End of the Month Art

Hi everyone. It's Friday and almost the weekend. And it's almost the end of July also. 

Today I want to share one last journal page for Wendy's Door and/or Arches challenge at Art Journal Journey. Thank you Wendy for this challenge and for being a host. I enjoyed thinking about doors and arches and how to incorporate them into a journal page. I tried to be a little creative with the topic too. I'm not sure ( in my own personal judgement) if I succeeded at pushing the envelope too far, but I still had fun making my pages.

And thanks to everyone who joined in also. It was fun to see your take on Wendy's theme, and as always, your participation is appreciated by those of us who are Art Journal Journey admins. Of course you still have a few days to join in as the month isn't over yet.

For my last page I used this image which I believe is more of a window than a door, but it does have that nice brick arch over it. And the garden view outside of it is beautiful.

I started with both a sheet of watercolor paper and also a page from an old dictionary. I inked both. Then I added the dictionary page onto my watercolor paper. To pull the two together I added several pieces of washi tape. Finally I added the acetate door image, the girl, the rose image, a scrap of paper, and some small foam flowers.  I finished my page by stamping the quote on the girl's bodice.

I am also linking up my page to Nicole's Friday Face Off  and Gillena's Friday Art For Fun Lunch Break   .  

I probably won't be visiting  blogs this weekend as I am off to Maine for a couple of days. My niece is getting married tomorrow,  but tonight there are some celebrations going on that we'll also be attending. I'm not bringing my Chromebook with me, so I won't be posting anything new until  the wee hours of Monday when the new AJJ challenge begins. By then I will be home again. Depending on the time and what's going on, I might (or might not)  squeeze in a few comments  from my phone, so please don't think I'm ignoring you if I miss a post or two. 

Have a great end of July everyone. 

This Post Has Gone to the Dogs

Hi everyone.  Happy Thursday to you. We are supposed to have some storms and rain today. I'm hoping for lots of rain, all day if it wants, since it is so dry here. Plus I could use another art day, and a rainy day is always a good day for that type of activity.

Today I am taking  Rain's topic "The First Thing You See Today" quite literally. Of course Maddie didn't stay still so some most of the photos are blurry.

Maddie always says good morning to my husband and myself. Sometimes it is before either of us are awake, and sometimes she waits until one of us starts to stir. And if I am out cold when my husband gets up, she often crawls into his spot and goes back to sleep until I wake up. Unless she is too exhausted to climb the stairs and hop up onto our bed at night, (or I should say her bed as she doesn't allow Pete on the bed), she sleeps down by our feet. Unlike Pete, Maddie likes to lounge in the morning, and as long as someone is in bed, she will be there also. 

On the other hand, Pete (shown in this older photo; he's on the right) is a rise with sun kind of dog.

He likes to sit in our bay window and see what is stirring out in the back yard. He doesn't normally come up and bug us, but he waits for someone to get up. Then he starts doing his happy dance, and he does like to dance.

OK, I get not all of you enjoy dogs, but I think this next photo is a funny one of Maddie. And it ties into the Food part of Rain's post.

Every Sunday when the one restaurant in my town has their ice cream//food take out window open (early April through early October), we get ice cream for lunch. Usually I get my scoop in a cup and my husband gets his in a cone. Maddie doesn't like cones, so Pete gets the very bottom tip of my husband's cone. Maddie always licks my cup. Just to be sure I don't forget her, she sits on the console of whatever vehicle we are in.

A couple of Sundays ago she suddenly remembered my daughter was in the back seat with her cup. I don't know how comfortable sitting on the console is to start with, but Maddie turned so she could also keep an eye on my daughter's cup also.  She looks even less comfortable than she  must already be. My daughter snapped this photo.

And this past Sunday the girl who scooped my husband's ice cream must have read the slip wrong because she gave him a gigantic scoop. This is a kiddie.

I wish I had had a ruler to measure its size.

He couldn't finish it, so I had a bit of his besides my actual kiddie sized cup, and even both of the dogs got some too.

I think the only way (for me) you can go wrong with ice cream is when my tummy is full.

That's all for me today.  I am linking up to Rain's Art and Dinner Date. Thanks so much for visiting my blog. 

 

Does a Butterfly Need a Door?

Hi everyone.

I can't believe we are heading into the last few days of July. Wasn't it just the July 4 holiday weekend (here in the US at least but July 4 all over the world definitely) ? I know summer is far from over in most parts of the Northern Hemisphere, but still, fall seems a lot closer when we get into August.

Today I have a more abstract page from one of my journals that I want to link up to Wendy's Doors and/or Arches challenge at Art Journal Journey. You still have through Sunday to join if you're interested.

The background page was inked with some shades of brown.  Then I added the door, which was from a large piece of paper with doors on it. The butterfly was the front of a card that I had and which I cut away the back and also the white that was around most of it. I thought the door and butterfly would be enough for the background, but they weren't, so I added some little scraps of deli paper that I had pulled as a print off my Gelli plate. Then I cut out the 7 from a printed page I made with a number stencil. I figured as it was the 7th month, the seven was the number to use. And then I finished my page with some little chipboard nuts that I found while cleaning. I used black and copper ink to color them.

I also thought since my page is on the abstract side I'd share a few more sculpture photos from the deCordova Sculpture Garden that I visited a couple of weeks ago. You might be tired of seeing them, but I am just about finished sharing these photos with you.

This may just look like a rock with a tree growing next to it, but when you get close, you can see it is a sculpture.

I'm not sure if the rock was covered in worked metal or if the statue was created without a rock underneath it, but the texture up close was amazing.

And this next sculpture may be links in a chain, but the burnished aluminium it is made from also looked fascinating up close.

And finally for today, a ball of bricks. I like how it looks as if it's fallen off a turret. 

That's all for me today. Happy middle of the week to you.

Make It Feminine

 Hi everyone. 

Thank you to everyone who joined us for our last challenge, Make It Magic, over at Try It on Tuesday. And thank you Viv for hosting.

It's time for a new challenge, and this time at Try It On Tuesday we're asking you to 

MAKE IT FEMININE.

Here's my design team page for this challenge. 

Maura is all dressed up for a summer garden tea party, including putting on her pink pearl choker, a gift from her grandmother. She has pulled out her best china teacups, put flowers on her table and also taken out the good silver. Maura wants this to be a memorable afternoon for her guests.

Maura is looking forward to this tea party since the same grandmother who gave her her pink pearls passed several months ago, and since then, Maura has been rather down. Even the summer flowers and beautiful weather haven't cheered her up. Then one day Maura woke up with an idea that made her happy. Maura decided  to have a tea party with 3 of her best friends.  She decided to wear the pink pearls from her grandmother, as well as use the teacups that she was given from her grandmother's estate. She knew her grandmother would be happy to see her enjoying those items.

My background started with me stamping those Victorian legs and shoes. After that I inked the piece of watercolor paper, and I then stenciled with pinkish purple paint. I then used a bit of Gelli printed tissue paper that was lightly sponge painted with some very light grey paint. The lady is a TH stamped image, and the teacup, butterfly and flowers were TH paper images. I added the silver doily as well as the sticky quote from Studio Light. 

You have the next 2 weeks to join our latest challenge, and we accept any type or style of art. Just Make It Feminine please.

And be sure to check out all the wonderful inspiration our design team has shared also. 

I look forward to seeing all your feminine art over at Try It On Tuesday.

T Stands for Last Week and some more Sculpture

 Hi everyone. 

It is another Tuesday, and time once again for T over at Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog.

Last week was a busy one for me. I had a few appointments on my calendar and some home things that needed doing. It was also a hot week, our first one this month in New Hampshire. We ended up at my MIL's home 3 times last week. One evening she had fallen and couldn't get up so we had to go on a rescue mission. And then with the heat we went up both days over the weekend to check in on her and cool off in the lake. 

 Luckily her home is on a small pond so we did have a bit of water time, to cool off not only from the heat but from her  house also. She has casement style windows in much of the house which she can no longer open herself. Even though there is an AC in her bedroom, she doesn't want to leave her bedroom door open because it will make the AC run too much and that will drive up her electric bill. Even when we tell her she needs some air moving to cool off her house. She is also getting confused and forgetful, not just from the heat, and someone needs to check  in that she is taking her medicines and even eating.

Sometimes we help her down to the lake with us, but it was too hot this past weekend, so she sat on the deck off the kitchen and every now and again called down sometime to us. That meant we had to go up and answer her because her hearing is so bad (and she wouldn't spend the money for a hearing aid) she can't hear you when you reply. Even me when I yell up to her, and I have one of those voices that, to put it nicely, carries very well. 

The lake was mostly refreshing and pretty with the sun on it. A bottle of ice cold beer helped cool us off too. This is my drink reference for T this week.

And I thought I'd finish off this post with a few more photos from deCordova Sculpture park that I've been sharing for the past week. 

This first one makes me think of cold ice.

And the walking path lead through these doors.

I tried looking through the door

and then looking at the doors through a different sculpture.

And instead of the doors, I could also look through this sculpture to view other parts of the park. 

Here is looking down on the sculpture.

And here is looking up at it.

And the view when I wasn't as close to the sculpture.

Can you tell I liked that sculpture? 

And besides sculpture, the grounds were pretty too.

I guess this is more than enough for one post. Have a great T day and week ahead. And thanks for visiting my blog too.

Ending the Weekend with Art

Hi everyone. I hope everyone is having a nice weekend.

And thanks everyone for your thoughts on modern art yesterday. Your comments were fun to read and very insightful too.

Today I have a short post with a couple of pieces of art.  Firstly, I wanted to squeeze in a tag for Pinky's Christmas in July challenge over at Tag Tuesday. I believe this challenge ends tomorrow. 

It's been hot enough that Christmas seems like something that only happens in dreams, but luckily I had a few holiday stamps tucked in with some other stamps as I pack up a bin with my Christmas stamps, papers, stickers etc. and put it all in the attic  to save on space once October or November comes around. I won't pull out that Christmas box until at least October.

The background is painted with a dab of green gouache paint that I then spread out with a damp towel.  I stamped the background with a single background holiday stamp. After that I stamped the big holiday works in red and stamped the holly clusters on white paper. They are one of those TH "architecture" style stamps, so after stamping I cut them out and left off all the lines and other details. After coloring them I added them to the tag.

And while I'm posting I also want to share another page for Wendy's Doors and/or Arches challenge at Art Journal Journey.

 The big circles are made with my Gelli plate, and I added the dotted lines and the little dots. I drew in all the doors, and then I was stuck with where to go with this.  Then I found and added the entry denied quote stamped on white tissue paper.  I think that the quote looks a little messy because the tissue paper didn't dissolve into the background like much of it does or like I wanted it to. 

I was now stuck again, until I saw the quote. I grabbed a couple of TH people and finished it off.  You can interpret this page as you like, as I can think of lots of stories that work with it.

That's enough said for one day. Enjoy your weekend and stay cool!

Art Questions from the deCordova Sculpture Park

  Hi everyone Happy Saturday to you.

I hope you're having a nice start to the weekend. We're still in the heat as many of you are also. I want some of that beautiful 80 degree (F), low humidity weather we had back in June and earlier this month. Until it returns I'll be hunkering down inside the house and hoping my electric bill won't be too ridiculous next month from running the AC. Smile.

  Today I'm taking you back to the deCordova Sculpture Park  with some sculpture photos. I often require an explanation for what a piece of modern sculpture means, but I do enjoy the questions looking at modern sculpture makes me think of. 

This next piece is a good example of that. Sculpture or just a dead tree? I had a hard time deciding.

And the view and my thoughts changed  from every angle I looked at it.

Definitely a sculpture. I couldn't get close enough (it stood in a garden) to determine if it was made from branches or if it was just made to look like old branches.

I was  very fascinated by that piece. Maybe because I never quite knew exactly how to answer my questions.

And is this 1 sculpture reflected in the glass, or is it 2, one on each side of the glass? 

It was actually 2.

This painting was in the museum at the park. The questions from me were, what exactly makes something museum quality versus something any artist (or anyone even non-artists) could paint? Is it the art, or is it what the piece represents that makes something a museum would hang on the wall.

And this little piece was called the Otter. It is an otter's body with a human face, ear and hand.

How do I interpret this? Is this man's view of the rest of the animal kingdom, biased by seeing the human like qualities of those living things?

Is it that the artist thinks that animals are intelligent, and we should respect them more?

Or perhaps it is something else.

And this large glass flower had a number 5 hanging from it. Why 5?

 

I think 5 petals, or 5 stamen. Or it blooms for 5 days? Maybe my questions are strictly too botanical.

And finally, a statue that had no explanation or name from what we could find. (I later tracked down the name from the  statue, and it was called Tower.)

This stack of cinder blocks means...

Any guesses?

I think it shows the development of cities over man's history.  But what do I know?

Have a nice summer weekend and stay cool.