Cay Denise

For more information on the mandala, please scroll to this blog's December 14, 2020 post

  What is a word that describes your reaction to this right off the bat?   Have you chosen your word? I think 'peculiar' may be a fitting term.  In working on it, it seemed to have planetary colors and the running pink ink looked like waterways.  You can also see the mitt for Michigan in it too.  What I've come to embrace is that it represents the encroachment on land of over-population, contamination, resource depletion, and species die-out, etc., that have, are, or are a threat to occur on our planet (the Blue Dot).  Is there any similarity between your chosen word and this description?

With a cut circle from an old painted/textured substrate hanging around and using the rest of the old paint in my Masterson palette, a new mandala has arrived.  I'm calling it Recycled I, since there will likely be others from discarded substrates piled up.  What a good way to re-use!

 

 

These are some fun art practice pieces done yesterday and today.  I've been feeling so stuck lately and resisting picking up a paint brush.  Why the change yesterday, I don't know--but I'm thankful.  These were all done listening to music. The bright lime green portal piece was painted to songs from The Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour' album.  The other abstract was painted to songs from the Manhattan Transfer's 'The Junction' album. The art journal page with the saying 'Mirror Mirror on the Wall' has a free-hand contour drawing of a face and body (done with one continuous line).  Other lines were added later. I had such fun listening to the great music over my earbuds--especially singing along with some of my favorites!

 

I just received my printed magazine/softcoverbook from Blurb.com, and it looks great and the quality is very good!  For a first effort, I have no complaints.   The magazine is called 'My Book of Days this Pandemic Year' and is a compilation of my Facebook posts for the entire year (almost 400 of them).  It is different from a Past Book or other Facebook-advertised memory books because those only include the posts with the most number of likes, and you have no control of what is included in or excluded from them.  Based on that, I created my own publication that includes posts of: our evolving pandemic knowledge;  public health orders; imaginative ways people entertained themselves and their families while sheltering at home;  my art;  other's art;  silliness;  inspiring photographs;  touching stories;  poetry;  information about disinformation; and,  a host of other valuable and interesting articles, critiques and rev...

The artist featured in this article makes intricate and memorable pieces (many in mandala form) from cut newspaper and other papers.  The sample of her work below is beautiful and looks somewhat Victorian...perhaps due to the lacy appearance of the work.  Her website link in the article is worth visiting to see more of her amazing work (article link is below too)! by Myriam Dion https://mymodernmet.com/myriam-dion-newspaper-collages/?fbclid=IwAR1Cnz6lrIwAiVkmNgDxznqkueOJ176auFVWKnzgE9sst7StMXLTqVkfEMw