A MARS zine

For the past two years, and again this April, I will fly to MARS.  Not the planet, although that would be interesting to do, too.  No, this MARS is the Mountain Art Retreat Sleepover.  It's held in the Sierra mountains, above Grass Valley.  About 25 women haul their art supplies with them to this wonderful retreat area, a YMCA camp.  We set ourselves up at our space at a table and for 3 days we create art.  Or we just visit, laugh, eat, drink wine, laugh, eat some more, and then wander back to our spaces to create more art.  It's really, really fun.  As several of my friends there have said, "I'm spending time with my tribe."

I come back home feeling really refreshed, inspired, relaxed and ready to create more art.  I love MARS.  I so very much enjoy hanging out with these women I only first met two years ago and yet whom I feel I've known for a long, long time.

So this year Lindsay Ostrom asked us if we'd like to contribute a page to the MARS zine.  I said yes, although I've never even read a zine.  But I checked it out on Wikipedia:

A zine (pron.: /ˈziːn/ zeen; an abbreviation of fanzine, or magazine) is most commonly a small circulation self-published work of original and/or appropriated texts and images usually reproduced via photocopier. 

And I decided "I can do this."  And so I did.  Very fun and I look forward to seeing the finished zine.  Thanks to Lindsay for spearheading this process.

A Prime Number Day

This morning as I was driving into work I was trying to remember what the date was (I've been out of it for the past week - sicker than I've been in many years).  I realized it was a prime number day 1-7-13.  Not being a number person, I was proud of myself for even thinking of it.

On the weekend I started to feel better after literally spending 18+ hours per day sleeping during the week.  Whatever crud I had - it laid me low.  So I was glad when I felt better, and felt creative.  I decided to try my hand at my friend, Lindsay Ostrom's, monthly challenge.  Her challenge for January is entitled Home Sweet Home.

She asked us to look around our houses and find something that we really like that has sort of become "invisible" - or at least that's how I interpreted the instructions.  We were then to draw or write or do something to highlight that item.  She'd written her blog from a Starbucks because the power was out at her house.  What I picked up from her blog was that she doesn't like coffee.

That statement prompted me to think of my hourglass coffee maker which I just LOVE.  It's a coffee maker that allows me to brew coffee with cold water.  I got it a couple of years ago and it's the coffee I regularly make around here.  Basically, you grind your beans and put them in the basket, you pop the basket into the bottom of the hourglass.  You pour cold water over the beans.  You screw the top on and put the gizmo onto a shelf for a couple of days.  You wind up with what I refer to as coffee extract.  The extract is stored in the "bean kanteen".

To make a cup of coffee you heat water, put two cupfuls of extract into your cup and fill up with hot water.  I make mine by heating milk in the microwave, putting most of it in the cup with the extract then topping off with hot water.  The remaining milk I froth with my mini frother.  Basically, I'm making myself my own cappuccino.  LOVE IT.

Anyway, I chose to draw this great kitchen tool.  I colored it with watercolor pencils and then decided to chance it and actually added water with a brush.  I think it's a pretty accurate rendering of the item.  But I took some photos of it and will add one or two of them, too.

Ah coffee, with less acid from this type of brewing, it's yummy.

A New Year - A First Post

It's January 3rd, 2013.  I've been nursing a cold since Sunday.  Only maybe it's the flu.  Low grade fever, racking cough, runny nose.  It's just lovely being me this week.  True to my normal way of dealing with being sick, I've tried to sleep my way through it.  Done a good job of it too, 18+ hours per day of sleeping.  Think it's working though, at least I'm feeling slightly better this morning and my head isn't pounding as much as it has.

So, this is my first post on this blog.  I've tried starting one before and didn't follow through.  I've never been a journaler or diary keeper.  Oh, I will start with the greatest of good intentions but I lack follow through.  Perhaps it's my Gemini brain, I keep flitting from idea to idea.

  

Anyhow, I'm giving it the proverbial "old college try" again and will see where this goes.  I'd like to post photos of art projects I work/play on in my collaborative art group, UGRA (Underground Railroad Artists).  I've photos locked in my computer.  If I add them here, at least they'll be more accessible.  I really don't have a plan, will just fool around with this and see where it goes, and hope I can develop some follow through in 2013.

The above photo is a pale shot of some felted cuffs and little matchbook paper tablets I made.  I stole the idea for the tablets from Janet Chance, an UGRAette.  I colored card stock and cut copy paper to fit, stapling it inside.  On the outside of them I wrote "Notes to Self".  Gave a bunch of them away at Christmas.

The felted cuff idea was stolen from Cloth, Paper, Scissors.  I've made and given away quite a few of them.  People have told me I could sell either of these items.  My problem is figuring out how to feel comfortable marketing my stuff, not to mention coming up with an appropriate price.  The other, perhaps bigger problem, is that old Gemini brain.  I've made 'em, I'm bored, move onto something new.

Maybe that's my resolution for 2013 - to take advantage of Lindsay Ostrom's (another UGRAette) 52 week challenge this year.  Pick one thing and do it each week.  If I do that, I may see progress and improvement in my artfuller life.