Why I live here:

 

 

Christmas Still Life with Cat and Mimosa

Christmas Morning 2011

… and Valentine’s begins…

To me, Thing-a-Day means Valentine’s cards and creations. I played with a couple tonight… and there will be more to come. <3

Saturday.

I began yesterday by creating some space by going to yoga – always helps to clear out the week’s jumble.  I am moving soon and hoping to clean out / use up a ton of art supplies so I don’t have to pack it. To that end, what I created in a physical sense was a few more pillow boxes. 

One is big and whimsical – love these polar bears!

And the other is more elegant and subtle with orange, green and white on light grey. I wrapped one up as a gift for a friend’s birthday – there was something inside it – and she loved both the inside and outside.

I should also mention, because it is absolutely affecting how much time I have for our dear Thing-a-Day, the reason I am moving is I have a new job that is over an hour away from where I live. Since I live in Southern California, this is a daily schlep that consumes both a ton head space (when to leave to miss traffic???) and a ton of my energy. So, I’m here and making things daily, and giving it the 100% of what I have to give right now  

Cool New Book Project

Hey y’all – apologies I’ve gone kind of quiet the past few days. I’m not sure what’s up with my internet but it’s been intermittent at best until this afternoon. So, I give you Friday’s creation, or planning of a creation more specifically. 

A friend at work who’s mostly awesome has this moleskin-like book with loose pages inside of it so he can draw and photocopy easily. I only realized on Friday that he made it himself. Here it is without the pages, you can see the grommet that connects the elastic band that closes it all up. 

Once I got a look at it, it’s a simple and ingenious construction with book board lined in contact paper, I believe he said. Then in the inside, he also inserted a book plate that’s pretty cool too. I studied it a bit and noted down ideas for making my own. This weekend was too packed for an involved project, but one of these weekends, I’ll give it a whirl. 

 

Happy Year of the Rabbit!

I fell in love with this image – something about it reminds me of a wood cut or a stamp – and I made up a quick little Happy Year of the Rabbit cards. 

More flowers

Due to many factors, the biggest being this trip, I did not get a chance to play with my Day Lab and photo emulsion transfers this year for Thing-A-Day. I did, however, have my planned series of flower notecards in mind. My idea is to create a set of flowers in the 7 colors of the spectrum, and thus so many of these flower photographs.

This morning I wandered around the hotel property, so I give you another gorgeous hibiscus – this time in bright red, some climbing hibiscus and a little bunch of bougainvilleas.

The last shot of some purple flowers among lilly pads took some work because the little channel they were in was not along a footpath and I had to do some rather precarious climbing to get it. I almost fell into the water once… what we do for art.

Sadly, it’s my last day here in Mexico and the last day of TAD 2010. I always feel a bit of a let down after TAD, I miss the daily interaction with you all and the opportunity to view so many creative people’s work. Everyone here is inspiring to me – thanks to all for sharing their creations.

Until next year…

Sand & surf

Yesterday, we were technically under a tsunami warning although no one was getting too excited. We had half an eye on the surf, watching to see if it receded fast. Interestingly enough, the surf was rougher a few days ago but I was intrigued by the point where sea meets the sand and how much movement there is in that moment – water and sand churning together.

I’m thrilled with this shot as amazingly it seems to capture this movement despite being quite sharp. It’s almost dizzying…

Look up!

I noticed this nice gentleman video taping the coconuts in a tree from his lounge chair. Looking up myself, it’s a great and different vantage on your typical palm tree photogragh.

Peacock…

With my “good” camera. It was still quite tough to get a good shot of this magnificent peacock. You know, he kept moving. But still and all, a better shot that with my phone camera.

I’m playing a bit of catch up today – the internet down here in Mexico has been intermittent at best. I enjoyed taking a little time each day to really look around and see the unique and interesting sights here.