Eye Contact

dc128: eye contact

Oh Renilde how you paint!! You, the host of the drawing challenge for this week, chose a theme that gets me really excited to see what you have come up with. I can hardly wait to go visit your spot! And to see other offerings from such a great bunch of artist friends...well, this is how I happily spend my time today.

My offering is old because I am too busy lately to do anything new at all. So this is a painting/drawing really, of two souls looking at each other:

Unfinished as it is, my intent was to capture the lines of the woman's face, to mirror the lines (and colour) of the straw in the nest material. I am not sure if they are really looking at each other. It seems they are looking at all of US!

I feel I am not far off from old eyes. Hopefully my lines and wrinkles will speak of life itself. Life lived.

Thanks for popping in today. Drop by Renilde's place and see what she and everybody else is up to! Hope to see you again soon! Hugs, Norma, x

Old Ideas

dc127: daily project So many inspiring and amazing and awesome daily projects are abound these days it is for me, a special treat to view a particular group of these, created by my own special in my heart, artist friends in a drawing challenge group that I am fortunate, embrace me.

Each week a volunteer wears the hat of 'host' and chooses a theme for us to explore. At weeks' end [Saturday/Sunday] those who are playing along, do a post on their blog to show what they have created/drawn/photographed/sculpted/written/etc. Here is my offering for this challenge. It is my daily project, long forgotten and abandoned and gathering dust in a corner of my studio. I found it a few days ago.

So I wrote a book it turns out. A chapter book apparently. I'd been doing an exercise from the book The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. I was writing what I called 'the morning pages' every single morning first thing with my first cup of coffee in tow. There was a stack of blank pages and plenty of pencils/pens and more cups of coffee. The idea is to write. Doesn't matter what. Just put pen to paper, and GO! Well it took about three days for me to start writing something that revealed itself to me as the words appeared on the paper. I could not stop. I went for hours at a time, and continued writing as the idea grew. In the end I'd written what I knew to be a children's book but did not know that it was in fact, a chapter book. A librarian/teacher of elementary school friend of mine, told me of this when she read it. At the time I had ideas for this world I'd created on paper, the ideas continued inside of my head. I began sketching and planning out the illustrations for the world I had created. It will be forever LIVE in my memory. Then I abandoned it as life slowly took over, and my chapter book fantasy world came to rest on the shelf and eventually get dispersed and lost in the studio somewhere. Until two days ago when I came across a sketch book filled with ideas.

So here's my contribution. Pidge is a mail delivery pigeon who came to live in a forest edge settlement called The Fairyhedgepig Kingdom run by his daughter who was The Fairyhedgepig Queen. Pidge started a post office in the upper story of a two-story house built at the bottom of a rather large tree which had been abandoned. A cafe called The Blue Willow was situated at the end of Pidge's street under a willow by the stream. This settlement is populated by a hoard of interesting and different 'folk' fairy characters and I won't bore you with the details of the story, but here are some visuals that are a part of it.

From the 'inaugural' opening of Pidge's post office design for the postal cancellation registration, we learn that the book was written in 2005.

Here are some postage stamp ideas. I particularly like the 'Valentine Fairy Hedgepig' stamp and would be using that if I were to post a letter in the FHK itself.

Here are some chapter headings ideas.

Here is a pane of 4 postage stamps featuring a bat but I don't recall his name. His hero it is noted, however, is Batman. The stamps come in denominations of 5 cents, and 3,2 and 1, respectively. There's a drawing sketch of him wearing a beanie hat with one of those propellers on top and the initial "B" also, but the sketch is too faint to photograph well.

I also see a notation in the margins about a bee family called "The Zee"s and headed by a matriarch grandmother named Bea who lives with her grandson named Billy Bob. Bea Zee is quite the gal, it is said.

Well I will leave you here. Hope you had fun with a small visit to The Fairy Hedgepig Kingdom, fondly known as the FHK inside of my imagination.

Who was our host today? Oh she is quite the gal herself. Stefanie! It is such a treat to see what she is up to. Pop by to her spot and see yourself! There you will also be linked to all of the others playing along this week in the drawing challenge.

Thanks for dropping by today and I hope to see you again soon! Hugs, Norma, x

All You Have to do is Ask!

Drawing Challenge [n.126] Invite with the theme CRYSTAL

The Story of the Green Crystal.

Last week around the time of the full moon on this planet of ours, I felt a strong urge to find and purchase a crystal. I have a fairly large piece of clear quartz with spikes coming out in all directions and I love it. Many years ago my neighbour gave it to me when she moved away. I quite like this piece and decided it was time to have another crystal in my life. I've been lately reading a book called "The Illustrated Guide to Crystals" so have learned that there are quite a few different types and that each has a healing power. It is fascinating to me.

Anyway, I needed salsa and was headed out to buy some, along with chips to go with, but as I walked along the street, my urge to find and purchase a crystal became so strong that I switched directions completely to go to the second hand store. I thought that perhaps I'd pick up the salsa on the way back (the way back means backtracking in the opposite direction for a mile and a half. In the end I never did go get the salsa.) I didn't exactly ask the universe for a crystal. You know, like say: "Universe, please put a crystal in my path today" or anything specific. I am a believer that the universe brings you what you need, and that asking is beneficial. I have faith in other words. But the day of the crystal, I didn't. I just had a strong almost determined urge to find and purchase one. So here's the point to my whole story. I did find a crystal and purchase it. The point is, is that the universe is listening.

Here's the funny part. Humour. It must be a 'Buddha laughing' kind of thing or something, but in dreams, or in waking moments when the universe helps out, communication is in the individual's native tongue and it is literal. The literal is where humour happens. The universe [call it what you may...divine intelligence, karma, gosh fill in the blank here] communicates with you in a literal way. And the translation by the universe [divine intelligence] is clever and funny and awesome. So you do get what you ask for even if it is not what you could ever have actually imagined. When I was thinking about a crystal I thought maybe I'd find a single little spike of a crystal in a necklace, or perhaps a gem stone of some sort, or a decoration on something that was a little crystal charm hanging off of say, a used daybook or planner. I thought maybe I'd rip the charm off and use the crystal part. So I got to the store and looked for not really a long time, but had to kind of fight panic and disappointment that maybe I would not find one. I made myself keep looking in the section I was in. It was a whole wall of things hanging in bags. I'd long passed the specific section on the wall where it would be more likely to find one, but pushed myself to complete the wall even though I could clearly see that all that was there was kitchen gadgets [egg flippers, etc.] and as I was maybe 2 feet away from the end, there hanging all by itself in a bag with every kitchen gadget you can think of was this:

A large green crystal that is man made of green glass and cut probably by a man made machine that cuts glass. I didn't even know that such things are made in this world. It is not from the earth, not formed by nature, not imbued with the healing properties that I was keen to learn about, but it is a crystal nonetheless, and I believe the universe provided it for me, or pushed me to find it. When I got home, I started to read about the colour green. I ignore green. But not any more. Maybe I need some green light in my life.

So there is the theme for the week, folks. I'd love to hear of your 'ask and it shall be given' stories, or anything to do with crystals really. Drawing, painting, sculpting, writing, collage, photographing, experiences...imagination is welcome here. If you wish to join in, just leave a comment below and I'll start a players list. Next weekend, January 25/26, post your offering on your blog, and we'll all have a visit.

THE PLAYERS: Cindi, Barbara, Sus, Renilde, Tania, Patrice, Kristen, Tammie Lee, Ariane,

 Thanks for dropping by today. See you soon! *smiles* Norma, x

Owl numen in a little book

dc125: Numen

Numen is the idea for the drawing challenge this week. Hosted by Tammie Lee; she chose this wonderful theme for us all to experience. I hope you have as much fun viewing what I made as I did making it. It took me two seconds to come up with this idea for my contribution to this challenge because I didn't think that numen could be expressed in any form other than a 'feeling' of something tangible (or intangible come to it) and so I chose owls to show the feeling around them. One thin dime has been placed beside the book to show its small size [when closed, a bit smaller than 1.5 inches X 1.5 inches.] The cover is suede in a nice medium brown and the 'bead' closure is a chip of citrine which has been tumbled. The colours remind me of morning sunlight on a branch in the forest. Perhaps one that an owl spent the night on. The binding is sewn in a natural fibre (linen I think) in a long stitch. What dreams do you have? What fears do you have? If we learn behaviors germane to OWL, we can learn how to perceive differently, quietly, patiently, discreetly, with different senses [perhaps with our sixth sense,] with intuition, by listening differently.

Perhaps we can learn that not all we fear needs fearing. And that not all dreams are impossible. Thank you for dropping in today, and please have a look at Tammie Lee's blog to be linked to all those who are joining in for this week's drawing challenge. Best to you all, hugs, Norma, xo

Smiling eyes looking at you!

2014 Greetings

A new start to a new year gets me in the cleaning spirit. That's what I've been up to these days, and I have been thinking of you all. Here's looking at you kid(s.) I came across a watercolour from a series that I did years ago when I first picked up a watercolour brush to try to do some serious learning. Who knows how much learning I did, but I sure had fun doing them, and still love trying to learn the technique of watercolour.

Thank you for dropping in today. For me, it's back to cleaning! Hope to see you again soon, hugs, Norma, x

Happy Holidays everyone!

One bird gets a plaster coat

DC124Garland cont'd. 

So I gave one of the birds a coat of plaster (not the easiest thing I've ever done, even though I've been working with plaster for years and years). I've never been so hands on and as usual want things to be perfect. This is as smooth a coat as I could get, seeing as the plaster dries lightning fast. In the end he looks sort of rustic and I don't mind the roughness.

He is posing in front of a tree here, looking dapper in his hat, I think. My daughter is going to fall in love with him instantly when I show her later today so I'll be giving him as is, to her. I will work on another bird with giving it a coat of plaster and then applying a layer of paper strips in a papier mache fashion. That is my plan anyway. As this bird stands, he is pretty much like I saw in the magazine spread a few days ago. I'll keep you posted. See you soon, I hope, hugs, Norma, x