some stuff about art

so awhile ago i rearranged our room so that i would have a studio space. scotty sold his weight bench and it freed up a huge section of the room. yeehaw! since then i've been feeling more and more like letting those creative juices flow!! it really makes a difference having that space! now if i could just wrap my mind around doing the illustrations for ren's book. i'm getting there!! but i think it's that i'm not totally comfortable with doing landscapes and i know it needs them. i have all the ideas in my head, just need to work them out.

my space

my yummy caran d'ache oil pastels...and YES the quality of supplies MATTERS. i thought for years that i hated oil pastels. turned out it was because the ones i had were waxy, crappy and cheap. i never knew that they were the perfect medium for what i love doing!!

some fun on 4"x4" pieces of wood...left is oil pastel, right is chalk pastel...i was testing out sealers

detail of a work in progress with the oil pastels...

the finished piece

details of finished piece...did i mention i absolutely LOVE my oil pastels!!??

another work in progress. paint on fabric to be quilted. inspired by the cover of a quilting magazine quilting arts. i had to send my sewing machine out for repairs so i'm still waiting to get started with the quilting part. it's going to be an art piece not an actual quilt though. probably put it on a cloth bag or attach it to wood or something to put on the wall. not sure yet.

finished with the painting...

some detail...

i decided i wanted to paint on some more fabric...it is a very sensual feeling and i love it!! so i started another piece for quilting...
last night i went to a drawing "class" (it's actually a free, non-instructional gathering) at a local tattoo and contemporary art gallery. it's been over 15 years since i've drawn from a live model. it was scary and exciting at the same time. reminded me how rusty i am and how much i enjoy drawing the human body. i wasn't super thrilled with my quick sketches, but i did sort of like the ones where we had more time. when i first got there, i was super nervous. during the first 5-minute sketch i had the feeling like i wanted to leave (and puke)!! a voice in my head kept saying "you don't belong here" "you suck!" i had to tell it to shut the fuck up!! i only brought chalk with me for this one because i knew i wasn't interested in doing detail work...just wanted to rough in some figures. but i think next time i'll bring pencils as it was frustrating to even get a rough face or hand sketch with the chalk.

just thought i'd share a litte of my recent journey back to my artist self. now back to our regular programming...

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OMG...another post...learn nothing day

okay so friday, july 24th was learn nothing day and we met again at rock creek with friends for some food, fun, water, and NO LEARNING...NOT!!

i DID NOT get in the freezing cold water, but the kids did and they had a blast! mostly i hung out at the picnic tables eating and playing games.

one of the coolest things of the day was that ren saw a car with window marker on it that was about unschooling but didn't know who it was. when the car pulled back around to the picnic area, we swarmed them to find out who it was. turns out jana, jake, and josh were staying at the rock creek campground and thought the get together was the next day. they had just gotten there but i think they hadn't actually planned to come until later, so that was cool how it worked out. ren had met them at a conference recently so she introduced them to everyone. they ended up staying in the area for awhile and coming to several of our other get togethers and we made them official east tennesseans. in fact, they may be heading back this way for keepsies! hurrah!!

enjoy the picture show...

these kids rock, except samuel who never lets me get a good picture of him!!!!

sweet love...

true love...

sadie and sierra hang out in the back of ren's truck...wake up sadie!!

this is a little game we like to play called "attack the traaseths!"

oh, did i mention that jana has 2 unbelievably cute puppies!?

best friends!!

stop fighting you crazy kids!

that's jana!!!

gonna ketch us some fishies!

everyone hanging out...

these rest of these pictures (except the very last one) were taken by karina...i let her go nuts with my camera...i only shared a fraction of what she took, that girl is crazy with a lens!!!...

the "bonfire" that trevor kept stoking...i think he was trying to smoke us out!

say cheese ren!

sweet

4 little monkies sittin' on a bench...

playing rummikub!!! when i first saw this picture i thought abbi was holding a hot dog...LOL

even though alec wasn't feeling good, he still played games with us!!!

silas sporting sierra's jacket!

as the day was coming to a close...more games!! look even ren is playing...or is she just watching....hmmm????

as it was getting close to dark, we packed up all our stuff and headed to jana's campsite for a marshmallow roast!! it was an awesome day. in case i have never mentioned this before...i absolutely LOVE my friends. you guys make this life complete!!

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the rest of our days that were unblogged

okay, so i'm tired of starting each post with...yeah, i know it's been a long time since i posted blah blah blah!! so i guess that means i need to quit being so lazy and post something already...sheesh!!!

my blog used to be about my thoughts and feelings and ideas and family and friends. now it seems to be more a journal of days, what we've been doing and such. which i like because i have a dreadful memory and having a record of our days is comforting to my future forgetful self.

so we've been up to quite a lot in the last month and a half since i updated. so i'll just start where i left off...as usual =)

on saturday, july 12th, we went to my sister's house for my niece's 1st birthday.

lauren and beth

wes and samuel

beth gets her very own tiny birthday cake

oh yeah, she really got into that cake!!

the next day was my other niece's 18th birthday party!!

this is a sign we saw on the way to the party:

food and teenagers!!

i don't know what's going on here, was there music playing?? whatever it was, scotty sure is having a good time...LOL!!

the next day, sadie and i spent 5 hours cleaning and rearranging her room...it was awesome!! she really enjoys her room so much more when it's clean. i hate when people think kids shouldn't have any help with their rooms. i think that's just crazy. they said they won't learn responsibility, blah blah blah. whatever. i'd rather they learn that i love them enough to want them to have a space to enjoy. think about it, you wouldn't want them to learn to cook by never fixing meals for them. silly stuff that. anyway, i only have one picture i took that day. samuel was taking apart some headphones.wednesday, the 15th, was ren and bleu's 20th anniversary!! to celebrate they spent the day together in asheville, something they haven't got to do in forever. and we got to play with sierra and jalen!! it was a total lego day!!!

sadie and sierra playing with the red wagon

thursday was just a shopping and library sort of day i guess cuz that's all i can remember. and apparently we went to boone lake on friday because that's what it says on my calendar. omg, i have no idea!! wait, i remember that it was raining a little but we got in the water anyway and i did some cloudbursting and made them go away, it was still cold out though. and when i finally did get all the way under the water i came up and busted my face on the orange perimeter thingy. my teeth went into my lip and bruised it. in fact, i still have a hard knot in my lip from it. oh yeah, i also know samuel made a cool bracelet because there are pictures he took in my pictures file! isn't that sad? i really should update before i forget shit!!!

cool bracelet, eh? i helped him with those grommets after he realized just how hard you have to hammer to make it work =)

saturday was spent hanging out at home playing with some of the legos the traaseths passed on to us, the boys playing music in their room, AND in the bathroom dying everyone's hair...woo hoo!!

sadie was finally able to get her bottom drawer open (after the big 5 hour clean up) and find her barbies!! she had forgotten that she enjoyed them so much!

sunday, we went to see HARRY POTTER 6!!! we enjoyed it but couldn't help feeling like there was so much more they needed to put in it. i mean, that's a long ass book!! afterwards, we went for a walk at the park until it started to rain on us and then we rode around for awhile and scotty showed us where he would be working (which is the country club right next to the park we were walking at).

monday i woke up to the sound of the boys hanging out, they had not been to bed yet. oh man!! then we started getting ready for a visit from sadie's best friend in charleston, maggi!!

tuesday we met maggi's grandparents at the flag pond exit to pick up maggi. her brother, dakota, was with them and that was a really nice surprise. he has grown up so much, he turned 18 that week!! why are all the little kids i used to know turning 18 all of a sudden???

sadie waiting for maggi to arrive

this was such a cool moment!

later, we went to the lake because it was sooo hot!! i was working in the garden and they came out and said "it's hot, can we go to the lake?" at first i was not into it because it wasn't on the agenda (LOL) but i was pretty hot from being in the garden so i let myself be spontaneous it felt good to get in and splash around and then go lay on a towel and just read. i could've done without the bees and gnats though.

hey, that's the mean orange thing that busted my lip!!!


quesadillas!!!!
lego time!
wednesday the girls made some wild popsicles using juice and skittles

and played some bouncy ball on the porch...
and made chocolate chip shortbread cookies...

later that night, we had a little party to welcome taylor and karina back home from out west. we had lots of snacks and a cell phone cake!!

just talkin'...

and eatin'...

and watching a little SYTYCD...

some silly picture taking...

and sweetness...

and more silliness...

and scariness...

and some wild tickle wrestling...

and even more silly picture taking...

and talking on the giant couch...

and some kinda crazy floor snake game...

and cuteness on the stairs

thursday, we took maggi back to her grandma and mom and then came home. i did some laundry while we waited for the traaseths to get here. they ended up not coming until the next day though. in the meantime, there was imagination tribe...

well folks, i have been at this for hours and i'm still not up to the present moment in this journal of days. so you'll just have to wait until next time to get the rest of the good stuff...

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