Trying Something New

 Kale chips!

Have you ever heard of that?

That was our appetizer

Tasted OK.. . . .

How does one prepare kale chips?

"Massaged", I was told with some kind of yeast plus a touch of pepper, then dried

Nanette and I had lunch where her friend works

Shangri-la Tea Room and Cafe

where Overland Rd ends in the east end of Boise, overlooking the bench

 Munch a bunch

yes we did

Oh my goodness, Nanette, you  match the decor

 Shangri-la bills itself as Boise's only all vegetarian restaurant

Here is Nanette's veggie burger

and chick pea/bulgar salad

 Falafel for me

At first I thought it was a Christmas word

fa-la-la-la food

No..... little chick pea patties and a load of veggies tucked into the pita bread

Again......quite tasty

Here is the inside view

My falafel. . . .  exposed

I'm proud of myself . . . .that was totally different from my usual choices

I can check something off my bucket list that wasn't even on there yet!

Our visit also included a couple of hours of art play at  my craft table before we went out for lunch

Thanks for the visit, Nanette

Justifying my time on Pinterest!

Candice is an artist!

We had another Girls/Daughters Night 

Chat N Snack, of course

And to justify the time I've spent on Pinterest

I had supplies laid out

to try one of the projects I'd pinned

A fascinating undulating batch of curves

Above is Candice's

I love the way it turned out

She planned to take it home and hand it over to Micaela for adding color

She didn't want the attention of the camera

So here is just the hand of the artist

I love her beautiful hands and feet

I couldn't wait to play with some color on  mine

Almost finished here

Ah....that was engaging

Crayons, anyone?

Another look at the water color crayons

Experimented with laying down some color

then using water in a brush to pull color from dark to lighter

Check it out

Look at this light and airy splash of color . . .isn't it yummy!

I replicated this

from a project in Nanette's lettering art book

I didn't know that

Maybe everybody knew this but me

I recently read

one way to get your pot water colors ready for play . . .

spray water across all the colors

helps to soften them

making them easier to use

(And I love squirting the water!

No it's not really foot spray)

Flip to some pages I drew in black and white a long time ago

(using a cartoon book as a guide)

Dip some color

Brush on

That's fun

I'm liking how her red hair turned out  :o)

What kind of mouth do you think she needs?

Art with Nanette

Fun evening

Nanette and her friend took me to dinner

thank you very much!

Delish . . .  uh huh

We laughed and caught up on the news

Nanette and I ended up in my project room

We did show and tell with our own art journals

Then we spread out the play tools

 and experimented

Nanette has a new art book she let me skim

I saw a project in there I used as inspiration for this piece

Thanks for coming over, Nanette!

Za-Za-Za Zentangle

OO-eee!

Look at my newest Zentangle----or maybe you could call it a "Zendala"

I love the way it turned out

(kind of wishing my camera like close up work)

Took the opportunity last week to attend

Art Alley

Lisa Williams, a local therapist, runs art evenings in her Art Alley twice a month

One is for general public

One is for therapists

She gives an art prompt idea

provides supplies

and for a small fee attendees meander into creative fun

In the therapist art evening, she talks about applications of the art method in therapy

This is the second time I have chosen to go

Lisa said she was obsessed with the art method she chose for the night: 

ZENTANGLES!

Small world....we must be on the same wave length. . . .

Just what I've been playing with this summer

in some of my drawing experimenting

It was her idea to set a circle  (a mandala) as the outer boundary

I chose to draw more circles inside mine, plus some curvy lines to make more art segments

before I started making my "zen" designs

Hu-u-u-u-u--u-ummmmmmmmmm. . . . .

Pretty cool, eh!

Black and White. last sketches of vacation week

This phrase tickles me:   Serious Whimsy.......love the way it trips my synapses

Yes, I take my whimsy seriously

It is part of a shop logo

I didn't get to visit the store or the store owner

The shop door was locked and she left a sign on the door

"I'm off getting high on chemo"

Other shop owners said this is her 4th battle with cancer in 4 years.....beastly

Bless her good nature

Three years ago I bought a beautiful kalidescope from her

Glad I had a chance to support her

I have some kids at school use it to help them relax

 If  you've been to Yachats

I'm thinking you've stopped here for a double decker ice cream cone

or at least you should have

The store owner is such a nice guy

busy making chocolate turtles between ice cream scooping orders

REALLY good mint chocolate chip ice cream with big honking chunks of chocolate

So glad the Wellness Challenge didn't start til after I got home from my trip

Such a crowded, chunked up, small town storefront,

I wanted to see if I could get the essence down on paper

How's that!

All the colors of the rainbow

Time to play with my new water color crayons

Like I said, I never knew such a thing existed til a month ago

Smear some on the page for background color, add water, see what happens . . .pretty fun

I used them, plus a travel pallet of water colors that has a "brush/pen" you fill with water so you don't have

to  carry a jug of water if you are painting outdoors

Very clever

An online site called Sketch Your Day was my inspiration

Draw what's in front of you

  OK . . . . I'll try that

Hm...everything looks cute, but mighty delicate

Do you like the pits and the stemsm of the cherries? 

Hey,,,I know my fruit was bigger than that!

So I thought about what Angela teaches in her photo classes

"Fill the frame, fill the frame, fill the frame!"

(She made us sing it . . . .  Oh yeah)  

Draw a little bigger, I tell myself . . . see if I can fill the page  

Cool

A birds eye view of my breakfast

Frosted mini-wheats

a banana with a little brown....just the way I like 'em

and a few lumps in my chocolate....the way Kristen likes hers

Meet Petah (Peter, said with an English accent!)

 Someone left a large real starfish clinging-----and rigamorted----to our deck edge

(pretty sure that's a big NoNo and a form of anti-tree hugging in Oregon)

A rather handsome dude, I thought

So I named him

He and I hung out together a number of times

as I read or drew or journaled or breathed deep---gazing at the ocean

I noticed he's the silent type

 Been pondering lately about my season of life

This is one of the thoughts that nudges

So I did a little collage piece to put words on the whisper that is inside me

 Some of my beach combing treasures, including the "talk rock" for school

I took all the artistic license I wished when I picked colors 

The colors on this make me smile and feel happy

and I like it even better since I added some color to the rope and fence



These were all quite a stretch for me . . . sometimes I surprise myself

Anybody want to come play with color? .....smear a crayon, swish a water brush!

Servin' up some art play

When I entered my vacation bedroom, I discovered an empty tray on a stand

Ah hah!

Looks like prime territory for holding the play supplies I brought

Just the right size for my art stash

Who says you need to get all the way dressed to start your day?

Half dressed, half jammies

a drawing pad

and go for it

Look at this rich abundance---and the lovely tray..... I feel so blessed

Lots of choices for art play

some lines, some curves....

and sometimes, a splash of color

I especially pushed MY try-a-new-experience-envelope with my new Koi brand water color travel pallet

(a posh splurge from Dick Blick.com)

PLUS a new discovery: water color crayons

Spread some color....add some water

Oooo-eee . . . Try not to scare myself with judgment . . . just play with it and enjoy what emerges

Church work

View into the church kitchen

We went to a neighborhood church

so Sue could borrow their piano to practice some music

I sat in their community hall

(kind of like a cultural hall)

at a table and played on paper while Sue played the piano keys

in a nook to the side of the big room

Worked on a postcard for a friend

who is recovering

from having cancer removed from one of her lungs

This scripture is important to me

It has carried me through some tough times of my own
I wanted to share it with my friend who is full of faith

She has told me she is in the Savior's care

and will accept whatever He has in store for her

I admire and love her

At the post office, I realized I hadn't put any color on the flower pot

Hmm-m-m-m

I pulled out my lipstick....did some color tapping with my finger

Presto . . . .It's in the mail!

Pen to Paper

I chuckled as I took the picture above

I thought about the website I found when I was researching a trip to Europe some years ago

People would take a picture of their airline meal and post it on that site

along with the airline and flight number

You could look up your flight and see what you would be served.

Well, I guess the airlines are tightening their belts, because there are a lot of pretzels served these days------or cookies, apparently

It became my first sketch subject

I have a huge log I can sit on to watch and listen to waves crash

One of those washed up logs is an unusual bendy hunk of tree

The neighbor's passel of buoys were inspiration for one sketch

Some lines, some curves . . . . . all in a day's happen'n

Played with some color......made it pop by outlining in black

and creating some zentangl-ish borders

Zentangle question

Jocile asked for the definition of Zentangle.
Like I said before - - -I think it's a fancy word for doodling.

Here is one person's definition---
http://inklingdesignsolutions.com/plocharzMarie_DreamweaverWebPage/ArtJournal/zen.html

Next---Here is a Zentangle video that mezmerized me!
They call this drawing pattern "Mooka" . If you are interested, start the video and go to 1:14 where the woman begins the Mooka shape. After staring at the pen making smooth, even curves, I just had to try it for myself! (It's in the flower petals in my last post)

http://zentangle.blogspot.com/2011/04/mooka.html

If this is intriguing for you to look at, you can Google "zentangle" on Youtube and get a bigger dose.

Ready to play?
And if you use a permanent black pen for drawing, you can add color and not have smearing.
Are YOU having fun yet?
* * * * * * * * *


Paragraph---change of subject
Hey, I need someone to teach me how to link to another site with just putting a highlighted word in my text (instead of the whole string of an address). Anybody know how to teach me to do that???

Some lines, some curves

A few years ago

I wanted to learn to draw

SOMETHING . . . .

anything, really!

I didn't have any "natural" drawing talent that I knew of-----

but I wanted some!

I read something that said begin by

drawing

a few lines and curves

EVERY day

So I do

Mostly cartoon style

using a cartoon book as a guide

And lately

some

Zentangles designs

The colorful journal cover at the top

is my "meeting" journal

Isn't it luscious!

I take it to stake conference or workshops

The last batch of meetings it went to was a

singles conference

I did some

lines and curves

along with some notes on the talks

Are we having fun yet?

Art Invitation at School Part 2

Above is my finished art project. day 3

A while back I mentioned

I got to sit in on an art lesson in a 6th grade class

(blog entry on 3/20/11)

I was so excited

I've wanted to do this

water color play time

for a year

I am kind of embarrassed

to go public with it

as my rockin' results did not fit my expectations

Bummer . . . .but oh well

Finished project is above, day 3

Above is the start...result of Day 1.

I LOVE . . .

did I tell you I LOVE the colors?

I could have stopped here

and been color happy

But we weren't done yet

Rock on! day 2

The next day the teacher gave

instructions on how to draw in the boulders/pebbles

with a black felt tip (I was not there for that)

My schedule got a little wild and crazy that day

There was no break

for me to go in and get some boulder-drawing tips

So

at home

I

launched into my own rock-drawing version

Lots of fun

Yet something didn't look quite right

When I got back to school and checked out some 6th grade art

I could see what I did and didn't do

I figured out what I want to do differently next time:

*Use a skinnier black pen - - - my rock outlines are too fat

*Use the bubbly-looking parts of the water color as if they are water

rushing over the rock

and make the rocks seem to disappear behind that watery part

Actually, for an artist wannabe

I am tickled that I tried the project

Maybe I can talk my daughters into

coming over to

try something like this again

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

Now

let me show you one of my favorites

from a 6th grader

She gave me permission to take a picture and

share it

Here you go below:

This one ----made by a student----

gets oo's and ah's from me

What do you think?

Wanna play?