#30 Perversity & Completion

Yesterday as I was finishing up #29 I was suddenly flooded with profound ennui. Done. I felt sooooo completely and utterly done with this challenge...on freakin' day number 29!!!

I just had to laugh at myself.

I am that way.

I buck at bonds and bristle at obligations, even if they are of my own making. I have a love/hate relationship with rules. I love peace and order, consistency and the comfort of routine, and yet...I often itch to chuck the rules out the bally window! There is nothing that takes the fun out of something/anything quicker than a "have to".

So I sat down to make one last artwork for my challenge (I mean, it's only one more, c'mon!). Maybe I would make something colourful, something richly textured, full of emotion, many-layered, multi-messaged, dripping with life and thought and personality... and yet this was the only and persistent picture in my head, and what my hands and my heart wanted to do:

#30 (or not!)

~fin~

I am going to blog a little challenge dissection, or rather more of a distillation, in a few more days. I really want to think about what I am taking forward from this experience. And tomorrow it is Buried Treasure time. So same time, same place, perhaps with less perversity...à demain.

#29 Beneath

~

#29 And old school mixed media art journal page with a little bit of everything...collage, transfer, paint, glaze, ink, charcoal, pastel...you name it, it's on there.

#28 Blue is Not Blue

~


#28 Today is the day that we knocked off #41 on our Summer List, paint with spray paint. We set up a table outside on the grass and went to town. I remembered why I don't like spray paint (stinky, chemical-y, yuck) and why I do (so much fun to make subtle layers, so many interesting effects). This piece is actually silver, navy and white, but it photographed a lovely sort of turquoise? Not complaining though.

We are beginning our 2nd full week of summer. The boys are slowly decompressing...getting more energetic, more engaged, more curious. They have made amazing strides in learning Game Maker in just one week! I wish their school teachers could see them...textbook in one hand, computer mouse in the other, determinedly focused for hours at a time, absorbing, creating, challenging themselves!

On Friday we had our first collaborative family dinner (we did this weekly last year during summer, but had to stop during the school year because the boys were too drained to be able to wrap their heads around all the sensory and organizational challenges that are cooking). E chose and prepared (with a "little" help) the main course (yummy, yummy pasta and meatballs below), and L the dessert (trifle with vanilla, raspberry and lemon, so good!). We also had grissini and eggless Ceasar salad.

Next week E gets to choose the dessert and wants to make a massive chocolate layer cake...yes, the slimming, which has hitherto been going well, is starting to get a bit challenging...

Other than that, planetarium trips, episodes of Dr. Who and many other equally and delightfully nerdy pursuits are filling our days. Nerd summer FTW!

PS As I mentioned in my previous post, The Harry Potter Alliance are now neck in neck for the top prize in the Chase Community Giving contest. If you are opposed to the Dark Arts and into seeing love triumph over evil IRL (specifically love in the form of humanitarian efforts, literacy and equal rights for LGBT) then pop on over and vote today!

#27 Keep it Simple Sister!

~

#27 As the 30 days draws to a close I am thinking about what I have discovered, and where I want to go next.

#26 Personal Colour

~

#26 Exploring colour in the sister journal (or in the case of the picture above, the absence thereof). Thinking about my personal relationship to colours and their symbology for me.

Even though I was thinking solely on a personal level, there is a universality to colour...yellow with warmth and sunshine, blue for water, for hope etc. I find it interesting that certain of us are strongly drawn or strongly repulsed by a certain colour for no clear reason. My two boys, identical twins, have always had strong individual preferences. One has been drawn to warm, vibrant colours from his earliest days and the other to cool colours.

#25 Sky and Space

~

#25 Done bit by bit in between activities with the boys. This was our first day on our summer schedule. And although "summer schedule" sounds like an oxymoron, it isn't for two boys who can only truly relax when they know what is coming next. So I am on the clock, but happily so. It's not such a bad thing when your schedule says stuff like "3:00 --go swimming" and "7:00 --play poker for candy with Dad"...those are the kinds of deadlines and appointments that I can totally get behind.

#24 Cathy

~

#24 A character from East of Eden, which is still tumbling around in my head even though I am 2 books past it now. I don't do this kind of painting very much and I am very clumsy at it, but it was fun. I didn't quite get quite what I wanted. I was too constrained. I wanted the proportions to be more loose and distorted and the brush strokes to be rougher, quicker, less defined. I might do some more of this type of thing to practice...maybe. We'll see how I feel tomorrow. It is summah time, and I just want to go where the wind blows me, so to speak...

#23 Window

~


#23 Squeezed in a very quick journal page. There is something I like about it very much. Maybe I will try to refine it into something canvas-worthy.

What a busy couple of days! But an unbusy busy, because so much of it was by choice...the cupcakes, the Star Wars concert, the handmade gifts, cards and tags all my/our choice, and that's the kind of busy I can get behind. Especially when it is the last push before we are free and easy, summer breezy.

The house looks like a battle ground. The dross from a dozen projects scattered over tables, counters and floors. Used school supplies, binders, papers, notebooks left in little rubble heaps wherever a boy unpacked his backpack over several days of carting stuff home. The usual detritus of books and teacups and art supplies and cracker boxes and Lego. It may never come clean again.

But I am going to ignore the mess for one more morning. This blog post, breakfast then upstairs to get pretty, because I have a date with the DH this afternoon. He is taking the afternoon off work so that we can take the boys out for a customary last day of school treat, and before then we are going to run a few errands and just hang out together.

And yes, this is the last day of grade 4 for my boys. In past years I have gotten a little sentimental over these type of milestones, right now I am just happy we made it through. Happy the boys had a better year than last, and deeply gratified that all our (us as parents and advocates and all the teachers/speech pathologist/OT/school psych etc.) hard work has paid off. And I am already thinking forward to next year, compiling a mental list of everything we need to do to get ready over the next 2 months...no time to get sentimental, I guess, or I am just not in that mind set. Besides now we get summer, and dear readers, as you may have noticed, I am really looking forward to it.

#22 There Was Magic Under the Trees That Day

~

#22 The picture in the blog post below was from my favourite day of the summer 2 years ago. It was one of those rare and truly magical days. One of those days I will hug myself remembering when I am very old.

2 more days of school + 1 talent show & 1 party + 75 cupcakes + 4 Star Wars in Concert tickets may equal no time for art in the next couple of days, but I will try...

#21 Thou Mayest

~

#21 The quote on the journal page is from East of Eden.

"There's more beauty in the truth even if it is dreadful beauty. The storytellers at the gate twist life so that it looks sweet to the lazy and the stupid and the weak, and this only strengthens their infirmities and teaches nothing, cures nothing, nor does it let the heart soar."

The teacher journals:

4 more days of school and then summer vacation. S.U.M.M.E.R. I am practically salivating for it.

#20 Walls

~
#20 Not the best photo, but time is scarce today. Been thinking about various troubles, not necessarily my own, and about how life isn't meant to be easy and how no one's life is without its own particular set of complications. And about the foma (harmless untruths) we use to comfort and distract ourselves.

And Deb, if you are reading, that above there, is voluntary pink! Lookee thar, personal growth. ;)

Also, for those watching closely, yes I did skip a day yesterday. I took a sick day. Had an adverse reaction to a stoopid new birth control pill I was trying and was a very sick puppy for 24 hours or so. Much better today, and it is a good thing too because the DQ arrives in a few hours, and her number 1 concern is always "What's for supper???" ('omemade buns and 'amburgers if I can swing it)

Oh, and I finished the teacher journals! Will post pics tomorrow.

#19 Freshly Grown

~

#19 One last teacher journal cover, so fresh the polymer medium is still wet and I'm off to finish assembling the journals.

7 more school days after today.

#18 Fighting Pink

~

#18 Another teacher journal cover. We asked for the teachers' favourite colours to make the books more personalized...and of course, PINK. I am trying to be at one with the pink, added some touches of yellow, dialed it up to a deeper magenta-pink, used my newly and best beloved circles. Still...yikes, it's pink!

The journal making is going well. The first one, while not perfect, is pretty dang good. Lots more to do today, and better get on with it.

#18 From My Hands

~

#18 The boys' teachers have sure worked hard this year, and I want to give them something as an end of year gift that feels special and heartfelt, that expresses our gratitude for the extra work that we know our boys require...and to me nothing would say this better than something handmade. I have made journals as gifts before, cute little coptic bound dealies, but wanted to try something new this time around, so I signed up for yet another Julie Prichard class. I tell ya, the woman teaches an excellent class, what can I say? Each one has been money well spent, so I keep happily going back for more. This is the journal making one. I had previously admired the lovely hardbound journals that Julie sometimes sells online, and this class gives the instructions to make them (plus 2 other types of journals). So far, it looks MUCH easier than the coptic bound ones I was making!

Above is the painted cover for one of the journals, in E's teacher's fav colour of purple. It is painted on masa paper, which I thoroughly enjoyed working with.

Wish me luck that I don't murder myself with the exacto knife whilst cutting bookboard. Man, I hate that part...

#16 Yaller

~

#16 This one's from the sister journals. An exploration in colour.

I didn't used to like yellow much. It rated just beneath pink and orange on the scale of colours I did not like. But for a long time now it has snuck into nearly every single artwork I do, and I finally realized (because I am a little slow on the uptake) that if I am reaching for yellow in various incarnations, so very often, I don't dislike it...I love it. I love yellow!

I have never been a definitive "my favourite colour is..." kind of person (other than between the ages of about 7-10 when it was very resolutely "powder blue", and I had long day dreams about discovering I was from some obscure, but very rich, branch of the royal family, and subsequently getting to ride to school bareback on a white stallion, whilst dressed resplendently in powder blue satin and diamond slippers every day. Hey, a girl's gotta dream!). My favourite colour changes with my mood, and there are many colours that I am strongly drawn to. Yellow though, is a new flavour for me. I've never really felt much of a pull from it before, so this is pretty cool.

Who knows, maybe one day I'll even learn to like pink... (ack, pink, no, not pink!) ...not quite there yet though.

#15 Summer Simplicity

~

#15 A reminder that I don't have to over-complicate everything. Not in art. Not in life.

We are 13 school days away from summer break. F.R.E.E.D.O.M. It is so close. You can almost taste it, right? It's in the air. A palpable entity. Hanging thickly like humidity, but breathable, expansive -full of breezes and bird-wings and warm, long days.

#14 No Words

~

#14 It is an odd sensation for me, to have no words, being as verbose as I usually am. But for the last several days, every time I try to speak or write something with any meaning in it, it comes out stilted and flatly mundane...like a monosyllabic pancake, like white rice and cauliflower on a white plate for dinner. I am oratory drabsville...I got nuthin', no words.

Inside though, are a multitude of colours and images.

The words in the circle are lifeline, lifelong and life-net, and it is for Craig, who has been my friend and brother through many past and future lives.

Unlucky #13

Remember that wire canvas from awhile ago? I have made some progress on it, but it is still very much a WIP. Some things are emerging that I really like, but as a whole it is not what I need it to be. This one has been like a puzzle to me, a puzzle I can't quite figure out.



And with #13 I am pressing the pause button on my challenge for a few days. I have an old and bestest friend coming to visit, and I just want to focus on him (as much as the boys and the zillion other things on the go this week allow). So I figured I can do that, the pause button thing, rather than have my attention divided into yet another frazzled fraction. I'll be back on Wednesday or Thursday next week, hopefully with some sunshine and cocktails and excellent conversation under my belt, and ready to roll once more.

In the meantime I just want to say thank you for all the lovely comments on my artwork in the past many days. I appreciate each and every one. This art sharing thing can be tough sometimes. It is hard not to get into that self critical downward spiral that ends with being curled in the fetal position under the duvet swearing not to try anything as foolhardy as making art ever again. It's hard not to buy into that art is for "artists" only mentality. It is hard to be a learner, a clumsy beginner and to show the world your awkward attempts and skinned knees. It's hard...but it's good too, and with all the kindness and support here it is much, much, much less hard than it otherwise would be.

#12 Family Circle

~
#12 Still processing the circles as a symbol for connectedness. This is another one for the watercolour moleskines sister project. This is my sister Elizabeth's book, with a theme of dreams.

My family came to keep me & the boys company over the weekend while the DH is away. The Dancing Queen was thrilled that my bed, sans one husband, meant room for her. It was piercingly sweet to feel her hand reach out in the middle of the night, a small touch to check that I was still there in the dark room, and to see her BIG, sunny smile each morning. That girl is a living lesson in joy and appreciation! Her almost indecent pleasure over each meal, her excited obsessing over my sister Victoria's dog, her ability to soldier on, despite almost crippling anxiety and sensory issues, if she just has one good thing to look forward to, even just a very small thing like a book about cats or a trip to a pet store or pizza for dinner, and her LOVE (fathoms deep, yet completely uncomplicated) for her big sisters. I am full of gratitude again today, for her and for the rest of my family.

(And the DH will be home tonight!!!)

#11 Ocean of Gratitude

~


#11 The DH is away on business. He is in the Bahamas...I know, sounds rough, right? But it is actually kind of rough on him. He hasn't been well. His best friend from work is very ill, dying of Lou Gehrig's disease, and the DH is feeling his absence keenly. The pressure at work is enormous right now as the company goes through some major changes, and this conference is a big, big deal. He has an awful lot on his plate. I wish, I wish, I wish I could do something to help him. To take some of his stress and grief. To give him energy and calm and good health like serving him food at supper. But I can't. All I can do is keep the home fires burning, and send him, across all the miles of land and ocean between us, my love and appreciation for all that he is to me and our sons.

I miss him. And with every twang of longing comes profound gratitude...gratitude for love ocean-wide and ocean-deep to share with him.