I was fooling around with a glue gun tracing the leaf transfers that I adhered on canvas with acrylic medium. Canvas painted a very dark blue with the idea to manipulate pictures of leaves I had taken and scanned in the fall.
I thought about how the blowing leaves do not float down perfectly in the sky, but swirl and twirl all over the place before they land. First using Microsoft PhotoDraw, Distort Effect Twirl and fine tuning or adjusting the setting or the amount of the twirl of the leaf I applied it to each leaf separately to create the desired effect.
I verified the size leaves needed for the canvas size of 16 x 20. Wishing to show the effect of blowing leaves, but totally experimenting because I had not done these techniques before, I printed some of the leaves on regular printer paper, some on transfer paper and some on tracing paper just to see the finished look after fusing them to the canvas. I carefully cut each leaf out and auditioned them around for a while until I was satisfied. After the Liquitex Matte Medium dried thoroughly, I painted over each of the leaves with various shades of metallic harvest colors, enhancing the original color of the actual leaves. The actual transfer paper had the most pronounced leaf veins show through the paint, followed by the ones I printed on high quality printer paper. I actually preferred the effect that the tracing paper leaves had after painted. The base is so thin that the canvas outline came through in spots giving it a more textured appearance, which I preferred.
Looked boring so I decided to jazz it up by outlining it with a glue gun, painting over the glue ridges with the same shades of metallic paint and once completely dried, used metallic rub in a lighter shade of gold over the leaves and some of the canvas leaving streaks, enhancing the idea of blowing wind.
It’s ok, still have a lot to learn, but practice makes perfect. Please see the following slide show for more details.
The next gallery shows a few shots from some other collages I’m working on including one created for Christmas to reflect all the freaking snow we keep having this year!
Just the name gives people pause. I hate cancer. Through the years most of my family and many friends have died from cancer or have been treated for this grievous disease. It took my precious Aunt Ruth away from me when I was only 7 and she was 58 years old. 
She helped raise me and her loss was deeply felt. She was patient, kind and loving and used to play the organ at her church on Sunday. She was a person raised in the Word and she lived in the Word until she went home to be with the Lord. She used to take my sister and myself to Sunday School with her when we were old enough. 
Saturday I lost my baby sister to the same insidious cell debacle. While heaven may have yet another angel, we have one less loved one on earth. She made it clear that she was not going to fight this with the usual aggression many do because she had waited until it was too late to have her symptoms diagnosed. She had to suffer from an extremely cruel form of the disease, late stage esophageal cancer. She was not able to eat or drink by mouth but refused to try any treatments or surgery due to the very poor 5% / 5 year survival rate for this type of cancer. Instead she lived out the last months with a feeding tube and severe pain and digestive issues until the end.
I lost a friend to complications from breast cancer in 2007. It was first thought that she had passed from a random infection due to her lowered immune system caused by the chemotherapy but it turned out the cancer had been spreading like wildfire into her brain and even though she appeared to be improving, she was gone within about ten days from planning her reconstructive surgery and admittance into the hospital.
Soon after her diagnosis, she had sent me an email that her daughter had sent to her entitled “Cancer Update From John Hopkins.” After researching this online, it is stated to be a hoax. It was never sent from this medical facility. This is according to the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Copy of the original email hoax on about.com.
Email update regarding the hoax from hopkinsmedicine.org.
Perhaps many of you remember the constant cancer warnings that we grew up hearing in the 1950’s and 1960’s. The one I remembered was a blow or injury to tissue. While they now claim this is not a cause of cancer, I do know that my maternal grandmother suffered a fall and there was a lump on her chest. They checked it after it grew and it was found to be malignant. Now whether this was already there inside her body from her lungs or breast area, by the time they examined her, the cancer was spreading all through her body and they were not sure where it originated. This was her third diagnosis since she was a younger woman and was treated for what the Dr thought was a late stage Melanoma. Many years later a growth was biopsied from her mouth and found to be malignant at which time she was treated with radiation therapy. It was over 20 years later that she finally succumbed to this horrible disease. Both my sister and my grandmother smoked.
I wrote this poem when my friend and neighbor became terminally ill with what they called cancer of the unknown. It was through her body as well by the time they first operated for pain in her abdomen. At that time she was stage IV and decided against any type of treatment. She finally agreed to some radiation because she was told that she may have a chance of being cancer free. She was actually in good health to look at her, no real problems. Right after the radiation treatments she began to go downhill very quickly and passed in 2011, eight months later. It may have been a coincidence that she became worse after radiation, but this is not the first time I have seen my friends and family quickly succumb after agreeing to permit various cancer treatments.
Just go with your gut and try to make a well-educated decision if you ever find yourself about to confront this deadly disease. Get second and third opinions, ask questions and know that no two people or cases will ever be the same. You or your loved ones will be your best advocate to getting the best treatment in regards to your health.
How about beginning again.
I am officially retired, I guess. Lost both of my part-time jobs that I had in 2013 last month but just started collecting a not very substantial social security payment early.
I really am po’ now, but no longer a girl. I just liked the title. It sounds better than Po’ Woman Shines. It also seems better to be poor if you are younger. When you’re older it somehow screams that you have failed in life.
Thank God I don’t consider life pass or fail. It’s just life. I have had my ups and downs, good times and bad and I have never been a slave to money, though I have worked very long and hard in my life.
I still buy my lotto tickets and made sure to dig myself out of the 10″-12″ blowing and drifting snowfall that hit my area yesterday to purchase them.
So this is how I am beginning 2014. Unemployed and not able to make all the payments needed to stay in my home. I guess I can hang onto it for a while longer, but as soon as we get the spring thaw, I will begin to search for a place I can afford and have to let my super, duper upside down house go anyway they want it. If I can’t rent it out, it’s either signed back over to the bank or a short sale.
I have also promised myself now that I have more time, I can really beef up my website or forget about it.
Post or get off the site is my plan.
Below are some pictures of probably the same weather most of you are having.
When I saw the word “Community” I right away thought of my new-found sitcom, “Community!” Even though it just started it’s fifth season yesterday, January 2nd, 2014, I only recently discovered this hidden gem of a comedy series being rerun. I purchased the first four seasons and look forward to the sharp, sometimes hysterically funny humor as well as the sometimes poignantly written dialogs that delve deeply into each of the main Community College characters played by: Joel McHale, Gillian Jacobs, Danny Pudi, Yvette Nicole Brown, Alison Brie, Donald Glover, Jim Rash, Ken Jeong, and the group’s curmudgeon played by Chevy Chase, still funny after all these years!
I especially love the paint ball episodes! Very well done. If you get the chance to view an episode, you might be hooked too!
Po' Girl Shines 
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