In Which The Psyche Throws A Temper Tantrum

YES (nononononononono...)

I've been thinking about this post for a while. And each time I think about it, I don't do it.

It's about resistance.

We've decided that we are going to do something. We are going to change our lives. We're going to reach for our goals. We're going to go for that thing that we've always wanted but haven't been able to do and then, we say YES, now it's time for me to achieve.

And we make our goals and set up our tasks and shoot for the stars.

And then we come upon the resistance.

We choose not to sit down and write. Or we pick up that bag of cookies. Or we turn on the tv instead of making those phone calls... whatever it is.

Part of this process of changing our lives and taking action on our dreams is facing resistance.

When we make our commitments, the little angry, scaredy cat inside of us all of a sudden gets really loud and demanding. It doesn't like the idea that it is losing power. The 'no's get louder. The 'yes'es get overwhelmed. It finds its ways to be the center of our attention, to stop the forward momentum that will leave it behind, to be in control of your life.

And this is part of the process.

We all face resistance. We all back slide. We all have roadblocks of our own device. We all have fears and anxieties that flare up and take over like a toddler.

It's okay. You don't have to let the the resistance win.

When my kids have a temper tantrum, I tell them that it's okay for them to feel their upset, to be angry or afraid or hurt, I tell them that their feelings about things are valid, but it is not okay for them to take out their upset on other people, or use that upset to control the family. I send them to their room to feel their anger. I sit with them and talk to them about it.  I ask them if they're ready to move on. I talk to them about what they could be doing now if they weren't having a temper tantrum. I ask them what they'd really like to be doing. And when they are done being upset, they come out of their room and we move on with our day.

That's a child. Your own resistance is something different.

Breathe through it. Relax into it. Accept that your fears and anxieties are valid feelings, but may not reflect the reality of the situation. Acknowledge the resistance. Recognize that this is part of our defense mechanism that has served to protect us. It may not be what we need right now to move forward, so pay attention to the voices that are resisting your forward movement. Thank them for protecting you. And then tell them that you don't need them right now, you are quite safe already and are intent on moving forward with your goals.

And then do so.

Abundance and 96-100 in the 100 days creative challenge,

 Branched
gold acrylic paint and pen on paper
96/100

Yesterday was my 100th day of my 100 creative works in 100 days challenge.

Woo hoo.

I actually did it. I didn't even cheat. I missed two months of painting and drawing because of my move, but I was able to get my grove back and restart my creativity. Maybe it's a good idea that I did commit to finishing this task, against the odds, because it meant my creativity didn't get lost in the many duties of moving. And life. Don't forget life.

This is a painting of a branch. In gold. I had extra gold paint on my palette from painting another picture, so i wanted to use the last of it, and I've always loved those twisty branches, so... No special meaning behind it.

Monster Plans
watercolor, pencil, pen on paper
97/100

These are plans for a horde of monsters I am going to make my son for Christmas. A kraken looks an awful lot like an octopus, and godzilla looks an awful lot like a T-rex. Interesting. The plan here is to use felt and cotton knit and buttons and embroidery floss.

I need to do less planning and more sewing though.

 this bowl is full of abundance
pencil, water color, ink wash and acrylic on paper
98/100

This is another empty/full bowl. This one  I designed with gold leaves and pomegranates to symbolize abundance. The bowl is marked with hatches, which to me always represents time. The background is a dark, deep brown, like fertile earth.

An incomplete symbology

ink and watercolor on paper

99/100

Speaking of symbols, here I drew out my own study sheet. I was just thinking about some of the symbols I seem to use over and over again. Sometimes when I paint, it's a kind of language, I paint stories... or parts of stories, and the symbols are part of the meaning making. 

Too many years reading and writing poetry. :)

Miniature doll in progress
paper clay, silver wire
100/100

And for my 100th work of art, I am posting a paperclay doll that I started. She's not done in the slightest, but I don't feel bad about using a WIP for my last entry. It's a new challenge for me and I have been wanting to try it for ages. Plus, I think it looks kind of cool unfinished, just the white paper clay and the silver wire.

It was even better before I dropped it while the clay was still damp and it landed face down on the floor. She got a little smooshed. Oops. I tried to fix her the best I could. I think when she's dry all the way, the paint will go a long way to making her look better. What I've seen of the tiny dolls people make, they don't have to have all the details in the clay. You can just give suggestions of the features, then when you paint her face, she gets her personality.

I intend to give her hands and feet attached to the wire, then wrap the exposed wire with florist tape, then make tiny clothes out of fabric. I do not know who she will be. She might be a woman from the 30s or 40s... as I think about the hair style that I kind of molded a bit already. We shall see. Whatever she develops into, that's part of the fun.

And I guess that's why I picked this piece for my last entry, instead of another piece that I completed... because where I'm going in my creativity is still unwritten.

I think I've entered some territory that is new to me, and have developed some techniques and ideas that are rather interesting. That's one of the best things about doing this challenge, watching how you develop as you go. It's such an extended project, one of small babysteps, that you can actually see the journey you make and you can see how one thing leads to the next.

And so now I'm done and I can relax on the posting, but I do hope that I can continue with my art work and see where it takes me next.

I do recommend this as a challenge for anyone. It is a challenging journey, but if you keep your daily goals small enough, it is not impossible. You'll notice that whenever I got behind in my count, my art work would get smaller and simpler, and that's okay, it still moves you forward. If 100 days is too long a challenge, you can do a month of art works, or  43 days. Or whatever number suits your life. It's committing to the creating that makes it worthwhile.

Believe You Can and Little Lucky Elephant

Believe You Can

hand carved stamps, ink, pitt artist pen, metallic gel pen

There's this thing in my head that says, "I CAN'T!" whenever I come up against something that is scary or large or different or difficult. It's my self destructive, negative, little monster of an insecure shadow self. It's not true, but it's like a stuck record that has been playing in my head since I was 3 years old or so.

To combat the stuck record, I made this page in my journal. 

The inspiration was actually the stamp I made last night. I wanted a little lucky elephant all of my own. I wanted to remember the determination, strength and power of the elephant.

So I made one. It was actually some what easier than the tiny heart stamp I did the day before. Maybe it was the larger size, maybe it was the softer medium (this is an actual stamp carving block) maybe I'm getting better at doing this stamp carving thing. Any way, it was fun and didn't take too long.  It actually took far longer to stamp out the little scallops in the center of the frame. Oh yeah, I did the tiny scallop stamp on a pencil eraser last night, too. That was also easier than the heart. It might just have been a softer eraser. I bet the stiff ones hold up better, though.

Here's a close up of my little lucky elephant as a stamp. Hey, look, if I place it just right, they're hold onto each other's tails with their trunks.

I just had a memory. My grandmother used to collect elephants. She told me to make sure that the trunk was pointed up, because that's what makes it lucky. I don't know if it's true, but it can't hurt.

Here's to good luck for everyone, and here's to remembering to believe that you can, in fact, reach your dreams.

Alien Freaks aka Cute Li'l Guys

Alien Freaks aka Cute Li'l Guys

(all following) about 4" in diameter, felt, thread, rice.

designed by Gabriel, Ivy and me, sewed by me.

Here's a thought: Do we value the special unique qualities that make us who we are?

Or do we think those little quirks about us make us somehow wrong? Somehow not good enough? Freakish? Flawed? Ugly?

I made these beanbags, by hand, for Gabriel's 6th birthday party. The plan was to use them in a beanbag toss game and then let the kids take them home for a goody treat.

I had to squelch down my worries that they wouldn't want a dorky handmade goody treat. Or that my flubs in stitching would make these rejects. Or that no mom would want a kid to bring home a thing stuffed with rice. Or that the designs would not be cute enough.
But guess what? Every kid, from 4 to 11 snatched one of these little babies up. They picked the ones they liked best and those were owned.
Even the first attempts, the wonky little guys with wonky little eyes and wonky little tentacles.
And you want to know what? Even the one that was left over... I took it. Mine, I said, defending it greedily from six year old paws. Mine. I pinned it up over my desk. They didn't understand the delicate curlycues and the subtle color scheme, but that one was mine. The kids liked the wonky ones better. Go figure.
I'm even going to have to make replicas of some of the ones that went away for little girls who want friends for theirs.
What is this all about?

This is about trusting your own uniqueness, your own alien beingness, your own wonkiness. Someone out there will love you the way you are. Someone will love what you create with your own two wonky hands. And even if they don't, what you do is just the path towards you learning who you are, what you love, and how to make it.

Trust. Keep trying. Look with unbiased eyes at what you do. Look for the loveliness, not the flaw. Imagine your work was created by someone else and see it for what it is, without your own feelings of unworthiness and not-good-enough-ness getting in the way.

Loving yourself, is the key. Believing in yourself. Trusting in your vision and your process.

Saying yes to who you are and what you do.

Not Knowing and Releasing Attachment

Not Knowing

acrylic and paper, moleskine

5x8"

Life is a mystery.

It is an unknown.

Even if you make plans and believe you know where everything is going, there never is a guarantee.

But you've got to keep trying. You have to have faith that everything is going to work out in the end, or if it doesn't work out, that you learn enough to make the failure worth while.

I like art when I don't know where it is going. Sometimes, when I get too secure in my artistic vision or technique, I feel like I am stifling. I like the questions that are embedded in my creating. I like the results of chance that happen when my brush goes over the page and changes a shadow or silhouette. I like how different colors react against each other. I like being able to consider whatever is happening on my page, taking it for what it is and working to make it more pleasing or more meaningful.

It is hard to do this with life sometimes, when you are expecting certain outcomes and then you don't get them.

I think this is the Buddhist concept of releasing attachment, and it has always been a difficult one.

We think we should have THIS result.

We don't get it.

We are dissatisfied.

What if instead, we live life in the way we go about creating a painting:

Have a rough idea or sketch in mind.

Pick up a brush and take action.

Step back and look at the results.

Decide if those results work for you.

Take action to either change or accept those results.

Move on to the next step.

No railing against fate. No fighting with other people about not getting what you want. No resentment or feelings of failure. Just acceptance of what is. Action without anguish. Moving forward.

It seems like a life lived without attachment, accepting the what-is, would be a much more peaceful kind of life.

But I do believe that releasing attachment requires that you have quite a bit of faith. You have to trust that in the end things will come out all right. That you will be all right. And even if you don't have a guarantee in the results, you need to have enough faith in yourself to believe that you will be able to handle whatever happens next.

Maybe that's why releasing that attachment is so hard, because it is hard to have that kind of faith in yourself.

Oh, and I know that being an artist is not as easy as all that, too. I know that it is hard to release attachment and have faith in our ability to create something beautiful and moving. I know that some artists will burn everything that they have ever created because they are so tortured. I know that when we create, we are also fighting all our demons at the same time. It's interesting to see how creating art can be such a mirror to living life. And I'm glad I get to practice living in my creating. It helps me see the living part with just a tiny bit more perspective.

Red Pocket Monster

Red Pocket Monster

felt, thread, buttons, polyfill stuffing.

I made this little guy as a gift for a friend of Gabriel's. Now that I see him here, he looks kind of like this flu bug that's been dragging on.

Oh, I'm not "sick" anymore, but I'm still in the grips of fatigue even as the cough is releasing its hold on my chest. Maybe posting this little monster will help exorcise the little monster bug that is driving me nuts.

I've been wanting to do stuff, to get back to journaling and painting and blogging and writing and businessing, but I haven't had the gumption. I guess I'm just posting to tell you guys that I haven't disappeared. I'm still out here, just lazy/tired.

On that note, maybe I'll go buy that new journal and half pans of paint for my winsor newton watercolor set, from Dick Blick if you were wondering where I get that kind of stuff. Or maybe I will do some jotting in the new business plan I am working on. The dream plan. The creating plan.

I do think that the best way to get started, especially when you have not much energy, is to start getting excited about what COULD be.

All Creativity Day

Here we are, me and the boy. Before trick or treating.

I have much to post, it being nanowrimo and AEDM... however, it also being 8am, I don't have much to post quite yet. There is no creating to document at this moment, but I wanted to just give a shout out to Halloween, and the end of Halloween. I'd feel I could relax a bit, except for the lunacy of tackling nanowrimo and AEDM.

What can I say, I am an inhabitant of the asylum, and I am about to descend to the basement and hole up with some purloined trick or treat candy, a cup of coffee, some notes and my laptop.

If you all are interested. That hair stayed inflated from 10 am to 10 pm. It took me about an hour to get the hairspray and ratting out of my hair. That's after two washing, two conditionings, a lot of combing, the loss of a beast-worth of hair, and some smoothing cream.

Evil beauty comes at a price.

Happy All Saints Day. Happy Nanowrimo. Happy AEDM. And Happy November

Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid-- Halloween, The Living Dead and Nanowrimo

Cemetery in Michigan (oooooOOOOOOooooooooOOooohhh... creepy...)

I am getting ready for everything.

Getting ready for Halloween. Goodness, these kids take a lot of work. Vampires and princesses. Witches for me. That reminds me, I have to make another version of my mini witches hat for my costume, because the one I made looks like... well... a mess. Maybe I'll photograph this version, and you can follow along.

Getting ready to finish my first novel. I need to take a break on that, but I'm still sending out copies to readers and receiving feedback. Thank goodness for google documents.

Getting ready to start the next book. Research research research. Outline outline. All in the few moments in between living life.

Gearing up for NaNoWriMo. Sorry if I talk about it a lot. Talking about it gets the juices flowing.

Actually that's true of all creative projects. Immersing yourself in the world of your project gets you excited to get going.

And another thing about nanowrimo... it's not just the deadline that gets you writing, it's all the months (especially October) where you aren't allowed to write according to the rules. And the anticipation of writing starts to build, and you think about your book and write around the writing (outlines, character sheets, research etc) and all of that serves to deepen your book and your thoughts and your entrapment in the world of the book, so that when you FINALLY start, there is something rich and deep and alive.

I am a big proponent of the "holding" stage of creativity. That's when you DON'T jump in to your creative project at the first urge of inspiration, but you let it live inside of you, in the darkness of your subconscious, growing like some sort of fungus or root system or larvae. Only the really strong ideas will last. And they will attract other strong ideas. And they will all grow and transform with the close proximity and the heat of your attention and the magic of your imagination. And then you will have a living being and when you finally start, you have already done so much inner work that the writing part takes on a life of it's own.

So with nanowrimo, on November First, (not coincidentally the Day of the Dead) your novel is ready to rise from the darkness and take corporeal form, like all sorts of uncontrollable frightening beings--ghosts, zombies, vampires, novels.

Are you scared yet?

Moaning Gremlins and Creative Authority

The Road Home

Has it really been almost a whole week? Where have I been? I didn't mean to not post this week. I guess I just got caught up in the living.

And maybe perhaps I haven't posted because I don't have any work to show you. I'm in the middle of multiple projects, both art and home, but I don't have anything done. Or if I do, I don't have my photos uploaded and edited.

I'm trying to get myself onto a new schedule in which art and writing are a regular, natural part of my day. I want them to be automatic, so I don't have to fight the scaredy cat parts of me to get to the creativity. I've been there before. It has worked, but right now, I am fighting all my lazy tendencies to take the paints out or fighting my fear to pull up the intimidating project of my third draft. I am in the place where I have all these ideas and all these projects and I am so close to their fruition, but the hurdles still seem impossible and nothing seems certain, and a little bump can throw me completely off.

I suppose it's some sort of insecurity, a lack of confidence, a fear that what I put out there into the world will be rebuffed, rejected, tossed aside, ignored.

"But what if I fail!!!!" moans my ravening gremlin. "What if I mess up the painting!" (I've been sitting on a new painting all week.) "What if I don't have time to finish? What if I never finish and toil away in obscurity forever? What if no one likes it? What if I'm not as good as I think I am? What if I am wasting all my time and all my efforts and I will never be more than what I am?"

Humph. My gremlin was just about to tell me that all I was was a dedicated amateur, and then I told my gremlin that I actually do make money selling my art, strangers buy it, so although I don't make a living with my creativity, I am a professional. Oh yeah. And I am a professional teacher of art and writing and girl's empowerment, even if I'm not doing it now, I have done it in the past and I am not an amateur. Take that you stupid gremlin.

This brings me to an almost epiphany I had this week. It's almost because it flashed through my mind and then flashed away just as quickly, like lightning, but I wasn't able to grab onto it and harness it. It was something about how becoming an authority on something is, in a big way, about accepting your own knowledge. How do you become an authority on something? You claim your own authority. You create your body of knowledge. You have faith in your own education and experiences that have gotten you to the point you exist in right now.

Even now, I don't have a handle on this epiphany. It faded that quickly. But I'm pretty sure my flash of insight told me to stop thinking I was an amateur and start recognizing the decades of work I have done, the creativity, the conversations, the reading, the classes, the experience.

And on and on.

What if we did walk through the world as if we were authorities on what we knew. Whatever that knowledge was, be it cooking or childrearing or teaching or travelling or art. Being an authority doesn't mean you aren't always looking for new ways of understanding your subject. It doesn't mean you are a know it all, jealous of your own knowledge and status and unwilling to admit where you don't know something. It means you say to yourself and to the world, "Yes. This is who I am. Yes. This is what I know."

I must consider more on this topic of creative authority.

Regardless of the moaning gremlins.

Things of Land and Sea are We

Kooky Mermaid w Purple Hair and Sea Family. By mama


This is one of the things I've been working on this month. A mermaid doll, not a pretty mermaid doll, a funny mermaid doll. And the little dolphin pet. And the finger puppet octopus and jellyfish. I am particularly proud of the jellyfish inspiration. A little tulle, a little beaded trim, and voila.

Here's Ivy playing "hello there would you like to dance" with the invertebrates.

Sometimes I've been feeling a little like I was under the ocean with all the things I've had to do lately. But without the fins and gills and tentacles and such.

I've decided that my new year is going to be....

well... let me stop.

I haven't decided anything, except I am going to keep trying to do what I've been trying to do. I'm going to take the next steps and see where they lead me.

I'm going to revise my just finished first draft of my Werewolf Novel. (Just this morning! Yay!)
I'm going to find some critical readers.
I'm going to find out how to get an agent.
I'm going to try to get this puppy published. This is the one, I think. After all of the "ones" I've had before.
I'm also going to keep going with my art. Work on my etsy shop, which is taking a necessary break right now.
I'm going to try to paint bigger, if I can.
I'm going to work on some new creativity projects still to be defined.


But along with those goals I have, I'm going to work on adjusting expectations. Accepting what is. Enjoying life as it comes. Keeping motivated and productive. Being open to opportunity. Being realistic about what I can accomplish with my time.

I've come a long way this year, but it's not as far as I was hoping. The truth is that as a full time stay at home mom with a 4 year old and an almost 3 year old, I don't really have the time or energy to do all I want creatively or in a business.

That was an important realization to make. Life comes first, you see. Even if creativity feeds my life, I still have to take care of the physicality of life, the needs of little people, cleaning the house, cooking, laundry, eating right, maintaining relationships. All that stuff of living.

I have a tendency to live in my head, to dream up ideas, to paint and write and focus on all that.

Now as a mother, I am learning this balance.

A thing of land and sea I am. A mermaid in life. Half mom and half artist. Half woman, half fish.

I am still learning to navigate this strange environment.

But there is no deadline to living. Every day is a new chance to grow, learn, change, retreat.

January first is a great day to take stock and review and envision the year to come, but it is still just one day in life. And every single day is the first day, as they say, of the rest of your life.

What do you want to achieve in this next year? What are you willing to let go of?

Pear, or Enjoy the Little Things

Pear

pen and paper, 8x5

I don't have a quote from a truly "inspirational" source today... but I did go see Zombieland with my brother yesterday, and although I am zombie phobic (so why did I go see it? I don't know) I am going to take my inspiration from the main character's rules. One of which was

ENJOY THE LITTLE THINGS.

I figure if this rule is good for a world of zombie apocalypse, it will do for me in the years that my children are barely civilized savages who want to eat what they want when they want it and will scream and run ravening for me if they don't get it. Not too far off from zombies, right?

So here's my drawing of a snack. I'd already eaten the cheese and crackers and decided to draw the pear half through the eating of it.

Enjoy the little things.

Along with enjoying the little blessings, I think it's important to recognize the little accomplishments, the things that don't seem to get you closer to your big goals, but do in fact help your life to work.

I've never been good at this life maintenance stuff, living in my head and painting pictures and writing novels and enjoying life, but losing track of the daily stuff. The dishes in the sink. The bills. The people I should keep in contact with. Paperwork that I should pull together. Even a healthy diet.

It probably means I am not connected to my base chakra, or I am not grounded or perhaps I need a keeper. I don't know, but being the mom of little kids is really challenging my tendency to live in my head.

You just can't do it. They need too much daily care for me to live all in my head.

For instance, yesterday, I lost my whole day of creativity because I had to get some old paperwork of Ivy's straightened out. It took up my writing time and I only ended up writing 777 words all day. The rest of the day it was taking care of the kids and making dinner and cleaning up and just making it through with the lack of sleep that was slightly more than normal as I'd woken up early for the paper work gauntlet. I even kept my movie date with my brother, because, you know? maintaining relationships is also part of this life upkeep.

BUT I decided to accept that the maintenance and paperwork all was part of life and was in fact productive although it didn't seem to get me closer to my goals.

I didn't even write in my novel after I came home from the movies. I watched a DVRed Office episode to get the zombies out of my head and went to sleep early.

This morning, I woke up, not even all that early, and wrote 3000 pages while the kids were watching Dora and the Crystal Palace (thankyou Nick Jr). I made yesterdays wordcount and today's in an hour and a half.

Maybe this will help me remember that life doesn't have to be rigid in its expectations. We can go with the flow, sometimes not being perfectly on top of everything, and in the end, as long as we stay focus on the goal, be just fine.

Paper Pills

Williamsburg, Brooklyn; A Journey/Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson
An Altered Book
Mixed Media, 2003

Chapter 3: Paper Pills
left page: PAPER PILLS
an/with/a/and/and/the/which/will/a/and/a/to/through/or/a/had/a/when/The/was/and/and/
in/the/a/the/The/of/When/like/of/as/as/by/a/after/all/in/by/that/with/never/the/on/in/but/
it/and/it/the/but/there/the/of something

right page:

in

above

ceaselessly

that

truth

again

erect

tall

years

had

the

ino

scraps of paper

of

pockets

upon

another

tree

playful

a

man

you

laughter

sotry

girl

curious

grow

fall

hard.

black page: delicious
white page: I// w//a//n//t// i//w//a//n//t// nothing/all

sideways: the word. the whole universe in the word.

all of the odds and ends of thought scribbled on the bits of paper.

So yesterday I worked for one hour on my new novel outline. It is the 22nd day of my 100 days of writing challenge and I have written a little bit over 7 and a half hours.

D'oh.

But you know what? I changed my focus and it allows nanowrimo, so I am not worried about getting my hours up. I mean, I do have to write 50k words in November. If I write 1ooo words in an hour, that's 50 hours of writing in only one month, less than 1 1/2 hours per day. And I would still have the rest of October and December to get my hours.

Okay, so it might still be a challenge, given my September/October so far, but it is doable.

You realize of course the biggest challenge to writing is never the actual writing. It's showing up to the page. The biggest challenge to being an artist is not the art, it's the living breathing thinking struggling artist herself.

That's why so many artist/writers/actors/musicians etc have been notoriously crazy/drunken/egomaniacal/strung out. I think they self medicate or often get overwhelmed.

The demons are on the inside, and you have to get through them to get to the page, sometimes.

But it's okay. It really is. The demons are only as scary as the power we give them.

Haha. I didn't understand how this post went where it did, and then I looked back at the pages from the altered book.

Paper Pills. Little odds and ends of thoughts. I want. Nothing/All. The whole universe in the word.

It's still a little abstract, this post.

I'm okay with that.

Flying Girl and the Break of Dawn, or I Hold The Night Within (and wreckage)

Flying Girl and the Break of Dawn, or I Hold The Night Within
25/100 in 100 creative project, 6/26/09
Golden Fluid Acrylic, white ink pen on paper, 5x8"

This is what the dawn looked like from my window as I lay in my bed with a child who had been woken by lightning in the middle of the night and refused to go back to sleep. More or less, my eyes were bleary.

But also, here is the internal landscape. In the dawn, we carry the night inside of us.... and in the night, we carry the dawn. The bird? Well... I guess there's something inside of her that keeps her flying, no matter the night, no matter the dawn.

For this week's book club entry, I took my Wreck This Journal for a walk with the family. We fixed the double stroller, now they only want to ride.

But the journal went on it's own two feet... er... multiple pages. The edges wore off a bit and the cover got smudged, but I was not as wreckeriffic as some of the hikers WTJ hikers I've seen. I'm okay with that. The leash is a nifty woven leather belt I found at a thrift store for a buck.
This is actually the second time I decorated my cover. The first time, which looked much like this but with a purple milk pen, got completely smudged and wiped out when I took the book for a walk. So I redid it in white. I like white on black. It probably reminds me of chalk boards, and all those years of being either a teacher or a student. Sometimes both at the same time.
Here is some more purple milk pen... covered by blue milk pen when the purple alone wasn't opaque enough to cover the letters. I like the way this looks. It took forever and my hand cramped up, but I still like it. This might be my favorite page. It makes me smile. Why? I don't know. I'm weird. I also like that I didn't follow the directions to the letter. Notice there is not one jot in the margins. I like the written page too much. Perhaps this is an ode to books. You can't read it anymore, although it didn't matter to begin with, but it still looks like language. It's still familiar and comforting. And the only word left un covered is "yes."
Here's my ugly page. It started when I realized how much I was yelling at the poor kids. Yes, they were ignoring me and making messes and fighting and all that, but still. Ugly mommy. G said it didn't look like me, but oh well. There's also scared/overwhelmed me... which is perhaps where the yelling me came from. On the same page is G's prompt of ugly things having a hundred legs. Then he said it looked like a centipede. And then there are the cockroaches... palmetto bugs, that are huge and fly... both dead and alive. The dead ones don't fly, but they lay on their back and occasionally kick their legs and grab onto the broom when you try to sweep them out the door. *shudder* Also the little poop in the potty. Yuck. The ripped screen window, which lets in evil mosquitos. The dirty foot prints from walking around barefoot on top of scattered cheerios and bananas and whatever else my children shed every minute of their beings. The cheerios and dust underneath the sofa. Oh yes, and little kids waking in the dark of night and not going back to sleep. Ugh. This is all in shades of black, dark gray, dark brown, with a smidgeon of stale pee yellow and oh yeah... a touch of red for the burn of a mosquito bite that has been scratched too much.

Robot Doll At Last

This is the first stages of the robot doll. First we have the painting, then we have the sketch, and the modifications of the Martha Stewart doll design, then we have my own pattern, on graph paper. I'm not a sewer, I'm a messer. I'm messing around with fabric here, and doing it all wrong, I am sure.
And this is the evidence that I was doing it all wrong. Well, that's what I thought. There were times when I was SURE this robot doll was a lost cause. The stitching is a horror. It looks more like Frankenstein than a robot. I could not figure out how to attach the feet and hands to make them look like a robot, not a poppet.

Then I went on to etsy and searched robot softie to see how other crafters had dealt with the issue.

Turns out, none of them did anything as elaborate as I was trying to do. I mean I was trying to MAKE softie wheels to add to the legs. Crazy. I sewed them and stuffed them and pinned them to the legs and ran screaming in horror.
In the end, I just sewed the arms and legs closed and added felt wheels for the feet and felt clamps for the hands and a felt face and a felt chest plate, and there was my robot.

Did I say it already? Simplicity is best.

Remind me about that when I am twisting my plotlines in my novel.

Two Robots

Good Orange Robot with Bubbles
12/8/08
Golden Fluid Acrylic on Paper

This is the continuation of the Boy's present. The Robot Christmas. This will be his painting, and it will go along with his stuffed doll that I am making. I did not get orange fabric, so, either I will have to use some old kids clothes, or make it blue. Or black, but then I wonder about the "goodness" of the robot. Maybe blue.

Yes. Many presents to make. All children? Why is that Rowena? Well, because children don't have the capabilities of turning on a computer and checking out mommy's blog. Don't want to give any secrets away, now, do I?


Robot Prototype
12/9/08
Home Made Play Clay

This was not part of the Robot Christmas... or it wasn't planned that way. We (the kids and I) were perusing etsy, looking for robots and dogs and cats. Lucky us when we found them at the same shop.

But once we saw them, and someone made the connection between robots and the balls of play clay in someone's hand, there was nothing for it but to make a robot out of play clay. Perhaps I should get some Sculpey and make some that will last and not crumble into flour and salt dust. I haven't made anything with Sculpey in a long time, but I used to love it. Figurines, jewelry, beads, assemblages. I once made a box with an antlered deity bust on top, and a flock of blackbirds inside. Man. I wish I had a picture of that one, but it was pre digital cams for me, and I gave it away... as a Christmas present.

Anyway, I still have (for the kids) a fairy crown, a fairy wand, fairy wings, robot mask, robot chest plates, laser gun, Robot doll, Fairy doll, felt cookies....hmm. I think there's more, but the boy just woke up, so my blogging time is up.

Flying Girl Sometimes Suffers from Anxiety, or Nervous

Flying Girl Sometimes Suffers from Anxiety, or Nervous
10/18/08
Golden Fluid Acrylic and Faber Castell Pitt Artist Pens.

This was the Inspire Me Thursday prompt, Nervous. I actually wanted to make her much less nervous, inside of a calm bubble, in that chaotic world. It didn't work out. Flying Girl is nervous, there is no way to pretend serenity.

Maybe that's okay. There is nothing wrong with the various states of being. No one is bad for feeling anxiety. Maybe if we can admit to our own anxiety (depression, neurosis, egotism, obsessiveness or whatever imbalance we have), then we can get closer to balance.


Striped Flying Girl Grins 10/18/08
The Big Draw #18
Faber Castell Pitt Artist Pens

For instance, this grinning flying girl fully accepts her own uglies. She embraces them and in the face of them, is beautiful. Watch out if she asks you to dance, though... you might be in for a wild ride.

Interestingly, Ivy was watching me while I drew her. If I went too near the stripes, to try to fix them or add a detail, she would cry, "noooo." Hm. I think she liked the stripes. I might be raising me a little baby fashionista. She does love her accessories.Jarett Monster and the Cupcake, 10/18/08
The Big Draw 18
Faber Castell Pitt Artist Pen.

This is Striped Flying Girl's little brother. He was actually the first striped monster to be drawn, before stripey FG. He was inspired by an old student of mine, who used to draw these monsters with barred teeth. Years later, I would find graffiti scattered about NYC of his monsters and I knew the Jarrett Monster had been there.

My Jarrett monster is not quite at ease with his uglies... as he hasn't quite learned to understand them, yet. But if you give him a cupcake, he will be very happy.

Sometimes all we need is a cupcake.

What is your cupcake of choice that helps you through your uglies? I think mine is fun tv. So You Think You Can Dance, or Heroes, or America's Next Top Model... escapist stuff. Maybe I shouldn't paint during those shows, multi tasking my night into anxiety, but just have a cupcake, and enjoy.

Tricks, and a Little Inspiration

And so... the Halloween festivities continue, as treats turn to tricks and ghosts dance about the courtyard. An eerie music plays as the sun goes down and other guests come out of the jungle...

Magnus Otto de Fluegelhorn, 10/17/08
The Big Draw #17
Chalk on slate paving stone.

Here we have Magnus Otto de Fluegelhorn. Carrying his favorite trick, a ray gun.
Gustave Machanado E Pluribus Consuelo 10/17/08
The Big Draw #17
Chalk on slate paving stone.

And here, dancing with one of the guests of honor, Ivy, we have Gustave Machanado E Pluribus Consuelo. He is borrowing Magnus' ray gun and pulling his pants up to his chin, which makes him slobber quite horribly. Please don't mention it, he gets testy when people mention it. Thus the ray gun. You may find yourself de-atomizing.
Sulgie, 10/17/08
The Big Draw #17
Chalk on cement paving stone.

This is Sulgie. He doesn't talk much. But he does growl. And run around, waving his many arms about. Watch out for him. He is very contagious. If you spend too much time with him, you might run about growling, waving your pitiful few arms about your head, too.

Uh oh, Gabriel. Looks like it's too late for you. You've contracted the dread Sulgie Monster disease. Whatever shall we do? Even Uncle Spooky heard about your problems and decided to stop by to commiserate. He contracted Sulgie Monster Flu years ago and has never been the same since. (Naturally, he didn't frighten monster Gabriel, but Ivy did show signs of Bunniness.)

Luckily, there's a spirit who makes his home in our house. Generally, he goes about in the guise of a black cat and doesn't bother much with us humans, but around Halloween time, his powers manifest and he deigns to interfere in the ways of mere mortals. We only know his mundane name, Pooty Tat, but he, in his nameless gelical ways, chased off the evil spirits of the Sulgie Flu, and both Gabriel and Uncle Spooky... who will now go about as just plain "uncle," are resting peacefully, free from Sulgie Flu.

As a note to Flying Girl Goes to the Party, or Big Night, I wanted to show you my inspiration. I actually had many ideas for inspiration for this painting, knowing as I did that it would be posted on the Halloween Party night, but the day of, I found this magazine page and knew this is what I wanted to do. I wish I had noted what this page was about, or even which magazine it came from. I believe it is the inspiration of a famous designer, but I don't remember who. Gaultier? Yves St Laurent? I don't know. I remember it was a man, and it's possible the dashing man next to my harlequin is him as a young man. Does anyone know who he might be? Or do you recognize the layout, even the magazine? I really need to keep track of this stuff.

I'm sorry that I didn't get to do my usual narrative with my painting, but my mom was here to take us on a small jaunt, and I wanted to get something out before the end of the day. It's the Halloween party, you know. Check it out on A Fanciful Twist and look at her blog roll for the attendees. Or, heck, do a post of your own Halloween Party and just jump in.

That's what Flying Girl is doing, you know. No longer being trapped by her own secret hermitness. No wall flower is she, as long as she's behind her mask. But any way, she's finally decided she wants to play, instead of sitting on the side lines.

But what key is that in her hand?

What lock is waiting for her?