Tag Archives: artist

Sep6

Look What You CAN Do With Leaves!

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Look What You CAN Do With Leaves!

When I look at the wonder of nature, I am in awe!   Each, and every thing I come across is a treasure to me.  Birds, butterflies, trees (I love trees), flowers, I love them all.  My yard has transitioned from very, very green, and lush to drought tolerant.  Some of it forced, most of it by choice!  I love to look at what others have designed, and implemented into  their landscapes, and  every once in a while, I’ll find someone who has been way too creative for a novice.  It shows that they have put a great deal of thought into how they put together a front yard, or  a design element in the garden.  I see things all the time that remind me to be more open minded and think outside the box!  Funny thing is, I always think I am outside the box, and just about the time Im feeling particularly clever, I’ll see something someone else has thought of, and wonder why I didn’t think of that!

This time I painted leaves!  This is outside the box, right?   It’s  something I’ve wanted to do for a long time, and hadn’t tried.  Now, I admit a project like this  needs to be thought through. Most of these kind of projects take a little more time than we realize.  I pressed the leaves over night, painted medium on them to preserve their flexibility, and stenciled, painted, and sprayed with a fixative!  They are a little rough, and as the leaf  project resurfaces again and again, I’m sure that they will look  better each time.  The ideas are endless, with  so many different shaped leaves to work with!  It could be fun to gather unusual leaves, or leaves great for painting, press them, and allow them to wait for just the right moment.  This is coming to you from a person who saves just about everything, just in case!  That’s what I call a “Mixed Media artist,” some would call it hoarder!”    Surely those people aren’t artists?  When I do throw something out, it’s picked up by our local trash company, and hauled away!    Well, that’s when I need it the most.  Always, I needed that, and  wonder why on earth I threw it out?

Todays challenge is to paint, sketch, collage, or anything else you can think of, living from the yard.  Leaves while they aren’t technically living, they were still flexible, and I did  coat them with medium to preserve them!   I chose leaves, but  you may want to use something else!

I continue to encourage all of you to join in as much as you can, post comments, and enjoy my blog.

Sep5

What Do You Have in Your Garden?

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What Do You Have in Your Garden?

Many years ago my pride and joy was our thirsty gardens with dichondra for the lawn.  The lawn was perfect with my husband spending hours and hours on it edging, and mowing constantly so it would be low and tight!  The foliage was gorgeous.  I had flower beds to die for, and a particularly beautiful Flowering Plum tree in the front yard. Now days we haven’t the time or energy to care for anything close to a yard like that, and I have grown to appreciate the many attributes of succulents!  I’ve learned of the beauty in the happy surprises when they suddenly bloom leaving us with a sometimes unusual bloom that lasts for sometimes six week or more.  My yard is now full of these wonderful plants, and I’m forever on a quest to find yet another variety to display in my garden.

I mentioned on Monday that the theme for the week would be our yards and gardens, and now seems to be the appropriate time to sketch another bunch of succulents.  They are rapidly becoming my favorites!  This little sketch is of a few pots some with freshly planted succulents, others with established plants that have begun to bloom.  I mentioned the other day of the one I love the most right now.  Not sure what the name of it is, but it seems to go on blooming forever giving my garden a much needed splash of color.

I can’t wait to see your  sketches, and paintings of the living things from your gardens, and how much thinking outside the box some of you have been able to do.  Remember anything goes, you are only limited by your imagination!   Life is good, let’s capture some of the sweetness on paper!

P.S.  My husband tells me the dictionary defines Dichondra as part of the Morning Glory family.  Is this a good thing or bad thing, you tell me!

Sep4

Just Another Lazy Day

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Just Another Lazy Day

I’m not whining, really I’m not, but the heat, she’s not going away!  This is  just another lazy  September day giving us an opportunity to create .  I know, you’re going to say, “How can you whine,  you live in Oceanside?”  And, you’re right!   I’m not whining, maybe just observing!  Mornings seem to work fore me, they are quiet, cool, and I’m inspired by the little birds chirping, and dragonflies circling the garden.  I guess we are all tired of the intense heat, and ready for relief.  I keep saying it will be any day now, but any day now brings fall, and winter.  I have trouble getting inspired when I’m freezing!  We have a way to go before the freezing sets in, so I for one am going to enjoy every bit of summer left.

Yesterday, I set the challenge for a week instead of a day.  All week long we will sketch, paint, draw, or collage something living from the yard.  Those are  pretty broad choices!  It can be a plant, a flower, several plants, trees, anything just do a little piece of creativity!  Sometimes there isn’t time to go into full fledged art mode, but some simple little piece of the making  of art  keeps the gates open, and I always feel I’ve accomplished something important to me, even on a busy day.

As you look around the yard, or your neighbors yard (snicker, snicker) take some pictures, or sit down in the shade with pencil or pen, and do a little something to keep the creativity flowing!

Sep3

Lazy Labor Day

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After finishing all the things I had planned for today, and taken a nap, I’m now dragging myself  back to the computer to find the blog post that disappeared.  I am still unable to locate it, and if it finds it’s way back to  it’s rightful place,  that’s a bonus.  I think the fault is with me!   We have a Mac computer, and it saves everything automatically.  I didn’t think (for the second time) about saving my post, and I lost it!  How long  will it take me to learn this lesson is anyones guess, but I’ll try!

This morning I was going on and on about the end of summer, and how as a kid I hated Labor Day, because school started the next day.  As I grew up, and had kids of my own, I loved Labor Day, the kids go back to school!  Now school starts at different times, in different places?  My grand kids have already returned, and we celebrate that event.  They love school, and welcome the start, and we love for them to start also!

The challenge for this week is each day, sketch, paint, collage, or otherwise create something from the yard.  Something that grows, or lives in your yard.  If you have time, at the end of the week, you will have five works that will help get you motivated to think about the following week.  Start slow, and small if you like, what matters is that you did it.  Don’t compare your work with anyone else’s, yours is from your journey!  Make it as easy on yourself as you can!  No point in aiming for something so complex that you are discouraged from creating regularly.  It’s easy to bottle up, and difficult to get creativity flowing again.

When you are finished, post on Facebook, or send your picture to me, (Karensamenow@me.com) and I’ll post it with your name on it, on this blog.

Have a great afternoon, relax, and enjoy the rest of Labor Day!

Aug31

Let’s Wrap It Up!

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It suddenly dawned on me that not only is it the last day of the week, but the last day of the month!  Just think of all that has happened this month; I’ve been sketching each day, I’ve shopped for  the grandkids school clothes, sat through the surgery for a broken arm on an eight year old, started a new blog, and much more I can’t even remember.  Each day I jump out of bed, get dressed and take an early morning walk with buy dog Daisy.  It has to be real early because of the heat and humidity.  Both of us drag home after forty minutes of walking the neiborhood, glad to be home, and throughly pooped!

This morning I kept thinking about how I really needed to get a new pair of running shoes.  The old ones are beginning to hurt my feet, and I am uncomfortable on our walk now!  Well, naturally once I started to think of running shoes, that quickly morphed into all kinds of shoes, and this became the theme for the day.  So, today the challenge is to sketch, paint, collage, mold, or maybe even decopague shoes!  Any kind of shoes, for anyone.  Let us all see what you come up with……  As I’m writing this, I’m realizing the little sketch I just finished could have been so much more!  So in coming up with the challenge for today, and working hard to suggest things that I think might trigger your creativity, I’m realizing how much more fun I could have dad with this shoe sketch.  I used Derwitt Ink Tense pencils for the color and really love them for traveling.  I guess I get lazy with mu morning sketches because they are to be easy to do and help spark creativity.

As I finish up the week and the month, I am reminded of the beautiful summer we have had so far.  I have complained a little of the heat, but when it turns cold, I complain about that also.  Ok, I admit I am totally a “Goldy Locks Girl!”  Monday through Friday is going to be the format for my posts.  We all need some down time, but occasionally I might add something, or post a sketch or painting just because!

Have a fabulous Labor Day weekend, I’ll be back on September 3rd with a new challenge, and sketch!

Aug29

Experimenting with Ideas

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Part of being an artist is experimentation.  We get ideas, usually at two or three AM, we try remembering what they were,  and then we try to duplicate the idea.  This can be a colossal failure, or can morph into something great!

This morning I wasn’t feeling particularly  sketchy, but I had some ideas I wanted to explore. This brought me to spraying rocks through rice paper.  NOT very successfully, I might add!  That turned into taking black paint and putting a design on them.  This idea I’m still working on.  Finally in desperation for some kind of creativity, I put bug stickers on them that were left over from an art day with my three year old grandson Nolan.  Even though it looks like a three year old worked on them, at least they are finished!

Feeling not particularly creatively satisfied with what I have just worked on, I decided to work on some greeting cards I needed for some friend’s upcoming  birthdays.  This was more gratifying, but this must be an off day because I feel so undeceive.  My artistic side is in hiding!  The cards are ok, but not fabulous as in the past.  This I attribute to not having gotten together with my artsie fartsie friends! (Artsie Fartsie – Technical Art Term)

It seems when we collaborate with our artist friends, when we share creative energy, and work through ideas we flourish as artists.  I belong to a couple of groups that meet once a month, but in between, I feel sometimes like I take a nose dive.  I hit the creative wall, and am unable to cultivate any ideas.  Even the ideas I thought were too good to be true two weeks ago I can’t seem to move on.  Is this a problem with all artists, or am I the only one that runs out of energy?  Is this the time that we are supposed to recharge our creative batteries, be gentle with ourselves, & lay in a hammock with an ice tea?

Today must be a day of reflection, and ideas, maybe a little construction of greeting cards, but most of all, a day to be lazy, lay in a hammock in the shade with a big glass of peach ice tea!