I’m due to be moving some time this year, but still don’t plan on taking any artwork down til the bitter end!
Daily Prompt: Wall to Wall Pictures!
art
Weekly Photo Challenge: Another “New” Year
Instead of filing bankruptcy in the beginning of 2014 as I should have, after losing my part time job at the end of 2013, I tried to hang onto my house just so I did not have to go through all the stuff I am now having to go through which is bankruptcy and foreclosure, having to downsize and pack up what remains and start living a completely different way of life. So that kind of explains why I chose to try to find another job that never materialized and drain what little savings I once had to almost nothing in the vain attempt to stave off the inevitable as long as I could. I can’t see any reason to stay here any longer since my balloon payments are due to begin this year and I would be paying an additional $450 or more a month. I will be able to just make most of my bills, since I stopped making my mortgage payments now, with the small social security income I had to start drawing on earlier than I planned to.
I didn’t bother to rent my home out due to the amount of rent I would have had to charge this year and I was advised against just signing the house over or wasting my time seeing if a short sale would fly considering that I have two mortgages. I will have to see how my foreclosure plays out to see where I’m actually going to be living when I leave here. I have managed to get some applications in cities where I wanted to live, so depending on how soon I have to leave, and who has an opening at that same time, determines where I actually move to. There is a place a few blocks away from my house that has a month to month lease option that sounds promising, though eventually I want to get out of this dirty city and all the memories. Some of my family is still trying to talk me into moving to the upper most part of the Upper Peninsula in Michigan where they are now currently 20 below in wind chill and have already had over 2 feet of snow. Snowfalls are beautiful, within reason, but I am no fan of winter.
Still no lotto wins, but I never give up hope and keep buying one for each major drawing in my area. The Lottery is the carrot that dangles before the working rich and poor alike and the fact that I once knew someone who shared in one of the bigger jackpots, keeps me playing cause I know people can actually win it.
I can choose to move into a cheap apartment for people over a certain age that are income based because they have them all over. I could also take out the remaining pension I have and purchase some little fixer-upper like one of my brothers did many years ago. He made some low offer in cash that was accepted and it was his. He did have to put a lot of money into it once he moved it though. Money that I don’t have. One of my other brothers could have done the same thing when he moved up by him this year, but decided to just rent a cheap but nice apartment with all utilities included in these, his declining years.
Tough call for me.
I am very handy myself and would have help from the rest of my family to make most repairs. By draining my small pension I will only be short $150. per month as a monthly annuity that I would be applying to apartment living should I rent. The taxes in some areas of the Upper Peninsula are super cheap, like $300 to $600 a year. So I figure my monthly payment for my tax, insurance and utilities would be approximately $300 per month, which is cheaper than any apartment. If I happen to get a money pit, then it will cost me a lot more than that and after a bankruptcy, if I needed credit for any major repair, my interest would be through the roof.
Or I could move to an apartment, like my one brother, in an area that is very popular with tourists and it will feel like I’m on vacation all the time. I could really be free to do any free or cheap thing I feel like with no maintenance or responsibility and absolutely no snow-blowing all winter long! Sometimes that sounds great to me, but I am so independent and used to love living creatively. I guess if I go apartment, I might actually think of stopping Po’ Girl Shines since I have not been using it to make the kinds of posts I planned on initially and it does not look like many people see my posts. I guess I really do have to blog or get off the spot this year.
I don’t want to just post an occasional pretty picture or a recipe. I really wanted to be providing information that people could use.
I will see what happens.
Few examples of various art projects from years ago to current. I love experimenting with various computer software on my photographs. A couple were just fooling around on blank part of 35mm negatives and then scanning/printing them to see what they look like.
Blue Angel created from a pin photograph.
Make four of same pictures in various hues, highlighted edges and placed together.
Drew tree with fine tip marker on exposed negative.
Drew face on negative with fine tip marker.
Nature sketch.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Cover Art Sings!
Weekly Photo Challenge: Work of Art
My sister wanted me to take back the pastel drawing of an Orangutan I had given her many years ago so that others would not take it after she passed. She always loved monkeys and collected them and gave it a place of honor on her walls till her death at the beginning of this year.
One of my brothers then asked me if he could have it when I come up to visit him in the future. I guess it must be a work of art and you never know what you are capable of until you try something. Some of my art is mediocre and some I do really like. When I was young, I hated everything I created. Somehow I got over that as I got older. Then the pendulum swung the other way for the fact that I loved everything I did, even if it was crap!
Writing Challenge: My Lost Art of Basket Weaving
Many years ago I used to love creating warp weave, yarn wrapped baskets, bowls, vases, etc. My best-selling were the ones I trimmed in feathers. They were really popular back in the 70’s, early 80’s at school bazaars or local craft shows. I always worked in earth tones or fall like colors that were popular at the time. They are still the colors I like to work with the best in all mediums.
Right after my divorce I worked a lot of hours and most all of any art or crafting I once did fell by the wayside to the pure exhaustion that became my daily life. On weekends, or Sunday, I caught up with my children, people and chores that I didn’t get to during my work week. Many of my work weeks were 6 days so on my Sundays off I tried to take my kids somewhere, run my errands, etc.
My actual lost art was that of living like a human being was created to live, so other than the fact that I can’t afford my balloon mortgage payments due in a few months and will be losing my home, I may actually begin to begin again now that I am finally retired by forces too numerous to mention. Cleaning out my only sister’s apartment after she recently passed, I found a number of baskets I had given her years ago. I still have yarns and basket supplies boxed up. I pulled a dish out that I had been working on probably 30 years ago. I just may finish it with some feathers when I done.
This gives me the inspiration to finish it so I can not only post the finished basket, but I will also post some how-to information on the instructables.com website when I start my next one.
Work in progress.
various baskets
Weekly Photo Challenge: Inside Pastel Portraits
Most of my life has been spent as a student of the arts, visual, literary and performing.
I don’t write as much as I used to, but then I don’t read as much either. I was raised in a musical and artistic family so I have played various instruments and sing. Took dance lessons for many years and used to be a dance teacher into my early thirties.
I have always loved the visual arts and have studied with various artists of my liking rather than taking additional courses in a school. I never cared for my art classes throughout my student career. I found the teachers to be to rigid and the class much too structured. I started going to art shows in the early 70’s and when I found local artists with techniques I liked, I would ask them if they also taught. Some did and some did not. One older gentleman sketched beautiful pastel portraits. I saw him in a few shows and asked him if he taught, he said no and that was that. I saw him in another show, again he told me he did not want to teach at this time. Being retired he still had a part-time job and was not interested. After he was widowed a couple of years later he was at another show and asked me if I was still interested in learning pastels, which I was because there were not many local artists in this medium that were as talented. He said he had a few other people that were interested and decided to go ahead. I was so happy! He was a great teacher and I really learned a lot. I have not done much pastels lately and wish I had taken pictures of some of my older commissioned work that was given away or sold. I didn’t used to take my art that seriously, but I would never dream of letting any work go without a number of pictures to add to my portfolio now.
Below is a slide show of a couple of my “homework projects” given when I was first learning. I have also included a few finished pieces.
Glue Gun Art
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!
Deer silhouette with snowflakes, enhanced with glue and painted.
The lighter green is crushed eggshell for texture effect. Spotting effect was created by dropping alcohol 91% proof.
Leaf shapes enhanced with glue and paint
Leaf
Another leaf.
8×10 practice canvas board.
Glue gun enhanced wood frame, painted for altered photo of violas.
Ghost in Garden Collage in Progress
I still have much to do and will update after I feel there is something more to show. I like to use photo transfers from my inkjet printer on all kinds of paper and cloth. Computer software is great for making all kinds of special effects to customize your mixed media art. I usually make a transfer off of construction paper or vellum due to the thickness of the paper. I will just affix any pictures printed onto tracing paper with the paper, inkside down. You have to be very careful when you are working with inkjet photos instead of laserjet, because they smear worse. I always apply the medium to the canvas or the board and then affix the picture ink side down carefully in place so you don’t have to move it. Then you are free to add additional medium to the top and edges to firm in place without any fear it will smear.
I know that I will be adding additional paint and perhaps stamping techniques, maybe even covering up some of the images that are already on the canvas. I will sometimes work something over so much that it is no longer recognizable from the first creation. Like any artist, I just keep working until I feel it is complete. I do plan on adding more mixed media hardware and fabric as well.
More to come.
Waiting 4 Spring!
Taking A Bad Sketch to a Whole New Level
I still have the old Photo Draw 2000 software from Microsoft, and love it. I have since purchased Photoshop Elements, but have yet to use it.
Try something different or creative with any of you art or photos. My favorite effect is to use the “cut out” by color, then change the search mode from global to local and make sure the “put in new picture” is checked. Do this effect in various areas of the selected picture and when finished, select to fill from the format tab. There I selected the gradient fill for the colors but you can replace it with a photo, texture or all one color. It will only fill in the areas of the sketch that you clicked to cut out, which is the effect I wished to achieve. I then used “Designer Effects” from the Effects tab to enhance the color and contrast to my taste. I finished by layering the enhanced picture over a dark purple background color that had to be created from the default picture after the picture setup was changed from landscape to portrait.
Anyone else out there fool around with their photos or art like this?
Po' Girl Shines 
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