waiting, long drive, new puppy

February 16, 2010
School was cancelled due to "impending inclement weather", which as of 9:51 am we have seen no sign of, only clouds.I hope we get some snow.I haven't looked, but I wouldn't be surprised if crocuses were sprouting in the front garden(#7)The back yard looks like late March, the knoll in the woods is bare, but we have nearly two months until spring...

Feb 15, 2009 was the day we drove to Maine to see the blue merle Great Dane puppies.
I created a "map" with Crayola brushes.

I took a photo of the one we chose. He was two weeks old.
Even though that face was already installed in my heart, I had reservations -still not over Monty's loss, the breeder seemed less than social...

Monday; February 16,2009
On Monday, at school we shared what we did over the weekend, I broke down when I
told Carol
that we selected a new puppy and that Monty had died.
I hadn't talked about his death at school.
The erratic lines drawn with a Flair felt tip depict the emotional ups and downs of dealing with loss, yet continuing with life's forward motion....

art begets art

It was about midnight last night when I realized I'd forgotten to post on the 14th...
It was a windy, cool day. I did take Deezel for a long walk on our rural road. It was one year ago today we first met him.

I met my artsy friends from school at Popover's in Portsmouth for afternoon art share and treats.We show what we've been working on or something inspirational.

Here's the 2/14/09 Daily Haiku entry;
it's a copy of the valentines I made for everyone at school.



I used red cardstock for the base, trimmed with gold using a Pilot marker. I attached a cream colored heart (I bought these already cut) and a tag cut from vellum with gold writing on it. I punched hearts out of the tag. I stamped "Happy Valentine's Day" -after I altered the stamp so the words wouldn't be straight . I trimmed it with gold dots and stamped a heart with gold. I made this stamp from an old eraser. An outline of a heart stamped in pink finishes the cards, but for the entry I wrote about the adventure Buck Wheat had when he got caught in the handles of a gold, paper bag.
2/14/10 Valentines Day
This year I made 15 valentines, I mailed five, gave away 9 at school and kept one that is being added to my journal. This photo is a bit blurry, but it's clear enough to show that I stitched hearts to a piece of felt and attached them to shipping tags.


I got the idea from Beryl Taylor's article "Sweet Heart Tags" in Quilting Daily
( Jan. 21 email article from Interweave). I had no silk, but had some chiffon, some tracing paper scraps, and cheesecloth. My fabulous Janome stitched through each collection and I added the decorative heart stitch. I trimmed the cards with red ink, added a layer of tracing paper, glued the stitched piece down and used some red cardstock for the vertical lines.


I so liked them grouped, I made a little hanging. I constructed 3 shipping tags 3" x 6" of pale parchment cardstock, glued to white cardstock to make a stronger base, with 505 Spray and Fix, trimmed with red ink. I made the felt pieces as I did the valentines , just a little bigger. I strung them together with red ribbon and dangled a pair of red hearts from the bottom with thread. And though Valentine's Day has gone by, I'll keep this hanging for a while, since today's the day I take down the grapevine wreaths and lights in the windows, I need something decorative to transition to spring.

playing catch up... giving hand crafted gifts.

Saturday, February 13.2010
After a busy Thursday ( 2/11/10)- at the audiologist's and buying a new car, followed by sitting and sleeping on the recliner - and school on Friday, I'm finally able to get back to Silver Penny Studio.
Have you ever been treated for "benign paroxysmal positional vertigo"? I had been dealing with it for about a month, primarily at night, but it made me nervous about walking the dog and going up and down stairs. After being treated, yesterday by noon I realized I was without that everpresent sensation that the ground wasn't where it should be. I can bend over to pick something up and not spin when I stand up...
I'm working on some kind of poem.

2/10/10 - nice pattern of numbers - Busy day at school with the usual classes

2/10/09


Last year, I made valentines for everybody at school (around 40). Today's art was from scraps of paper made from that project. I loved the gold on red and used a parchment that had gold writing on it for the text.

Create valentines
pink, red, ecru trimmed with gold,
make enough for all.

2/11/09 nothing like this year ...
We went to the wake for Roger's aunt, and godmother, where we reconnected with several of his cousins. Gail Bolton was Roger's paternal aunt, third to the youngest of the San Soucie family.
I used some tracing paper that had been under the red paper when I drew gold lines for the valentines. It made me think of an animal track..



I wrote on the back of the paper using a white marker and wrote the text of piece of tracing paper which I glued over everything.

Youthful family
reunions mean food, games;
with age, mean loss.
Gail Bolton 1917 -2009

We used to get together with members of the San Soucie family every summer when that generation of siblings was middle aged, now well...

2/12/09 Thursday I worked with the 4th grade on their weekly writing, they used a valentine related prompt. I had been collaborating with the 4th grade teachers since before Thanksgiving to write every Thursday morning. From the "happiness" suggested by today's entry, it was a particularly successful writing time.



I used a scrap from the paper for the tags on the valentines I made, but trimmed the page with an orange Color Box stamp pad.

And today's entry 2/13/09.....
I felt slighted that so few people noticed my handmade valentines - that sounds so childish, but it made me realize again that to give a gift truly, I have to let go of my attachment to it. I made fewer valentines this year.I'll post photos of them tomorrow.

I attached scraps in a totally ramdom order and wrote the text over them with a calligraphy pen.
Since when I make something, there's a little of my spirit in each one, I hope that spirt will touch the spirit of the recipient. But if it doesn't, my spirit is saddened.Luckily this feeling does not keep me from creating again. Perhaps the spirit of the recipient is inaccessible through that avenue.

Is this sensation parallel to the vertigo?
What's the treatment to get those semi-circular canals aligned?

more snowless events forecast for NH

February 9, 2010
Today's a sunny, cold winter day. We have a slim hope of getting snow tomorrow night. We went out in the wind yesterday to try out a new car; one that Roger's long legs can fit in when he's driving. I haven't been out much in the cold icey backyard. I'll be taking Deezel for a quick walk through the woods before I go to school.

Looking back at 2009, for February 7, 8 and 9


2/7/09 I had a haircut and a manicure on the 7th after a yummy breakfast at Popover's in Portsmouth with a friend. Then I went to Wentworth Greenhouses in Rollinsford to meet Anne (sister) and Ila and to get some visual input from the lovely orchids.
To make the art, I used the appointment card (which I did everytime I went to Portsmouth Spa). Before I glued pieces of it to the card, I wrote in delicate, fancy script with various colored gel pens. The text is in black on a piece of parchment. It lists the day's events.
My art work for 2/7/10 has to include brochures from the Bostom Museum of Science. I went with some work friends to see the Harry Potter exhibit. We took the train from Newburyport to North Station. Along the trip, the tracks divide the marshes in several places. They are silvery white from the ice that encases the mounds. Great day.

2/8/09
One of those days distinguished only in its lovely,ordinary nature. The text says it all:
Words scatter today.
A flock of birds on the tree
lands then flies away.



The art work is loose, whatever was at hand,and ordinary also. A new stamp with circles unifies the background with the heart stamped over it in lavender. There's a piece of plastic with hearts stamped out and yesterday's text on part of it. I frequently picked up the scraps from the day before and let them arbitrarily be part of the next collage.The hearts are there because I was making Valentines for everyone at school. (I'll post this year's valentines soon.)

2/9/09
The stamp with circles became the way to create a lovely, low moon, setting in the early evening on my way to class in Portsmouth. The simple lines vertically and horizontally refrence the simplicity of the Chinese brush art I was practicing.

The round, orange
moon,
an escaped party
balloon,
hangs at the horizon.

I broke the lines to fit on the page. I hadn't planned where to position the text and wanted it away from the moon , and directly on the page. I got better at planning where the text would be as the year passed. The text became more integrated with the visual art.
It looks better written with the standard three lines.
The round orange moon,
an escaped party balloon,
hangs at the horizon.
As I look at this entry, I like where my initials and the date are placed, and that the verse balances the left hand side. I still have mixed feelings about the repeated word pattern/rhyming of balloon and moon. The change to a different vowel sound and a single "o" in "horizon" alters it enough to let it work for me.

Be back Thursday with valentines that have inspired new work...

mistake ... missing snow

February 6, cold and cloudy with no hope of the snow in the mideast hitting the northeast...



I had some fun with the stress that was going through the school last year with report cards coming out late because we'd missed so much time in December, and the on-line report card system being down, and kids stuck inside because it was sooo cold.

Visually, this worked well with a piece of commercial mult-colored paper at the top and a piece of a postcard from "Fittings" in the lower left. The blue Crayola paint brush filled the middle for the blue skies. The verse was written twice once in red and then in black on parchment:
Sunshine calls us out.
Extreme cold keeps us inside.
Deadlines bring stresses.



I guess I was feeling the stress too.
Then came February 6, 2009... and I missed a day's entry totally. I did notice it on the 14th and did a "filler" page. There were times as he year progressed that I did several entries on one day, but somehow, I missed the 6th. So the text marked the over sight and the visual was a maze drawn freehand with a Flair.

PS You may notice a fragment of an entry for Feb 6 2010, which I posted by mistake, now I'm going to see if I can delete it, maybe someone can help me... thanks

sunsets, cedar waxwings, Crayola brushes

Thursday, February 4 2010
It's a bright sunny, yet cold, windy day. I'm working up the courage to take the dog for a walk.
I shared 365 Daily Haiku 2009 with the 4th grade yesterday. I get a great response from them when I share my own work and they get deeply connected to their own work after I've shared. I started with the fabric journal from 2003 about a bull pine in the woods that I've been observing, and paying homage to, for many years. Then we wrote some poems and did art on 3"x 5" cards. The kids got very involved.



I'd guess that this journal documents when I started having a fascination with the small size.These fabric pages measured 3"x 5".


2/2,3,4/09 These entries have a variety of themes and approaches.
On Feb 2, I started a Chinese bush painting class. To depict this, I used some paper I had with characters.I brushed the suggestion of bamboo stems and wrote the text on tracing paper to glue over the paper.The text is about the ink making process.
Grind stick slowly on
stone to make milky black ink,
shaded bamboo stalks.



February third shows the small maple on the school grounds. I saw and heard a flock of cedar waxwings on the tree as I left school. No such sighting this year.



I stamped the card with blue ink, glued down the commercial Japanese paper and used Crayola paint brushes to depict the tree.
Tiny tree filled with
chirping cedar waxwings on
a clear winter day.
It's missing a clear verb - should be "fills" .

The February 4th entry depicts the sunset and the shadows it cast in the woods.I used the Crayola brushes. Although kind of a cheater tool,they proved handy for any little painting I needed on this project.



Blue and orange stripes
stretch across the untouched snow,
glowing sun goes down.

I'm stitching some funky fabric and paper valentines for a selection of friends.I'll add these to the post a few days from now.

new month... new plans...

Two of my own stamps appear for the first time on the art work for February. There's a heart stamp that I carved from an old eraser for Valentine's Day 2008. Also, I carved my initials into an old art gum eraser ( the 1" cube type). I drew them on tracing paper with a soft pencil, turned it upside down on the eraser, rubbed it to transfer the letters, and cut around the letters with an exacto knife. I liked it so much, I made one for my sister also.
I made February 1st by gluing red rice paper to the card. Then I cut a cream colored heart to glue on - never can get them symmetrical without folding. The verse relates to the shortness of the month ahead and the lengthening of the days.

Twenty-eight days hath
February. The minutes
make the hours increase.
It doesn't make sense, time wise, but I like the notion of hours increasing. In reality, the hours between sunrise and sunset are increasing, noticeably now.
Our backyard looks like March; we need a nice, serious snowstorm - six or eight inches of snow would be lovely..




I did art work on mat board for the covers and dividers of 365 Daily Haiku 2009 yesterday and bound the book with cord instead of the rings I had used. This picture is on my work table. I think the book looks great. I was so anxious to bind it, I didn't photo the art work.
This is not how I had planned to bind the book. But I decided that I had to leave the pages in the sleeves, not glued together. I want it to sit in a circle when on display.

February 2010 started with a clear cold day. It's Deezel's first birthday, so here's the picture I took of him at 2 weeks. Roger saw an ad for blue merles, we called and visited two weeks later.But today's his birthday. We will have ice cream tonight with "Auntie" Ila (our dear friend).Deezel and I walked back from the garage this morning. We went through town,by the river then into the woods where he could run free. And he did.