The Spirit of the Spiral

This morning I woke up and wanted to paint! and over at Milliande's Yahoo Group she has prompts and this is the "spirals" prompt, I wasn't sure if I should put it under the "mandala" prompt but I chose spiral.

I have seen this picture before but I don't know where and so it is drawn and painted from a memory, it is a repetitive version of many that I doodle.

This is my interpretation...

In the center of the picture the spirals represent the core of spirit made of fire, it is suspended in the sky shooting upwards which represents air, it is held up with the buoyancy of the water for support, and deeply rooted into the earth which surrounds and adds comfort to the spirit of the spirals.

How it was done...

I started with a 5 x 5 canvas. I traced a circle using a CD including the center, so that I would have sort of a guide.

Then painted the background, using tube watercolors, and continued on with the basic elements of the picture.

I used brush markers a little and didn't know at the time that they react to water just like the watercolors. This caused me to have to repeat the line drawing but gave me extra color that worked out just fine.

I used a liner brush for the rest of the painting part. Drawing with a brush is easy once you get the hang of it. You just need to remember a few things, first used a wet brush, and keep it loaded. Use a very light touch, the less stress and grip you have on the brush the better. This gives greater control and makes finer lines, you can always go back for thicker lines.

Next I added some bling, making the moon and stars, and a bit of hologram glitter glue here and there. I tried adding peacock feather for the tree but it really didn't do as I wanted it to so there are very few of them.

Decided to paint the outer edges black and add a bit more bling.

I made a huge mistake next, I decided to varnish this piece. Unfortunately I wasn't clearly thinking because it made everything run. It still looks ok but not as I wanted. I can go back and fix it, which I may do but it doesn't look that bad. In person the flaw is not as strong as the scan, and the bling shines much better in person. Right now I have to clean up my mess and then I need a nap -

My Little Graduate

Consider this a commercial interuption in the Moon's Art world. This is my little pre K grandson. Last night we went to his class ceremony it was very entertaining, they sang, told stories got rewards, all the usual stuff. Clayton got special recognition for his "story telling", seems he was telling stories of killin wild hogs, ridin horse's, catchin gators ect....well you get the picture. What a imagination! wonder where he gets that?

I asked Clayton what color hair to wear, lol he wanted me to go as a blonde so that was the best I can do. So he had his blonde grammy for his special night. He still seems to like me with no hair, hat ect but he is a boy and thinks I look cool. Bless his heart. I was totally exausted when we got home and he was still ready to tackle the world. Can you tell?

Viva La Freida!

Meet Freida Kahol, accomplished and astounding woman. She as most of you know was a great painter back in the 40's and 50's doing mostly surreal type self portraits. I have quite a few regular snapshots of her and picked one for the photo manipulation challenge over on the Yahoo Groups. I am a great fan of Freida's so I hope that it will not upset her spirit that I changed her photo a bit.


This is the part where the manipulation comes in. I used colored chalks, so ink and a bit of gold acrylic paint for her necklace and earrings. I used a linnen cardstock for paper that I got from Marcos at Stampfest/Orlando last year. I am not real happy with the way the face came out but it was ment to be changed so it is that. Freida didn't ever wear makeup so that would be out of her element. Freida loved bright and bold colors as well as flowers. Her house that she shared with Diego was painted bright blue so I imagined herself standing at the wall calling him pi zone, most of the time she was angry with him but he loved him as much as she hated him.

After the Rain

This is a new picture I started yesterday and finished this morning. I like how it turned out for some reason. I used an 8 x 10 canvas board that I found in my stash, sketched it out. I wasn't sure where exactally I was going with it when I started. If you look at the bubble (circles) you can see how the woman was made. I then used my watercolor pencils to do the circles, arcylic paint to do the woman, and the background and the swirls. I touched it up with chalks to deepen the colors a bit and to smooth out the texture of the canvas board. I added so perfect pearls as accents on the swirles in shell pink and gold. Unfortunately you can't see the accents of sparkle but they are there. The reason for the name "After the Rain" is because I imagined a raindrop falling and splashing upon a bubble and emerges a woman with renewed faith in humanity. I tried to convey the whole element idea with Earth, Water, Air and Fire using the colors and some details in the painting itself.

Harmony

In one of my Yahoo groups we are making sand paintings based on Mary Todd Beam's book "Celebrate Your Creative Self". In this lesson you take sand and mix it with gesso, mix it with glue, paint it ect. I had some colored sand but the sand was not the color I wanted so I added ink to some, and arcylic paint to get almost the colors I wanted. I am sure no mixologist in that department. I sketched out my basic pattern on to sticky shelf paper, sketched it again and cut out the parts I needed cut out. This project took a few days to complete, so I could let the layers dry in between.

Did you know that originally the Navajo shamans were the only ones to do sand painting? They didn't use glue, as these were temporary painting created for use in healing ceremonies, and were destroyed after the ritual. I prefer to see the wind blowing the painting away at the end of such ceremony.
Sand painting are made in other parts of the world also, places like Tibet but the Navajo are the most well known. If you are not a Navajo, you really can't and should not create Navajo sand paintings as it is a sort of breech on their religion.
But we create similarly unique works of art for enjoyment and some do it for specific ritual purposes.

Here is my finished piece. I think I will call it "Harmony" that is the word that comes to my mind. My photo does not do it justice, I sux at photography.

I tried scratching the designs into the sand but alas I waited to long. So what to do? Paint of course, I took my tiny brush and started just painting the elements. This canvas is a 5 x5 to give you an idea of size. I decided to add a little glitz by putting on some sticky foil glue, again waiting for it to set up and applied some of Amy's Magic Foil. Then had to put a gem on it of course! I love glitz in the right places. I am please with this piece. I may just do another sand painting because as usual I tend to stray away for the lesson!

*Note- you can make your own "sand" if you don't have any handy. You can use salt and simply dye it. You can dye it with food coloring. You just have to remember not to make it too wet, mix thoroughly and let it dry (the hardest part). You can also use inks, my favorite for dying stuff is Posh Impressions Ink. If you are the more industrious type you can crush small pebbles or shell to make your sand. But to me just going out in the yard is an option. I suppose if I wanted to create a specific "ritual" I would go to the trouble of crushing stones, pebbles and shells.

Not a darn thing to do with art but did ya know?

This was taken from a group email, I did not write it but though how much I relate to it and found it quite amusing. I don't know the person that wrote it, and the name of the person was not showing so if your out here let me know.

"I've been using aluminum foil for more years than I care to
remember. Great stuff, but sometimes it can be a pain. You know, like when
you are in the middle of doing something and you try to pull some foil out and
the roll comes out of the box. Then you have to put the roll back
in the box and start over. The darn roll always comes out at the wrong time.
Well, I would like to share this with you. Yesterday I went to
throw out an empty Reynolds foil box and for some reason I turned it and
looked at the end of the box. And written on the end it said, Press here to
lock end. Right there on the end of the box is a tab to lock the roll in
place. How long has this little locking tab been there? I then looked
at a generic brand of aluminum foil and it had one, too. I then looked
at a box of Saran wrap and it had one too! I cant count the number
of times the (expelitive) Saran warp roll has jumped out when I was trying to cover something up. Who ever looks at the end of your aluminum foil or plastic wrap box? What a fantastic idea. Now, if someone would just make plastic wrap that didn't stick to itself"?

I'm sharing this with my friends that did not know this and if ya did no fair laughing at me! I had to go check on this and it is quite true! Imagine me yanking all the rolls of crap out to check the ends, hillarious! Come on ya didn't really know this right?

Who Would of Thought?

I drew this pic last March (07)while I was at a boring job where all I had to do was answer the telephone. That is when I started a sort of drawing journal, so I unearthed it today and thought I would update it a bit. Now I think it is sort of funny given my current circumstances that I drew this alien, (since that is how I feel right now) almost to the point of saying I had a little forsight. This was from a few self portraits and that was my alien self at the time.





Anyway here is the updated version, I like her better this way. I left the daisy up in the right hand corner to represent reality. It really doesn't fit or make sense to anyone but me and I may change it but it is here to stay at least for now....and I knew an angel had been sent to watch over me.

Cheers!

Graphics and Myspace Layouts at pYzam.com

Getting there

Just want to say I AM WORKIN ON IT! LOL