Focusing on Life: Feel the Love

Yeah...I was thinking that "feeling the love" would involve people of some sort, but I think it's more about capturing how much fun I had with my friends at the Norfolk Botanical Gardens last weekend.  This is my favorite shot of the day.  The little sign near it said that it's witchhazel.  I've never seen anything like it before and when I think of witchhazel I think of Tucks medicated pads and then I just laugh and laugh.

So, I took along three friends who weren't really into "photowalk" mode, but they were great sports.  Then, I was a little surprised and really thrilled when they all pulled out their "little" cameras and phones and started playing when we went into the tropical plant house.  We ended up in there for about an hour and all had sooooo much fun exploring camera and filter features.  It was awesome!

I got a shutterfly coupon in the mail this week and decided to order a copy of this one.  Can't wait to see what it looks like live!

There are lots of photographer/bloggers out there sharing love this week...

Focusing on Life: Capture a Heart

Sally tells us this week to take notice of all the hearts that end up in life everyday.  I looked past just the shape and thought about "hearts" and came up with a couple of things...

It's the driver of a healthy body.  A racing heart and a sweaty forehead actually feel good.  Sure, it's probably just the endorphins making me feel that way, but it still counts!

It's the passion behind doing what you love.  My friend and trainer, Andi, is following her passion to help people and grow a business.

It all came together on Thursday morning at 0700 when she had me squatting across a room and doing all kinds of things that make it hurt when I laugh the next day.  My heart was racing as I jumped up and down while she yelled at me...well, she actually just encourages me firmly and makes me laugh.  She had me rolling in sweat in the first 15 minutes of our workout.

So, that's us, sweaty and pretty in the gym!  
Our hearts' efforts on display.  :)

Focusing on Life: Create. Art.

Two little words.  Create.  Art

This week, Week 4 of focusing on life, those words meant friends, paints, papers, messes, gelatin plates, acrylics, lace, stencils, brayers, more papers, wine, color, experiments, tools, sharing, rearranging, layering, scissors, smocks, and most important, JOY.

My one piece to share this week is a collage of a few of the 102 papers I printed last weekend with my dear friends Carol and Bette.  I met these likeminded ladies through various workshops, including Art & Soul, over the last couple of years.  They're just a small bit of the wonderful people I've met through art, and I love spending time with them since it's so non-day-job-bureaucracy.  It's totally recharging.

I invited myself to Carol's house for a road trip weekend and loved spending time with her and her sweet doll husband, Steve.  He lets me come back even though every time I show up the entire townhouse gets rearranged into a creative "enclave" and there's no room for much of anything else.  We had to eat our rib dinner on our laps because there was too much action on the dining room table to clear it off for a meal.  haaaaaaaaa  Plus, he has his own creative bent with a wood shop in the basement and I always leave with wonderful hand-turned treats.  

Anyway, Carol and I spent about 10 hours standing around that table trying out something new (to us): Gelli plates.  Bette joined us on Sunday and we wiled away the afternoon trying new techniques to monoprint using acrylics on this gelatin-sort-of plate.  I'd never heard of it before, but was, of course, thrilled to go out and buy some more art supplies.  Bette's a paper master, so she brought her collection of stencils with her.  It was like having a personal artist's supply shop right there since she has hundreds of them.  No joke.  

Another key activity of the weekend involved Carol's blog...she's up and running at Carol DeeZigns and has a post with more details about our weekend's "business."  

With aching backs from standing so long, we were able to look back over our weekend thrilled with all our new, cool papers and excited about printing some more...oh, and about buying more stencils and paints and such, because you can't start a new craft without using it as excuse to buy things!  haaaaaaaaaaaaa  So, even as I play with my papers, or play with my pictures of those papers, and shop for new toys to make more, I think of the JOY we felt all weekend and can only smile.  :)

Focusing on Life: 15 Minutes...or more

I have a lot of free time.  I never really thought about it until I got challenged by Sally this week to take some time for myself and just chill.  Uh.  I do that everyday.  Heck, last weekend, I had a full day of nothing.  Through the course of the week, I was conscious of how much time I spend alone and, while chatting with the cat, I figured out that I'm probably a bit unique. Maybe I need to get the hell out of the house and do something.  Maybe I need to volunteer somewhere.  Hmmm.  Maybe I need to move!  We shall see...

I did, though, try a little something new this week to get my solo groove on.  I started on a big art journal.  Those flippin' prismacolor nupastels are now one of my favorite things ever.  I haven't really ventured out of a monochromatic schemes so far, but my new 96-color pack allows for lots of rich mixes.

So, playing by myself was my fun chill time of the week.  I can't wait to keep on filling this book with experiments and color and fun and gripes and laughs.  For now, I need to get on the road for a crafty weekend in Maryland. Whooo hooooo!!!

Etching, Sanding, Cutting, Stamping

I finally hooked up my flexshaft so I had to do some metalworking.  It was the perfect date activity, believe it or not.  I convinced the guy I went out with that we'd work with tons of metal and tools and he totally bought into it!  I had him cutting copper pipe into little bits while I went to town sanding, filing, shaping, and hammering. 

We played around for a few hours with these little rings.  I showed off all my different texture hammers and then I showed him how I would anneal a little piece to keep shaping it.  Boys like fire, so that went over well.

We also played chemist in the kitchen with some PCB etchant.  I did some stamping and the finished pieces came out really cool!  I haven't finished them up yet, though, so no final reveals to show off.

While cleaning off my stamps I ended up with this little paper towel that kinda summed up the fun we had....

Focusing on Life: Fresh

Fresh is the word that's going to drive me through 2013.
Fresh is how I'm going to wake up and look at each day and each opportunity
Fresh is the joy I'm going to look for in things that seem rote and boring and old and tired.
Fresh is my outlook on frustrations.
Fresh is my view of crafting and creating and challenging myself to try.
Fresh is how I'll savor the little things like a new tube of mascara or a perfectly salted pistachio.
Fresh will get me to take a deep breath and stop on the way to work on the King Street Bridge on Langley to take a picture when the water is so smooth, there's a duck-looking bird eating fish, and the cars are honking hello.  (I was late for work, but it was worth it.)

So, that's it. Fresh.  That's my word.  

There are others out there sharing their words today...

I Faced the Blank Paper....

...and I didn't back down!   

I've been wanting to "doodle" in a productive, meaningful way for a while.  But, it's a little intimidating.  I bought myself a new book, Doodles Unleashed by Traci Bautista.  I liked the bright colors and text when I was wandering around Amazon.  I spent Sunday afternoon thumbing through and thinking.  Then, I used the book as an excuse to buy some new markers and paper.  (Because 48 paper pads on my dresser aren't enough, apparently.)

Using Traci's book for inspiration, I wanted to think about layers and color.  So, for tonight's projects I used some waterbrushes.  They're a really cool combo of brush and water container all in one that I heard about at an art journaling get together.  (I used Niji brushpens that I got on Amazon.)  I used them with some Prismacolor nupastels and colored my heart out.  I'm thrilled with the way the colors mixed and the pens were super-easy to use.  I'm going to layer on some other colors, textures and whathaveyou, but that's for another evening.  For now I'm going to eat some of my ma's manicotti.  I love raiding my parents' freezer!