I am not sure what is happening to me right about now. One moment I think I am feeling okay and getting over the vile flu bug that took me down two weeks ago. Then, I get a not so subtle reminder that I am not quite in control of my body just yet. The worst part is over and I am now just not feeling strong enough to do all the things that I normally enjoy doing, such as blogging, tweeting, playing in my studio or playing a rigorous game of peek and hide with Molly Cat. Seriously, this bug is ruining my life and I am about to go to war to regain control and get my life back on the gentle but enjoyable path that I try to follow.
I did manage to get out briefly today to pick up a few essentials but had to head home before a couple of hours had elapsed. No lingering over a coffee and a bagel, no stopping by to sniff at some fragrances, have a boo at some new metal wall art at another shop I love to stop by for a browse. I did not even stop at the kitchen supply shop to look at the white dishes that are on sale. As much as I love a good sale, my head and my insides told me that heading home for some tea and a nap was the wise thing to do. And so, Molly Cat and I joined ranks and curled up for a quick snooze before trying to put the studio in order for getting back to the business of making art.
I have not held a paint brush for a long time and the last creative thing that I did was to send in the exhibit piece in late August for the September show. I have since heard that I did not place and no one has inquired about purchasing the piece. I am not discouraged, nor do I feel that I need to stop making art. I make no apologies, my art is evolving much the way that I feel that I am changing with each day. Whilst I seem to be fighting an uphill battle at present to regain some semblance of normalcy and live life the way I choose to, I am going to commit to spending the better part of the upcoming week in the studio. The flu bug needs to get packing and move out of the premises pronto. I will not tolerate another week of lethargic movements, taking a few nibbles of toast to see if I can quell the unsettling feeling in my stomach. I want to be able to drink a few cups of coffee each day in addition to my usual quantity of tea and diet cola. I will even substitute diet ginger ale for the diet cola and did purchase said ginger ale again today. I picked up more crackers and bread to make into toast to quell the queasiness that seems to have made itself at home in my body.
The point of this little rant is to make everyone aware that we are heading into flu season quickly. Prepare yourselves now and keep essentials on hand just in case you are not able to get out of the house. Wash your hands frequently and keep hand sanitizers in your pocket for when you are out and about. Eat healthy meals, keep yourselves hydrated and well rested. Cough into the crook of your arm or into some tissues. Dispose of the tissues properly. And did I mention to wash your hands? Do not underestimate how important it is to wash your hands properly with soap and warm water. I am not being an alarmist, not in the least. Every year many people contract the flu virus and some are not as lucky as I have been. And, I have been lucky. Despite the duration of this bug, I know that things are looking up and I should be back to what passes for full speed in a matter of a few more days. I will see my doctor this week just to be safe and I will ask when he thinks the flu shots will be available. Likely not for another month or so, but I will be one of the first in line to get my shot. I have had a shot every year for many years now and I know that things could have been a lot worse even with this brush with unpleasantness. Not everyone is as lucky when battling the flu. An elderly neighbour told me that she also was down for a week with the same bug and is just now getting back on her feet.
Life will return to normal soon, of that I am confident. I will get back into the studio and get the paints out, start making the copious quantities of cards that I seem to go through, and work on some other artistic endeavours that are part of a project I need to get moving on to meet the submission date. I have so many things to do and I will be working on them this week. But first, I needed to let you know that I have been thinking of all of you and wishing I could once again be part of the cyber world where I have the best friends and meet new people all the time. The tweets will once again start flying out as quickly as I can queue them up. I will be back on Facebook
For now, I am calling it an early night and planning to be up with the birds tomorrow. After a quick run to pick up some fresh fruit and veg, I will do the daily tidy up and then go online briefly before heading into the studio for some quality time with my treasured supplies. Molly Cat will be her usual chatty self and we will spend several hours working on something fun. Mind you, I will make time every so often to play little games with my furry friend. Molly Cat has been be a trooper and has taken very good care of me over the past two weeks. I plan to return the favour and keep her amused and intrigued with little games of chase, peek and seek, and reward her with her favourite little treats. That is what fur baby parents do and I am no different.
So, for now, I am saying good night. But, I promise to be more of a presence in the various social media venues where I usually post each day. I will be thinking of all of you as I putter around the flat and work on artsy pieces. And I will be hoping that all of you to stay healthy.
Sincerely, Rutheemac
Monday, September 26, 2011
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Miniature pieces, but major effort!
Sorry for being MIA for the last while! Life got a little out of control and I had to stand back and let the chaos settle for a bit. I try to do too much at one time and consequently, put a little too much pressure on myself causing me to withdraw into myself and figure out what it is that is troubling me. There is something about the start of September that pulls my stomach into knots and I have to slow down to a crawl, get myself together again (mentally and physically) before I can resume a somewhat normal schedule or what passes for one in my life. Once again, my body has made me realize that putting too much pressure on myself to produce is not healthy nor is it productive. Lesson learned, I will slow down the pace and be creative when I am rested and feeling that I want to unleash the artistic self in me. Enough said!
I have been playing with the idea of making miniature art pieces for a while now and for the past week have been cutting, pasting, stamping, adding embellishments and so on. I have found that although the pieces I have been working on are tiny, the effort that goes into them is major. I am working on sturdy cardboard arches that measure 4 3/4" x 3 3/4 ". Finding images for such a tiny "canvas" and adding other elements to complement the main image takes a lot of time, more than I had ever imagined. Deciding on the colours to use in the background and for making the stamp impressions means doing test runs on scraps of paper and then try to coordinate a colour of washi tape to use as an accent before moving on to the actual piece of cardboard being used.
I have been thinking a lot about old photos, images of the past, stamps of antique light fixtures and days long past in general. There is something about the early 1900's that is appealing to me and consequently, ladies sporting fashions from around the 1920's have been finding there way onto my pieces. Finding decorative paper accents to work along side of the images is an endurance test because once you find the right paper you need to decide on how it will appear on the finished piece without taking away from the main image. In some cases, I find a piece of interesting paper for the background, add some other colours in the form of ribbon or tape before I actually decide on what will be the main focus of the piece. This sounds like a very backward approach to making a miniature piece of art, but, it seems to work for me. Once I see what the accenting colours and images are going to be, I can focus with a clearer mind on what I am trying to put down on the page. I use the word "page" loosely, meaning whatever I am using to build my mixed media piece upon. I guess in a way, you could say that I am making a collage of an earlier time. I picture this time as being dark and consequently use blacks, bottle greens, dark purple and some sepia or brown tones. I have put up three images to the side for you to have a look at.
The first picture is of a lady from the past with a very curious hair style and hat. The word "Haunting" appears on the right side of the piece. Some textured paper in blue and black with white outlines of petals making up daisy like flowers works in with the darkness of the piece. Black foliage works its way around the perimeter and an old fashioned chandelier is stamped at the top. But, there is no light in the chandelier and so the art piece is left in its darkness. Looking at this image, I feel haunted and try to discern a meaning to what I have put together and why. I suspect the darkness of my mood when I was working on this is making itself apparent to anyone who looks at this. Strangely, while my mood was dark, I cannot truthfully say that I was in emotional turmoil at the time. Frustrated, annoyed, introspective would be adjectives that more closely described my mood, but never fear, I had not gone to that dark place that we all have within ourselves. I was just not my usual complacent self. Is it not amazing how you can look at a piece of art and immediately know the artist's frame of mind when he or she was working on the piece. This miniature evolved over a three day period, taking many hours to think about and put together to my satisfaction.
On the flip side of the first piece, I have stayed with the dark colours and you see a bird sitting amongst various bits of greenery. The foliage is black and the stamping of the bird's image came out lighter despite my having used the same onyx ink pad. The background colour is the same as the first piece, a golden olive colour, drab, but at the same time giving a shimmering effect. The daisy pattern on the paper is brought through to this piece as is the bottle green washi tape. I really do not feel that this is a particularly cheerful piece, but that is the way life is in reality. We cannot be perpetually cheery or at least I cannot pull that one off successfully. So again, we have another bleak image, nature not showing its wonderful colours, but at the same time maybe I have put down an authentic depiction of what I was feeling when this came together a short while ago. I feel that the look of the piece is almost as if the bird is in camouflage, hiding itself (or me) from impending danger. Do not be alarmed, I am not in any way in danger of anything other than using my mood to help me put out a piece of art. Maybe my psyche is in turmoil because I should be making some decisions about how my life unfolds over the next few years. If so, I have got a lot of thinking to do and might as well use the well of emotions as subject matter in different art mediums.
The third piece is again done on an arch which is in the process of becoming an accordion book. Again, dark colours - purple, deep gold and black stamping. The background is from some paper that I happened upon that has lovely little sentiments from a love letter of many years ago, elegantly inscribed on ivory paper. The stamp of two little birds, obviously in love as depicted by the hearts, makes me smile. Both the birds and four of the hearts are done in black ink. The elegant flourish stamped at the top of the piece is done in black. I wonder if this is my inner self showing cynically how I feel about romance. I guess it is pretty obvious that while I will acknowledge that romance does exist in some form, it just has not made itself present in my life this time around. This is a statement of fact, not a cry of a wounded soul. I actually feel that romance does not have a place in everyone's life. So be it, get over it and get on with the life you currently inhabit. Maybe in my next life, there will be romance, but I strongly doubt it. Chaos seems to be a constant for me and something that I deal with rather well.
So, this is what I have been working on for the past two weeks along with a few other pieces that are still in production, but in many pieces scattered around my studio. I need to do a major tidy before I go any further with anything art related. Wiping down the flat surfaces in the studio might put some positive energy into the air and spark some bright colours to be coaxed out of their tubes. I have some lovely sandalwood incense that I can burn and hopefully that will permeate the air with a sense of anticipation of things to come. Autumn is here and although it is sad to say goodbye to the summer, autumn is a wonderful time of the year, special in its own way. It is up to me to find the excitement in the change of seasons and I will. It just might take a few days.
I hope you are all involved in amazing artistic journeys right now! Have a great week.
Sincerely, Rutheemac
I have been playing with the idea of making miniature art pieces for a while now and for the past week have been cutting, pasting, stamping, adding embellishments and so on. I have found that although the pieces I have been working on are tiny, the effort that goes into them is major. I am working on sturdy cardboard arches that measure 4 3/4" x 3 3/4 ". Finding images for such a tiny "canvas" and adding other elements to complement the main image takes a lot of time, more than I had ever imagined. Deciding on the colours to use in the background and for making the stamp impressions means doing test runs on scraps of paper and then try to coordinate a colour of washi tape to use as an accent before moving on to the actual piece of cardboard being used.
I have been thinking a lot about old photos, images of the past, stamps of antique light fixtures and days long past in general. There is something about the early 1900's that is appealing to me and consequently, ladies sporting fashions from around the 1920's have been finding there way onto my pieces. Finding decorative paper accents to work along side of the images is an endurance test because once you find the right paper you need to decide on how it will appear on the finished piece without taking away from the main image. In some cases, I find a piece of interesting paper for the background, add some other colours in the form of ribbon or tape before I actually decide on what will be the main focus of the piece. This sounds like a very backward approach to making a miniature piece of art, but, it seems to work for me. Once I see what the accenting colours and images are going to be, I can focus with a clearer mind on what I am trying to put down on the page. I use the word "page" loosely, meaning whatever I am using to build my mixed media piece upon. I guess in a way, you could say that I am making a collage of an earlier time. I picture this time as being dark and consequently use blacks, bottle greens, dark purple and some sepia or brown tones. I have put up three images to the side for you to have a look at.
The first picture is of a lady from the past with a very curious hair style and hat. The word "Haunting" appears on the right side of the piece. Some textured paper in blue and black with white outlines of petals making up daisy like flowers works in with the darkness of the piece. Black foliage works its way around the perimeter and an old fashioned chandelier is stamped at the top. But, there is no light in the chandelier and so the art piece is left in its darkness. Looking at this image, I feel haunted and try to discern a meaning to what I have put together and why. I suspect the darkness of my mood when I was working on this is making itself apparent to anyone who looks at this. Strangely, while my mood was dark, I cannot truthfully say that I was in emotional turmoil at the time. Frustrated, annoyed, introspective would be adjectives that more closely described my mood, but never fear, I had not gone to that dark place that we all have within ourselves. I was just not my usual complacent self. Is it not amazing how you can look at a piece of art and immediately know the artist's frame of mind when he or she was working on the piece. This miniature evolved over a three day period, taking many hours to think about and put together to my satisfaction.
On the flip side of the first piece, I have stayed with the dark colours and you see a bird sitting amongst various bits of greenery. The foliage is black and the stamping of the bird's image came out lighter despite my having used the same onyx ink pad. The background colour is the same as the first piece, a golden olive colour, drab, but at the same time giving a shimmering effect. The daisy pattern on the paper is brought through to this piece as is the bottle green washi tape. I really do not feel that this is a particularly cheerful piece, but that is the way life is in reality. We cannot be perpetually cheery or at least I cannot pull that one off successfully. So again, we have another bleak image, nature not showing its wonderful colours, but at the same time maybe I have put down an authentic depiction of what I was feeling when this came together a short while ago. I feel that the look of the piece is almost as if the bird is in camouflage, hiding itself (or me) from impending danger. Do not be alarmed, I am not in any way in danger of anything other than using my mood to help me put out a piece of art. Maybe my psyche is in turmoil because I should be making some decisions about how my life unfolds over the next few years. If so, I have got a lot of thinking to do and might as well use the well of emotions as subject matter in different art mediums.
The third piece is again done on an arch which is in the process of becoming an accordion book. Again, dark colours - purple, deep gold and black stamping. The background is from some paper that I happened upon that has lovely little sentiments from a love letter of many years ago, elegantly inscribed on ivory paper. The stamp of two little birds, obviously in love as depicted by the hearts, makes me smile. Both the birds and four of the hearts are done in black ink. The elegant flourish stamped at the top of the piece is done in black. I wonder if this is my inner self showing cynically how I feel about romance. I guess it is pretty obvious that while I will acknowledge that romance does exist in some form, it just has not made itself present in my life this time around. This is a statement of fact, not a cry of a wounded soul. I actually feel that romance does not have a place in everyone's life. So be it, get over it and get on with the life you currently inhabit. Maybe in my next life, there will be romance, but I strongly doubt it. Chaos seems to be a constant for me and something that I deal with rather well.
So, this is what I have been working on for the past two weeks along with a few other pieces that are still in production, but in many pieces scattered around my studio. I need to do a major tidy before I go any further with anything art related. Wiping down the flat surfaces in the studio might put some positive energy into the air and spark some bright colours to be coaxed out of their tubes. I have some lovely sandalwood incense that I can burn and hopefully that will permeate the air with a sense of anticipation of things to come. Autumn is here and although it is sad to say goodbye to the summer, autumn is a wonderful time of the year, special in its own way. It is up to me to find the excitement in the change of seasons and I will. It just might take a few days.
I hope you are all involved in amazing artistic journeys right now! Have a great week.
Sincerely, Rutheemac
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)