Posts Tagged ‘art every day month’

Buckeyes – no, not the teams, the trees


2010
11.20

Art Every Day Month Day 20.  I’m wondering about my sanity at the moment because my husband and I made a quick trip to the cabin for one night.  We were seeking snow, we hoped in all the right places.  100% chance of snow this afternoon.  Uh, no snow.  100% chance of snow tonight.  We’ll see.

But here I am with a particularly bad internet connection and I must do AEDM! I haven’t missed a day – how can I miss today?  Therefore, you’ll have to forgive me for a somewhat lame entry on buckeye trees.  It just happens that I took some photos on the way up here and buckeyes are rather beautiful.  They’re said to be named because the seeds/nuts look like the eye of a buck (deer).  Native Americans mashed, cooked and ate them; they are rumored to have medicinal properties, especially for rheumatism; and at one time they were the cure-all for everything.

So here’s a photo I took in spring when the buckeye tree was in full bloom.  I do believe it’s the same tree I photographed today!

Summer came and went and now, in October, the buckeyes are falling from the tree.  If you wanted to grow a tree from the buckeye, you’d take off the husk, keep it damp, and then plant it along with many others so at least one would take.

Here’s today’s tree.

A little sparser.  And then closer…

and closer….

And finally, the buckeye falls.

When the husk is removed, the nut is shiny and brown. Edible if cooked and mashed but slightly poisonous raw.

Let’s hope tomorrow brings forth something a little more creative for every day.

One Day More: Art Every Day Month #29


2009
11.29

Yesterday I referred to a work in progress as about as “in progress” as it’s possible to be.  Today, it looks totally different.  So it’s Work in Progress Two, and tomorrow I’ll have it done for the last day of AEDM.  Although I need to seriously get some stuff done – stuff other than art, this challenge has done so much to inspire me.  Nothing will be the same after this.

So here’s Work in Progress Two.  Yesterday’s was so icky; now I’m on the right track.

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Happy Thanksgiving Art Every Day Month #26


2009
11.25

I’m thankful for a happy home, good friends, family – all the usual.  What I’m most thankful for is that I can call such things “the usual.”  So many people can’t. It can always get better, though.  One of my closest friends recently went through a bout with Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.  Finally, she had a stem cell transplant and so far, all systems are go.  What’s remarkable about my friend Wendy is that she asked that no one send food, flowers, or gifts.  Instead she asked that they do acts of kindness.  Since Wendy has hundreds and hundreds  of dedicated friends all over the world, many acts of kindness were done and continue to be done.  Sometimes something as small as letting a car cut in ahead of you, or paying for the person behind you in the Starbucks line, can change a person’s day or even attitude.  You don’t have to change the world - Mother Teresa said you fill the ocean drop by drop – but you can help the people in it smile and relax and then turn around and do something for someone else.    So I’m going to try to show my thankfulness by being mindful of those around me and the little things I can do.

Here is today’s journal entry.  The Happy House.

journal 008

AEDM Day 24 – Cat Fights and Girl in Window, an Art Journal Entry


2009
11.24

Day 24 again arrives – just barely – in the morning.  I had to take Lily to the vet first.  Last Friday she (Lily’s a cat by the way) got into a screaming fight with an orange cat who chased her all the way up to my balcony.  She was limping but examination of her leg seemed to show no puncture wounds.  We got cat antibiotics anyhow.

lily rs

I should have known better.  Lily is psycho cat when it comes to meds.  Those antibiotic drops went everywhere but into her mouth.  The kitchen, bathroom, everything was spattered with drops (including some that flew into my mouth) but did the cat get any?  Doubtful.  Still, she seemed ok, just limping.

Well, last night she didn’t jump up onto my chest the second I got in bed so something was amiss.  Went to the vet this morning, she shaved her leg, and multiple puncture wounds showed up.  Someone had tried to chew up her leg!  Now she has a long-lasting antibiotic shot and hopefully it does the trick.  If I had a gun, I’d shoot that orange cat if I ever see it again.  Of course, I wouldn’t, but it’s a satisfying thought.  Whatever, it won’t be happy if I find it, probably him, on my property.

OK, Journal

journal 006

I like to put limitations on what I’m doing instead of choosing from all the options in the big wide world.  So I’ve painted a few backgrounds, randomly really, then finding the images from six National Geographic magazines.  If I can’t pull something out of there, I won’t use it.  This girl seemed to fit the background perfectly.  So it’s AEDM #24.

Next, get ready for Thanksgiving! Stuffing prep coming up.

Where The Wild Things Are – AEDM #23


2009
11.23


What’ll we do without AEDM?  Almost an impossible challenge, yet it’s pushed me farther than I would ever push myself.

So today I experimented with watercolor and collage in my journal.  I might add that before AEDM I didn’t have a journal, so this is rather fun!  Without further ado, here it is.  Where the Wild Things Are.


journal 003

Until tomorrow…


AEDM Day 21: Art in My Own Backyard


2009
11.21



This weekend has been busy!  We did a mad last-minute sorting of our closets yesterday for a mammoth yard sale today.  My granddaughter’s AYSO team is going to a tournament in Florida next summer, and one of the requirements is that all funds must be raised (around $50,000 I think).  It’s daunting but a good requirement because the AYSO motto is “Everyone Plays,” and by requiring fundraising, it also means “Everyone Goes.”  So that necessitated lots of running around and moving of heavy things last night and today.

So today we have a short photo essay – My Own Backyard.  Yes, I live in Bakersfield, CA.  Yes, Johnny Carson used to call Bakersfield the armpit of California.  Yes, it’s hot, dry and dusty.  It’s a desert for Pete’s sake (whoever Pete is).  And yes, we have the worst air quality for particulate matter in the United States.  And again, yes, this is the place everyone goes through when getting to somewhere else.

BUT we love it.  And we live on a lake.  Here’s what it looked like from my balcony this afternoon.

backyard 1 rs

The bush in the foreground and the queen palm are in our yard.  This is looking toward the center of the lake, which has five “fingers.”

backyard 2 rs

This is looking at the house across the lake.  That’s our boat, the Go Boldly.   You’ll note those things in the sky – they’re called clouds.  We don’t see them very often.

backyard 3 rs

Here’s something else we only see 5.7 inches of a year – that wet stuff in the puddle on my balcony.  Rain.  It did it overnight so I couldn’t appreciate it, but I think there is no other logical explanation for the wetness other than rain.

backyard 4 rs

Later in the afternoon we even had some wind!  Ok, a heavy breeze.  but it made nice ripples in the water, and the late afternoon sun cast a lovely light on the trees which, yes, are showing signs of fall!

backyard 5 rs

This looks toward the end of our “finger.” People often fish from the grassy area.

So, it was a beautiful day in Bakersfield, CA.  And tonight we’re heading to Valentien’s Restaurant for the Beaujolais Fest.  Have some hygiene kits to donate for the homeless, which gets us free French Onion Soup, and I won a charcuterie place on Twitter Tuesday (something the restaurant does each week).

I’m super tired, but I’m not passing up on the fun!

Day 19: Pears and Still Life – and the Art World Loses Jeanne-Claude


2009
11.19

What the heck?  What’s happening to me!  I painted some pears today.  Badly, yes, but I don’t mind.  I used them as a backdrop for today’s Art Every Day Month piece.  I am enjoying setting up and photographing still lives.  I’m stuck in the fruit mode at the moment, but Cezanne did a lot of fruit, so I can too.
pears one resized

Jeanne-Claude Dies

I am very saddened by the death of Jeanne-Claude today.  She’s Christo’s wife, and the two of them collaborated on their wonderful temporary art installations.  My husband and I worked on two of them:  The Umbrellas and The Gates Central Park.

She was a vibrant, warm, and exciting woman.  We’d see her walking around with her flaming orange hair as she checked on the projects, talked and ate lunch with people, etc.  I’ll put up a picture of my husband eating lunch with Christo and Jeanne-Claude during the Gates Project.  I’ll also put up one of my photos of the Gates.

mark lunch resized

This photo of the gates may be the most interesting I’ve ever taken.  It is absolutely as photographed – no photoshop, no boosting colors, nothing.  Yet it has a strange cartoonish , illustrative quality.  I just love it.

gates resized

The New York Times reported that she died from complications of a brain aneurysm.

Still Life: Pears, and Essays


2009
11.18

I’ve been running in a million scattered directions lately trying to figure out where my next series will come from.  I’m not finished forever with Altered Landscapes, but I do want something different for a while.

One of my favorite genres of painting has always been still life.  Cezanne is the master as far as I’m concerned.  This is why:

cgfa_cezanne18

Paul_Cézanne,_Still_Life_With_Apples,_c._1890

It’s a funny genre (if that’s the right word) because it’s essentially static.  The composition is what’s important and of course the painter.  I can’t paint.  Seriously, I can’t.  I’ve tried.  I’ve taken classes.  It’s an embarrassment.  The professors can’t critique me because there’s nothing to critique.

But – I can and do use photography as my art form.  So why not construct and photograph still lives?  This is a far greater challenge than I imagined – and I didn’t think it would be easy!  I’ve done three so far.  Two have been posted previously but I’ll put them on this post just for the heck of it.

In today’s, I got smart and painted the background.  I’ll just keep painting over and over this canvas – it’ll be fun.  I used a collage of mine in this still life.  The collage was recently exhibited in a juried show and won a prize, so I’m getting some more mileage out of it.   Here’s the show poster.

poster-11

Finally, today’s still life, in which Metropolitan makes an appearance.  Is it coincidence that “pear” appears in “appearance?”

Still Life- Pear

And here’s the first two.  I’m liking the challenge of this still life business.

Still Life Trunk Resized

Still Life Music

Essays

Finally, if anyone has kids who need help writing essays, I’ve posted a few eHow articles on this.  They might help. (I’m a former 7th-grade language arts teacher).  The first link is for How to Make Your Essays Better.  Here’s one for a five-paragraph essay and a persuasive essay.

That’s all folks!  Happy Art Every Day Month for November 18.