Art 101 Week 1

Here are some photos of some of the work I have done this week in Get Messy's Season of Art 101.


This is the cover of my journal for the Season of ART 101.  It is not actually the cover of the journal itself but more of a cover page in the journal.

Prompt 1 for the week was playing with watercolors.  Just being a kid, getting out the paints and exploring with them.  So this was my first entry using inexpensive Artists Loft Watercolors from Michaels.

This time I got a little more loose with my paints and loved the effect.  This quote is so perfect for me to remember and really helps me to loosen up in my art and not worry about the outcome.  This was done on hot pressed 140lb. water color paper that I tore down to fit in my journal.  I then stapled it on the journal page which had been gessoed.

One of the bonus prompts this week was to use security envelopes and make a "self portrait" using the inside of the security envelope.  One of the advantages to not paying bills on line or doing on line banking is we get tons of these security envelopes weekly.  I raided the trash can in our office and struck gold!!!!!  Not exactly sure she is a self portrait of me but I do love her super hero pose!!!  She seems way more confident than I am.

I also really loved that the envelope itself said to recycle as if it knew that an artist's mind would find a good use for it!!!!

Next up was a tutorial by the amazing Vanessa on using gouache to make faces.  I have some inexpensive gouache but really had never used them before.  I was so happy to learn the technique and play with them. This was a really fun and silly practice and I loved how it turned out!!!! Everyone who did this tutorial and posted their faces had some great work.

This was a journal entry into my daily art journal.  The one and only Pam Garrison was the guest artist this week and she is one of my all time favorite art journalist.  I discovered her probably 13 years ago when I first learned about art journaling.  She was talking this week about how she likes to journal with writing in her art journals and then cover the words with art so only she knows they are there and what the words said.  I do this too!!!!  I have journaled almost all of my life but was always worried what would happen if my journals were to ever be read by anyone other than me.  Now it is no longer a concern because I can just cover it all up.  One of my sons has been going through some testing for a heart condition we discovered he has and it has been a tough time for me as a mom.  I have found my art journaling has been the only way I can truly express what I am feeling, my fears, my concerns, my guilt that I may have passed a genetic condition on to  him.  I came home from an appointment we had this week with a Cardiac Electrophysiologist and jounaled my thoughts then covered them up in true Pam Garrison fashion, with flowers.   I was crying when I started this entry but I was smiling at the end and feeling more hopeful.

These last two were from a tutorial that my new Ukrainian friend  Sasha taught on creating beautiful backgrounds with watercolors.  This was very relaxing to do and I made two but only have journaled over the one.

Trusting in the unknown right now seems to be something I am being forced to do.  So, I'm going with it, trusting in the process and trusting in the unknown.

Today I will go back and journal over this background.

I feel so very lucky to have found the Get Messy Art Journaling community!!!!!  I was even more lucky to have won a year long membership to it which I feel certain I will continue with after this first year is over.  I have met so many wonderful international artists as well as some who even live here in Virginia.  The artist community is truly a community of love and acceptance.  I have never seen competition among artists or negativity, only inspiration and a constant cheering on to continue to create and believe that where you are in your art is always good enough.

Caught Up In the Practice

SO,..........I am obsessed now with my art journal(s).  It proved to be a great way to get me through the final days of October and celebrate the beginning of November.  Some of my work is quite awful, I totally butcher any attempt at making a drawing look realistic.  But, I enjoy the process and who knows, after some time, maybe things will look more real.  Or maybe not.  Reality has never been my strong suit period.

Since I have become very un-fond of Halloween, I now celebrate the two days after Halloween, Dia de Los Muertos.  I find it to be a beautiful way for me to honor and celebrate my mom and dad and then move on into the season with a little peace.  It clearly isn't from my heritage, but I am adopting it as a new Holiday to replace another.

Some of these are from classes I have taken on Creativebug, from artists like Pam Garrison and Lisa Congdon and then my sketches are inspired again by Mary Ann Moss and her wonderful style and then others are just me on my own.

Watercolors

An entry using a beautiful letter from my dear friend Harrigan to encourage and support me on a difficult day.

New day, New Month

A walk outside collecting "things" to sketch and paint.

A day spent celebrating Mom and Dad.

Oh this one is so scary!!!!!  I have really just done such an injustice to my dad and mom with these sketches.  My dad's mouth is NOT that big and his eyes were not crossed.  My mom's face was much rounder and not so pointy.  But the idea is to not over think and use a pen so that you can't fuss and erase every time a wrong line is made.  Sorry Mom and Dad.  I will try to do better next time, hahaha.

Words of encouragement from a class I did with Sarah Ahearn Bellemare.

I try to do this every day now.

Then it was time to move on to some happy, colorful doodling and painting.

My beautiful view when I look out of a window in my studio.

My wonderful space to just be Me!!!!

I hope that everyone has a space or a place to go to that brings them as much happiness as this room does for me.  For my husband, it's in the woods in a tree stand and while he is there, I can be found in here.  We all need something that is just for us where we can let loose and let down all of our guards and freely be ourselves.  I hope over time, I will let down more and more guards in this room and watch as my style emerges more and more.  

Ramblings of an Unsettled Mind

I don't know what this post is going to be about.  I just feel the need to post something.  I am bursting.  Bursting with emotions, feelings, joy, desires, goals, wants, needs, ideas, dreams.

24 hours in a day and a good 8 of them being spent in darkness so that we can sleep and re-charge our body and soul is simply not enough.  Not enough for me to spend the amount of time that I have to spend at my job, the amount of time I want to spend on my art, the amount of time I want to spend in my veggie gardens, the amount of time I want to spend in my flower beds, the amount of time I want to spend making delicious homemade foods of all varieties and not enough time to spend being a loving and giving person to those I love the most.

There are so many things that are filling my tank right now and I am overflowing and don't seem to have an emergency tank to fill with the overflow.  I am so high on life right now and it is a feeling I have not had for so long, that I am not quite sure how to manage it.  I feel as if at some point it is all going to come crashing down around me if I don't get a grasp on all that I have going on.  I am famous for getting myself into too much and then not being able to control the situation any more and let it all crumble around me.  I don't want that to happen anymore.  I want to rein in this energy and get it under control so that I can retain some control.  I feel as if I am moving at warped speed and I am going to crash head first into a cement wall if I don't watch my step.

I haven't felt this alive and filled with energy in such a long time.  Life is great but it can become stagnant and everyday is routine and the in and outs of my day can feel as if I am on auto-pilot and have no real control.  I am surrounded by so much beauty and simple pleasures, I really want to just take the time to enjoy it all.  I feel like I have been given a specified amount of time to enjoy this freedom and I am just trying to squeeze every bit of life, freedom and carefree living out of it that I can.  For I know, the shoe will drop at some point and this all will come spiraling down and I will start again from ground zero, yet one more time.

But in the mean time, I am going to keep hoping for more than 24 hours in a day and live life to the fullest, finding the beauty in the simplicity of it all.

Preserving What We Have

 

Awwwww, September is here and along with it, the busy work that comes with having a large garden you wish to squeeze every bit it has to offer from.  At least that is how things are working out here at our home.  This year I am more determined than ever to can, dry, freeze, roast or ferment anything I can to keep it around longer.  Robby has been a huge help in this area because during the week when I am at my job, if it is raining and he can be outside getting work done, he will do some canning for us.  So far, he has canned our beans, spaghetti sauce, tomato juice and hot peppers. 

I have canned blackberry jam and concord grape jam.  I have also been slow oven roasting the tomatoes as I harvest them from the garden and put them in jars covered in olive oil to keep in the fridge.  They are so delicious!!!!!  I also have been making a lot of pesto with our basil and either freezing it in ice cube trays or filling 1/2 pint jars and freezing it.  I also made some Tomato Almond Pesto for a change and froze that in the ice cube trays too.  I found that recipe here at  Smitten Kitchen and highly recommend it.

I have always grown herbs in my garden but for whatever bizarre reason, I have never dried them at the end of the summer.  Not this year though, I have hung rosemary, thyme and oregano to dry and have frozen parsley and chives.  Next year I hope to have more variety of herbs to grow and later preserve.  I will continue to cut more branches of herbs as groups dry and hang them, but my space is limited as to where I can hang them so I must do them in batches.  Besides, I don't want to cut them all now and then not have anymore fresh herbs for the rest of the growing season.

Our root cellar is completed and as of now, all we have in it is our potatoes and garlic.  Our onions are still curing but will be added soon.  We have turnips planted and a second planting of beets that will be ready to dig in a few weeks that will also be put in the cellar.  I planted carrots again, but hold out little hope of them actually growing into anything worth harvesting.  I just can't seem to grow carrots to save my soul. Oh yeah, a friend of ours gave us a bunch of sweet potato plants and we still have those to harvest and place in the cellar.  I am anxious to see how the root cellar works this winter.  I am not going to lie, even though there is a light inside and a door, it still sort of freaks me out when I go into it.  I usually make Robby go with me but hope in time I will get over this silly fear of something I wanted so desperately.  Robby swears animals can't get inside of it, but I have seen these pesky little country critters get into just about anything they want, and I would imagine a dark cellar filled with yummy food would be a perfect place for them to want to hang out.  Once we get the root cellar full for the winter, I will take a picture to share and post a story about the construction of it.



Herbs to dry and to freeze



Our kitchen table is rarely cleared off enough to eat on this time of year.
It makes a great work station for prepping foods to preserve.





Classic Pesto placed in ice cube trays to freeze.

 

I think this looks more like ground meat in ice cube trays but in reality it is the
Tomato-Almond Pesto and it is delicious!

The aromas in my kitchen while all of this work goes on, is amazing.
It might look like a complete mess, but it is a fragrant mess!

My trusty Cuisinart.
I have had her a long time but she just keeps plugging along.

One of the things I love the most about living where we live and the friends that I have here, is that we all believe in bartering and trading.  Robby is a retired contractor and many times we have friends that call and ask for him to help with a project they want done.  This past winter, two of our closest friends, who were expecting their first child in a few months, were needing to renovate their kitchen.  They asked Robby for some help and direction and Robby was more than happy to help out.  January and February are his two least favorite months as hunting season is over and the weather can be too cold to get much done outside.  Jason is a cattle farmer and his wife Harrigan is one the most amazing young women I have ever met.  She has taught me so much about so many different things and she is 18 years younger than me, how is she so wise?  She puts me to shame with the preserving, fermenting, home baking and cooking she does.  And now she has also added amazing mother to her list of accomplishments.  Anyway, we agreed that for payment on the kitchen renovation, Jason would give us one of his steer and pay for the processing at our local slaughter house which is just up the road.  We would have our freezer filled with beef for the winter and they would have a beautiful new kitchen, sounded great to me!  This past weekend, the beef was ready for us to pick up and oh my goodness, do we ever have a freezer full of beef?  Good thing I have 4 sons who come home to eat and one who now lives on his own so I can help him keep his freezer full too.

We filled this extra freezer full and had a bit more to add into our other extra freezer in the house.  I turned the page on my calendar this month and to my surprise the verb for the month of September is BARTER.  I love it!!!!!!!  Harrigan and I did a much smaller scale of bartering recently.  She showed up at my house with this huge pan filled with concord grapes she had just picked from her husband's family's grape vines.  These vines have been around for about 4 generations.  I was floored and so appreciative.  In exchange for my grapes, I sent her home with fresh figs from my fig tree.  They had just started ripening and I was happy to share with her.



10 pounds of freshly picked Concord Grapes

These are my figs, clearly not ripe in this photo, but you get the idea.


So since I had these 10 pounds of delicious grapes staring me down, I needed to figure out what to do with them and fast.  So I looked up a great recipe for Concord Jam and got to it.



The finished product.

Yep, things have been busy around here on the weekends and it seems like before I know it, the week is starting back up.  I go off to work with my 16, two year olds everyday and come home too tired to hardly fix dinner.  It's nice to know there is so much in the pantry that I can just grab and easily transform into dinner or be able to still go out to the garden and pick our dinner.  I wish I could just spend every day doing what I do on the weekends, but in the mean time, I will cherish each and every opportunity I have to work on my sustainable lifestyle and improve upon it.  Winter will be here before we know it, and all this hard work will pay off.

Until those cold days settle in, enjoy your last days of Summer and try and find a way to make them last into the next few seasons.