...heART and soul...

The other day our cat, Mackie, had a little bit of a limp.  He was walking a little funny for about a day and a half but as of today he is back to his old self.  So all I could think about that first day was Mackie, wondering how he was doing...and let's just say that concern found it's way into my daily art...so I made a gal with a cat on her head...she is looking up at the cat and the cat is looking down at her with one eye...and there's a little gray cat down at the bottom...since I am not entirely certain that Scooter didn't have something to do with Mackie's current condition.  Again, Mac is okay.  He is napping on his favorite blanket as I type this here post :)

(Left) Mackie and his hurt paw (Middle) Artin' during my lunch, Mac on my mind (Right) My daily piece

Aside from thinking about my cat, I had a good session with the student I tutor and I did want to mention that in case she stumbles upon this blog post.  We are going to be working on an eye painting in the future but for our session this week I thought it might be fun to do something a little different, so I picked up some roses.  I don't know if I have mentioned this before, but drawing a rose is kind of how I realized my passion for art.  I believe it was in 4th grade, and I had this awesome AG teacher, Ms. Linkel (formerly Ms. York)  I went to my weekly AG sessions with her and somehow I ended up drawing some.  She encouraged me and I ended up making a pencil drawing of a single rose stem on a long, vertical paper.  She mounted it on black paper and it went in the school art show.  At the end of the year I was recognized at the assembly for winning first place, I remember standing up at my seat and everyone was clapping for my art...and it felt kind of awesome.  And I thought, hey, maybe I am good at this.

And I have been drawing ever since...and when I hear applause it always makes me happy, whether it is for me or someone else, I like it.  I like to clap for other people, feels like a small celebration of something good in the world.  Folks that know me are used to my constant clapping when I am excited about something.  

I digress, sorry.  The art session went well, we had fun and she did a great job drawing from observation.  And I had fun teaching the lesson.

...scenes from my tutoring session on Monday..

Last night I watched Napoleon Dynamite and worked on my daily piece.  I wasn't sure exactly what to do...I kind of have an idea for a Yosemite Sam-inspired piece per my brother's suggestion, but then I was not sure how it would look seeing the body of work as a whole as far as transitioning to the next piece...not sure that even matters.  I just started to doodle and ended up making another piece with pattern and gold paint...kind of like the Klimt piece that I made earlier.  

Not sure what I am going to do for today's piece...but I will take Napoleon's advice and just follow my heART.

Tuesday night artin' and random dance moves...

...and that, friends, was my attempt at a lead-in to another lil' art project that I started last night and finished up this morning after my workout...

Yesterday, I found this sweatshirt at Old Navy that said, 'Heart and Soul'.

Except when I read it, to me it really said 'HeART and Soul'.

So...long story short, in order to help other folks see that, I took it upon myself to hand bead the letters so that the word 'ART' stood out a little bit.  I didn't want it to be super obvious, so I chose to use clear beads and sequins. All in all, it took me about 2-3 hours to complete, I put every bead and sequin on there stitch by stitch, and it makes me happy when I look at it.

...I had to customize this sweatshirt so that others could see what I see...