The forest nearby is full of baby banksias growing in poor gravelly/sandy soil which they do better in. The little one was growing on the edge of a gravel road.
My first attempt at a concertina birthday card. While simple to make, it can be a bit fiddly and getting the proportions and placement of objects right for each layer is important so that everything can be seen once the layers are overlapped. It reminds me of printing processes, where each layer is gradually added. It was quite an enjoyable process.
A 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle I recently painted as as gift for my grandma on her 85th birthday, using objects and photos of significance from her life. :)
Shea Coulee is an amazing performer and personality. Her recent work and Instagram feed were the inspiration for this piece. Each layer is digitally painted, but I love the overall screen print feel.
I had a rock tumbler as a child and really enjoyed it. When my youngest was a child we bought her one. She was eager to enjoy it too, but somewhere after starting on that path, we lost track and it everything inside turned into a solid mass. We tossed it and forgot about it. On a recent beach trip, I collected handfuls of rocks, as I am always likely to do, and, upon return, remembered how I loved my childhood rock tumbler. I immediately researched, ordered and eagerly anticipated its delivery. Of course, with Amazon Prime, that was only a couple day’s wait. As soon as I unboxed it I thought “what am I doing?” I have neither time, nor space for yet another hobby. I thought “what will I DO with a pile of polished, pretty rocks?” I would gather them in my hands and feel their silky smoothness. I would likely gather them in some beautiful glass bowl and…then what? I have toddler grand kids frequently at my home. They put small colorful things in their mouths and up their noses and feed them to the dogs regularly. And I don’t even have a single space to display a bog bowl of pretty rocks. So I quickly decided “I’m Returning the Rock Tumbler” and will, for NOW, stick to painting them when the mood strikes.
"Billy gets there last, wiggles up a spot..." from the Graham's Up the Tree book. I grew to love these kids after drawing them so much. They sort of became real to me.
Thank you Elaine for your input and expertise. You are a rich source of wisdom and possibilities in connecting art to wellness. I will let you know how this develops. -Dean Graf
My painting professor drew this diagram on the board and suggested that it is a diagram for a painting. "Begin with large areas, covering the canvas with general colors and shapes. Refine the shapes and begin adding details. Refine the details and work with smaller brushes. When you are adding marks that your viewers would not notice, be done." There is more, but that is enough to ponder for now.
Color Pencil over Gesture. It was a contemplative day in the art classroom. Students were drawing self portraits and I had time to join them. Our discussion was on 'Reflection'. The image we see of ourselves in the mirror is not what people see when they look at us. They see the reverse. The mole on my cheek is on the other side of my face, if you were to look at me in person. This leads to discussions of perception and reality. It can be fun and humbling. We cannot live only by sight. We must have a faith of some sort. This reminds me of the Michael Feldman Public Radio Program called: "Whad'Ya Know?" It opens with the audience shouting: "Whad'd Ya Know?" and Michael replying: "Not Much! You?". We do not know much, I think, as much as we like to pretend that we think we do.
