Folds

DC151: Folds

It's been way too long since I've visited you and boy have I missed you all. So, I'm jumping in here with my offering to the drawing challenge this week, hosted by a wonderful art friend, Carole Reid. She chose the theme folds and I do not have time to do anything new right now, but am showing a couple of photos that have a folded area somewhere. He has a ruffle of folded tissue on his hat.

Here is a handsome fella that I made in 2007 and I cannot change the settings for flickr. as the 'staff' have decided that the public should not be able to search for it. I don't know what to do. So for now, here's the link: https://www.flickr.com/photos/19394614@N00/399490728/in/photostream/

And another shot of his handsome self: https://www.flickr.com/photos/19394614@N00/399490726/in/photostream/

 Blowing kisses...Norma, x

Is there a bird in there?

So far we have wire, paper and butcher's tape. Tomorrow I'll add more paper and some wet papier mache strips to see if I can further define the bird if it is there. We will have to see! And, I hope to see you again tomorrow. Night for now, Norma, x

Be Protected of the Gods

We're nearing the end of one period of time and just about to enter a new period. I've been thinking of beginnings and how a different or 'new' attitude to a same thing, a thing known, can transform it into a new thing, a thing unknown. Like a new period of time, or a new life in fact.

This post inspired me very much this day and so I found myself digging out an egg I'd made years ago from papier mache (I made the mold from plaster of paris from a hand sculpted egg shape) and painted with a coating of gesso and then splattered with a toothbrush with acrylics in lilac, pale and dark brown and a whisper of grey. I'd applied lettering in a phrase in french which I've long forgotten the meaning of and so when I went to google for translation it gave me this: "Be protected of the Gods." So I'm going with that.


May all of you have a pretty fantastic New Years' celebration however you do it. Be safe. Be loved. See you in the new year!

Bird Angels and Submarines and the full moon...

I was just out looking at the moon and enjoying the beauty and wonder of it and remembering magic and how somehow it seems that the moon and magic are tied together and I don't know how this is but it just seems like it is. So here's the magic part. About three weeks ago I passed up a book, a funny little book that I would never in one thousand years find myself interested in. Nonetheless I noticed it right away in the stacks of hundreds and hundreds of spines at my local thrift store, and found myself leafing through it. I couldn't put it down. I did this twice during two different visits. You know, if I was paying attention I should have known that this was an important book for me. But it is so out of character (subject wise) that I just didn't know what to do so I put it back. And then went looking for it the next time I was there and it was gone and I've been chastising myself for not buying it ever since. This went on for days. I even go back still to that same rack hoping for a miracle. Nope, somebody else got it. Dang. I had no choice but to let it go, forget about it and move on. So today, a full moon day, a day of magic, I'm enticed to walk two miles to a second hand book store (different from the thrift store) and you know what's coming, right? Right. This book store is undescribeable. I was there only yesterday when I combed the stacks. There was absolutely no reason for me to go there today. You cannot imagine the mess the books are in. It's one long wall in a dimly lit back room and say 30 feet long of floor to ceiling books that are in no order and shoved in sideways, etc. The draw is that all books are either one dollar for anything paperbacked and two dollars for anything hardcover. Obviously I have scored major finds in that back room. But anyway, today I waltzed in there just to have a peek at goodness knows what and the book jumped out at me in under a minute at eye level in the very first shelf I looked at. The book! It was the book! I grabbed it, pressed it to my heart and immediately went to the checkout as obviously that was the sole reason for my going in there, of walking two miles to go to a bookstore I'd just been in the day before. This time...the third time I held the book in my hands, I bought it. What is the book? SUBMARINES OF THE WORLD a fully illustrated with superb side-view artwork of the vessels and weapons. I don't even know what to say. Only that I am not into war machines let alone boats of any description. My muse is up to something. This book was very important to her (I think my muse is female [but now that I think of it maybe it's male].) So now the muse is happy and who knows how it will appear in my work. It'll be as much a surprise to me as anyone. But the point of the whole story is that this little bit of magic (my finding the book in the way I did) happened on this full moon day.
So in the spirit of magic, I dug out an old photo of a little papier mache beauty I made years ago and who does much magic herself. She is a bird angel and her job is to help sick or wounded or dying birds in garden areas of the city and to find their family and bring them back together. This doll was a prototype and her woolen dress has been attacked my moths and her papier mache parts have been eaten by mice and so she is looking very very bedraggled. But she is a cutie hey?
Well, happy full moon day to everyone! Actually, it is night here now. Make a wish!!