Don't Quit Your Daydream

Don't Quit Your Daydream

When I was a kid I did my daydreaming under a shade tree on an old quilt pallet complete with Tag and Panda, my grandpa's panting dogs, a jelly glass full of kool-aid and a platoon of annoying insects. 

Daydreams I had.  Big giant daydreams, I did not.  I believed as Alice in Wonderland did:

Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said. “One can’t believe impossible things.”

“I dare say you haven’t had much practice,” said the queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

I didn't know what the Red Queen knew. I thought that I was in charge of my daydreams, that if daydreams were to come true, I had to make it so.  What can a little girl from the country with few resources do?  Somehow I believed that dreaming small meant not having to live with great disappointment because dreams came true in fairy tales not in real life.

What crap!

Now I know if I don't dream it, it sure won't become a reality.  

These days, my big giant daydreams take place in air conditioned luxury with a sleepy cat nearby and a journal to write it down in so I can remember them and be amazed that when they come true I often had little to do with the most perfect outcome.

What daydream do you have that needs a reminder that you can dream your way to a better reality? 

What ever you do, "Don't Quit Your Daydream." 

Hugs,

Diana

Owl Always Love You

Here is a piece I did for a friend of mine.  She gives a hoot for owls.

My mother used to collect owls.  Not the flying-screeching-in-nature owls; the kind that where ever you stumble upon one you feel the need to purchase it and bring it home with you kind.  And then everyone finds out and you become the "keeper of the owls."  My friend's mother collected pigs.  Her daughter collected hot air balloons. I can remember friends by what they collected.

I did have a friend who collected bad debts, but that was her job and I bet dialing up a deadbeat wasn't nearly as much fun as buying up a bunch of wise-looking ceramic salt shakers.

As I get older, I have less of a need to collect things with maybe the exception of art supplies.  My heart beats faster when I wander up and down the aisles of an art supply store dreaming of the possibilities. 

Sometimes, when I am not feeling very energetic, I can just drag out some arty gee gaws and fiddle around with them and lo and behold I'm good to go do something creative.  Is this true for you too?

So for now, I'd like to say, "Art supplies, Owl always love you."

Hugs,

Diana

Jam Up and Gelli Tight

How long has it been since you fell in love? 

I am up to my paint-crusted elbows in love with my Gelli plate. 

Last week I spent vacation time on the lake with my other love, Mister Man, who managed to read books, take naps, and eat delicious food while I compulsively rolled paint onto the plate before I fell face forward from exhaustion.  Thank goodness for that brayer that developed a squeak after about the second swipe.  It is all that kept me awake.

"This is my last print," I must have announced at least a thousand times.   That's what happens when you are in love.  You just can't get enough.

Now that we are back home and reality has set in, I am not making gelli prints like the obsessed fool that I was.  I am now trying to figure out what the heck I am going to do with this goregeous stack of paper.

This one I did a mixed media piece on canvas but naturally I forgot to photograph it before I started.  I cut the bird out of a index card that I printed and used some rub ons to complete the painting.

Well, there you are until next week when we find out if the spark still holds!  And I come up with some more finished products.

Hugs, Diana

Who hit Nellie in the Belly with a Gelli Plate?

Ok, my title may be a little ridiculous but my Gelli Plate isn't.  If you don't know, a Gelli plate is a mono printing plate that allows you to create works of art with blank paper, some cheap acrylic paint, a brayer and something to make marks in the wet paint like a stencil or a stamp. 

The secret that they don’t tell you in Gelli Plate Land is that once you go there you may not be able to do any work, feed your family or walk the dog until you make just a few more prints.  It’s that addicting.

I’m not going to explain about the process because there are tons of videos on YouTube and at the Gelli Plate blog http://gelliarts.blogspot.com/    I am writing this sleep deprived because I stayed up late playing way past my bedtime.  And since I am on a working vacation, I could have been outside enjoying this view:

But why enjoy nature when you can get paint on your hands?

Here is the already used and well-loved gelli plate, gifted to me from my friend who is vacationing with me.  We took turns fumbling our way through the process which was lots of fun when one of us got to be the consultant and the other one got to make the prints.  (What that really means is we took turns bossing each other around!)

A side benefit of making prints is that while you are doing that you can clean your brayer on some scrap paper, old book pages or in my case, rewrites of my novel.  You get to use this on future projects like art journaling or other mixed media adventures.

Here are a few 8 x 10 prints I made.

I have about a million index cards that were going to be thrown away at a business next door to where I used to work and I pack-ratted them.  They have writing on one side but that just adds another layer to the mixed media look of the print.  

Here are way too many samples of my binge printing.

Now my challenge is to figure out what to do with all this artistic loot! Hopefully I will have something to share next time.

Have a creative week!

Hugs, Diana