Week One and Two

Well, been trying for a few days to get a post done.  Problem being that I wanted to do the pictures as scans since they looks so much clearer, but I have to do that on my oldest computer and it and Blogger are not playing well together.  I worked with the computer some trying to get it faster to no avail.  Continued to try since I am stubborn to a fault but never could get the pictures uploaded and the post saved without my computer shutting down all open applications. After 2 days of trying, I have resorted to taking pics with my iPhone and uploading with the Blogger app. 

I realize it is now January 17th and there have been no Week 1 or Week 2 art projects posted yet.  My work week is going to present a problem for me unless I figure out some way to get over it.  Seem to be so tired after working ten stressful hours of night shift that I don't feel up to doing anything when I get home in the mornings.  It was this past weekend, the middle of my off week, before I did anything artistic. My hubby has a way of "sucking the life" out of my off time, finding things for us or me to do.  Hard to turn down some of this because it will be projects that I've wanted done for a long time and know that if I don't take advantage of his interest, it could quickly disappear. 

So here is what I am calling Week One's art item:

 

Right hand page of journal spread

 

Left hand page of journal spread

These pages ended being about my present struggle of balancing the scientific work day with an urge to create or the two sides of my brain at war. The lines of cars and people are to show the way I feel about us having to work.  Started out with gessoed pages glued with wrapping paper scrap rectangles.  Then used aqua and pink acrylic paint glazes as well was more white gesso and streaks of black to blend over the paper pieces. Final touches are black gesso rings, chart paper from Woodland lab(in memory), various other magazine and book snippets, and the heart from paper used under painting projects. Fairly satisfied with these pages.

 

Cheating with the week 2 project because all I did with this one was repair a previously begun assemblage piece that was damaged in the move.  I still want to do more with this but haven't decided what to do yet.  I do hope to be able to add another real art project for this week but will have to see how things go.  Right now it is Thursday and I am supposed to be going in to start my work week tonight.  Due to the snow, I am going to have to go in early and will probably be late getting to leave tomorrow, depending on how roads are and whether anyone tries to come in on dayshift. So will be working lots of hours with now sleep, good for the paycheck but not a 52 year old mind and body!

 

Will leave this post as it is for now. Sorry it is so quickly done.  I do have hopes to do better.

A New Year with 52 week resolution

Good intentions have failed me in more ways than one.  I had hoped to do better about posting, but it was October last time I did.  Also, as I mentioned several times in the last year or so, I've kind of lost my artistic way and I'm still floundering as far as that goes.  I've told myself more than once that if I was supposed to be creating, I would be doing more than I have been.  Still I'm not ready to give up yet. 

I've seen where many bloggers take on 365 day challenges or weekly ones.  For me, a 52 week artistic challenge seems a good idea, one that should be possible, at least with very lenient guidelines!  To create one artistic item per week and blog about it, will give me 40 more posts than I got in last year. This may sometimes be no more than a journal page or include crafty stuff rather than true "art". We'll see how it goes.  I can't be more disappointed in myself than I am right now.

I owe several people a hand-crafted item, anyway, from a Facebook pay-it-forward challenge, so I am starting out with my procrastinating self way behind. This tends to start a cycle in my head where I question what I'm going to do, then am unable to decide and then do nothing at all and so forth and so on. 

But this is a new beginning and start of week one.  My work week runs Thursday night to Thursday morning and will be going into that tomorrow night, followed by seven days off.  Getting anything done while I'm working will definitely be a challenge so there may have to be adjustments in how I divide up my weeks.  Here is hoping for better and more artistic times ahead!