Just when you thought you were going to squeak by winter with no more snow, since the freak storm in October,that is, and being one of the driest winters on record………… this happens.
…but I know who’s enjoying it the most…..
.. and it’s still snowing… Enjoy.
Judy ♥
Yes Yes, I’m here. I was only gone a minute, wasn’t I?
Wow.. what a couple of crazy weeks, I tell you. Between working my day job and surviving the New England October snowstorm with no electricity, I have been completely un-creative. I’ve lost my MoJu (get it? instead of “mojo” MoJu for Judy?). No?
Just when we were enjoying our New England Walk, a freak Nor’easter hits us like we never expected.
I took a few pictures to capture what was going on.
The night of the storm, outside my front door in the flower garden:
Kind of pretty at night like this. You can see my roses peeking out from the blanket of snow. We really didn’t get a lot of snow.. about 6″, but the weight of the snow and the leaves that hadn’t fallen yet, is what did all the damage.
As we drove out of town, we took a couple of pictures along the way.
This is only a couple a SEVERAL trees that obstructed our roads. Lots of wires were down on the roads also.
Check this tree out. We actually drove underneath it which was probably not a good idea.
Many towns were out of power for about a week… and I believe that most have their power back. The roads are still a bit messy and it’s disappointing that they are still not entirely cleared yet. This is only the beginning of the season. One can only hope these towns have their acts together and prepare for a tough winter so we can avoid another outage.
But, really, this is nothing compared to the devastating and tragic occurences that have happened in other parts of our country and around the world. I am grateful that this is all that happened. Just because I could never be a pioneer woman, doesn’t mean I can’t whine about it.
Well, Dixie doesn’t care.. she’s just glad to be home sleeping on her warm pillow… what a life! Love the tongue.
Before the storm hit, I was able to get in the studio to create a few hand-made embellishments.
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If you follow my blog, you know how I just enjoy making these. I love to manipulate them to make them my own. You can see that I added cheeks to the faces. I have many molds that I made when I first began working with polymer clay about 10 years ago. I recall bringing wads of it with me wherever I went and when I saw a cool texture, I’d impressed it and carefully take the clay home to bake. Yes, my family thought I was coo coo.
I probably won’t post for about two weeks now as I have a business trip coming up and then a week off to prepare for Thanksgiving at my home this year. HELP! I plan on getting in some studio time after the holiday since it will be a long weekend. No Black Friday shopping for me…. no sir eee.
Thanks for your patience, everyone, and for stopping by to see if I was still in existence.
Judy ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
Well, here it is April Fool’s Day and that’s what we got here in Massachusetts.. a big ole fat April Fool’s prank by Mother Nature… I’ll leave you with this… and we’ll move on to art.
Last week, I showed you some fabric dying with beet juice. This weekend, I was making some pancakes with blueberries.. wait.. blueberries? I have to give it a try. All I did was take hot water and threw some blueberries in a container and let them soak for hours. Then drop in the fabric and let them also sit for hours.
Here are my results on some fabric and lace… not bad.
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One of my readers asked me if they were colorfast. I didn’t know the answer, but I did find HERE that if you boil the fabric in water and vinegar before the dying process, it will keep them colorfast.
Ok.. so once again, I refer you to one of my recent posts on my large journal covers, I started to create. I’m happy to say that I have completed the book and it’s ready for art making.
I used my awl to make four holes for metal binder rings, spray painted the rings white, then smooshed them with some teal paint. I used a lot of the Portfolio Watersoluble Oil Pastel crayons… creamy, smoothy goodness. I did all my shadowing with them. Also, included on these pages are polymer clay, ink jet transfers, stencils, metal embellishments, rubber stamping and lots of layers on the bottom using paint, gesso, pastes. I stained the edges of the inner pages with walnut ink….. LOVE LOVE LOVE ♥
Because I used poster board, one side of each page is a bit glossy. I think I will need to gesso each page to give it some tooth. A note about spray paining… I hated it.. the fumes, the smell.. never again. I even did it outside. I’ll have to find an alternative.. maybe THIS or THIS. If they work for fabric, they should work on paper/canvas; unless it needs that absorbancy. Hmmm.. fabric? What.. no more beet and blueberry juice?
Here are many pictures of the front, back and closeups.. enjoy.. click to make them bigga…
FRONT COVER – this journal is about 12″ x 16″
DETAILS
BACK COVER
DETAILS
As the Beatles sang.. “All You Need is Love”. ♥ ♥ ♥
There is so much happening on these pages. I will protect them with PYMII. Love this stuff.. check it out.
Well, that was fun.. I had some time off from work this week and it was just so nice to not have to worry about anything but me and my art for those hours when the house was quiet. No running into the home office to check on things.. ahhh. I’m ready for retirement. I can dream.
Thanks for stopping by and let’s hope this Fool’s storm is just passing by and will melt real quick
Judy ♥
I’m sorry I’ve been gone a little while. I’ve been buried in work and snow. This week, I was beginning to feel like an eskimo in an igloo. We got hit with another snow storm this week. Ok, the snow is pretty…..for December… but this is enough. I think it will finally thaw out in June.
Take a look and see what I mean? And this is the pretty stuff.. the town and cities are loaded with banks and banks of snow. No place to walk, no where to park in some cases and the streets are narrow. Nuff of the complaining now… enjoy some pictures.
Back deck…
From the back deck to back yard… I can hardly see my grill.
Here’s a pretty one that hubbie took…before the storm…
All all my feathered friends did not mind the snow storm at all… I caught some really good pictures of them…
some played see saw…. (Titmouse and Woodpecker)
some played peek-a-boo… (Juncos)
some were anti-social….
Then some come together to socialize… they love that tree.. that’s where they all gather and chat…
I’ve been invited to an art day with some friends tomorrow. I really need this.. I’ve been in an art rut… Know what I mean??? Work, family, life is just taking priority lately and I need to get a grip of it and get in the studio. Not that I’m going to make my family last priority, but a little “me” time is due. I don’t think anyone will come to me and say “honey, mom, we till take care of everything today, you just go relax and do what you want”.
As for my art rut, this is a discussion that I’ve had with some of my artist friends lately about kinda going “dormant” for a while, brain takes a vacation, chilling out. Eventually it will come back. It will, won’t it?
Have you ever had that happen… Blank stares at the canvas, at the art table and at the page?
I have signed up for some fun “me” workshops. I AM going to put time aside for myself. There, Ive said it and “it’s in the books” (as “Uncle Buck” says).
In the meantime, I’m still fiddling (as in very little) in my little sketchbook for the “Sketchbook Challenge”. Here’s a few pages to share.. size 5″ x 3 1/2″…done with fine black marker and watercolor paints.
The theme for January is still “Highly Prized”.. and I consider MY TIME.. the time I create, to be highly prized.
More art soon… pray for no more snow and thanks for stopping by.
Judy ♥
