Recovering from the Weekend....

    Well this week was interesting to say the least. My mom, brother and I attempted to go to the Dublin Irish Festival yesterday, which decidedly turned into a dud. Our day consisted of: getting lost, getting rained out, getting tired, and getting bummed. Not having our dad there certainly didn't help. Although there were some highlights to the day.

   For one, we enjoyed this promto jam session after festival operations were halted due to thunderstorms. I would have danced with her, but just as I put down the camera the cops moved them into the gym to play for the jumping wigs...I mean step dancers : 

   After we decided at 3 hours in the rec center that it might be best for us to head home, I had the pleasure of running into this handsome young man from a food vendor trying to get rid of extra scones at the gate so they didn't have to lug it home. Shirtless, wearing a kilt and with free food?! Mom and Wes laughed at me but needless to say I ran after him and eagerly took a butter scotch scone. It was a lovely perk of the day.


   The weather did clear up on the ride home and we ended up missing one what looks like a great show from a few of my favorite performers, John Doyle and Karen Casey. We'll there's always next year and the long ride home meant I got some considerable headway on this scarf.

 Ya see the red bag? I finished my recycle t-shirt and jean bag to bring to the festival! Probably gonna put some pockets on the inside, then it'll be perfect for school.

   As soon as I finish this I'm going into town to run some errands, and after that I really don't know what to expect. This summer has been an interesting experience, and I'm looking forward to starting the school year on the right foot in a few weeks.

Peace.

Craft and Crochet

Allo again,

Even though I'm still continuing to work on the crochet vest and knit scarf, after watching some crafting videos I had the urge to start another project to work on.

Last Christmas I made a jean bag out of an old pair, but it was too long and narrow for me too really use. So, by cutting up an old red t-shirt and making 'yarn' out of it, I'm crocheting a top to go above the jean bottom. I'm really liking it so far but the one red shirt definitely won't be enough to finish it. The question now is do I try to go to goodwill today to find more old red shirts, or do I cut up other shirts I have that might work (a yellow and possibly an orange). I can't wait to see this done to see how it looks!

 Also have been working on some macrame jewelry!

Still getting the hang of things....

Like with some of the projects I get started with, I leave them alone after I've started them a bit. Well I guess I should fill in a little bit of what kinda stuff I've been working on lately....


Most of this week I've been messing with trying to make a tutorial of how to make these:

Polymer Clay sunflower pendants. I enjoy making them and I think they are a great little token for summer that I'd like to share. Part of what is holding it up is that I'm trying to draw illustrations to go along with written instructions using my new Wacom fun tablet, which I love but I'm still getting in the hang of that so I might resort to scanning illustrations on paper.

Still working on that crochet circle vest, I really fumbled through making arm wholes and doing proper increases. But I'm gonna keep working on it and hope that if I make it really big no one will notice....

I did however finally start to try to teach my self how to knit! I bought some colorful yarn and needles (Which I have nicknamed, "The Nimrods) and have been following videos on the internet. All of that knit and purl and continental and English and this and that is really confusing but I think I'll get the hang of it soon. (Right now I think I got the cast on and knit down). The concept of trying to grab yarn without a hook was quite an obstacle to over come....

Gonna have to head over to the school today to paint more backdrops, but only after going to the barn to help out a bit. This week I'm thinking I'm going to finish the vest, knit a scarf (embroider it with crochet flowers), and I really want to try and sew my own clothes for school. Lots of crafting!

Peace.

Blog time!

Well I just woke up from taking a nap and catching up on some sleep. I was up late last night working on this music poster for a friend (I won't reveal the whole thing as I haven't heard back from her yet and I'm not completely 100% done). I'm pretty happy with it so far, just hoping she is too.

      Staying up late last night reminded me of the 'commissions' I used to do in the eighth grade. It started out as one friend in my class venturing out and asking me to draw a portrait of her dog in colored pencil, so I did and things kinda went from there. After I did that for her, more students started to come to me with various projects. I was both surprised and thrilled at how much people seemed to appreciate my art skills, so much so that I accepted their requests free of charge.  Eventually the drawings became bigger and I was experimenting with making them more 'professional', by making them larger, more colorful, and extra photo realistic (even though that really isn't my strong suit). One young man particularly seemed to enjoy giving me projects to draw.
    Now don't worry, no love stories here. He lived and breathed bull riding (a rarity even at our tiny country school) and was even competing in a few local rodeos every now and then.  He started out by handing me torn out pages from his favorite bull rodeo magazine, and I would draw them during art class that day. Eventually he started to give me snap shots of him actually riding (which were pretty spectacular!). I loved them becuase it had so much movement and excitement than the pictures of dogs and hamsters I was usually getting. I think the last drawing I did for him he just gave me the whole magazine and let me pick out what ever I wanted to draw, after I did that he paid me in chocolate, which I happily accepted.  Any other commissions I did that year I don't think I'll remember as much those ones. Maybe becuase I felt connected to a part of my community (my family were sorta isolated in that we were really part of the farming community), or maybe I honored to do something I love to do, from something he loved to do.
   I've done other little commissions since then,  never really getting paid very much, but I figured it's good for the experience. The one's I really enjoy tend to go along the same theme: doing something I love, to celebrate something they love. It also tends to be them taking a gamble on my drawing skills, a challenge, and it's always nice to surprise them and my self. I just have to make sure that I keep that in mind throughout the next coming years, I've already experienced how the stresses of life can take away the joy of art from me, so I'm gonna take it easy today and work on some crochet, and maybe head over to the horse barn to help out and draw horses. If I have the time....

Peace