Riding Rainbows Over Rough Edges of the World

Sometimes I just have too much fun.

I spend the whole day playing, or at least with a playful attitude.

I think this is an excellent way to slide into 60.

Years ago I had a wee piece of art, and where it is Now I've no clue, but as I have ALWAYS loved rainbows, this one was gifted to me with a cat riding a rainbow over the rough edges of the World.

As I contemplated Jenn's theme of Rainbow for Artist's Play Room #59 

[a meaningful number for me Right Now, LOL!!]

I remembered that wee piece and thought about creating one of my own combining word art and digital fiddling.

I've spent May collaging a LOT of giraffes for 2013 The Year of the Giraffe, so I had a bunch of rainbow-ish giraffes to choose from and I enJOYed exploring new ways with making word art in Word, trying a couple of somethings I've NOT as yet. 

Combining the two and scanning then digital fiddling them was a blast.

EnJOY!!

A Giraffe Gallery ~ Artist's Play Room #58

I am DOing, if no one had noticed already, The Year of the Giraffe with Carla Sonheim. I've long loved these long-necked creatures and these past 5 months have only deepened that love.

A few weeks back on APR we got the chance to make some art like an artist or a style of art that inspires us. I chose James Rizzi BEcause his style of art makes my heart happy.

Something happened in BEtween that and the month of May's Giraffe-ing adventures, and I have started painting. And drawing and painting. I've tapped into my inner Rizzi you might say!!

So here, this week, I am sharing a few paintings and giraffe collages I've made with my painted papers and self-created collaging papers. I hope you will enJOY this wee gallery and I'll also invite you to explore my other blog where you will find a great many more giraffes...

Artist's Play Room #57 ~ Birthday Giraffes

Happy Birthday Jenn!!!

I've been quite excited this year BEcause my own birthday is one of those milestone birthdays, 60...

I don't have any firm plans for this birthday, but I want to DO something that Makes A REAL Difference in the World...

I've seen some ideas others have done like giving their birthdays away to help a cause like water...

Or encourage others to try making changes that have made a difference to them, to their quality of Life...

So... I have a little bit more than a month BEfore my 60th birthday, and with Jenn's prompting for this week's Artist's Play Room, I've been puzzling and considering and, yes, giraffe-ing.

I've had a few ideas.

I've dug out a few of my past ideas that I sort of forgot about along the way.

And I am asking YOU and anyone you might know for suggestions.

Meanwhile, Happy Birthday, Jenn!! 

I hope your day [er, week] is wondrously over the top and deLIGHTfull!!

Artist's Play Room #56 ~ Inspired by James Rizzi

This week was supposed to BE the start of a 3-week teaching extravaganza for me. I was sad to learn the museum had decided NOT to continue having me DO this, yet I was very glad I had done it for the past two years.

Sometimes, actually, most always, I find the silver linings, if I look for them.

How fortunate for Jenn's timing for the theme of making art in a style inspired by an artist, living or dead, who I admire.

Last summer, planning for this year's program, I had chosen to share the deLIGHTfull drawing and painting style of the wondrous and wacky American pop artist James Rizzi.

I was further inspired by the wonderful Patty Palmer of Deep Space Sparkle in creating my plan.

And then things changed...

I've enJOYed returning to this idea for this week's Artist's Play Room. I mixed in a little giraffe-ing and had a grand time this afternoon making this painting...

photographing and digitally fiddling with it...

One At A Time

Somedays I catch myself in a rush-rush hurry-hurry. 

For no reason. 

Today's been one of those...

I've been running with either a brilliant idea without sufficient energy or high energy and an idea that falls flat.

So it goes...

I just keep chugging along.

Sundays are like that sometimes.

I figured out a solution to a problem from last evening but could only take it so far. 

Then I decided how I'd get it all sorted out and the other actor in my play didn't realise I'd written him a part.

It's been a two-shower day and blessedly quiet.

I saw two butterflies dancing in swirls down at the wee park while Gracie was busying her nose in the grass.

I had fun with some of my collaged giraffes and using up 4 sheets of paper that quick-printed something I didn't even want yesterday.

That was so fun I decided to leap on into another little project which, while fun, really did NOT work out so well In Real Life.

Right Now there are many rainbows dancing in the Wee Cottage. 

I love this time of day just for that very reason.

I'm really glad that I need only live my days, my moments, One At A Time.

Among The Many Things I DO NOT Understand...

Sometimes I think Gracie uses my brain as a toy. 

She takes it, shakes it, growls playfully with it, and then takes it outside and drops it somewhere in the yard...

Or mayBE it's NOT Gracie at all.

MayBE it is just my brain growing and changing and BEing my brain.

I never cease to BE amazed at all that I don't understand.

Why is a question I find flashing through my internal screen many, oh so many times each day.

Especially the daze days, like today. 

I went out for a walk with my tea to check out the variety of stores right here within easy walking distance to find a deck of playing cards for altering for a Mail Me Some Art swap. 

I went first to the Habitat For Humanity store, ReStore. 

I've been there once BEfore and I am thinking a Tuesday morning, which was when I went BEfore, and a Saturday morning is a whole different experience.

And the only thing remotely like playing cards were flash cards.

Anyway.

Next I decided to check out the Greenlands store that's been open about a year Now, and it has quite a wide variety of "stuff" but no playing cards.

I tried to enJOY a wander through, but it wasn't long BEfore I felt the squish of retail closing in. Quite a diverse collection of stuff there, but I canNOT help but wonder that there never seems to BE anyone there...

I wandered back toward home and tried Goodwill. 

Again, Saturday morning NOT the best choice.

And no playing cards there, either.

[but really, DO people still buy and view VHS tapes?!]

Across the highway I tried the little shop that has clearly changed its look and mission in the, gosh, has it been there 2 years Now?! 

Apparently someone bought their last pack of playing cards, so I was out of luck, again...

When I got home, Gracie was more than a little miffed at BEing left home for this Wild & Wonderful Adventure I apparently had without her.

She had "dug up" her bed, the pile of rugs and a little sheepskin bed I've "built" her in the bedroom.

Lately she has been DOing that a LOT and with gusto.

Clearly she is NOT happy to BE left at home. 

And I guess I HAVE been gone a lot more lately.

So, home again, no playing cards, and scratching my head, trying to figure out if mayBE I should just have gone up to Walgreens in the first place since apparently Now I have to try there...

Oh well...

Now, Where Was I?!

I think I just sort of faded out with my Big Plan for writing here every day. 

I'm NOT sorry. NOT making excuses. 

I'm just saying it seems things changed...

What happened was less about NOT writing than it was about DOing something else. 

Sticking my head into other pots. 

I spent a whirlwind week clearing and Letting Go. 

Literally, an entire week. 

I'd work at it, it seemed, even while I gave in to let my bones rest at night. 

Who knew I had accumulated so much unnecessary stuff?! 

Surely NOT I...

I've been very intentional about clearing out the unnecessary, scaling back, and Letting Go for the past year and a half. 

My first BIG HUGE GIGANTIC Let Go was all the stuff I'd accumulated and purged and kept up until I moved my Life back east from Arizona in 2009. 

It was all lovingly organised and packed away in storage and, honestly, this never really looked to me like what it is/was until it did and then...

Now I understand that I was just terrified that if I Let Go of my treasured "stuff" I'd surely turn to dust.

BE really meaningless.

Forgotten.

Deleted.

Permanently.

But that is NOT what happened at all.

In fact, I was encouraged, from somewhere within myself, to keep moving in the direction I was going.

About six months after releasing all of my "stuff" from my heart and mind, if NOT from the actual storage, BEcause clearly I could NOT DO that from this distance, I Let Go of my vehicle.

6 April 2012 I said bye-bye to GraceLand, and have lived happily ever since with the only 4-wheeled vehicle I need, a cart that carries groceries, laundry, and of course those 15-pound bags of Gracie food...

Little by slowly, I have scaled back in other areas, and that week last week saw some really I CAN'T BELIEVE I REALLY LET THAT GO moments daily...

Here, a week hence, I feel a little like something blew the stink out of that space BEtween my ears where without realising I was DOing so, I was keeping mental track of the superfluous and ridiculous.

I didn't grow up thinking Less could BE More, and if you look at most of my art you'll see that I have a habit of filling up the space. 

And yet... I am changing.

I enJOY empty space. 

Unfinishedness is deLIGHTfull.

And those things I used to think having made me more real, well, let me just say it is NOT about those things at all...

And yet...

Something feels odd today. 

Off. 

Out of kilter. 

I think it is that I have largely Let Go of connection. 

Which is, I suppose, why I write. 

My connections with live and lovely human beans, even cyberly, is important.

Like air.

And water.

And laughter.

And love.

So Now I am working on that piece of Currie.

I think I might even pick up that 12-ton telephone.

April Showers, May Flowers, and Artist's Play Room #55

I was searching through my stashes of stuff, knowing I had plenty of possibilities for this week's Artist's Play Room.

Funny thing, I got lost in the search and more than few times had to remind myself of the "mission" and NOT just keep floating down the rabbit hole.

One of the places I was sure I wanted to draw from was Timmy & Justine's Wedding which was 1 May 2010. I had taken over 1200 photos those 5 days on Nantucket, and I was certain...

Then I took my first left turn.

And another...

Makes me grin to think of it Now.

I've been feeling a little blue the past couple of days. Some of it is seasonal I suppose, but mostly I think it is my little Change Resistor who pops out from time to time.

She is scared of Change and isn't feeling too peachy about a big one that is NOT that far round the corner.

Once I got searching through the stash of wedding and Nantucket stuff I reminded myself of other Mays in my Life.

The May [2005] when Gracie came into my World.

BE Still, my Heart!!!

The May [2006] of Dahn Healer School in Sedona and the people and wondrous moments shared together every one of those 21 days.

The Mays [2011 & 2012] of Kickin' Arts and Art FUNdamentals and the kids and teachers and parents and how much those busy weeks reminded me of why I had BEcome a teacher in the first place.

MayBE this May I am feeling sad about NOT DOing Kickin' Arts and Art FUNdamentals anymore.

MayBE this April, with all its challenges that are little by slowly dissipating in May, was a bit much...

Anyway, I finally settled on this wee collage, Puddle Dance. 

It is just so what this time of the year is ALL ABOUT. Puddles!!

One our walk this morning, BEtween the raindrops, Gracie and I found every puddle we could and splashed in them all!!!

Changes may BE ahead and that little Resistor in me may find that overwhelming AND... 

THAT IS NOT TODAY!!!

Today is puddles and rain and music and just BEing here, Now, in the Wee Cottage with Gracie. 

No treatments to go to. 

Nothing that must get done. 

JUST BEing is enough...

Hope your day is deLIGHTfullicious too!!