Art Every Day

I almost didn't do anything creative today out of sheer self pity. What motivated me? I didn't want to type "I didn't do anything today, again". I over looked my office being a mess and took advantage of my dinning table being clean. I grabbed my giant clip board and supplies for watercolor. I had been having the urge to play around with them. I've had a couple of quick lessons on how to formally use them. Considering i have a very cheap set of pan watercolors and equally cheap but about a 2 year old never used before tube set, I didn't think formal training needed to be important for tonight. While my husband was a way playing basketball I played.

What I most like about watercolor is the layering look that is archived using layer after layer. I've been admiring Irisz Agocs* and she's mentioned using coffee to paint with. I had heard of this before but she has had some nice results. I thought I'd give it a try with my left over coffee. The mug is the result. The bird and the little spots of color were playing around. I think the yellow layered the best. Of course this could have something to do with the fact that I actually got pigment out of the tube instead of only the colored oily liquid. Anyway, I'm glad I did get something on the page for the day.



Interview with Irisz Agocs

Day 2 And...

Coming off of the high from the news of yesterday, today was kinda boring.

At work I had a few small projects after a week of nothing. My boss and I talked about possibly upping my salary and reworking my schedule so I work 4 days of 10 hours. This is all basically happening because I'm hitting my one year mark in a week and they want to keep me. They've hinted at more responsibilities after the new year and to hang in there for the next month or so of basically nothing to do. By the end of the conversation my boss made it very clear that he realizes it's not exactly what i wanted to be doing with my career but that they're open to doing just about anything to keep me another year. I hinted at him with no promises that I could give him another year. My husband and I have a lot of traveling planned for next year and a goal of buying a house - not the exact best time to go job hunting. He's talking with the higher ups about everything and will get back to me in a week or so.

This is all very flattering but part of my brain is saying "What?! Another year of this monotonous crap?!" Although, my other part is saying "Take it. Build up your own art. Sit with your self a little longer to really figure out if you want to stay in corporate graphic design or if you want to move in a different direction." I'll see what happens.

***Art Every Day***
Unfortunately I don't have any new art today.


***NaNoReMo***
I'm only a few pages behind to finish the 4th chapter of Catch 22. My first impression is, it's a little boring and I don't really care for the main character Yossarian yet. It's a good thing I have the general philosophy that i have to finish a book once i start it. Just this time i have to finish it with in a set time limit...

Got to go my husband has started Hot Fuzz and I must go watch. It's the best movie!

Now For Some Really AWESOME News

I'm an Aunt!!! this font is not big enough

My older sister and her husband are having their first child! I'm ecstatic!

This baby will be the first everything - First child, grandchild, great grandchild. The first to christen me and my siblings aunts and uncles. The first child to make great aunts and uncles out of my beloved aunts & uncles. The first to have second cousins. I find this so fitting for my sister because she is also the first grandchild and so forth.

How she told me since I'm in Oregon and she's in Texas:
I get home from work to log in and write my NoBloPoMo first entry. I check my email because you can't have the computer on with out check email. I find one from my sister. It goes something like this: "I took this interesting picture tell me what you think. I'll be out of town this weekend so call me. How are Christmas plans going? love..."

I open the attachment and there is her hand holding her pregnancy test with a little + in blue. Much squealing and shouting and celebratory dancing goes on in my living room. I call her. She doesn't answer the phone!!! I try her at home and it just rings and rings. I try her hubby's phone, voice mail. I leave really excited messages both times I get the voice mail. I must share this news with someone. I call my husband at work - i can barely keep from squealing while I'm on hold. Once he picks up I shout the news into the phone! He's all very happy sound and saying things like "that's great news" but then has to go.

I'm giddy and bouncing around the living room. My dogs have retreated to the hall way and stare at me from a safe distance. I must have been really freakin' them out because usually they are all for jumping up and down with you. I notice my mom is online... I wonder if she knows... I can't keep this to my self I must find out in a round about way if she too got an email from S. So we him-haw back and froth beating around the bush and finally we figure out we're talking about the same thing. In fact it turns out I am the last family member to know. My mom calls me and we squeal some more and lament about how S won't answer her phone. Then my sister finally calls!

Here is what I know some from her some from my parents:
- She's 3 months
- She has a midwife
- The birthing center is beautiful
- They have heard the heart beat
- She wanted to wait and tell me at Christmas in person by picking me up at the airport. I'm so thankful she didn't because if one of the family members had slipped and told me I would have been so bummed not to find out from her. I loved the photo email anyway.
- Beatrix Potter is going to be the nursery theme
- They're going to find out what they're having when they can
- Each family member found out in person in a cool way. She's yet to have time to tell me all this because she was out tonight and had to get back to the meeting she was attending. My dad told me how he and my siblings and his parents found out. I'll document this later I think.
- The due date is May 23rd. It will share my birthday month! My paternal grandfather wants her to wait another 2 weeks and have it on June 4th, his birthday, lol.

I spoke with my step-mom and we discussed maybe having a baby shower in Dec. when I'm down there for Christmas. We're wondering if this is too early. Maybe it could just be a cool women get together to celebrate the new life.

*Sigh* I can't wait to do all these little cool things for my sister who has done so many cool things for me at special times in my life.


*** Art Every Day ***

Growing up my mom always decorated for fall/thanksgiving with pumpkins, gourds and cobs of corn in different colors. I liked this tradition so I continue it. Here are pictures of my arrangement for our dinning table, I don't have a fireplace to decorate like I did growing up.



The green pumpkin is from my in-law's pumpkin patch, it didn't ripen and I liked the way it looked. I was so excited to find the gourde with the little legs. I really want to glue eyes to it and a little mouth to make it a little creature. Maybe I'll do that later this month. The card is a Halloween one a friend sent me. I thought it had a nice pattern.

While shooting I found a few limitations on the depth of field options for my camera. Also, that I don't have very good lamps for lighting in the apartment. This was shot using a lamp with a twist able arm and one bulb.

A little different perspective:



I told ya'll November is going to be a good month!

p.s. if you want to find out my mom's reaction you can go to MarillaAnne's site and I'm sure she'll post tomorrow - she lost internet connection tonight.