Random Thoughts: March 29 through April 4, 2015

March 29:

Palm Sunday, what a beautiful day.  It has been pretty warm here in the Valley, in the Low 90's for over week.  Spent the day working on my Sketchbook project, need to have it post marked by 3-31-2015.  Beginning to doubt it I will make it, there is a lot to do and think about. I chose the topic "Iconology" last year when I signed up.  What was I thinking?  It was hard to make the theme flow.  I think I have it now and I just have to get busy and finish.

March 30:

Busy day, helped to make sandwiches for the homeless and then a marathon sprint to the finish to get my Sketchbook project done.  Boy, sweat is flying everywhere.  Pulled out the 6x6 Gelli Plate and made some backgrounds.  It was my first time using and it was fun.  Papers are everywhere, I feel like a mad scientist.

March 31:

Oh my Lord!!!!!!  8:30 am and the book is done.  I really like it, it is a combination of drawing, tracing, stencil work, rubber-stamping, and making marks with stamps I made using sticky back foam.  I never dreamed that I would be using stamps I made, but it is true my friends.  I put a blob of paint on a page and looked for an image in it.  What fun.

Cover of Sketchbook 2015

First page, image of African Doodle

The above printout is an image found and copied from the Internet

Black Madonna Icon and opening overview

The Black Madonna with Child Icon was very popular in Europe and Africa.  This is a copy from the internet,

The following photos are hand drawn and/or traced from African pattern book.

Icons made on Gelli Plate and printed on paper

April 1:

The remainder of the book includes one traced page (the masks directly below)  and the rest of the pages are hand drawn Icons based on images found in African pattern books and on-line images, stencils, paint blobs and wash tape.  I wanted to try and see if I could draw the images and it appears that I can. This was so fun to do.

Continuation of Sketchbook

Gelli Plate images hand drawn

Icons are from Patti Tolley-Parrish stencil, pictographs

I made the images on the right with rubber stamps that I made using Sticky back foam

Gelli Print with stencil and quirky animal made from putting a blob of ink on the page and  drawing what I say

Another Blog Animal and Washi tape flowers

April 2:

I in a quandry.  I need to start working on my two art projects for the week and I an not really feeling them.  I am not going to try and figure out why, I am just going to roll with it and try to come up with something that soothes me in the process.  I really want to learn how to journal and express my feelings through art.  That takes digging deep within and I have been pretty resistant to doing that work.  Hmmm, this should prove interesting.

April 3:

I realized this morning that I am different.  Now this is not necessarily bad, just an observation.  I love art and love painting and drawing.  I love sharing with others and I feel that I have gotten away from my core, making cards.  I really wanted to learn (way back in 2010) how to make my cards little pieces of art, and instead I have pretty much abandoned what a love for the sake of "learning to be and artist".  You know, this is really quite interesting.  I am participating in National Letter writing month and it is fun.  I have a pen pal to write to along with a few friends that I will send cards.

So for the rest of this month, inbetween on line class assignments, I am going to create some cards and see how it goes.  Watch this space.

April 4:

Minimal Art done, I have just been too busy with church projects and duties.  Who knows what next week will bring, but now I have to play catchup which probably will not begin until Monday.  Oh, and I am still not feeling this week's art projects.  Oh well....watch this space.

Summary:

This was a very interesting and busy week.  Holy Week can be that way.  Monday and Tuesday were spent completing my Sketchbook project (procrastination at it's finest) and then the rest of the week was devoted to church. All positive and all good for my spirit.

Until next week........stay cool......pilgrim