Brain Damage
I have been having a ball with creating this Themed collage piece for my Art Squared group on eBay. It's a 14" x 14" collage that I began working on about a month ago. So I missed the Theme Week posting which was entitled Song Titles. But that's okay because I'm so excited right now at having completed this piece....I could care less about missing the time line.
For once in my artistic existence, I actually had a 'vision' in my mind prior to beginning this painting/collage. More often than not, I do not see a finished piece in my mind. People tell me that it's there somewhere and I am 'seeing' it but I'm just not aware of it. I guess that is why I wear eyeglasses??? This would also explain why I am unable to view these 'after images' which I recently blogged about.
But back to my Brain Damage. Anyone who is familiar with Pink Floyd, will remember this song quite well. Most people think of it as The Dark Side of the Moon song, but that is actually the title of their most famous album. The song which contains the line Dark Side of the Moon is this one...Brain Damage.
I tried to include all elements that were referred to in the song: lunatic in my head which is obviously the screamer up there in the right hand corner. Lock the door and throw away the key. No room upon the hill. Every day the paper boy brings more...(that's a newspaper up there just left of the key). If the band you're in starts playing different tunes.
Even that little sketch which is down on the neck, is supposed to be a person holding their head in their hands...sorrowfully... This was my additonal message, since I used to wallow in the Slough of Despond myself quite often. Which is basically what this song is to me.
I heard that the band members wrote this song in honor of one of their earlier members who basically had a nervous breakdown or psychotic break or whatever it is called. Not a very cheery message, but nonetheless I absolutely adore this song. Now that I am on the Other Side of the Moon and no longer wallowing in insanity (most days, anyhow).
What FUN it was to create this piece in honor of my favorite band!!!
My Grandkids
These are 2 of my 4 grandchildren. Red is on the left and Thaddeus is on the right and they are both males. They 8 weeks old and the newest members of the family. Today was my first viewing of them and they did not take to their grandmother very well yet.
I'm not discouraged, however. Squeeker, the 6 month old female came up to me for the first time today when I walked into my son's home. She is not the mother of the other two, but more like an older sister. This gal is the quietest cat that I have ever met in my life. And until today has never given me the time of day.
We figure that she finally got interested in me because she was hoping that I would take her home with me and rescue her from the 2 bouncing baby boys. I tried taking several pics of Squeeker today, but she was so curious about this camera that I had in my hand....she constantly walked towards the camera and I never got a good shot of her.
There is another granddaughter in the mix as well. Her name is Samantha and she is a 2 year old Rottweiler, and you can forget me trying to get a photo of her. She is never still for more than 3 seconds in a row if a human being is present. It's impossible for me to shoot any pics of her because she's always jumping up on me which nearly knocks me to the ground.
Where is that Dog Whisperer when you need him?
Collage Art
In the most recent issue of Somerset Studios (Sept/Oct2006) I read an article that was written by the Shipping Manager at Somerset Studios. Bruce Adams titled his article The Accidental Crafter. I laughed out loud/chuckled at this article!
He described how he was 'prodded' into crafting something and went on to tell of the 22 hours involved in making his final collage piece that is shown on page 68 of the magazine. I'm here to tell you!!! The numbers of hours that are involved in making these artful creations...only the artists themselves can understand how long it takes.
As Bruce described his adventures of putting together his collage piece, I could barely contain myself...but I was reading it in a public place (a car repair shop--don't ask)and I didn't want to actually LAUGH out loud so I chuckled instead. A nice, quiet, conservative chuckle...completely unlike the guffaws that burst forth from my body like machine-gun fire in Borders books at a Non-Sequitir Calendar. It's all about timing and positioning, see.....
Back to Bruce...his collage depicts "Crushing Loss" in the world of sports. You see various athletes in different positions of distress as well as a basketball hitting the very edge of the hoop. I related to this art piece 100% in spite of the fact that I am not at all athletic, and the only sport that I watch on tv is bicycling.
Matter of fact, this Crushing Loss could describe what my creative afternoon has been like today, as I wend my way thru the piles of papers and scraps and try to piece together a brand new collage. I happily completed 2 other small paintings that I had been working on this week, and decided that a collage felt right...in light of Bruce's article and a couple other articles in the magazine.
I hit the wall. Splattered flat on my back. I decided to step away from the artwork. My deepest admiration goes out to those artists that do collage artwork. I have several others in progress at the moment, and they are all in varying stages of abandonment due to my own personal frustrations. As the articles and mags and photos come thru my hands and get filed here and there...they will sometimes fit perfectly into one of my incomplete collages. Timing and positioning.
Mermaids On The Beach
Today I created a new video on Youtube and that link is here. This video shows my newest series of paintings of Mermaids.
I have a running joke going that we have Mermaids down here in Florida on the beach and no one believes me so I had to paint them to prove to people that they do exist....but people don't seem to find my joke funny. Oh well. I will continue with it anyhow.
Yesterday I purchased more paint, brushes and canvases to continue with my Mermaid series. I'm now in the obsessive phase...can't seem to stop making them and have a constant compulsion to make more and more. This seems to occur with most any series of paintings that I have done to date. I get the 'bit in my mouth' and start running with it. Exploring different color palettes, techniques and materials and doing it over and over again seems to be a part of the artistic process. At least for me.
Sometimes I feel as if I have exhausted a series as in my Frog series. Even though I have only completed 16 or 17 of them and I have at least 35-40 other ideas and sketches for the frogs, I haven't moved on it in some time now. I'm thinking I will go into a smaller format for the remainder of that series.
Making smaller paintings is way more practical and efficient and sometimes even more fun as you can complete each one much more quickly. I do like to paint LARGE and I'm all about bold, but storage, shipping and maneuvering larger format paintings adds another whole dimension of problems to life. Right now I have a 3' x 4' collage piece that practically fills up my whole studio when I bring it in here.
I'm also making plans to add to my Florida series with some Alla Prima pieces (completed in one sitting). They, too, will be of the smaller format and I hope to have them in galleries this winter.
Free Hugs response
This Free Hugs phenomenon has continued to grow into a worldwide movement. My sister told me this weekend that she saw two girls in Missoula, Montana, carrying Free Hugs signs up and down the mall. The original Free Hugs video on Youtube has exceeded 3 MILLION hits in a 3 week time period.
Dozens of videos and comments have been posted in Youtube in response to the original. I have added to it myself and have had nothing but positive responses from people who received my newsletter last week and again this weekend. People who normally don't respond at all, have contacted me and thanked me for the video link.
I did a bit more research on the Free Hugs this weekend and discovered that it was Juan Moore who began the Free Hugs 2 years ago in a mall in Australia. He had someone videoing him at that time, but nothing much was ever done beyond that. He did strike up a friendship with Shimon Moore and his band, Sick Puppies because Shimon had seen Juan at the mall.
Recently, Juan's grandmother died so Shimon wrote the song for Juan to cheer him up. Shimon had already been posting Sick Puppies videos on Youtube, so he put together this video of Juan and his sign to the music that was created and voila! It was a major success....first in Australia, and then shot around the globe at lightning speed. Good Morning America actually played the original video on its show one day last week.
I created my painting (which is revised from the original version that I posted here last Friday) and listed it at auction on eBay. I haven't met very many people on eBay yet that seem to know about the Free Hugs movement, but I keep plugging away at it in my eBay blog..........
This is one instance of 'Here's Yer Sign' that has a good connotation to it.
Free Hugs
This artwork was created in response to a video from Youtube. This fellow made the experiment a couple years back and recorded it, but only recently did his friends from the Sick Puppies band write a song for him because his grandmother had died and they were trying to cheer him up.
At that point, he put this video together, posted it on Youtube and it has become an international phenomenon. Good Morning America has invited them to appear on their show, they are on news reports worldwide, and in newspapers everywhere. I think this is wonderful and the overwhelming response to the Good News is very heartening, as well.
So long as we can continue to focus our attention on the good things in life, we will do just fine. Bad news does no one any good. This type of good news gets LOTS of attention, which completely invalidates the reports that 'people like controversy and bad news and that is why we report it'. It's just NOT true!!!
Enjoy the video, the artwork and your day, my friends!
Mermaid on the beach
I keep telling people that we have mermaids on the beach down here in Florida, but no one believes me. So I have had to start painting them. This is the second one in the series, and I have 3 others drying right now. I'm doing this series in mixed media...inks, oils and acrylics.
What fun!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Doodles 124
6:30 am on a Sunday??
Black & White image
Florida 59
Viacom vs Google
Tour de Chaos
Pet Video Contest #10
Klimt revisited
A lot to be grateful for....
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