Mar Viega

Maybe donate to an artist - tile artist. They would likely be grateful gaga. If you have a wall they could put them onto - double happy

Your pup sounds worth bragging about.

Border collies are team players but also full of ideas, I had a hard time keeping up with my border collie mix rescue best friend.

"Dudeman" - he earned the name ... "Dude?! Man!"

oh these creatures - teach us so much.

r ranson wrote:in the end, I decided that the cost of the pentel set wasn't worth the bother of returning it.  This might have been a mistake, but I decided to swatch them out and see if they smell worse with use (they do).



They are indeed firmer than what I've tried before.  They also make these little crumbs which muddy up the next colour.  I also can't make them smudge together with my finger, but they do smudge together when I put a new colour on top of old ones.

Now I can't return them.  But I'm also thinking if the pastels I'm using now are melting in my hand in the winter, it won't be fun to use in the summer.  So maybe using this cheap set outside in the summer might be an option.  

wear gloves. They are lovely to work with. It isa drag. Answers anyone?

r ranson wrote:Here we are, my first four attempts with real oil pastels.



They aren't how I expected, but I'm really happy with the progress.

The hardest thing I find is the background.  Getting it so the background recedes and the flower stands out is hard.  

A portrait artist said to me to apply the background first and in a color and a shade darker than you'd want. Then to with lighter colors create the image.

I have no idea if this is a "thing."  It worked for me. I was very grateful.

This one - I used a black background. I banged the tip white oil pastel to make the specks of light shine - I hope.

(Not important, just my thing I do, re-purpose - I made the frame from rescued bamboo and brown paper bag and the canvas is a rescued back to a drawer of an old terrible Ikea dresser drawer.)

I truly like your art and still have no idea what I'm doing except by the random offerings of advice from friends over the years and my curiosity. So I feel your journey.

Peace, Joanna

I'm sorry I misunderstood the situation and answered opposite of the subject.

Would you have permission to build up the atea, or more easily -  use a  very big pot to fill with soil and raise the plant to the stair platform level?

Joanna

I live in coastal California. When it is dry and hot - it is. I've had property here. The sun is bright 100+ degrees, then down pour - that is before climate change.

Rosemary is so easy to grow here. You even take a sprig, break and soften tough clay soil, push in 2 ", water a few days a bit and it takes off. Same for any succulent, (wich I realize rosemary is not a succulent.)

Is this a uniquely California climate thing?

Anyway, it did the same in the shade but was never over moist.

Peace,
Joanna

I also have been reducing all things...  meticulously. It's taking a long time. I can see a use for everything.

I'm not a hoarder. It's spare parts. Poverty - many times why someone has what looks like a junkyard.

You won't be able to afford a new item nor a part and you can't anticipate what you'll need nor when ...

I love minimalism but in many ways it is only possible for the wealthy.

Still - I seek minimalism as much as my certainly far from wealthy and need spare parts self can do so.

I love empty space.

Peace
Joanna

Carla Burke wrote:

r ranson wrote:It's like trying to draw with a stick of room temperature butter.   Fun, but tricky.
It's a struggle but there is something here that has a lot of potential.

That is a PERFECT description! I love it, LOL! Now you get a much better idea of how it works, and can't start to really play with it! Blending will be so much fun!

Yes, layer and blend and tip of fingernail scrape and careful use of heat behind or on top from a distance. Even direct sun. I hold a hot iron an inch away in circles evenly. ... I'm saying I heat the art - not the oil pastels - just wanted to clarify. I melt it in to paper or whatever I use, even wood, fabric, all.

I love the art. Thank you

Nancy Reading wrote:

Alina Green wrote:I don't get it...peanuts and sweet fruit...versus...smoky fish and curry spices.

Do you mean it's because it's salty plus sweet(ish) that these two are analogous?

I was horrified about the idea of a peanut butter and jam sandwich, until I tried it (yumm). We had a French exchange student that refused to try lemon and sugar on pancakes (crepes). Sometimes things taste better than you think. It might sound weird, but it works. Although smoked fish are probably not to everyone's taste anyway! Kedgeree has been a British thing for about 200 years, although perhaps less common these days, it used to be a breakfast dish.

Any nut butter - especially pumpkins seeds/pepitas or also water melon seeds and even peanuts (all ground to a powder or a butter, raw is best,) are surprizingly delicious with a savory sauce, even in a taco - as far as my taste buds say anyway. Add to sauce, rice, etc. I don't prefer peanuts though ...

This is such an important topic.  I am not educated on the subject but respect very much those who are and offer something I wrote about a tree. I wrote it over a decade ago. Peace Jo

Sapping
    by Joanna Silva

If, thin as her branches were, having been cut and growing in a panic from the thick stubby pruned parts of her trunk, she might lift them slightly higher, hold, and reach - then her leaves, even all of them, even so frightened, twisted and hiding inside for too long, would feel warm light. They might wonder!

Today had been a sadly slight day. This truth she hummed all over while the dark world left behind the warm music she needed for the other which, when she wasn't well, confused her sometimes. Until the warm returned in the morning she maintained herself strong as she could, smothering, as the dark continued to be filled with more cold and noisy dark.

Her fresh stems and child branches were yet unable to wear her skin so she gave them her love but had to let them rest. Her worry over the smallest of them, only bright green nubs, ate at her most deeply reaching, ancient roots. She had to bring all of her together, they remembering high, while her warm loving parts remembered low, until her music received itself, even the thick stubs sprouting bunches of too many branches. She listened to every voice and they to each as well and this was her hum.

Through the night she took turns at care and rest. Mostly all woody parts of her looked within and held lovingly the ingrown leaves and sang a song she felt as beautiful, yet silent. She hoped it was so, and believed naively that it suffered nothing at all from her being a very worked, a very exhausted tree.

But she knew. She suffered. She could not heal herself rapidly enough to fend off the chattering parasites at her roots and around the ugly wounds.

Her magic left her each night like this after the song, as she embraced her children, as droplets of sweet fell. It was her best strategy to know her sap was a gift, even to the ones who ate her alive.

Dreams of sores grown over with rich dark wooden bark supporting sprouted branches become support for cities of birds, catching days and years of light with her choruses of leaves welcomed her to the morning.

Today, again, slightly higher.               ---- -by Joanna Silva apr2011