Sunflowers

So we bought some sunflowers at the grocery store on the weekend. One of them started to wilt, so I cut the stem and put it in a smaller vase on my windowsill. The others are in a larger vase in our living room. The sunflower on the windowsill was catching the sunlight so beautifully, I had to take some pics. The sunflower contrasting with our old windowsill also looked interesting. Here are a few pics:










































































I quite like these pics, and I have a few more, so maybe I will print some out and do something creative with them. Maybe do that transfer I've been wanting to try?

Bunny

'Nuff said!

My life goes on, and on

I just feel down. I sooo want to be creative, but the juices just ain't a-flowin'. My 12th anniversary is coming up and I don't know what to do or get for my hubby. I just don't seem to have much energy to do anything. The most I have done all week was on Friday; I actually cooked a meal! We had roasted pork tenderloin, roasted potatoes and carrots and an orange choc. chip cake for dessert. I was out for the count after that, but dinner was soooo goooood. It was nice to have a home cooked meal that tasted good, ya know? I'm tired of been tired, I am tired of being anxious and I am tired of twitching (although that is getting better). I just want to feel myself; normal I guess. I seem to also have a lot of muscle pain with one of the meds, so that doesn't help either. I feel I am spinning my wheels, and I just don't have the energy to spin them anymore. I think I will try and rest more this week and see if that helps. I do try and do *something* creative every day, even if it is just a little doodle or something. I want to feel like I am getting somewhere. Ah well, as Scarlett says: "Tomorrow is another day". I guess I just have to try again tomorrow.

Yay! New stuff! Interactive too!

I got my camera working again after a small technical glitch. Yay! I have also been playing with my art supplies; mostly my coloured pencils.

This first piece is fairly large; probably 9"X12". (OK, this is big for me) It flowed very easily; there was absolutely no planning involved. I just started colouring. I feel it captured a very whimsical feeling, which I always like. I call this "Wit and Whimsy". Recently, my cousin Donna and I had been chatting about whimsy, and this also was inspired by that conversation.

I then wanted to try the same style of artwork, but in an ATC size. Please note the pic should be rotated 90 degrees counterclockwise, so just tilt your head to the right and you will see it how I meant it to be seen (ah ha! the interactive part!) Notice the judicial use of gold glitter glue to accentuate the small knobs. I just like it : ).

I hope you like them too. I find then soothing and relaxing and kind of happy. Enjoy!

It's been a while...

So. Ya. Umm. Well. I know; it's been a few days since I have blogged. I will now hang my head down in shame. There. That's done.

The weather continues to be dreary and rainy here. I just haven't had much energy to do much of anything. The one day I did have some energy, I used it to clean up the house some. Some things just have to get done. I had also noticed that I hadn't been journaling in my paper journal either. Uh oh. Not a good sign when Anne doesn't want to do anything. I guess my depression is coming back. *Sigh* Anxiety is a little better, I guess. Boy, don't I sound enthusiastic!

Now sounds as good a time as any to show some of my previous art work.
These are a couple of ATCs that I did for an "ATC-a-long" on a crafting website. They both deal with the subject of "chance". The one on the left has all different quotes dealing with the word chance, and the second one I randomly let chance decide what I was going to do. Kinda neat if I do say so myself. I really enjoy working in the small format of an ATC; it is not so forbidding as a huge canvas/piece of paper and it doesn't take loads of concentration, just a bit.

I hope to post some newer art soon; wish me luck!

A Glittery Day

So, today has been a better day. Yesterday, FINALLY, I got some money in from EI. Now, I still have more paperwork for the doc to fill out, so hopefully I will get a few more weeks of money. It is just nice to be able to pay my bills and have a little left over for me. So what did I do? Buy supplies of course! But these are special; they're cool! I got the 64 pack of crayons (with the crayon sharpener), and I got glitter glue. Just opening the box of crayons took me right back to childhood; the smell is just so distinctive. So today, I played!

This is "my art" that I created with my cool crayons and glitter glue. I picked out the colours I thought were pretty, made some simple shapes, and put three (!) kinds of glue on as accents: silver, fuschia and iridescent (which is a bit hard to see). I had a lot of fun; I had a smile on my face the whole time. Yay me!



This pic shows my WIP and the progress I have made. We're in the home stretch, that's for sure. What will I do with it when I'm done? Who knows, but it will have been a good exercise in patience. It is fun and fulfilling too.






And just as a total aside, here is my dinner. A bologne, cream cheese and mustard sandwich on sunflower/flax bread and golden kiwis (X2). Yum! Doesn't it make ya hungry?

When the Muse speaks, you take dictation

Very rarely, a poetic Muse shouts in my ear. Now, I am NOT a poet. I couldn't even give any kind of critique of a poem. The last time I studied poety was in high school, a million years ago. I couldn't even tell a good poem from a bad poem. But sometime, when that Muse is speaking to you, you sigh, you grab a pen and some paper and you take dictation. And here we go...

------------------------

Life Situation

The reeds surround me.

I have been
Pushed
To the reeds
By the
Unexpected,
Rushing,
Dam-bursting
Overflow
Of the River of Life.

I am lost
Here
In the reeds;
They have disoriented me
From the way
Back to the River.

Tall plumes cover
The motion of the Sun
And the stalks are
A maze of prison bars.

I wade
Unceasingly;
Neither
Crossing over to dry Land
Nor
Finding my way back
To the River's flow.

I cannot
Make the green reeds sing;
No soft melody
To soothe me.

Does anyone hear me
Or
Do the reeds shush my voice?
Can anyone see me
Or
Do the reeds disguise me?

Am I lost forever?

The Reeds
Are now
Home.

----------------------------

So whaddya think? Good? Awful?
Which ever it is, I acknowledege/blame the Muse : )

Coloured circles

Well, things continue to be very quiet here at the art studio. I have been continuing to play with my coloured pencils (and when I mean play, I mean doing stuff as simple as colouring circles. No. Really. Circles+colour=my art). I've been feeling kinda spacy and down lately, so the creative juices just ain't flowin'. I am still doing at least something art-related everyday; even if it is just colouring circles. I just don't have the energy and am so sleepy that actually visualizing a completed piece in my head is hard work. So, when I feel better I will do more. But right now, less is more and I'm going to go with that.

No-Labour Labour Day + WIP Update

Ah Labour Day. The unofficial last long weekend of summer. I certainly have had a no-Labour Labour Day for sure. Lazy more like it. Snoozing, relaxing. Not even barbecuing! Just eating whatever is around, like leftover fried chicken, muffins, cupcakes etc.
In fact, I am so lazy, I haven't even taken a pic of the work I have done on my "Flowery Adult Language" project. So you'll have to trust me when I say that the C, K, and Y are done. Only two more letters and then it is finished.
So "Happy Labour Day" to you and yours. Relax and enjoy!

Mmm, tea!

What a lovely fall day. Bright sun, big fluffy white (and, ok, grey too) clouds, a refreshing breeze. It is nice to get back out in the backyard to blog; I know these fine days will end soon and I want to enjoy them while I can.
As has become our tradition on the weekend (usually Sundays), Scubaru and I went out for tea at The Tea Haus. It is so nice and relaxing there. It is a nice little store in our local market; they expanded in the last year to include a few chairs and tea service. They do not have take out tea, so you must sit and drink their tea there. They have about 200 different kinds of tea: black, green, white, oolong, rooibos, mate, honeybush, herbal, and varieties of the above kind which are flavoured. Lots of choice, to say the least. Each time we go, we each usually try a different tea. My hubby is keeping a database on the computer: the tea, who tried it and our comments. I'm sure it will be fun to look back and see all the types we have tried! It is an hour or so well enjoyed and relaxing.
I am much more a tea drinker than a coffee drinker. I have to drink my coffee "double, double" (in TimHorton-ese that is 2 cream, 2 sugar) just to make it enjoyable. But tea, ah! There is a drink to soothe my stress. Sometimes, when tea is brewed just right with a little milk and sugar, it has an "aaaaahhhh" factor. I literally go "aaaaahhhhh" and my shoulders relax and for an instant all is good and right in the world. In my family when I grew up, herbal tea was the thing, but even that was rare. We seemed to drink mostly diet pop (usually diet coke), and kool-aid and homemade lemonade in the summer. But it seems that recently, I simply have been wanting and enjoying tea of all kinds more and more. Here at home, we have: Tetley regular, Tetley decaf, earl gray, earl grey decaf, earl grey vanilla, a flavoured rooibos, and a flavoured sri lankan (all in bags). The nice lady at The Tea Haus, Beata, gave us two samples of tea to try: russian earl grey (with other flavours like lemongrass) and chocolate truffle rooibos (!). I have two tea balls, so we should be good. I can hardly wait to try them!
All in all, today was not bad. I mean, how bad can it be when you drink an organic Darjeeling!

A Rainy Saturday

Today is one of those rainy Saturdays that comes along every once in a while. You know the kind: drizzly, kind of cool, dark and dreary. It is the kind of day where naps are the priority and the drink of the day is a warm, cozy cup of tea. Everyone is just resting; the pups have been sleeping most of the day, as well as the humans. It seems that my creative juices are also resting; I played with my new coloured pencils a bit this morning, but I haven't done anything else more creative than making tuna sandwiches for dinner. I think my creative part needs to rest and rejuvenate too; I have been creating at least something every day for the last 3 weeks. I think I just need a little break. I have been playing a video game (FFXI for those interested) all day. It is repetitive (the way I play it anyway) and a bit routine, but it is nice to know that if I do "x", I know "y" will happen, or rarely "z". I know what is expected and things play out the way they should (unless I do something I know I shouldn't and then "die"). It seems like in my real life, that is just not the case. I am doing "x+y+z" and expecting "q" to happen, but it seems like only "k" is happening. I guess what I am trying to say (kind of poorly) is that in real life I am trying my best to get better by doing everything I should, and I am just not getting the results. It is a bummer for sure. Now I know, "Life" rarely happens the way you expect it to, but I just want a bit of a break and feel better already! I keep hoping that maybe tomorrow will be better, but sometime it is just hard to hope. Oh well, for right now there is not much else I can do but go with the flow, drink my tea, and go kill some Goblins to make Vana'diel safe again.

Quiet

It's been relatively quiet here at the art studio. The most exciting thing that has happened was that my loving husband bought me some beautiful Koh-I-Noor woodless coloured pencils. Thanks Hon! We even got them for 40% off! Yay us! I've been playing with them just on a small scale. They are nice and smooth to use, and have a substantial feeling to them. So different from the Laurentian pencil crayons I used during public school. I feel like quite the "artiste" and who knows what masterpieces I will soon be creating. Three cheers for new art supplies! Yipee, yipee, yipee!