Soup Weather is Upon Us! Yay!!

My daughter and I are making beef barley soup (more like a stew) as I write this today. I don't usually make my blogs about food but I've got to say the aroma wafting through the house is amazing at the moment and I'm very happy. My kids are both great cooks and I would like to thank my Dad for that. The younger one sat at his side all the time to watch what he did and she duplicated much when she was old enough to cook on her own, while the other decided eating it was much more interesting. Until she got older and became a master at creating homemade soups. Yum. This particular recipe was inspired by our Great Aunt Ella, who made this a favorite for my girls and I when we lived next door to each other. Smelling it cook all day and then enjoying a bowl once ready was a nice family memory for us. Although it doesn't really taste like her soup (we added red wine to ours, something she would never have done), it is absolutely delicious.

 Here it is without the barley in it which got added a little bit after this photo was taken. Mmm-mmm. 😋

Now, onto the art part, something I do best.

I started taking the month-long fodder challenge and the watched the first class. I haven't completed the project and cannot show it until it's finished, so be on the lookout for that. I might actually wait until the end of the month and share all I did. I'm not positive I'll do everything offered but I do love watching and taking notes and getting inspired!

I did do a little embroidery. I love it so far. I think I'm going to play with wildflowers next but that'll take some time. This is a good piece of practice fabric to use. It's an old dust cover for a chair. Those were used in our house because we always had chairs that required them. After I cut out the rips and the wear and tear from a lot of them, I have a good amount of fabric to play with for embroidery practice.

I've been cutting up papers, adding embellishments on them, making them small cards or pieces that can be added to cards at some point. I'm actually making more collage fodder, which is fine by me. I was fussy for a few days until I realized I could draw botanical patterns or use a lot of the flower stencils I have and create some great looking pieces to go in my journals. It's all for me and my art practice, so it doesn't matter how much or little I have; as long as I have what I need to keep being creative, it's all good!

Painting papers leaves some beautiful marks on my paper towels and Sidekick journal. Love these rich looking colors!!

Watercolor and isopropyl alcohol created the below. I've done this technique for years and really love the unpredictable way it all comes out. You never know when you spray or blot alcohol on the paint what you'll get.

I've been cutting out my little doodles as I find them. Actually some of the below in the first photo are fairly new to be added to the small storage container for future use in my flower journal. I've used a lot of the doodles that I made last year, adding them to the flower journal, so I have room now to add more. Yay!

This photo below is of the remnants of a piece of paper I use as a protector for the page or table when I use alcohol ink markers. I usually end up doodling on them at some point, sometimes to see if the pens work or just mindlessly draw something. When it's fairly colorful, I cut some shapes out and use the rest for cards or the layered technique in collage that I like to do, shown in the second photo below.

 

Days 215-220 in the collage a day journal.

 

Enjoy your week!

Cindy,  EarthMotherMosaics - Mixed Media Art

Instagram: @artbyearthmothermosaics 

Stay Peaceful and Enjoy the Journey

 

Coming to the Ending of the Retrograde

I think I am fairly aware of the planetary activity and try to keep even more aware during the retrogrades when they occur. This time, however, I took a chance and purchased a printer which is one of the nopes during a retrograde. Making large purchases, especially electronic in nature is risky. I'm glad I took the risk but there was one small glitch.

When I set up this beautiful Smart Tank from HP (and believe me, it truly is!) it came with a cord for attaching printer to outlet. Well ... for some odd reason the cord wouldn't fit properly and I tried flipping it, pushing it and so on. I might not have the strength I once had but I do believe it just wasn't going to fit. Thank goodness I saved the cord from the last printer, not an HP, because it slid in the spot with ease and the machine came to life immediately. Yay!

This brought me to my frenzy of printing things I've wanted for collage and personal use. Honestly it hasn't slowed down yet but I told myself to relax, I've got time. I'll share some of the photos I've printed here but I'll mention now, they will get ripped up and/or cut up to fit a collage or art journal. That is their purpose for me and I'm absolutely thrilled to be able to continue the weekly fun with art at the table.

Last week, I took a printout of the birth flowers I did in mosaic a few years ago for April and decided to give it a try in collage in an art journal. Daisy and Larkspur are the flowers. It was a little more challenging than I thought it would be but I do love how it turned out. I'll share the work-in-progress to the end result below. 

I did a little Gelli plate work last week and found taking older papers that were just ho-hum could still pop a little more with extra paint or mark making. One of my favorites that came out of that batch was a paper I had splotted inks on and then did some mark marking using leftover paint from the Gelli plate. It's entirely possible I will never be able to duplicate this but I definitely am going to try. I already used a piece of this in my daily journal collage practice.

 

A piece of the above paper was used on the top right side square. Isn't it cool?!

I also managed to do another Neurographic page and added some fun Posca paint doodles on it. I do love this technique. So much to enjoy!

 I played with glue resist.

Unfortunately I let the paint dry because I got called away as soon as I put it down on the page. It's cool looking anyway but not exactly what I had planned for it. After all, these journals are for learning and experimenting and I have managed both on these two pages. I love the colors!

Here's a WIP that I work on in the evenings. I'm spending a little time with new stencils and I do love this one especially apparently, since I've used it three times here on this page.

Here are just some of what I've printed with the new toy. The colors are so rich and lovely. It's been a very long time since I've had a good printer and I'm so happy to have one now.

 I'm going to be enjoying these prints in so many different ways, including trying another collage of Voorhees (shown above).

 

Enjoy your week!

Cindy,  EarthMotherMosaics - Mixed Media Art

Instagram: @artbyearthmothermosaics 

Stay Peaceful and Enjoy the Journey

 

Time to Reflect

Depending on where the moon is, I find there are times to be active with art and times to study what I've done, where I'd like to go and how I'd like to get there. Art has a language that I understand. I try to listen to it and follow it's lead. It's the muse that guides me and I'm okay with that.

Right now, today as I write this, I'm having a low energy day. It's a New Moon, meaning for me, a time to plant metaphorical seeds for art not yet tried, to turn inward for quiet introspection. In other words: it's time to reflect. I get a lot of low energy days around this time in the moon's cycle. Physically I'm struggling a little bit which adds to the energy ebb and flow but within the next few months that should be taken care of and I should find more energy, more often. Cross those fingers. 🤞

Meanwhile, on the days when I am filled with ideas, I try things. And almost always something surprises me. This past week was filled with surprises! Check them out below.

A new art box. 2-1/2 x 1-3/4 x 2-1/2 inches

Inside shows hand drawn cut out doodles, the door has a broken piece of a charm and the deer sticker stays on the outside. Painted papers and scrap book pieces were glued to this.

Love this broken pendant as a topper for the box.

Magazine scraps glued together, coffee stained and Plaster of Paris added.

My favorite coffee stained painted paper at the moment. It dried a softer color but it's still perfectly grungy and awesome.

Alcohol ink is a lot of fun to play with but I have a heavy hand and it requires a light touch. This is medical exam paper that I grabbed to pick up the excess. Gorgeous!

Alcohol ink test pieces. Teal is a bit overly done here but I really love the pink. Can't over do that color! 

Celery leaves from the gel plate using magenta acrylic paint. I'm on a pink kick, I think.

New stamps. These are so cool.

I had to cut the dandelion stamp to fit the mini die cut machine and then didn't use them in the machine anyway. But small additions here and there of these stamps are definitely going to be used.

Another hour spent in the Purple Palace produced another side of the mosaic vase completed.

This is an edited and cropped photo of Gaara from a few years ago. I'm planning on eventually making a collage of him using this photo but I need to work on his eye which is round.

When I picked up my Sidekick journal I found a page that had roll off paint on it. I wish I had taken a photo of it before I drew the eye because right where the eye is, there was a shape that looked a little like a cat eye and I followed it's guidance and created this.

I really love how this turned out and it was good practice. Following the random paint smears turned out to be a great exercise in finding a pattern within it. I said it was a fluke that I found it, but really, there are no accidents during times like this. It was meant to be!

Mindlessly doodling using colored ink pens, alcohol ink markers and a black fineliner pen is probably the best thing I do for my health. Being creative every day is important to me especially with Glaucoma. Precious time spent and never wasted at the art table.

The little piece on the left is a Gelli plate pull that didn't turn out too well (you can sort of see a design on it) but it's perfect for these little die cut wildflowers I made. It looks like they are in front of a pond with grass and storm clouds in the distance. All of that from one paper! And of course next to it is a random sunflower that I drew and put glue on for another piece and then decided not to use it but it had glue on it, so here is where it ended up!

Enjoy your week!

Cindy,  EarthMotherMosaics - Mixed Media Art

Instagram: @artbyearthmothermosaics 

Stay Peaceful and Enjoy the Journey