Square Foot Art Gallery

I'm thinking of starting a new online store, probably on Etsy, for selling paintings that are 12"x12", or one square foot. I've been fascinated with the concept every since I found out on the Internet a few years ago that some art galleries were having showings specifically for square foot paintings.  Last night I found some videos on it on Youtube.

 

I want to combine this with my desire to do a painting a day like an artist I saw at the Laguna Sawdust Festival. He's done a painting a day for something like 18 years. You can see him in the clip below.

First I have to go to the art store and get some square foot canvases.

Day One Doodle Project

 

I like to let my subconscious mind  make the decisions when I'm doodling. It's cathartic when I do that.  I do my best not to over-analyze things and let them have a flow. It's an instinctive way to draw or paint, like process art. With this piece I started with the wavy part on the left side.  I couldn't decide if it reminded me of slides or a giant tree trunk or hilly terrain. Then I grabbed a spool of ribbon from my desk and traced the big circle with a little circle in the center. Next I did the treble clefts.  The circles didn't quite look finished, so I decided to add a stand to make it more like a Ferris wheel. Then I made the spokes. It's funny that this doodle started at McDonald's.  Then I drew in the car (I wasn't the driver). Then I restarted it at home at my desk, then I took it in the bathroom and drew the spokes. The birds were added at some point. I like the birds. Those might look interesting carved into rubber stamps.

Writing For Hubpages

I've been writing for a website called Hubpages for over five years now. For the last two months I haven't done much there because Google stopped the flow of traffic to Hubpages and many of us lost 50% of our Google Adsense income and more.  I personally lost about 80%.  The only thing that saved me was Hubpages started their own payment program for their writers, so while I still took a hit, I didn't lose everything.

So then the founders of Hubpages worked like dogs to rebuild the site in a way that Google would favor again. They started flagging hubs with substandard rankings, and it felt a lot like a witch hunt.  Poetry hubs took a lot of collateral damage, because word count became king.  About the only way my poetry was going to fly is if I wrote a long article and then tacked my poem to it.

But I do check into Hubpages from time to time to approve comments and keep up with changes and fix broken links and so on.

I switched to writing for Squidoo.  I had hopes of replenishing my failing Hub income with Squid Lenses income.  But though I've been writing on Squidoo regularly for 3 or 4 months, I'm getting no income, so it looks like I'm going back to Hubpages, even though I no longer have any warm feelings for Hubpages since the sweeping changes hit.

If you are curious about what I'm writing over there you can visit me on Hubpages and Squidoo.
My Hubpages poetry is over here under Poetic Muse.

Tackling Clutter

Instead of writing about what I'm good at, I've decided to write about something I'm bad at, namely, tackling clutter.  It piles up and up. It's frustrating. It steals my confidence. It makes me feel inept. It's my nemesis.  I even started a decluttering blog. That just helped me procrastinate a little more. Having two cats makes it worse, because they knock over and paw through everything.

Anyway, today's goal is to put away 100 things.  I'm up to about 40 that I've done already. I bet if I had the energy and motivation, I could even put away 1000 things today. But after 40 I was already overwhelmed.

So I'm resting, blogging, and then I'll get back to it.
Update: I lost my focus and only got 83 things put away.  So today I'm going to put away 100 more plus another 17 that I should have done yesterday, so 117.

I'd rather be flying a kite.

Mad About Hats

     I’ve always faced a hat dilemma. I’m willing to acknowledge that I’ve been born in the wrong period, because hats are no longer a requirement to wear every time we step out of our front doors. Here is my dilemma. I love to wear hats, particularly colorful and strange hats. But I am self-conscious and don’t like to be stared at. Sometimes one side of me wins and sometimes the other side wins.  Luckily, because of being a performer I’ve gotten away with wearing pretty crazy hats.  Then again, I don’t wear them to the grocery store.  Not just because I lack confidence to wear one if I’m going alone, but if I wear one when I’m with friends, they get embarrassed. Maybe I just need more outlandish friends, I don’t know. 

     But making hats is pleasurable and fun. As far as knitting or crocheting goes, I can whip up a hat in no time. And they cost less for supplies than something like a sweater or an afghan. So years ago I started a hat blog and I’ve made some hat tutorials which I’ll share with you here.

Hatitude
My hat blog

My newest hat. Madhatter style top hat.

Me wearing one of my favorite knit hats and holding a snood I crocheted.

Pain

My body is wearing out. No doubt about it. But this morning I decided if I'm going to hurt every day anyway, then I may as well keep dancing and juggling, even if they make me sore. I'm already sore. I wake up sore, I go to bed sore. Aging sucks. But sitting in a lump because I'm afraid to move is just going to make things worse, not better. Besides, all athletes hurt sometimes.

Happiness is a Box of Crayons

One day I thought to myself, 'I wonder why everyone assumes crayons are for kids only'. Compared to other art supplies, they are inexpensive, neater than oil or chalk pastels, and much more portable than watercolors or oil paints. You don't have to wait for them to dry and they come in a lot of colors. They don't dry out like felt tipped markers. You wouldn't normally think of using them for fashion illustration but why not? I used them last week to color in some costume sketches so I could keep the color schemes straight in my mind. I've even used them for portraiture. I use the white crayon a lot as an over layer to blend facial tones. So now my white crayon is broken in two and running out. The only down side of crayons is I don't think you can buy just one color.  So I bought a whole fresh box of crayons. This time I got an even bigger set with more colors including some metallics, neons, and other crayons of a different color.

When I started writing for Squidoo I came across a lot of reference links to adult coloring pages.  So evidently I'm not the only one out their who is over 15 and still coloring.  I'll put some of those links here.

Even if you are not an artist, crayons are great for doodling and relieving stress.  They are way cheaper than therapy. They can also be melted for special projects.  And I've used them to draw on Easter eggs before dyeing the eggs (wax resists dye).

When we were kids we used to use crayons to draw on T-shirts and then put a piece of brown paper from paper bags and iron off the excess and set the art with heat.

I still remember bible study when I was a little girl and coloring a lot from the basket full of crayon bits and pieces that sat in the center of every table. It seemed like the red was always missing.

Crayons are versatile and fun. Just don't put them in the clothes dryer. Or leave them on the dashboard.  Treat them as you would lip balm.   Don't take your crayons for granted.  Get them out and enjoy them regularly.

Adult Coloring Ideas 
Peace Coloring
More Coloring Ideas