Mummers' Dance

This one made me think of the Lorenna McKennit song, for some reason You guys at Wednesday Stamper are mind readers! Or I am. I just finished this piece an hour ago, not knowing this week's challenge was "Circles."

A Horse Of A Different Color

What inspires me? That's the question at Creative Therapy this week. Well, I guess that's no secret: color. Color energizes me. Color makes me want to create. Color heals me. Ava often refers to the kaleidoscope inside my head, and she's right. I am blessed with technicolor pictures where most people have a brain. I listen to songs on the radio, and I see colors. I sit in the dentist chair, flinching at the sensation and sound of the drill, and feel calmer, if I just let myself focus on the images and color I can imagine. I leaf through magazine, see a color in a photograph, and I'm overcome with the need to race upstairs, get out my watercolors, and paint! A color in a pair of shoes on the sidewalk, a tomato on the countertop, the rainbow of oil on the street after a shower, that's what does it for me. Remember in The Wizard of Oz when the picture on the screen suddenly changes to color? Color is enlightenment; color is spiritual, and color is healing. When I was in first grade, I had a little trouble learning to count to 100. I always got the 30's and the 50's mixed up. Instead of focusing on the dreaded worksheets (God forbid)I'd sit quietly at my desk, brand new box of 64 Crayola crayons in hand, obsessively coloring what I called "The Road to Heaven" over and over and over again. I was certain then that the way to Paradise was paved with a brilliant, swirling masses of colors. I still think that.

Celestial Circus

This is the page that started out as a collage for Collage Play with Crowabout but became a card for Sunday Postcard Art for the "Mystic" challenge and was then "recycled" for Mixed Media Monday. Actually, the crescent moon is a recycled piece. I originally painted it for this past Friday's "Imagine" collage, but it didn't quite work there, so I used it here. When I started "Celestial Circus" I wanted it to have an eastern theme and for the girl to serenely emerge from a lotus blossom, but she was determined to join the circus! And she refused to wear the black and white striped tights I made for her. I suppose she IS a little too Bob Fosse for yoga, after all.

A Rose Is A Rose Is A Rose...

How perfect is this? I just made these art journal pages for my bulletin board at school, since we're going to read Romeo and Juliet later this year, and over at Layers of Color, this week's challenge is ROSES.




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Dear Blogging Friends...

I have a confession to make: I'm a color junkie. Yes, I know this may come as no surprise to you, but I am addicted to pure, unadulterated, unrefined, uncut color. I NEED color; I CRAVE color. Color makes me happy. It gives me energy, and it soothes me. Color just makes everything better. Now, I've admitted I have this dependency. I definitely do not want a cure!

Since I started blogging six months ago, I've met so many kindred spirits, and I've spent hours poring over their art. My goal has been to practice different techniques and to learn as much as I could from these artists, in an attempt to develop my own individual style. I've sketched and painted and cut and pasted, and I think I'm getting closer to something, what I'm not sure yet, but I can tell that I'm learning.

Last night I wanted to try something different, so I borrowed a little from here and begged a little from there, and this is the result: Anahata is responsible for the use of a vintage photograph, Sharon for the napkin flowers, Lisa for the color scheme, and Holly for the mood. Thank you, all my sweet blog friends, for writing about what you do and how you do it and how you feel while you're doing it. Thank you for your art and for sharing so generously and for helping me get a little closer to becoming what I've always want to be: an artist.

Alberta

Creative Therapy Wednesday

This week's challenge at Creative Wednesday is Row Houses, and the catalyst at Creative Therapy is What Do I Collect? . This journal page is for both, so I guess today is a Creative Therapy Wednesday. My husband calls me a bag lady because I collect A LOT! majolica, coffee cans, magazines, Staffordshire, anything with roses, art, fabric, papers, old books...Last Sunday, like the good mother she is, Ava took Magenta and Amarylis to church, while I spent the morning in my own sanctuary, my studio. When she came home Ava brought me a prize: a book from the church rummage sale. Whenever I'm out thrifting I'm always on a search for books with illustrations I can use in my collages. So I decided to challenge myself and see if I could do a collage using nothing but this one book, and here's what I came up with, using eight different pages from the book. (Okay, fine. I lied; the butterfly wings came from a biology textbook, the flowers are from napkins, and the checkerboard is from my scrap drawer.) At the very last minute I tried to glue a Buddha head on the Madonna, but Ava wouldn't let me!

Happiness Is My Soundtrack

Saturday....sigh...I forgot how much I looooove Saturdays...I got up at six and tiptoed into the kitchen, where I fixed coffee with loads of hazelnut creamer and tried very hard not to wake anyone else up. I visited my favorite blogs, caught up with my on-line friends and their latest lovelies, discovered the "Create" feature of Flickr, and spent a blissful hour playing with color and light effects. Sigh... sheer heaven. I got back in bed when Mr. Al woke up, had more coffee, watched the news, and, oh joy! The new elements from Collage Play are posted! Time to get up and get in gear; the day awaits: I will prepare a delicious omelet, spend hours collaging in the Attic with Ava while she writes, work a little on my new watercolor, get a pedicure, and tonight I will go to the movies where I will eat tons of disgustingly buttery, delicious popcorn and probably hold hands with Mr. Al. Can you imagine a more perfect day?



This journal page is what I created for the This Thursday "Colour is my obsession." Step Outside Your Box Saturday challenge "You've Got It So USE It" and Collage Play With Crowabout,as well as the Arty Girlz challenge. I thought I had finished the page, but Ava said "Add some circles!" The photo of the truck and tribal mask is one that I took last fall in Little 5 Points. I altered it with watercolor and by cutting it apart and rearranging the elements.

It's All About Me!

Was it really only about a week ago when I told you I wasn't very excited about going back to school? Scratch that. I have the best job in the world! Today I showed my writing classes how to collage. They'd been interviewing each another and writing biographies all week long,and I wanted them to make symbolic biography collages. I told them to think, "It's all about me." After they turned in their final drafts, I gave them each a 12 X 12 canvas and showed them my demo, which was yellow at the time, but, as you can see, has metamorphasized into shades of pink and red. Then I turned them loose with paint, magazines, stamps, patterned papers, and napkins (Sharon you were SO right about napkins). Even Edgar, who usually seems to be sleeping but who had the highest average in class last year, got into it, and, Rahima, who is very shy, showed a real artistic aptitude and stamped pink butterflies all over black and white checkerboard paper. A girl after my own heart. Next Monday I'm going to post their collages on Graffitti so please go by and take a look and leave a comment, if you have a moment. (They love that).

While they painted, I painted, and I listened to them exclaiming over their results, making suggestions, and congratulating each other on their masterpieces. Someone asked me if my jester hat was because I'm so silly. I took that as a compliment. Today I had so much more fun than I do painting all by myself in my studio. When that class ended, I read short stories aloud to my next two classes, ate lunch, and then I got to paint again with fifth period. Now, I ask you, who gets paid to have that much fun?

Blessings

Since we've started blogging just six months ago, we've met so many warm, generous, supportive incredible people. Just yesterday, I received the most wonderful gift in the mail from Janet over at Lavender Loft; a precious line drawing of a cat. Janet is sooooo talented, and I love her work: all the patterns and interest she can create just with one black pen! Miss Kitty is one of my favorites because of the the expression on her face.

Recently Barbara from Artiphy My Heart honored us with the Wylde Women Award. It means so much to be recognized by an artist and a true kindred spirit like Barbara.

Now, we'd like to recognize and honor some very Amusing Muses:
Mandy at Mandy's Magical World of Art for her whimsy and creativity
Suzan at Thrifty Collage Artist for her talent, sense of humor, and wonderful tutorials
Janet at Lavender Loft for her friendship and inspiration
Nancy at Something To Crow About for the good times and new group Collage Play




Now the rules for the award:

1. You can give the award to one, or one hundred, or any number in between - it's up to you. Make sure you link to their site in your post.

2. Link back to this blogsite: Women, Art, Life: Weaving It All Together so Tammy can go visit all these wonderful women.

Purpose of the Award: To send love and acknowledgment to women who brighten your day, teach you new things and live their lives fully with generosity and joy.

Thank you dear friends for all the joy you've been generous enough to send and for making this world more beautiful every day with your art

Hope Is Always In Fashion

When will I ever learn to pencil in my letters first or to CHECK MY QUOTES????

Grumpy Fairy

The Grumpy Fairy was abroad Friday night spreading bad dreams, creative block, and general peevishness. Suzan, The Thrifty Collage Artist, mentioned that she had a nightmare and was grumpy and unable to accomplish anything the next day. (Now, that's hard to believe if you look at her work, but I'll take her word for it.)Oddly, my sleep was also disturbed with bad dreams, and yesterday I was not able to finish one single thing, despite working on an entry for Collage Play the ENTIRE day. The collage elements just sat there, uninspired and uncooperative. Determined to shake my general grumpiness, I decided that a trip to Athens to an art store, dinner at an Italian restaurant (read: wine), and a head-in-a-bucket movie would chase my blues away. As luck would have it, the art store had closed, but Ava and I wandered around town, while she snapped picures and flirted with a handsome chef outside on his break. Click here to see Ava's new boyfriend. Dinner at Depalma's was delicious, as always, and the Hey Mambo red wine was (what's a good wine term here?)succulent, yet lively? On the way home we stopped at Blockbuster's and got the Rob Lowe version of "Salem's Lot" (NOT the David Soul version). Sadly, though, it was wasted on us because we both dozed off about five minutes into the movie. I woke up this morning and decided to follow Suzan's advice: be constructive and finish that damn collage. I decided, though, just to start completely over and try to express how I felt yesterday. Sometimes I feel guilty if I'm not perpetually perky. Who am I kidding? I always feel guilty if I'm not a #%*#@ sunbeam. What you see above is the result of two days of hard work. Ava says she looks like she has a tone.. Good. she definitely has a tone AND a 'tude. I'm going to save my efforts from yesterday, which include a corseted lady in a fabulous floral turban and a penguin, and put them in Time Out until they decide to try to behave themselves.

Belize It or Not

Mr. Alberta and I celebrated our 25th Anniversary last month with a trip to Ambergis Caye, Belize. Well, I finally got around to downloading the pictures from the trip, and I thought today I'd share them and the anniversary card I painted. In the new challenge this week, Laura at Layers of Color asked what yellow means to each of us. To me, yellow looks like love: warm, safe, and happy. The inside of the cards says, "Belize it or not, you've made me the happiest woman in the world!" I know, pretty sappy, but that's how we roll!

Sail Into Starry Skies

Here's my entry for Illustration Friday and 4 X 4 Friday this week. I painted this this mixed media piece last year using acrylic, watercolor, and collage elements. The sandman was handrawn with Prismacolor pencils, and I later made 4 X 4 prints to use as graduation cards for the young men in my homeroom class. (For the girls I painted individual portraits which you can see on my April 22-27 posts, if you'd like to.)

Inspire Me Thursday

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage."
Anais Nin

Too Cool For School

Since the Crazy Amigo Challenge is a free one this week, I decided to post the journal page I made for a new challenge group I was invited to join. It's called Collage Play with Crowabout, and it's hosted by the very gifted artist Nancy Baumiller. Each week she sends members a page of collage elements, and we try to see what can come up with. All the images Nancy sent were vintage, so this page fits the Arty Girlz challenge this week too. I added photocopies from a cigar box, a flower from a gardening magazine, and, of course, the dress is from Vogue. As I mentioned earlier, I'm making a bulletin board of my art journal pages related to quotes for my classoom, and when I asked Ava for some suggestions. she thought Cigar Box Girl looked very Dorothy Parker and said this was her favorite D.P. quote. I loved it and decided to put it on my page, even though now I cannot use it for my classroom. Not if I want to keep my job....

Circle Game

My entry for the Layers of Color challenge "Children" and the Step Outside Your Box challenge "Color" is based on one of my favorite songs "Circle Games" by Joni Mitchell. To make this collage, I followed Susan's tutorial at Thrifty Collage Artist step by step. Today I'll try to finish two more collages, based on quotes from literature. specifically Romeo and Juliet and The Odyssey (think CYCLOPS!) Tomorrow Ava and I return to school, and for my classroom bulletin board, I've decided to make a montage of my journal pages that are related to quotes. Last year Ava and I managed to "incorporate technology with curriculum" by having our students use blogs as journals, instead of the traditional bound composition books. My principal was so pleased that she gave me a classroom outfitted with computers for all my students, and she even asked me to consider teaching a class to the other English teachers on blogging. When our new students have gotten their blogs up and running, we'll link them here for you to see. In the meantime, you can check out Graffiti our blog that we both host to publish local student art and writing. Now, I'd better go do my homework...

Poof! They Flew Right Out Of My Head!

Today I tried my hand at my first 4 X 4, as an entry for Illustration Friday and TGIF. This is how it started, but one is never enough, so I went a little further and did a whole journal spread. Then, since they're all rather grubby, I decided to enter them into the Saturday Workout Challenge "Grunge."