365 Day 123

okay...an example of how stuff happens to/for me

I was in my car at 7 Mile & Haggerty sitting at the light and there was a road crew putting a sign together. The one guy was maneuvering the unwieldy long legged sign into the brackets. Once it was in, it was pretty secure. Then the guy on the truck thew him a sandbag and they plopped it onto a corner of the brackety part of the structure.

A light bulb went on for me. AND there I was at 7 & Haggerty -- and there was Home Depot...synchronicity -- I was supposed to be there to see this.

I went in and found something similar to the sign parts. Then as I was looking around I found this mesh stuff that is something between chicken wire and window screen...they sell it for making armatures in a slightly lighter weight at Michaels but it is waaaaaay more expensive there. But it came in like a 10 ft. long sheet -- got the guy to cut it in half so it would fit in my car. Nice guy...he told me how when he was in grade school his class made a gigantic brontosaurus out of papier mache with a wooden structure inside.





mesh stuff and something similar to what the road crew had












Then I was looking around some more and I spotted these things for venting stoves (?) or dryers (?) -- whatever -- I KNEW what they are really for! So I grabbed some of that stuff. Then I got lag screws for later and had to go to Ace (because, duh...I didn't remember that Home Depot is not a hardware store...they have told me that many times before).





gloves, tin snips, hack saw, stuff -- fitting on my back seat just fine












The guy at Ace was really great. He figured out what bolts and nuts I would need to put the angle iron pieces together (ha...I know what it is called now). I also bought a ratchety thing set in a case for later. Probably good to have on hand. (Oh, I also got a couple of balls at Toys R Us -- they didn't have any reeeeeeally big ones, though.)





the ratchety thing set (in a case!), bolts, nuts, and balls








These will all go together to become the armature for another project that will take me a long time to do -- but this is how stuff like this comes together for me. I don't know exactly what it will be, but I know it will be some kind of beast with at least one prancey foot. It will not be anything like the giant horse, but that is where the image came from. It makes sense to me.






yeah -- I knew EXACTLY what these parts really are

















I love this statue -- it is SO HUGE -- look at me -- I'm tiny!

Me and Nina Akamu's The American Horse at Frederick Meijer Sculpture Gardens in Grand Rapids, MI

365 Day 122

cutting flowers

I have been playing around with this tonight.

I already had the cat girl assembled. I had a few of the flowers cut out, but I had to cut out a whole bunch more -- there were pink ones, magenta, orange, all much smaller.

I don't think I am done with this and I am not sure where I will go with it, but this is what I have been doing tonight...
gluing down flowers that I cut out.

365 Day 121

finished with the transfers!














Yay -- I finished transferring the last 50 images onto blocks (I had to quit working on them a few nights ago when I ran out of carbon paper). Now I will give all of them to Juana Moore to work her magic -- aka coloring. Juana and I will join forces again for another round of Penciled In for Art-o-mat. This time we are doing 100 blocks instead of 50 since we both have a small block of time available to work on these now.

I chose twenty drawings. Seventeen of them were ones from older editions of Penciled In and I drew three new "Youngsters" -- a young dog, a young cat and a young rabbit.































Now...what to do with the rest of the evening?. Should I start something new, work on a project in progress...I think I will sit with Twink and start making the 100 twisted wire hangers we will need for the backs of these blocks. Oh, and maybe look at the images for the mini moo cards that will go into the boxes.

A Visit to Laurie Eisenhardt's Studio

Visiting Laurie Eisenhardt's studio is like stepping out of your most delightful dream and into nearly unimaginable reality. click on the postcard above to go to Laurie's website.













I want one...no, several of EVERYthing! Visit Laurie's website to start your collection!

365 Day 120

woah...what a day!

Wow...what an incredible day of art and fun and more art and more fun.

We went to Laurie Eisenhardt's Studio Spring Sale -- what an incredibly magical experience.

Then we went out to Paint Creek Center for the Arts to go to the Come Play With Me play date.











reunited with Chime Cat for a little while...he needed a belt put back on a wheel





We had a bit of time to kill after that, so we went and had coffee and I put my new glow in the dark shoelaces in my shoes then -- duh -- was mildly disappointed to realize that my pants cover my shoelaces most of the time and you can't see them glowing (even when they are fully charged up). Then we went and got the carbon paper that I nearly forgot (so I can finish transferring my images on to the blocks for Juana to color for our Art-o-mat series "Penciled In").

THEN we came back and went to the opening reception for Meth & Hot Dogs 2 curated by Kill Taupe at LIFT in Royal Oak...man was it packed!





sign for Meth & Hot Dogs by Kill Taupe








Frankly, I am totally worn out. I left Northville this morning at 10 and just got home shortly before 11. I will post the photos of the play date and M&HD2 tomorrow.

Right now I need to sit in front of tv with my purr therapist -- Dr. Twink. That's what I need in order to wind down enough to go to sleep at a reasonable hour tonight. Ahhhhhhhhhh.

365 Day 119

transferring images to blocks










choosing the images -- I didn't realize just how many there were to choose from!







Juana and I are going to do another edition of "Penciled In" for Art-o-mat. Tonight I am transferring the images onto the blocks. Tomorrow I will give them to Juana for her to color with colored pencils -- she is amazing with the colors. I like my drawings, but she really brings them to life -- brings out the individual personalities.





Twink "helping"








This edition will be a combo of seventeen of the drawings we've worked with in the past and three new ones.



getting down to it

365 Day 118

a full, fun day!

Let's see...I started off packing up Listia auctions to mail out. Then I got Arto-art packed up to switch out in the machine at LIFT. Then I packed up my clay guys to take to Brenda's. Then I went to the post office, then to Sam's Club to get sandwichy stuff for dinner, then to Juana's to get her and we went to lunch at Ahan Thai and had a good tasty meal.



Art-o-mat artpacks packed into the boxes at my house





Then we went to LIFT and bought a bunch of new Tokidoki blind box unicorn toys and talked with Kent. Then I changed the art in the machine and Juana put the binder pages in for me.




the machine at LIFT (can't see the last column, sorry)









Then we went out to Brenda's to play with clay and the dogs.
On the way to Brenda's we sat in traffic for a bit...I hate traffic on the highway.






looking across the table...Juana is off camera to my left and Brenda is over at the counter working on her big leaves and faces










We had a great time with Brenda and Rocky and Ginger. We got to see James, too. Man...he has grown up -- looks like a rock star. Then we talked more and worked on clay projects more and had sandwiches and yummy vegetables and talked more and laughed lots.


Ginger with her half-a-tennis-ball














Rocky and his tennis ball -- he is incredibly focused













there's Juana...and Brenda















all of my "guys" are reunited...LOL

















the little "guys" I am working on...they look like a forest of monoliths or something...Brenda is going to fire them










Then we drove back to Juana's and dropped her off and I came home and was delighted to find a big box of art books that arrived from Amazon. Then I fed the cats and now I am writing this.

Next I am going to go look at my new books and watch my shows that were dvr'd.

FULL, FUN DAY!