Some fairly recent art experiments

I did these on our last camping trip at the end of May which I am so glad we got to take. Unknowingly my friends at work were already hearing rumors about the hospital being sold while we were away. They thought about calling me, but decided not to and I'm really glad they didn't. I blindly enjoyed several days of relaxation, resting, reading, and some art. Haven't done anything artistic since then. Just not had the time mainly, but also not really the inclination.

These are an experiment I wanted to do in using a photograph and incororating into a painted background. The inspiration for doing this was Angela Cartwright's technique as published in a recent Somerset publication. If you click on her name that will take you to her blog and here is a link to a piece of her lovely work she has on sale at Etsy, at really reasonable prices I might add. I'm too lazy to go hunt the magazine to scan those, but this one is done similarly. As you can see, her pieces have a simple color-washed background with designs done in the gesso. I started out trying to do this, but couldn't get it to look right. I ended up just working with the colors and backgrounds of the photographs to blend them. These were shots that you might remember me showing before from a trip last fall. The colors are prettier in person than they scanned,not as muddy-looking as they appear above, but still not any that I have in the house anywhere. Since they are lightweight I'm thinking on a way to make wall hangings out of them for the RV which does have this color scheme. As a matter of fact, the upholstery in the camper has a leaf pattern.

The canvases were thrift store purchases and were a pair of farm landscape prints on canvas minus their original frame, but only 50 cents each. Less than the cost of new canvas boards and I like the shape in relation to the photographs once turned up and down instead of sideways. I gessoed over the printed background with white and while it was still wet stamped into it and added texture with my brush. As it started to dry, I added gesso to the back of the photo and squished it into it deliberately so that the gesso covered the edges of the photo some. The color washes followed, but in trying to match to the colors in the photos, somehow I ended up with blah, pukey tones so I kept on working with it until they evolved as shown.

My thinking is maybe to add some wording and make a hanger of twigs to go with the woodsy look embellished with beads, fibers, or whatever strikes my fancy. May even have something hanging off the bottom.

I also did another larger canvas that I had to photograph since it won't fit on my scanner. This was another rescued thrift store canvas but it had an original painting of a really scary-looking face. I gessoed over that with black and then added an acrylic sand texture medium. The picture I chose to use on this one is the closeup I did of a leaf on a rock wall on the same fall trip. The photo is not glued on there crookedly. The photographer is just lousy in cropping her shots! Not finished with this experiment either. I was going to color wash this one, too, to bring the color of the rocks out into the background, but I like the look of the black with the gritty texture medium, so I can't decide. I am going to at least on all three unify the finish overall. On the bottom 2, think I will apply a layer of matte gel medium so the the shiny surface of the photos will be gone. For the top piece, I will most likely go with gloss gel medium.

BTW, do you need any confetti for any upcoming party or event? I have a confetti-maker I will hire out to you cheap! As an added bonus, she is really cute. Heck, some days I might even let you have her for free! Just kidding, we love her, but this is a picture of what the little stinker can do with plastic and paper.

Goodbye to Woodland!

Went by this evening for one last visit to my old place of employment. It was sad to see it almost empty and boxes being packed up everywhere. Made me think of my friends and coworkers and how much I will miss them and this place. Above is a shot of the people I work with or have worked with in the lab in recent past. We got together a week ago to get a group picture since some of us have already left for our next job.

My years at Woodland began in 1981 when I was a lab student doing my 6 month internship. There were no openings at the time I finished so I looked elsewhere and was hired at Huntsville Hospital. After only a couple of weeks, the lab supervisor at Woodland, Suzanne Porter, called me to say that one of techs had decided to leave and to ask if I was interested in a position. Of course I said, yes, as it meant not having to move to Huntsville or keep on with a longer commute. So as the story goes, I've been there since January of 1982 as an employee. The company I worked for has changed several times over the years. At first I worked for what is now Labcorp, but was then called Medlab. The hospital subcontracted the lab services at that time. Medlab was bought by Roche and that is who I was working for when the hospital decided they would make more money by running the lab themselves. I had to either transfer to Birmingham to stay with Roche or begin working for Woodland. Since my girls were small, I opted to remain at the hospital. Woodland has been under the ownership of several corporations. Not sure I could remember the names of all of them.

Emily was born in 1983 and then Holly in 1985. While they were young it was great to have a job this close to home. I worked for 7 years on 3rds while they were growing up to allow me flexibility in my day schedule so I could do what I needed to as far as attending school functions, ballgames, etc. I could stay up and sleep later in the day or get up earlier in the afternoon depending on what was going on. After a while I got physically tired and switched back to day shift for several more years. That was until the layoffs last year and then I went back to 3rds again.

I've put in a lot of years at this hospital. Perhaps one reason I've been here so long has been because I don't like change. My friends and family will verify that statement! But it seemed like about the time I felt like I needed to move on, I would be able to change to a different shift or negative job situations would change for the better. I also saw over time that people would leave Woodland and then come back because they missed it so much. It really was like a family. We may have fought and bickered among ourselves some(but not too much) but if someone else messed with one of our coworkers we would stand behind them like you would a sister or brother. As a matter of fact, if I find out anyone is not treating one of friends right now at their new jobs, all they have to do is call and I'll be there to take up for them!

This camraderie we enjoyed enabled us to work together to do the best job we could in performing our work and taking care of our patients, and we did see them that way, OUR patients. Some of our anguish in the hospital closing has been about who is going to take care of these patients now. There were many who came in as outpatients for labwork that we became close to over time. It was not just a job where these patients were a test or a number or a dollar sign. They were real people with needs and worries who we really cared about. This leads me to my other pictures.


Right before Woodland was sold a little over a year ago, while it was still CHS, there was a lot of money wasted initiating a program to inspire us as workers to provide better service. I mean there was a LOT of money spent on training executives and supervisors, books, CD's, computer programs, etc, etc. by a company that was about to sell us to another company? Go figure!?! It was a waste of time and money also because the employees of Woodland were already providing an excellent level of care. We didn't need pillars erected in the front entrance area to tell us what to do. My apologies if any of you read this that had do some of this stuff. I know a lot of you were just doing your job and had to do what those higher up the corporate ladder told you to do. But if any of you read this that made these decisions, I would like to let you know how it made me feel as an employee. I felt insulted, not inspired, and angry that so much money was spent by a company that would turn around and ask me to take time off without pay to save money near the end of the year so that budgets could be met and bonuses be paid. Then in turn you sell us to a company that then turns around and sells us again to another hospital who closes us down. All this was supposed to be done for the better of the community, the people. Below are some closeups of a couple of the "Pillars of Excellence" that were installed at the entrance to the soon-to-be-closed Woodland Community Hospital. In the end, you have to ask yourself, what was most important, the people or the finance?

Sorry to be away so long without a word

Life has been pretty hectic while I've been trying to finish out at one job and start at another. Worked extra days to get some training at the new position. Will be going in next Wednesday evening there to start my night shift work week. The first few nights I'll be working with someone, then I'll be on my own. I expected to be working my last week at Woodland right now but they decided to cut staff back and let the workers go on that already had other jobs lined up. I didn't find this out until the this past Tuesday, the day before I thought would be going in to start my final week at Woodland. I still had people I hadn't said goodbye to and thought I still had time to do that, take a few more photos, etc. I had to go on up and clean out my locker that evening since I was going to be working at Hartselle for the remainder of the week. It was hard when I loaded up my car and pulled out of the parking lot to realize that I would never be going back there again as an employee and that 28 years at this work place was over. Will really miss the place and the people I've worked with. Lots of memories!

The reason I'm showing the picture of Bama is that we have had another loss in the midst of all this. Bama started getting sick and was just not eating much any more. At first I thought it was because she was upset about Maggie being here, then realized that she was sick. Well, she started wanting to stay outside and one day last week, she disappeared and we've not seen her since. Bama was another of Emily's Tuscaloosa rescues that ended up at Mom and Dad's. We were of course not sure how old she was since we don't know how old she was when Emily took her in. So my computer buddy is gone. I miss her sitting by my hand while I tried to blog or surf the web. Also at night, she would come into the bedroom and lay on my side while we slept. If she needed water or food, she would sit by my face and stare at me, resorting to gently slapping my face if I didn't wake up and do what she wanted. So rest in peace wherever you are sweet Bammy! We miss you!

Ties That Bind Raffle is going on!

You can visit the Ties that Bind blog
or go directly to the raffle spot by clicking on the picture button below:



Here is some of the auction info:

"It was one year ago that we began this project. Everyone pitched in with their art. Now it's time to pitch in againby donating and spreading the news!Remember this is a tax deductible donation! Give big. Give often.If we can get 500 people to donate $20 over the next 4 months we will raise $10,000.How awesome would that be???????We can do this. If everyone here gets just 6 people to donate $20.....we can go beyond that goal!
THAT IS ONLY 6 PEOPLE DONATING PER ARTIST.

Tickets are 1 for $5 or 6 for $20

We would like to announce that Scrapbook Royalty will be hosting the Ties That Bind Art Doll raffle this summer.Donating will be sweet, simple AND tax deductible! Scrapbook Royalty....It's not just for scrap booking anymore.

Scrapbook Royalty is dedicated to raising money and awareness for worthy causes. 100% of the money raised by participants, silent auctions, and raffles is donated directly to charities. Scrapbook Royalty will not collect any fees from Ties That Bind. All money raised by the Ties That Bind raffle will be sent to the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund http://www.ocrf.org/ . Scrapbook Royalty is a non profit organization based in San Diego, CA and run by founder Elena Etcheverry with help from volunteers.

Scrapbook Royalty has held fundraisers, raffles and auctions for many worthy causes.

We've had a few people tell us that they would prefer not to purchase raffle tickets because *after all that is a big doll and I just don't have a place for her*....Well, you if you also feel that way you can just make a Donation ONLY.

When you click the donation button and sign into PayPal there will be a link that says:

+add special instructions to the seller

Just click on that and type in Donation Only - No tickets. That way no raffle ticket numbers will be assigned to your name and you have still contributed towards our goal of raising $10,000."


If you would like, you can see a gallery of photos of the doll. My charms are both in the picture that is used in the raffle button above. If you care to read my thought process, this is the link to where I posted about it right after finishing the charms. Here are my photos of the charms before I sent them on their way.

Sorry, I'm not been posting much

There are some posts that I want to get done, but just haven't yet due to time and computer constraints. The Ties that Bind auction is going on. Please check it out by clicking on the button at the side. I've been meaning to blog about that with pictures and links to the auction and the blog, but since the auction site has lots of photos, it was just taking a long time to try to do it at home with dialup internet speed. I can take my laptop to work and do it there, but I've been forgetting to do it once I'm at work. Think that is because when I'm at the hospital all I can think about then is the fact that I won't be working there much longer and how sad it is that the hospital is closing down entirely. That is what I am most upset about. Moving onto another job is kind of scary(ok, for me, really scary!) but the reality of this hospital no longer being in operation is hard to grasp.

To get back to the auction topic, the awesome doll that was made and being raffled off has been photographed and will be published in a Somerset publication, I think, and also in a book that is being printed to raise more money for the worthy cause of ovarian cancer research. I will do my best to get more detailed info on here soon.

I also have some pics from last weekends showers for baby Thomas that I could post, but I've not gotten around to that either. I am definitely not in the best frame of mind these days for many reasons. Father's Day has hit me harder than I thought it would. Since Dad's disease had made him not really be there as far as his mind the last few years, I thought I had probably already dealt with the Father's Day issue, but I guess not totally so.

Will be going up to train some on my "off" days from this job at the end of this week at the new job, so I'll not have much leisure time this week. So glad we got to go camping when we did. We had tentatively planned to go this week as we would not have chickens for Kerry to look after(they are catching them today), but will have to wait for a better time. It would have been really hot anyway, I guess.

Again, my apologies for lack of posting and any pictures. I will hope that better days are ahead.

Baby showers for little Thomas

Here is a still shot from the ultrasound of Thomas Jeffery, showing his sweet profile. As of a little over a week ago he already weighed approximately 4 lb. 11 oz. His measurements are ahead of where he should be in relation to the due date, August 9, so the doctor said he might be born a little earlier. All along with my pregnancies with my 2 dd's I measured bigger than I should but they were both late. They were just big babies. Emily weighed 8 lb. 13 oz, 22 1/2 inches long and Holly was 10 lb 5 oz, 23 1/2 in. long. We decided that was big enough and called it quits.

We've been busy this weekend with baby showers. Craig's family in Heflin, Alabama had a shower for them Saturday evening and then our family had one today here in West Point. They were blessed with so many lovely gifts. Thomas is going to be one well-dressed little fellow! Such cute outfits they have for boys now! Can't wait to see him! All in good and proper time. The only sad spot in the festivities was missing Holly. They filmed the showers though and Craig is supposed to be fixing it up so Holly can watch them. Emily and Craig gave Holly a webcam and hope to be able to get one themselves so Holly can watch Thomas over the internet after he gets here. That is one great thing about the internet, how it helps bring us closer together.

Now I'm praying that my work schedule will work out so I can be there. With changing new jobs, I'm going to have to swap weeks in my work rotation from what I am working now, meaning, if my schedule remains as it is now, I'll work 7 days in a row at Woodland and then immediately begin my 7 days on at Hartselle. My transfer is going through for me to work at this other hospital owned by the corporation I presently work for. It is not too much farther than I drive now, in the county just north of us. We keep hearing rumors that our corporation will be closing this hospital next, but then who knows!?! The employees will always be the last to find out, that much I know for sure. I figure at least it will buy me some time to get some bills paid off and be getting my resume updated.

I've still not gotten my head around the fact that the hospital is going to be closed down. It just seems surreal. I mean if I had left my job there in normal circumstances, the hospital itself would still have been there to go back to. Some coworkers would remain to visit. Going through this process is like waiting on a death that you know is inevitable and just as difficult. Each time one of my coworkers leaves it is like we've cut off a part of the body. Then we are going to reach the moment where, as in a code, the end is pronounced and those of us left have to accept the death and walk away.

I've been mad and sad, sometimes within just a few minutes of each other. Some of the literature that was handed to us the day we were told of the hospital's sale and closing was supposed to be about helping you deal with all the emotions to come. An "expert" who had written it warned that you might find yourself blaming your family, coworkers, or supervisors and offered suggestions for coping. I find this sadly laughable. I think we all know where blame can be placed and I know exactly where to direct my anger. I'm just going to have to learn how to let it go. It will not do me any good nor change the course of events. Greed and the love of money will remain as the root of evil that is feeding our corporations. Lots more I can say along this subject, but perhaps it is best left for another day.

I know this post has been up and then down, but that is my life right now. I have so much to be thankful for and am richly blessed in so many ways. Then there are the difficult and sad times that have come my way, some happening right along side the happy. Such is life I suppose.

Post #2-remainder of art deck cards

King hearts-windows theme


Queen hearts-Alice in Wonderland theme


Jack hearts-furry friends theme


Ten hearts-ocean theme


Nine hearts-sewing theme


Eight hearts-use ribbon


Seven hearts-use colors orange, lime, raspberry

Here are the remainder of the cards. Sorry some of the scans are not the best, but the cards and the holder are still in the possession of the publishing company. Not sure when they will find their way home again.

I want to also post sometimes the art project I tried while on our camping trip. Needless to say I've not been in the mood to do any art this week with the upcoming closing of the hospital.