A half-week of words and edits

Teaching is energizing
and tiring.

Editing teaches
but it also drains.

Quick sketches
capture it all.

Visual journal - Singapore: teaching week1

Every day that I've been teaching in Singapore, I've done a quick (2-10 minute) page with really dreadful oil pastels. The colors are an uninspiring student grade, the texture is not great, and the paper is cheap.

But it's fun to play, if only for a few minutes at the end of the day. When you paint quickly, without thought, your hands and eyes tell your heart how it is feeling. It's not great art but more like a dip in the pond to refresh before bedtime.

Quilter's pleasure

I love this quilt. The colors delight me. I'm happy with the pattern.

I started it in England, 13 years ago. The fabrics are odds and ends from British fabric stores. The back is a faded sheet I bought with old curtains on ebay.co.uk. Hand quilting makes it uniquely mine.

Now it's rolled up in our cabin, waiting for me to finish its checkered border. I may have to retrieve it this summer.

The tools of the trade are simple but effective: needle, thread, thimble, hoop, and scissor.

Art days

I'll be participating in the Sketchbook Print Project 2016 because it was so much fun last year.

For Lent, 3 friends drew an idea a day. Here's my completed project:

From a distant land

I enrolled in an art print exchange months ago. Now it's due. I make 12 prints, related by theme and color. The general idea is "News from a Distant Land." I have language school in mind.

The exchange asks for 11 prints. They keep one. They send 10 to other artists. And I'll get 10 prints from all over the world. I'm always optimistic and usually disappointed by what comes back. Oh well. At least the deadline forces me to take out brushes and paint, paper and imagination. I play.

First I paint eyes and a nose. And then the serious work begins. On the back, an explanation of the balancing act of learning a new language.

A few of the prints below: I kept the middle one.

The Golden Mean

The balance and chaos

of learning a new language.

Knowing is golden

but not straightforward.

Letters floating.

Eyes watching.

Gradually flowering.

And I think I love most the paper left over from printing. I tape it inside an 22" frame - an unexpected pleasure ... until I find artwork I like better.

Pastel magic: taking Impressionism from gloomy to bright

Her apartment is dark with minimal windows. The painting looked stormy and garish. Before:

She and I took soft artist pastels and smoothed on color with our fingers. Now the 4X4' print is soothing, cheerful, and bright. After:

Which do you prefer?

On the wall, room in process

5' "Good News" wreath - easy DIY

Jesus is God's good news. (Some people call that the "gospel" in church-speak.)

This Christmas I wanted to remind myself of that, far away from home. So I rolled into cones over a hundred newspaper pages and various paper. I included Chinese, Indonesian, English - and even the many languages of assembly instructions from IKEA. I saved some candy wrappers made of dried leaves, too. One piece of tape is all it takes to hold the cones in shape.

A 2' square of cardboard from a storage boxes became the base. I began gluing around in a circle. The first layer was 5' in diameter and took a lot of floor space!

Sticky cones adhere easily to cardboard

The second circle of shorter cones fit on top. The inner ring consisted of small cones and candy wrappers. I drew a few holly leaves on a paper doily, trimmed off the lacy borders, and glued it over the messy center. Finally, I glued a "Merry Christmas" cake decoration in the middle and let it dry overnight.

At this point it only needed a bit of tucking ends in for symmetry

When we flipped it over in preparation to hanging it, we found it needed more support for the outside ring of cones. The newspaper didn't have the stiffness for stability. We glued a bigger sheet of cardboard on top of the existing piece and reinforced the slit for hanging with another small square of cardboard. A single nail in the wall holds it up: it's bulky but not heavy.

In need of more support

It's big - and bold. Our neighbors and guests gasp when they see it. (Yeah, it's that big.) 

And it reminds me of Jesus as God's Good News ... as hoped.

Up it goes: filling a big white wall above the 7' IKEA sofa.
Note the un-pretty pull chain for the fan that keeps tropical air moving.