Almost Forgot!

The principle beadwork is done for my October page, Water/The Undine. I'm off in the morning to spend 2 weeks with my kids and meet my grandson, Charlie!



He's almost 9 months old - I'm over the moon about meeting him!!

When I get back I should be able to finish up the page, but I'll have to hurry - I'll be busy all November with National Novel Writing Month.

Inspiration #4

I forgot to post my link to the Astronomy Picture of the Day archive, here. I check this every morning - besides being a great source of inspiration (#2), it helps me keep things in perspective. This was the picture from today:



I love that stuff.

Anyway, Inspiration #4 is the most peaceful, beautiful massive multiplayer online games/interactive screensavers you will ever see. It's called The Endless Forest, wherein you are a deer with a human face, there are no words, no fighting, no goals and no quests. All there is to do is interact peacefully with other deer. It's so lovely I find myself wandering around there for hours.



Here I am, in the forest with a couple of fawns, chillin'. To me, when I can't get out and go for a walk, wandering around in a cyberforest is inspirational.

October BJP: Middles

I'm at the half-way point with the primary embroidery:



It took me a few tries to get the Undine's seaweed hair just so - and I'm really pleased with the effect. I'm more than halfway, actually. The lovely "blue moon" cab was made by my Most Talented Daughter, The Jade Dog.

There's something about this time of year that leads me to turn inward, to start paying more attention to my dreams. I'm staying up later, spending more time in reflection. I feel the image of the reflecting moon and the image of the Undine, just under the surface of the water (like our dreams, just under the surface of our consciousness) express those things for me.

52 Inspirations - Here's a Start

I can't make a post without a picture. And I do love those colors.

It was Mandi who inspired me to give this some thought. (I guess that makes her the actual Inspiration #1) One of my sources of inspiration was the AlteredBooks Yahoo group (#3). I was an active member some time back, and was continuously challenged to stretch my artistic concepts, to learn and to grow. My favorite thing was the monthly color challenge - useful when you find yourself stuck in a rut of using the same colors over and over. If you think you're going stale, give this a shot:

Pick three or four numbers between 1 and 50. Don't look at the list beforehand - that sort of defeats the purpose. Click on this link to see the list, which was originally devised by Karen in Thornton, CO from the Yahoo group I mentioned. Oh, and feed the cat while you're there.

Find the colors that correspond to your numbers.

Now the challenge is to make the resulting color combo work, somehow, in a piece of art - whatever your medium happens to be; altered books, ATC's, beadwork or whatever you want.

Kinda like yoga for your color sense. Neat, huh?

Exploded Sunrise

I'm still not too sure about the button, even though I love the look of vintage; I wanted to make a beaded bead for the closure, but everything I tried just flopped - they were either too big or the wrong color.





This time I think the scanner washed out the colors:


I forgot to throw in the picture of my worktable for the October BJP page, so here it is, rescued from obscurity.