Saturday, February 24, 2024

Fun With Journaling

 I am posting today for a couple of reasons...one, I am behind in posts again (oh no).   AND I would like to post some of my favorite books about journaling for a presentation here in Madison in March so the class can just come here for the resources.  

So let's begin with the books.  All of these are available although I will mention that two are out of print and you have to buy used. 

Here is the list of fun book resources for journaling:

1. How to Make a Journal Your Life by d. price

2. Art Before Breakfast by Danny Gregory

3. How to Draw without Talent by Danny Gregory

4. Draw Your Day by Samantha Dion Baker

5. The Complete Decorated Journal by Gwen Diehn now out of print but available used for about $7.50 including shipping

6. An Illustrated Life by Danny Gregory

7. A Life in Hand by Hannah Hinchman (1999 available still...roughly $15 for a used copy.  This book is, I think, considered a sort of "journalist's bible".  Hannah is sort of the founder of modern journaling. Note Danny Gregory reviews this book here.  You might actually find this even better than getting the book!  I believe it's a two part video if you want to watch both.  

I'll finish the blog today with a few photos of some of the Zentangle® valentines I used to inspire the classes I taught here at Oakwood in February.  Here are 3 I created for my great grandchildren!


And here are a few more assorted ones to inspire my class.







Monday, December 25, 2023

A Long Time Coming: Christmas Day 2023

  

 So now here I am writing on Christmas Day afternoon.  A little spot fell into my time frame between events where I suddenly thought of all the photos I've been dropping into the "blog file" as time as gone. My goodness but it's been a LONG time since I pulled up my blog.  You surely have thought I'd given it up.  But no...I just needed a break for awhile. The big decision now is just what is important to share.  

I'll start from now and work backwards a bit...here is my family (missing 5 people) but that is pretty darn amazing to get THAT many in one place!  Held here at Oakwood on Dec 9.  Some of my blog followers already saw this picture.  But I just had to share it again. 



My last blog post was spring and summer so I pretty much slipped over autumn.  I'll just drop two little sketches here about autumn...a little sketch walking in the prairie here at Oakwood and then under the lovely Sycamore Tree next to our apartment. It was a nice autumn...not as bright as some in the past but still pretty.  We left the cabin a bit early this year--September 8--although others followed and used the cabin up to the closing in early October. 



  



And a small sketch done in late October at my step daughter's home in Poynette, WI.  One of the last days of autumn...80 degrees and this was overlooking their pretty pond.  We were enjoy watching Oliver, our great grandson (almost two) play in the leaves.  

Oliver will have a baby sister in May.  Our 4th great grandchild!

I had an 84th birthday in early November...the 4 Old Fashions were not all for me!  "Likely story" says friend, Deb.  

A farewell card for a church member
on hospice who loved labyrinths...it's a finger labyrinth.  Folks signed their names.

Below are examples of some of the 
Zentangles™ from the Project Pack #22 
offered just before Christmas.  
I'm hoping to teach another class here at Oakwood in January.  




My mini journals really suffered this year.  Most of these pages I complete take about a month or two...but this page took a whole year to complete. I guess I sort of took breaks from a lot of things this year. I have promised to do better on the next one.  



Julie and I had fun playing with a different kind of wonky house in watercolor and ink.  It was awhile ago...I may have posted this before?


I'll let our other two great grandchildren sign off for me.
Viggo 4 and Violet 5 (she just lost her first tooth two days ago).
They now live in Michigan so a little closer than CA!  


I wish you all a New Year filled with hope and courage.  Filled with rest and walks in forest, time for old friends, good books and creativity.  Here's to 2024. 









 


 

 



Monday, September 11, 2023

A Summary of Spring and Summer thoughts...

 





So summer came and went with alacrity this year...streaming by in a myriad of images from here in Madison to up north at the cabin. Back and forth.  This year we went with a 3-4 week on and off plan.  The idea being not to have to pack and unpack so often which for two old folks is arduous.  

Weather in Madison was on the average this summer was dry and quite hot.  Weather in Lac du Flambeau was on average cold, dark, and rainy.  So both had their ups and downs.  

So to simply highlight our happiest days...my sister's visit in May as she was making her way across country was splendid and so wonderful.  Then in June the visit of our granddaughter, Maddy,and her entire family was amazing. Getting to meet Maddy's fiancĂ© AND our two beautiful great grandchildren.  What a special time.  


So summer "up north" was totally full of joyous community and family gatherings.  4th of July was a local potluck of lake folks.  Great to see everyone!  

In between family gatherings I tried to keep a little sketching going.
I found the name of the clouds to be amusing as they sounded like perhaps a bad chest cold?  When they gather in the north like this it is time to be watchful.  

Beth made the trip all the way from Rochester Hills, Michigan by car this summer to the cabin for a sister duo with Julie!  Greg's son Mark and his big family came and my son Rick and his darling family came.  Katy and Chris came as a sister duo and we loved that!  Julie and her husband came.  What a treat. They all spoiled us so!  

I found a wee amount of time to keep up with sketching some  botanicals around the cabin although I found that walking too far along the verges was harder for me this year.




We returned to Madison on Friday the 8th of September.  The summer warmth will linger awhile in Madison..as autumn generally comes on slowly and with sweet colors.  Then suddenly as October approaches it will rain and the colors will slide away from us offering us the always bleakness but coziness of November.  We are already beginning to think of the holidays in general terms.  With a large family one has to plan ahead! 
 
Art wise Julie and I have a few Zentangle® "gigs" in the works.  I am helping here at Oakwood to plan a new Art library which should be fun.  Choir at church starts this week AND a new Oakwood choral group is beginning here which should be joyful.   

I brought back a lot of old paintings stored at the cabin that "never made the cut" and so am thinking of collage and gift card making with those this winter.  I am sure I'll start up some beginning Zentangle classes here at Oakwood and need to look over the calendar for that. 

In the spring I did part of the project pack for Zentangle.  I'll drop a few of those in so you can just see a sample.   It was an odd project which was designed to get one to look at familiar zentangles in the sense of possible botanical implications.  Here's an example.  The format was unusual to say the least but I enjoyed the challenge of making "make believe" plants.  Complete nonsense, of course, but a way to push your ideas into a project that most of us wouldn't have dreamed of.  I got five of the 8 done before we went up north but hope to get back and finish the rest this fall.  


 

Wishing you a good autumn.  And GO Packers! 









Tuesday, June 6, 2023

Entering the Good Old Summertime

 "Way beyond pretty pictures, cool techniques, gripping stories, or fancy footwork, artists make art that’s worth spending time with because it makes us feel like we are not alone in the universe.....but you do need to be authentic and unafraid. Art is the opportunity to share yourself. Seize it." Danny Gregory





Suddenly it's June and I haven't posted since April.  Cliches about time flying come to mind but I promised myself not to say that.  Instead I'll note that life has been and continues to be full of surprises and most of them are pretty okay.  

Above and below are a few of the 2" Bijou tiles in the latest project pact from Zentangle HQ.  All in all they posted 21 videos of various prompts.  I only missed one.   Black, white, and translucent tiles.  Quite fun and enjoyable.  They are meant to be put into mosaics.  



While I am writing this on June 6 here in Madison we are getting a little rain storm.  I do hope it lasts a bit as the lawns here are going yellow and brown and my daughter's garden is suffering and I am sure the farmers are worried about corn and soybeans and hay too.  

Up north for our recent 10 day stay to open the cabin...we had high danger warnings for fire. No campfires allowed.  The mosquitoes were swarming so much that most of my sketches were done indoors.  




I've been able to do a few sketches here at Oakwood this spring..this one in May near a lovely Fountain Pond on the east side of the Oaks. 
The blossoms were falling fast and floating in the pond like confetti from a celebration.  


We have a busy month planned for June here in Madison with farmer's markets and garage sales and art shows and outdoor music concerts.  We will return to the cabin just before the 4th of July and stay about 3 and half weeks. 

Wishing you all a good, safe, and creative summer.





Tuesday, April 18, 2023

April Thoughts

 Graduation

By Ginny Stiles


To graduate is to arrange in a series or according to a scale.

“The stones were graduated in height from the lowest near the entrance to the tallest opposite.”


The longer I live the more I think of time as a spiral and not a straight line.  Every ending opens a door to a new beginning.  In this way we “graduate” all the time, minute by minute and year by year, experience by experience.


The spiral starts out tight and small and “graduates” outward as time spins on.  At least my spiral does.  I could see that some folks might see it the opposite, getting smaller and tighter as they age.  Dark hole style.


But my spiral is headed for the stars.  As the serendipity of life is arranged through both my choices and my chances…through luck and planning, through the best and worse…the spaces get wider and you see farther.  There are more “thin” places in the spiral where you can see beyond your spiral…just every so often.


We gather a little star dust along the way and when the spiral gets wide enough…and you get to the end…it will feel like home.




A little birthday card painting for my grandson Patrick's 17th birthday. 

Watercolor and Gouache





The Wonky House project was part of a Sketchbook online challenge series this spring.  (Ink, watercolor, white pen, white gouache)




Ginny teaching Zentangle last week  out a Prairie Ridge on the East Side of Madison.



My sister and I had 5 days to enjoy each other's company here in Madison and now she's off to new adventures in California.











 





Tuesday, March 28, 2023

The Easter Season


The end of March draws near.  It's truly been a month that I have almost lost in terms of time.  I've done many things...we've been busy and not a month where I noticed many spare moments although I am sure there were.  

Spring fever hit me hard in mid-March.  A few 40-50 degree days slipped in, the time on the clocks moved forward, the vernal equinox that celebrates the season slipped in, and the local Farmer's Market sent their start date in April... but outside things looked VERY wintery in Madison for most of the month!  Last Saturday we had 12" of snow! We NEED spring and it's almost painful.  Under the snow, Julie's snowdrops and crocus are poking up.  Or they were when we could see them!  And I have seen my first robin!  

On the 18th of March the Urban Sketch group went down to sketch in the capitol dome here in Madison.  Oh my it was a blustery wintery day! It was fine inside the dome but getting there was a very cold walk.

I've been obsessed with Zentangle® during these inside days...teaching an advanced class we call the "Zentangle Club".  They have been doing a great job... First project we worked on a "Zendala". These two  on top were the way it looked to start and then my finished sample.  The 3 on the bottom were my "variations on the finished piece".  


The students really worked hard on theirs and they turned out quite well I thought. Even though we all the did the same tangle they all turned out differently but then that's the fun.  


So now we are working on "part II" to finish up in late April.  We are working on a "Wonky Village".  The second one is my sample in ink and colored pencil that I am working along with them.  The top one is as far as I got in the first day of instruction.  Neither are completed yet so you'll have to wait to later in April to see how they all turn out!  



Lastly I've been working along with the Project Pack #20 online in Zentangle and Day 6 turned out well.  This is done on a gray Zendala tile using ink and while charcoal.  


Heading right up to Easter now and the choir at church is practicing like crazy as we sing Palm Sunday, Good Friday and Easter!! Family will be here for Easter Brunch and we all have our finger's crossed that the sunshine and spring like weather will arrive in time!  

Blessings for this Easter Season.




Monday, February 6, 2023

February: A Time to Dream



“Teach the children… Stand them in the stream, head them upstream, rejoice as they learn to love this green space they live in, its sticks and leaves and then the silent, beautiful blossoms.”
— Mary Oliver

Here is is the 6th of February and I've not posted for a long time. The holidays have come and gone with all their family and friends and joyful celebrations.  The New Year has begun in all it's complexity and bewilderment...all it's wars, earthquakes and gun violence. We have to fight to keep the balance.  I've started a Tai Chi class.  Lots of gentle movements, breathing, and contemplation.  My Zentangle® brings me healing.  I share that with others.  I led a lovely class last week.  

This month, for a time, I've lost myself in thinking about the outdoor world lying still and silent now under deep snow here in Wisconsin. I walk gingerly over ice and snow and think of the world..mostly silent and sleeping in the woods.  There is great beauty in the frosted branches and the long long icicles.   

The owls are about...I see sparrows on the branches of my Sycamore Tree.  But mostly we are lost still to the signs that spring is ahead.  Yet we still we plan for Ash Wednesday and dream of Easter on April 9.  It's only two months.  So the "green space" Mary Olivers writes of above will come again.  We have set the up north cabin calendar in motion among the family members.

It's a good month to dream of the 9 acres woods here at University Woods.  The robins will be back next month.  They always come. I so enjoyed putting together a little nature library sign for the book corner by the entrance to the woods.  

I loved thinking of each bit the woods I cherish here..the trillium, the Sycamore tree, the oaks, the Lady Slipper and the Bluebells, the hickory and the robins.  And then lastly the turkey feather.  We have an absurdly funky flock of them that think they own the 9 acres.  We have to get permission from them to walk there (well at certain times of year).  There were so many things there wasn't room for...the owls...beautiful.  All the song birds...many many wild flowers.  The list is endless.  We dream of spring now.  












 

Thursday, December 15, 2022

Closing the Year with Thoughts of Art and the Cosmos


One day last month friends here at Oakwood had  a "Paint Like Klimt" afternoon.  A crazy group decided to look at some of Gustav's work and enjoy it and talk about gold leaf...which he used extensively in his work... and which doesn't photograph very well (by the way). Art therapist, Jennifer, brought in some "fake" but very realistic gold leaf and we talked about using it in a little painting to try it out.  Klimt loved to paint women so I just sketched a make-believe one and looking at his many patterns (which you surely know I loved) I threw them recklessly all over her kimono and did a lot of crazy background patterns.  Then I glued on gold leaf which you cannot even see on this photo.  Many of the small black areas are in fact gold.  The medium otherwise is watercolor and ink.  8 x 10.  

 

This is just a quick little line sketch done in early November that I happened to come across that I'd forgotten to post.  I'm in the process of sketching around my apartment home this winter.  I LOVE looking back at my in-home sketches from Florida.  Just LOVE.  They bring me right back to the spots I enjoyed.  So I am doing the same here.




The window in the sketch looks a bit different from the way it looked then, as it is now in mid-December filled with the lovely snow out on our Sycamore.  The holidays are in full swing here now in Wisconsin.  The snow comes and goes.  So you never really know if it will be a white Christmas.  But if we have a little snow to remember, it'll be fine.  



My friend Lisa recently sent me her collection of all the old Christmas cards that I had hand painted over the years.  I had forgotten that I did that many!!  I wish it were not SO expensive now to do this.  Even the postage is up to 55 cents each!  I did love doing them.  The cabin in winter card painting is framed and hanging the wall here in Madison.  And I wish I could find the original of the birch tree shadows on snow at the bottom left...it was the view out our window at 7 mile house. 

The dining room table scene is from 7 mile house...just before all the children arrived to have one of those memorable big family Christmases that you think will last forever...and come to find out they don't.  Time moves on.   

Looking at it, though, I can bring back that moment...the sun slanting through the dining room window.  All the grandchildren (12 of them) were so young...many still babes in arms.  A real fire in the fireplace crackling, hot rum drinks, games and presents, wet mittens, and so much food.  Looking at all these cards just brings back so many happy memories.  

I wish you all a hopeful, gentle and sweet Christmas.  I know it's just not like that every year.  There are so many losses and so many changes.  The Christmas cards and email greetings this year were fewer because of that. And old friends and family now live on in our memories.  

Our church here in Madison is focusing on the stars this year...somewhat based on photos from the James Webb telescope to inspire us!  Every song the choir sings has a star theme or a night sky theme.  Every sermon refers to our cosmic connection to the universe.



This has inspired me to do my own personal time line interpretation with a kind of "cosmic" background in many kinds of watercolor.  The center being a sort of black hole looking back a those who came before me.  Then the dots (starlike) on the spiral are events in my life...you know them well from your own time line...births and graduations and losses and joys and the memorable events. 

Now as I approach the outward spiral of my life the events are closer and closer together just before I spiral off the time line back into the star dust of the universe.  The events are closer together because now I know that EVERY event and happening in the moments of my life are an "event" worth remembering.  

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!  



Thursday, December 1, 2022

The Sycamore Tree Part II








The Sycamore Tree Series continues.  
These three will close out the series for the year 2022. The month of November in Wisconsin was filled with highly diverse weather...for the most part much warmer here than normal...barely light jacket weather many days including the day (Nov 2) when I did this sketch above.  And took many photos.  I sat directly under the tree and sketched en plein air for this one.  People dropping by to look over my shoulder and we visited about the tree, about sketching, and about life in general.  This is one of those plus things for outdoor sketching. And it's probably the last outdoor sketch day for many months.  But I took a lot of photos.  




This sketch above was done indoors but directly looking at the tree out our window (and some of the photos I took on November 16).  That day was our first very wet and beautiful snow fall in Madison.  The snow lasted about a week before disappearing.  These branches are highly visible from our window in Sycamore Tree House on 4th floor facing east.  I used toned paper, and graphite tinted watercolors in muted tones for the branch itself.  Then added white acrylic ink for the snow itself.  I shadowed the snow with cobalt blue Daniel Smith watercolor.  I always love how the seed balls on the tree get a snow cap that look for all the world like a child with a white hat. I've had several folks suggest it would make a nice Christmas card.  We've not had any real snow since then but pretty cold temperatures in the teens and single digits at night now.  

 

This last sketch done Nov 29 is from a photo taken back in early November sitting outside and looking straight up at the amazingly strange bark of the Sycamore.  The bark falls off as the tree expands...usually this happens in the late summer.  Big chunks of bark fall off and surround the base of tree.  The "patchwork" of texture left on some parts of the tree is smooth and in other places hugely textured and unusual.  Again I tried out the Derwent Graphitint Paint Pan set.  The colors are subtle and grainy.  They lean toward pinks, greens, golds and grays.  I think they will be nice for painting rocks too.  

Painting in a series has some interesting challenges.  I've kept the task to just this one amazing tree for now.  Looking at it from different angles, using different seasons and using different media.

There's been a lot of interest in it  among the residents of University Woods because it stands close to where some de-construction will soon take place.  The tree has been here a long time.  It's an unusual tree...probably the only Sycamore on the property and also it's unusual to see one this far north.  

Monday, October 24, 2022

The Sycamore Tree


And yet I know that hope is not a default, it is a choice, it is daily intention and action. 

Writing a better story is not a given, it is an intention,

 it is how we lean into the next great turning.

Carrie Newcomer



The Sycamore Tree to the east of our apartment in Oakwood University Woods is something of a "symbol" of the connection to nature that our community is committed to.  Although the campus contains 9 acres of oaks woodland forest through which we all love to amble regularly in all seasons of the year...this lone tree sits by itself as a sort of "welcome place holder" to the entry way to that area.  It is not brightly colored in fall...but it turns lovely subtle combination of gold, yellow, burnt sienna, and raw sienna each October.   The branches appear mottled colors of olive, browns, and grays.  Hanging from the branches in profusion are the seed pods of the tree (often called a Buttonwood Tree because of the pods).  They are perfectly round soft brown balls about the size of a ping pong ball.  The pods remain on the tree year round...dropping during the spring and summer as new pods appear so that the tree is never without them.  In winter, as you'll soon see, the tree looks as if it's been decorated with them.  Each pod snowcapped.  

Those of us who live in the Oaks at one end of the campus and especially those of us facing east...have come to embrace the tree as a an old friend.  Indeed in our apartment on the 4th floor it almost completely fills the entire window giving our apartment the name "The Sycamore Tree House".  Indeed we feel that we are nestled up in the branches.  When we have a stiff wind we almost get sea sick from the illusion of being tossed about!  

I've challenged myself to sketch the tree in various seasons and in various mediums this year.  (An early resolution).  Above is watercolor and ink.  Below is multi media crayon, ink, watercolor pencil, on toned paper.  



 

Saturday, October 15, 2022

Tangling Time this Fall

 

October and it's time for INKTOBER.

It is supposed to be done one day at a time through October.  But since I had Covid in September I finished it that month!  11 x 15



Here I am at Olbrich Gardens last weekend teaching 15 people how to Zentangle®.
They have a good set up there.  The only issue was the sound system was not working well.  
But we got through it.  



A dozen of the participants were brave enough to put their tiles up for a photo. I was very proud of their work.