January Art

Yes, you have definitely seen many of these entries before...I sort of  got to Florida and started dragging my feet on my weekly entries here...but I am getting warmed back up now.  The last 4 or 5 are new now.  

I have had the "itch" to work on Yupo plastic substrates again...it's been a long time.  I really had to work at getting back into this way of working again...the tools are different and the whole attitude is different.  This is just the first draft and with Yupo you can redraft limitlessly.  

The 16 x 20 is based on a photo by Russ Lewis from earlier this winter along the river here at Hawthorne.  It is very "interpreted" of course.  And looking at the photo has given me lots of help in seeing what needs fixing, shaping, and changing.  I'll post it again in the future.  (You won't be surprised I am painting trees.)

When I Am Among the Trees

by Mary Oliver

When I am among the trees,

especially the willows and the honey locust,

equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,

they give off such hints of gladness.

I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself,

in which I have goodness, and discernment,

and never hurry through the world

but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves

and call out, “Stay awhile.”

The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say,

“and you too have come

into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled

with light, and to shine.”

Trees

Since my serendipitous meeting up with trees lately...it certainly seems that trees are in my life everywhere I turn. 

So when I found this video on my Face Book page I was totally not surprised. 

You may have already seen it.
Just passing it along.

Getting the art genes warmed up again...

I've been off the blog for a little while...life happens.  Nothing special, just distracted with mostly good things.  

I get a little inspirational "tip" from Sketchbook Skool on Tuesdays and the tip yesterday was to "DRAW something".  Anything for 10 minutes. Whatever is in front of you.  Just do it. 

So while Greg was getting his hair cut yesterday I began just a line drawing of the various things in the room...folded chairs and bins and hair cutting supplies.  (about 15 minutes actually).  My gosh it felt so good to be drawing again.  Like taking a shower after you have been required not to while something was healing.  Ya know?  AHHHHH.   

So then I went back and watched the TED talk about the value of drawing...I mean really how drawing can change your life.  Have you seen it?  About 18 minutes long so it's a commitment but I really think the guy has the right idea here.  It's like therapy and it can change your view of the world.  No matter how poorly or wonderfully you draw.  Those of you who get my monthly CHAT newsletters already have this link.  

So then I got busy and finished up a small "crafty" project that was in the studio.  I had watched Bob Burridge play in his studio on a video recently and he "freshened" up his old painting smocks by taping off a square, applying white gesso and then when dry just used anything he wanted to have fun playing with acrylics.  Total play.

I have accumulated several old aprons through the past years...and being fairly messy when I paint they were looking fairly yucky.  The two green ones were former aprons from our old church which had our names on them and the name of the church (which I painted over).  One I had to Zentangle®, of course. On that one I used an oil based paint pen. I shaded using Ecoline grey water based brush pens so  I did give that one a quick couple of coats of clear acrylic varnish just to maybe give it a little longer work life.  Wearable art.  Just fun.  

Here's a quick sketch done at the model train show up in Deland, FL last Saturday. It's really hard to find a place to sit down in a show like this.  Greg is off to see everything and after half an hour that's enough for me.  This was a Lionel layout where the folks who set it up had the kindness to put out some folding chairs.  

We are having a string of amazingly warm days in central Florida...with highs in the mid 80s.  January is NOT usually that warm down here so we are happily at the pool or outside in the yard as much as possible.  Looking like snow up in the Northwoods of Wisconsin where our summer cabin is located and low temps at night in the minus figures.  This is the place to be!  

A little train and a few Wonkies

Trains plays a role in my life, as you may note, since hubby is a big train buff.  The Folkston Funnel Train Watching station is in GA.

It just happened to be on the route back from SC after Christmas.

Funny how that worked out.

We bought a picnic lunch to eat there and did get to see two trains pass by at the same time each going the opposite direction on separate tracks, thank heavens.  The graffiti was amazing.  

Across the street from the picnic area was an old yellow caboose from the Chessie System.  (Chessie is a cat).  Apparently you can visit the car and see the inside but we didn't have time this trip.  

The signature symbol of the Chessie System was its "Ches-C", a large emblem incorporating the outline of the C&O's famous "Chessie" the kitten logo. The Ches-C was emblazoned on the front of all Chessie System locomotives, and also served as the "C" in "Chessie System" on the locomotive's flanks, and on other rolling stock. The Chessie System itself did not own any locomotives or other rolling stock; rather, equipment would be placed on the roster of one of the three component railroads. While all three companies shared a common paint scheme of yellow, vermillion, and blue, actual ownership of the equipment was denoted by the reporting marks C&O, B&O, or WM.

We didn't stay too long watching...it was our 3rd time to visit Folkston Funnel.  

On a completely DIFFERENT note...my Zentangle Reunion will take place tomorrow afternoon at the Hawthorne Park Art room here in Leesburg.  We'll be making those crazy Wonky Houses that Margaret Bremner got us started on quite some time ago.  (I've posted those already) There are 21 people signed up for the class.  So friend Maureen is co-teaching with me.  She has done a lot of the prep work for it too!  Thank you Maureen!  

Along with the houses I am giving every student the traceable figure of a Wonkie who lives in the Wonky Houses.  They are an optional fun tangling project.  My idea is that we'll bring our houses and Wonkies back together again for a show and tell at the March 1 Art show...and have a display table of all the houses.  These will look fun scattered among the houses.  

The beauty of trees...

Thoughts again today on serendipity and my ongoing life...

Trees...you know how they have quite been almost obsessive in my thinking lately.  They and the subject of serenity and time.

It's really not difficult to see how all these topics can swim together in the same pond.  

But sometimes I wind up taking a short breath...ahhh...oh my.
An "oh my" breath.  

Reading the Overstory (I am almost done) and The Hidden Life of Trees: What they Feel and how they Communicate.

And then Julie gifted me with books on Serendipity and Time.  

Maria Popova wrote in her blog today about reflections on her year..."patterns emerge--strong women's voices, the healing power of nature, poetry, kindness, unselfish love, friendship, solitude and" (here's where I link in) "and lots and lots and lots of trees--how they illuminate things that help me, and perhaps you, survive.  Thrive, even."  

There they are again!  Just about everywhere.  Ah. Oh my.  

You may have already read about my stop in Georgia recently when we pulled over for a cup of coffee.  While I stood in line the oriental gentlemen (in his 70s maybe) ahead of me fingered a quarter with obvious interest perhaps checking the date.  "Is it valuable?" I asked him.  He smiled broadly.  "No, not this one."  After a brief pause he turned to me "but you know what IS valuable?  Trees.  We are cutting far too many down and not replanting enough." He paused, "I plant a lot of trees".   I stood speechless. 

Surely some tree paintings are in my future for 2020.

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve at my sister's church in Charlotte, NC.  What a lovely evening.  It started with a delicious home made chili supper with all the trimmings.  Yum.  Then the service that was filled with magical music including violins, harps, guitars, piano and organ.  

Stars hung from the ceiling over the altar and the candles shone brightly in the dark as we sang Silent Night.  It always make me teary eyed...another Christmas.  They are always in my heart.  

"Take Christmas home with you" said Pastor Nancy.  I promise.

I did this little sketch in about 15 minutes during the message and then added the color later.  

The harps played...

Christmas Blessings

20 minutes sketch at Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Savannah, GA on Dec 23rd.  It was raining that day (all day).  But inside the cathedral it was ethereal.  This angel caught my eye.  

The Overstory

In her Christmas card, my friend Sharon Feathers included a sprig of northern White Cedar.  The sprig was loose in the card so I decided to give it a little friendly "framing" on this card using  a little Zentangle.  (Hubby will get this card for his birthday next Thursday).  

Incidentally I checked the name of the sprig by taking a photo of it with iNaturalist, an app that another friend, Jim Killian, showed me this fall.  I have fallen in love with this app.  Thank you Jim!!!

About two summers ago I fell in love with a little book called The Hidden Life of Trees.  I know I blogged about that at the time.  And then just this fall I heard Richard Powers being interviewed on PBS about his book The Overstory.  I knew I had to read it.  Trees again.

This is a Pulitzer Prize winning book.  I am about 1/3 of the way through it...and I was reading it this afternoon when Autumn sent me this photo from her hike through a nearby park.  Nice old oak with branches covered with "Resurrection Fern".  

There is some serious serendipity going on around here!  
And I highly recommend the book!

There must be some trees waiting to be sketched out there, don't you think?  

We leave tomorrow for Savannah (in the rain unfortunately) and it appears we'll have rain the whole time we are there.  Headed then to my sister's in SC and she does NOT have rain.  Christmas Day will be around 66 there.  Not too bad.   

We will be back again next weekend.  Just a short trip.
Merry Christmas everyone!

Thoughts on the upcoming Solstice Dec 21

Thoughts on the Solstice this Sat..Dec 21..

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives,” Annie Dillard wrote....It may be an elemental feature of our condition that the more scarce something is, the more precious it becomes. Just as the shortness of life calls....for filling each year with breadths of experience, so the shortness of the day calls for the fulness of each hour, each moment. No day concentrates and consecrates its elementary particles of time more powerfully than the shortest day of the year. With our awareness pointed to its brevity by ancient rites and modern calendars alike...something rapturous happens — a kind of portal into heightened presence opens up as every minute ticks with a supra-consciousness of its passage, pulsates with an extra fulness of being, while at the same time attuning us to the cyclical seasonality of time, reminding us of the cycles of life and death." Maria Popova

One way to slow things down is to meditate...and I do believe that Zentangle is "yoga for the brain".  Remembering to breathe.

Here's another not yet finished.  The emphasis for the Christmas season among the CZTs is tangling on toned paper (gray this time) with blue white and gold.  

Sketching also slows time down.  At this season all art and music slows life into bits that take on beauty and meaning.  

Creating Time

"...But if you do want to shed that unsettling feeling on a Sunday evening that the weekend has whizzed by, there is something you can do: constantly seek out new experiences. Take up new activities at weekends and visit new places, rather than heading for the same pub or cinema. All this fun means the time will fly in the moment – but because you will lay down more memories, when you get to Monday morning, the weekend will have felt long."

Continuing with my joint quest for creating more time (with my daughter Julie) I send you a quote from Claudia Hammond.  Author of Time Warped: Unlocking the Secrets of Time Perception.  Julie found this perfect article to share with me.  

She continues...
"Some routine, of course, is unavoidable. But if you can create a life which feels both novel and entertaining in the present, the weeks and years will feel long in retrospect. Even varying your route to work can make a difference. The more memories you can create for yourself in everyday life, the longer your life will feel when you look back."

Time in a Box

So I've switched from an envelope holding "time ideas and thoughts" to a little box.  With a little "time keeper" on the front.  

And below are my "littles" slowly progressing through the fall months into winter.  In January it will a year since I started them.  I slowed down after I left the cabin in October...but hope to get into the routine again.  Because I think this record is a celebration of all those memories I am collecting as well.  

I hope your holidays are going well..we are starting to hear from old friends through emails and cards now and it's such a pleasure...and a way to remember again all the great times.  

On Autumn's Porch

Autumn made us a lovely tea with cookies that afternoon and we had a good visit.  It had been too long!  

I started the pencil work on this sketch while I waited for tea to brew and then took a photo and finished it at home.  This is my
 9 x 12 Strathmore Visual Journal and Lamy pen.  

Autumn is not sure what the flowers are...she got them from her mom.  They are just a flaming orange red...I hope we can figure out what they are.  I could not get my iNaturalist app to work that afternoon.  (Since fixed it.) You then take a photo of a plant and it will find the name for you!  

We talked a lot about my "time" travels through the book I've recently been discussing and we both talked about how we are preparing to face our futures and how we try to live our days.
We updated each other on our families and talked about her alligator on the shore of the river. OH my he is huge! 

(It's funny, with the date stamp I use...I something think as I reset it for the current day, that the particular date I am setting won't ever come around again.  Ever.  Not in my lifetime and not in anyone's life time.  It sort of makes the day seem a bit more important.) 

Maureen and I are finishing up the preparations for the Zentangle reunion to be held January 8.  It's so nice to have someone to share the class with!  

This is the format we plan to use but people are free to change things up both in the design and the tangles as they wish.
I have not watercolored mine yet.  5 x 7.

Remaining intellectually youthful...

So the book is Creating Time: Using Creativity to Reinvent the Clock and Reclaim Your Life by Marney K. Makridakis. 

My daughter, Julie, and I are challenging each other to read this book together and then do "some" of the artistic suggestions or some spin off of them in order to explore time.  

The first chapter is a background exploration of how time is perceived.  

I underlined a few quotes from the first chapter: 

"In fact, the true 'present' is so brief that it can't even be perceived". and 

"Leonardo da Vinci said, 'the water you touch in a river is the last of that which has passed, and the first of that which is coming.  Thus it is with time present."

Then she talks about the different ways we define time in linear continuums...

• The scientific: order to disorder
• The linear: past, present, future
• The narrative: beginning, middle, end
• The perception: slow to fast
• The aging: young to old

And then as a nice contrast to that, how we think of time qualitatively in non linear time...

• bad time to good time
• comic time to serious
• orderly to chaotic
• conscious to subconscious
• quiet to loud
• static to kinetic
• bland to stimulating

So the questions that we are asked to answer in our first assignment are ones like...

1. If you had more time how might your life be different?
2. Do you wear a watch?  Why or why not?
3. What was "time" like in your home growing up? What beliefs did your parents have about time?
4. What drew you to this book?

(There are actually 13 in this first set.). Then we put them in our "time box".  But I've chosen to put mine in a "time envelope".  Who needs another box???

So as a note at the end here...I opened the Nov/Dec issue of Saturday Evening Post today and the article I read first is "The Quiet Diet" by Cable Neuhaus about the value of Quiet Time.  I quote: "Mice, when exposed to two hours of silence every day, developed new cells in the region of the brain that controls memory, emotion and learning." It discusses the troubling results of "noise pollution" and suggests by "carving out a quiet interlude every day, meditators remain intellectually youthful longer." 

So Zentangle® and art in general can promote wellness...I knew it all along.  Tune in for more on my quest for creating quality time.  And I'll keep this article in my "time envelope".  

Wonky House Project for Advanced Zentangle Class

Zentangle is in the air around here this week.

Following my class last week, I decided that I'd try a Zentangle reunion for some of the people who have already taken the beginner Zentangle class here at Hawthorne.  There are tons of them from over the years.  
So I set a date in January (plenty of plan and advertising time).
And then set about to look at the Wonky House plan that I did some years ago.  

Talked it over with fellow tangler, Maureen, and then decided that a simple 5 x 7 would be better...smaller and easier to frame.  

This was one format I dreamed up...
It is done on canvas because I am going to use it as a door prize for the Art lunch in January.  Drawing on canvas is not for the faint heart.  Yikes.  I will spray the final piece with 3 coats of clear acrylic.  

Then this is another possible choice.  I think this is the one I am going to use.  The students will work on paper, of course...not canvas.  

This version is fun but a little complicated for a class.  So while I had fun with it and I'll bring it as an example I think the second version will be easier for students.  Special thanks to Maureen so said she'd lend a hand getting the materials ready.  

I haven't finished this one yet...but you can see it's a little less complicated...I think.  People can pick and choose what they want to do.  I am trying to keep the tangles a little less complicated and not do the background sky.  Students will get a black and white version to take home...they can color as they wish.  

November 20 Zentangle® Class at Hawthorne Park

A quite nice afternoon from 1:30 to 4 pm in the Fine Arts Room at Hawthorne Park...a great group of gals.  Here Maureen is doing a demo for the group.  There is a rumor that we'll be meeting again in January for a lesson on Zentangle Wonky Houses!  More fun in store!  

Life in Florida in mid November

A little fun at Hawthorne Park this morning with friend Linda Heller who was there to be interviewed for Fine Arts!  Her paintings hung behind her and we chatted and then looked at her art enjoying her techniques. The show runs about 20-30 minutes.  I do this once a month.  

Playing around a little with a technique in Zentangle® called "cartouche".  Now in fact the history of a "real" cartouche is quite a different story.  If you look it up...an ancient piece of art originally and sometimes on a tomb.  But the idea is that it "enclosed" or "frames" something important.  So this is a sort of "take off" of the word meaning drawing something that encloses something else. 

This is a real key glued to the center. People often do this with a photograph in the center and then frame it, or a favorite spoon, or some small flat object such as an old brooch.  This is just an experiment but it is rather fun.  I may add some color to it later.  

I've been totally remiss on my "littles" lately...so much going on here in the park and lots of personal projects and getting up to speed on my projects.   But I am trying to get back on track again.  (You will note I was gifted with a new iPhone for my birthday this fall.). It's taking an inordinate amount of time to "get up to speed" on it, but should be less so as time goes on.  

First Florida group sketching for the season for me!

What a lovely morning for sketching last Thursday.  What a funny name for an organic farm.  (But we did meet the "dirty dog").  A young couple run the place.  And such a lot of work.  They are in Fruitland Park, actually, even though if you look them up it says Leesburg.  About a 20 minute drive for me.  Felt good to be out sketching again.
Hoping the gang will get together again soon.

Weather has cooled a tad since we arrived on the 23rd of October but it has REALLY cooled off in the midwest.  Temps in the single digits around the Chicago area!  Wow.  Setting lots of cold and snow records WAY before Thanksgiving!    We are in mid 70s mostly this week.  Hoping we see some 80s again soon.  

A Day at a the Model Train Show

 The Ocala, Florida model Train Show was last Saturday.  
A lovely day for a drive.  It's about an hour north of Leesburg.

 Hubby loves these shows...and swap meets. There are usually a few layouts running which is always fun for me to see. 

After I had made the rounds, then I settled down near Bill (in hat) who is from Savannah and brought his running HO scale layout (that, he says, folds up and slides under your bed.). Impressive.

Bill had a great hat and a wonderful chair that I could use to sit in!  He gave me a nice little book about all the scales of the model trains.  

Out to lunch on the way home.  

Inktober 28, 29, 30, 31. The End. OR...rather the beginning of something new...

Well, Well, Who, Luke, Nik, Florz

Happy Halloween Everyone!

I'll have a photo of my whole Inktober Accordion book 

(when I find it). the problem is I have not yet unpacked my up north art stuff...sitting all around me in bags.  

I've decided a fall cleaning in this studio is called for. WHAT was I thinking.  Washing windows and vacuuming behind things and even putting out stuff I plan to sell or give away.  Oh my.  More to follow then.  

Inktober 25, 26, 27

Tripoli, Ratoon, Crescent Moon

The month long challenge for Inktober is drawing to a close now. 
I can't ever remember a faster one!  But then I was covering a lot of ground during this time!  Just 4 more days!  

The dust has settled "a little" here in Florida.  We are sort of unpacked and gradually getting back to some sort of normal...the month of November always is filled with our first medical check ups of the winter season...dentists, doctors, vision, etc.  Oil changes, and fall house cleaning which mostly entails clutter cleaning for me.  And trying to figure out what kind of schedule and activities will motivate me this year.  

I've signed up for a CZT Zentangle workshop on Nov 11 and am thinking about taking Maureen up on her challenge to try chair yoga this fall.  It starts tomorrow morning.  I need some more organized physical activity.  They focus on stretching and balance.

I'll let you know how that goes.
My studio has NOT been unpacked...not one single thing...so that lies ahead.  

Inktober 22, 23 and 24

Abundies, Pixioze, Baton

Oops...a day late.  

But I feel forgiven as we just got to Florida home after a long long last 3 driving days.  

I love all of these tangles. 

Maureen and I have been having discussions about the simple versus the more complicated tangles.  And we agree that simples best because you can do so much more creative tangling with them.

Gorgeous days here...sunny and 83 to 85 and so green.  

Happy to be home and will need about two weeks to adjust.