing tools and drew this.

Last night, I drew this handsome fellow from a magazine photo.

Here's hoping you have some time, during this busy season, to enjoy your artfulness!

Day after or "leftovers" day.......

Our day after Thanksgiving started cold and frosty.....

Looks like snow but it is just fog and frost.....so I took my time, this morning, reading the paper and drinking my coffee while sitting in front of the warm fire in the fireplace. 

What I love most about Thanksgiving are the leftovers.....you with me?  I remember, several years back, on the day after Thanksgiving I had to go off to work (that is life in the newspaper business) and my four teenage children picked the turkey clean.  By the time I got home there was no  cold turkey sandwich for Mom......really I've never forgotten or forgiven!!  Well, I have sort of......there are some years, now, when I forget to remind them!  Holidays are all about the memories.

Speaking of memories......I've wrapped up the "Gratitude Journal" and it will soon be wrapped and under the tree. 

I put prompts on some pages...........

 

 

And some pages I left open for the recipient to write their own meaningful thoughts and/or experience. 

 

 

 

Finally, I thought I would share this little idea with you.  Some of you know that I have a new Gelli Printing Plate that I've been having a great time with and I've made a BUNCH of prints.....some good, some not so much!  But, I've figured out one way to use up a few.......

 

 



 

I typed out this quote that I really like, cut and pasted it four times on one page.  Then I ran the Gelli prints through the printer so the quote would print on the unpainted side, cut them into lengths and I've stitched each one with a "red line of thread".  I'm giving them to friends instead of Christmas cards this year.

Enjoy your weekend.....hope you are staying warm, as there are parts of the country where it is much colder and much more miserable than it is on the west coast.  So stay safe!

They grow olives in Oregon?

You bet they do!  Surprisingly, there are several farms in Oregon that are, now, growing olives and pressing their own oil.

Saturday, Hubby and I traveled to Dayton, Oregon with our son and his wife and one of our granddaughters to visit Oregon Olive Mill at Red Ridge Farms. 

In Oregon we have five mountain days, where the sky is so clear you see all five of the volcanos that surround the Willamette Valley and Saturday was one of those days and this was our view from the farm.

 In this photo you can see the rows of grapevines in the foreground.  This part of Oregon is, also, rivaling California in grape growing and wine producing.

Over to the right, you get a glimpse of our iconic, Mt. Hood in the distance.

Later, inside, we tasted three different olive oils and celebrated "Olio Nuovo".  The celebration of the first pressing of the olives.

Granddaughter Staci trying her first oil........yum-m-m-m!

Some of the goodies that were for sale.  We bought olive oil gifts for our special friends and ourselves, of course!  Great day in a beautiful setting.

Meanwhile, back to the "Gratitude" journal!  Another couple pages wrapped up.

Now, is the perfect time to remind ourselves of all the wonderful things we have to be grateful for.  Here's hoping your Thanksgiving is full of love and family and great food.

Warm heart, cold feet........

Baby, it is COLD outside......atleast for my part of the world.  The Pacific Northwest is having a rare cold spell, no snow, just low temps into the teens.  On the up side, the sun is shining brightly!

I'm still working on my "gratitude" book.  I was making it for a Christmas gift......it is getting harder and harder to part with it.  We'll see what happens when the time comes.

I'll show you a couple pages......

 

 

I guess this page is self explanatory.....get up, put your shoes on and "start each day with a grateful heart"!  I see the need to squeeze an "e" into grateful!  Darn, just noticed that.  It's O.K., I'll fix it.

 

On the opposing page, I'm going to suggest the recipient write, under the flap, about someone who has had a positive influence on them. 

 

 

Aren't we all grateful for desserts?  I know I am.......

 

 

 

 

 



Enough said!!!

Triple chain stitch.......

Have my book bound!  Made some mistakes since this was first time doing this binding stitch, Triple Chain Stitch, but is was easy and fast and I love the finished product.

I used the covers from a herb book and some paper/fabric for the spine and 4-ply waxed linen thread for stitching this cool design!

A peek of the cover above and the inside papers below!

The inside pages are mono prints I made on my Gelli printing plate.  I will be adding some lettering and collage....then I will have one Christmas present finished!

OOOps!  Almost forgot to give credit where credit is due.....Mary Ann Moss taught me the triple chain stitch in her on-line class, Full Tilt Boogie.  Thanks, Mary Ann, I like this stitch!

I'm Gellin'.........

I'm Gellin' and bookmaking!  Yep, putting some of my mono prints made on my Gelli Printing Plate to use by making them into a book.

 

 

I've printed the pages and added some embellishments, now I need to bind it all together.

 

 

 Off to construct the cover!  Thanks for stopping by and have a great weekend.

 

 



What an inspiring day!

Today, Hubby and I took a little trip to Salem, Oregon the Capital of Oregon and home of the Hallie Ford Museum of Art.  The museum is located on the campus of Willamette University the oldest, and first, university in Oregon.

We are so fortunate to live close to the Hallie Ford because for a "smallish" town, like Salem, this is a first class art museum.

Our mission was to see the current show "Breath of Heaven, Breath of Earth: Ancient Near Eastern Art from American Collections".  This show contains 64 object on loan from some of the most distinguished public and private collections throughout the United States.  Most of these items were unearth in the area between the Tigras and Euphrates Rivers by archeologist in the late 18th Century.

Photos were not allowed....but I did take one photo before I saw the sign, ooops!

The little fellow below is referred to as a "Foundation figure", he is a God and holds a peg that would be placed, like a cornerstone, in the corner of the building.  Found in what is now Iraq around 2090 BCE,  yes, two thousand years "Before Christ" or "Before Common Era".

This little Foundation Peg was only about 6" high with amazing detail.  This pieces was made with the "lost wax" technique and cast in bronze, I would guess.  He looks pretty good for being 4000 years old, doesn't he.

Since I couldn't take photos, I tried my hand a quick sketches....not great, but fun attempts.

This horse is a Relief Fragment from 668-627 BCE, the detail on this carving is amazing, but then, so is the harness with a bell on it and, what to me looked like, a tassel hanging from the reins. 

A Mastiff like statue from the Old Babylonian Period, 19 Century BCE.  This little guy was about 6 to 8 inches tall carved stone. 

Some of the pieces in this show are up to 8,000 years old!  Difficult to wrap my brain around since the amount of sophistication represented in each piece is so much more than I could have ever imagined.

As if this were not enough, in the museums upstairs gallery we discovered mono prints made on the Umatilla Reservation by Native artisans at The Crow's Shadow Institute.

The exhibition highlights 27 contemporary prints, created by 14 Native American artists including work by Rick Bartow and James Lavadour.  I love printmaking and these were so exciting and inspiring to see!

Wait!  There's more......another museum room features more Native American art including these paintings, quilts and baskets.

What a delicious day!  So much pure inspiration in one delightful place.

Play time.....

Been playing a lot lately.....with stamp carving:

I carved a new feather stamp and tried it out on white paper with and without a red circle, then experimented on a piece of toned paper.

Then I played with my Gelli plate......practicing mono printing:

Fun to experiment with hand cut stencils and try to design something interesting.

Then I combined collage and a mono print with a couple different hand carved stamp........

Over the weekend the sun came out and I took my camera for a walk in the park and happily discovered these little beauties............

.......mushrooms in the grass gave me some great design inspiration....stay tuned, we'll see where they lead.

I do enjoy my creative play time!  Hope you had some play time this week, too.