Entries Tagged as: laughter
Holi-daze
December 16th, 2008, Comments (30)
The time leading up to Christmas tends to put me a little on edge. There are things that I love (the lights, cocoa, cookies, giving special gifts, quality time with family, decorating the tree), but there's a bit of stress in there that wipes me out. I do my best to stay healthy and upbeat. We've all got to remember how important self-care is during all the craziness!
Fortunately, this image that the hubster put together for our holiday cards is just the sort of thing to brighten my mood. Hehe. I used double stick tape to put this picture on our holiday cards. Last night, the hubster and I put them together, wrote out the addresses on envelopes, and messages inside, while listening to cheesey holiday tunes, and then I sent them off today. I'd love to send one out to all you, so consider this your holiday card from me, the hubster, and our four kitties.
The hubster and I were both raised by parents of different religions, so we incorporated a Jewish yarmulke on one of the kitties, so our Jewish relatives wouldn't feel left out by the Rudolf theme. I think he did a phenomenal job. Hopefully all our relatives will find it funny. Heh. We sent out a few non-picture cards to family members who are a little more old-fashioned just in case. Ha! I'm laughing again, looking at it!
Ahem, anyways, I'm getting very excited for Creative Every Day 2009. I'll be letting you in on the theme for January very soon. In the meantime, happy holidays to you and yours!
Red Balloon
November 17th, 2008, Comments (23)
I've been busy, busy all day, putting together a 2009 calendar of my artwork (I'll let you know as soon as it's ready!) In the process, I've also prepped some more artwork for prints which I hope to have up on my art website soon. These things always take longer than I expect them to, but I feel good about the progress I've made nonetheless.
Taking a break from the computer this afternoon, I set to painting in a completely intuitive fashion, upon a 12"x16" piece of watercolor paper. I wet the paper, letting some paint flow into the water, creating shapes and lines in a fluid way. Things were flowing again, unlike yesterday, which was a relief. When I stepped back, I saw what was the woman's hair and started bringing that out, eventually seeing that she was wearing a grand red dress and holding a red balloon which is why I'm calling "Red Balloon." I used some ink in the end to draw in her face and give some highlights to the dress and the feather headpiece in her hair. It was fun to play with paint, with no particular end in mind.
This playful method fit right in with one of the focuses of Soul Coaching today, which was to find ways to experience more fun and joy. I plan on having a lovely, fun night to myself this evening while the hubster is out. Heck, it's fun just thinking about the variety of things I can do to make it a fun evening!
In need of a laugh? It's perhaps my love of all things cat, but I find this incredibly funny. It makes me laugh out loud every time. So, if you need a giggle, be sure to check out Guster's a cappella "Carol of the Meows."
Thanks to Wendy for pointing out that AEDM got mentioned on the Liz Massey's blog, Creative Liberty. Liz also mentioned the amazingly talented, Tammy Vitale in the same post. And I have to mention that Tammy created a drawing named after me, called Leah Dancing as part of AEDM, that I just totally love. I've never had a piece of art named for me before. What an honor! It made me all giddy. 
AAA: Animals, Art, and AEDM
October 31st, 2008, Comments (13)
Happy Halloween! I saw these tampon ghosts on the whip-up blog and cracked up. Ew, I just thought about putting ketchup on them, like they were bloody ghosts. Ha! Gross!
Um, so, anyways, I'm not one to dress up my pets, but it can be rather funny to see animals in costume. South Park's latest two-part episode made fun of the movie Cloverfield. The plot involved Peruvian flute bands and the monsters they protected the world from. It was all pretty silly, but what absolutely killed me was that the "monsters" were live-action guinea pigs that were made to look enormous. They were SO cute! The plot continues and other monsters arrive, such as giant bees...which turn out to be guinea pigs in bumble bee costumes. I was laughing so hard watching it that I nearly cried. Here's a link to a pic of "the most horrible monster of all," the guinea pirate.
Speaking of ridiculously cute, I can't help but share some kitty pics today. I realize I've been sharing a lot of cat pics and videos lately. No particular reason, just feeling the kitty love. So, this is my oldest cat, Sadie who is a wonder-snuggler, monster-purrer, super love bug. Sadie, like many cats, loves bags. She enjoyed making a nest in this one, above. And here's my big boy, Tabbers, who teaches me how to be completely and totally relaxed. In this pic, he's sleeping on our new Angela Adams duvet cover that the hubster and I are totally loving right now.
O.k. enough of this kitty business. I'm working on two sketchbook swap projects at once at the moment. For the first one, I recently did some ink blots (with acrylic paint) that I planned to create something from. Here are the first two ink blots. What do you see in them? I've already done something with one and I'll share that later.
For the second swap, I'm doing something in a journal for the "Do Not Leave Unattended" sketchbook project. I created this drawing which I'll be putting into the journal. I'd been doodling octopuses and then imagining them as umbrellas.
The paper I drew on was from a late 19th century journal where it appears that quotes and poetry where written in German. I love the look of the script.
Art Every Day Month (AEDM) begins tomorrow and I'm so excited about it! I've put the AEDM participants up in the sidebar to the right (just above the CED participants), so if you've joined in, please double check that I have you up there. I may have left you off the list entirely by accident, so just let me know if you should be up there or if you've decided to join in, let me know that too by commenting or emailing me (my email link is in the top left sidebar.) Also, feel free to join in the AEDM flickr group to share pictures of your creations!
I'm working away on a painting. The purple painting from this week has completely transformed and continues to do so. Perhaps I'll share it with you tomorrow. In the meantime, have a safe evening. And I'll be seeing you tomorrow for the start of AEDM! Hooray!
Cat Tales
October 30th, 2008, Comments (6)
Today was a good day. I felt so bright and cheery. I got a bunch of errands done (sigh of relief), had some nice chats on the phone, did some organizing (!!), and painting. Ahhh...
I've got pictures to share tomorrow of some fun drawings I've been working on, but I had to share these cute kitty stories before then. I'm watching my cat Tabbers make a nest on the couch as I type this while Sadie is snoring away behind me. I may be a crazy cat lady, but I truly love all animals. When I was a nanny, the family I worked for had two dogs and I loved spending time with them during the day and then coming home to my kitties at night. I was definitely covered in pet hair 24/7!
O.k., I'm a total goofball, but when I saw this last night on CNN, I cracked up. It's a video of a shelter where, along with a radio station, they're holding a "Kitty Caucus" where litter boxes are being used to tally votes for McCain and Obama. The kitties are too cute. I hope some of them get seen and adopted!
And then today, I saw this video of a sweet Australian dog named Leo, who helps firemen save a litter of kittens from a fire. Oh, so sweet! At the end of the video he gives the kittens a good lick.
I hope these videos brighten your day a bit!
Beetle Juice
July 11th, 2008, Comments (17)
Life is good and I'm feeling oh so grateful. One of the things I'm feeling grateful for is a healthy Sadie-cat. Thank you for all the kitty well wishes! Sadie went on antibiotics on Tuesday and by Wednesday evening she was 95% better. Thursday she was her regular crazy-kitty-self. I'm so happy about that.
It's late and I need to crash, so I'll have to save the rest of the post I was planning to write til later. Above is a spread from a moleskine I'm doing as part of a swap. On the right I drew a little pic of the necklace I purchased recently and on the left I wrote the message that's on the opposite side of necklace.
Oh wait, one last story before I go to bed because this whole thing made me laugh so hard. It started when I went into the bathroom where the hubster was brushing his teeth and I noticed something strange around his waist. Where a belt would normally be, he had a usb cable going through the loops of his shorts. I was confused and asked, "Um, what is that?"
Apparently he got to work and noticed his shorts were so loose and could fall down at any moment. He couldn't find a belt in his office, so he improvised, found a usb cable, took it into the bathroom, fastened it around himself like a belt and then pulled his shirt over it so no one would see. Too funny. I started cracking jokes about him being like a geeky MacGyver and then kicked him out so that I could use the bathroom. Well, I'm in there with my shorts down when I see this gigantic bug on the floor. I mean huge! I thought it was a cockroach at first. I yelled to the hubster to come quick and he told me it was a very large, but friendly looking beetle. Well, he may have been friendly, but I wanted him out of the bathroom immediately. So, I grabbed a plastic cup and a piece of paper, put the cup over the super-bug, the hubster slid a piece of paper under him, and I went ahead to open the porch door. The hubster came out of the bathroom with the gigantic bug in the cup and as he gets close to me he says, "Get out of the way, he's getting out!" Apparently, this clever beetle was trying to make an early escape. The hubster starts running towards the porch door just as his usb-belt-less pants fall down around his ankles. He practically trips and throws the cup, paper, and beetle out onto the porch all together and slams the porch door shut. I'm hysterically laughing at this point, yelling, "Oh my god. That was classic!" The two of us pant-less, trying to get a huge beetle out the door. Good times. Hehe.
I really hope that was a stray beetle though and that we don't see any more of those things inside. I'm not usually super spooked by bugs, but this one gave me the heebeegeebees!
End of the Weekend Links
June 22nd, 2008, Comments (5)
I hope you've all had a lovely weekend! It's been a relaxing one for me. I've got some good lovely linkage to share. Ready?
- This is a little last minute, but if you post a comment before Monday morning (9 a.m.) at Sparkletopia here, you can win a beautiful print from Christine!
- This week Inspire Me Thursday was inspired by Wonderland, a fantastic project by artist Yeondoo Jung who has brought children's artwork to life. I love the idea and the execution. So cool!!
- Creative Every Day 2008 participant Cory has posted a great series of tutorials at her blog Create with Moxie. She did the same kind of rubbings (frottage) that were featured in the GPP Street Challenge, but using encaustic wax instead of crayons. Cool! I'm going to have to give that a try! The tutorials start here.
- The hubster pointed out the website Gizoogle this weekend. You can put in any website and have it translated into Snoop-Dog style speech. It's over the top and ridiculous, but pretty funny. Here's what my blog becomes. The posts are pretty funny, but I thought the changes to the CED blogs in the sidebar (on the right) were hilarious. be crafty be happy becomes be crafty be stoked, diving for pearls becomes perpetratin' for pearls.
Tonight, I'm planning to kick back and watch Design Star. Fun!
New Cure for Migraines
May 18th, 2008, Comments (5)
A new cure for migraines: Whale socks! (plus excedrin and a dark room, your results may vary.)
Random Assortment
March 5th, 2008, Comments (11)
Just finished watching the Project Runway finale and I won't say who won in case you dvr-ed it, but I loved the runway show! Definitely the best one yet. So fun.
I've been stressing over taxes today and I'm downright exhausted. I took a nice break mid-day to get my body moving. I really need to bring exercise back into my daily life to help keep my mood up on gray days. And I totally strayed off that path. I need to make it enjoyable to get back on track, so today I used the fitness channel's lineup of programming to do a half hour of belly dancing and a half hour of yoga. Olivia has been doing a great series of short videos (vlogs) on depression recovery which you can check out on her blog. Sometimes you need to use creativity to figure out a way to get your body in motion!
Besides exercise, laughter is always important. I included this in my monthly newsletter yesterday, but it's totally good for a laugh, so I'll share it here too. It's a blog of bad MLS photos. It might be funnier to me because we've been casually looking at houses (mainly online) and even though prices have come down, it's still ridiculously expensive in the Northeast. Boo. Makes me want to move somewhere warmer and cheaper. By the way, you can sign up for my newsletter in the lower left corner of my website and be entered into a monthly drawing for a free print!)
Time for bed for me!
Come on Ride the Train
January 12th, 2008, Comments (13)
These are the pieces I showed below after I drew in and painted the figures over the collage. I worked on them at different points during the day and finished up last night while the hubster played guitar on the couch. I love when he plays music while I paint. The creative energy in the room makes my heart feel so big.
They're not done yet. Next step will be writing inside their bodies what these figures are thinking as they ride the subway. Funny sychronicity...as I was thinking about putting this post up, I was perusing the newspaper and saw that today is the day of the 7th annual No Pants Subway Ride. Yes, you heard me right (or read me right rather.) The event is organized by an Improv Everywhere, which is based in NYC, but the event happens in cities all over the world. So, if you're feeling brave or voyeuristic, go check it out in your city! Heh. After looking around IE's site a little more I came upon this story of a mass de-shirting in Abercrombie & Fitch, which totally cracked me up. I love a good sense of humor.
Linkaroos and Art for day 10 – Sirens
November 10th, 2007, Comments (13)
Got some links for ya:
First off, the amazing writer of the blog, 37 Days has posted a cool challenge. She is working on a book based on the essays she's written for her blog and she's now looking for artists to create ATC's based on these essays. Check out this post for more info.
eb from Be...Dream...Play posted a fantabulous link the other day to a video of Maira Kalman, illustrator and author of a new book called The Principles of Uncertainty. I *loved* this video of a completely authentic and unique woman telling her stories. I hope to get the book. Just looking at her whimsical illustrations and listening to her stories, I felt so inspired!
If you need a laugh, like I do today, check out this post. Too good.
And for my art, "Sirens", a piece of totally spontaneous art. I sat down with some caran d'ache water soluble wax pastels and watercolor paper (10"x14") and reached for the red. I drew a few swirls and thought maybe they were the fire from a dragon, but then the first red woman came to mind and it went from there. This piece came partly out of my frustration today and the blue figure was a surprise and feels a bit like a cooling element, a peace offering.
Very different feel from yesterday, yes? It occurs to me that I jump all over the place with styles and enjoy following the flow of how I feel at the moment. I mean, I think I have a recognizable style, but I know that artists usually work in series or that working in series is good for showing work and is a good marketing tool.
I guess there's a balance I can find, between following my whims and working on series too. I have a few series going at the moment, the memory trees and the subway series pieces and then there are always my female figures. O.k. I'm just getting over a killer migraine and I'm wiped, so I'm not going to try and think about this any more today. Hope your weekend has been a lovely one thus far. Happy creating!
