Cay Denise

This is a great little book focused on how to treat oneself with the care of a loving parent so that one's wild, creative child within -- comes out to play! The book includes a chart about how to talk with your kids about art.  It has some suggested questions (using a curiosity approach) that can prompt 'real' conversation versus questions that can come across as if the child isn't doing something right or his/her work looks unrecognizable.  (The suggested questions would work great to aid in real talk between adults as well.  I'll be trying some of them out soon.) Austin also includes a number of photos of his sons as they play-work and some of the art they've made.  In addition, there are a number of Austin's clever newspaper blackout poems that I happen to  like for their wisdom. One of my favorite quotes in the book is attributed to Caitlin Moran, and it reads, "If you eat enough books, you start pooping out words."  I'm just tickled by thi...

  Not that I had any plans when I applied surplus paint for the first background layer.  Nor did I have any plans when Bombay India and Acrylic ink layers were added next.   But then a watercolor tulip scrap got my attention.  It was stowed in a transparent storage bag propped up against a bookcase in the studio.  The firey orange glared at me, and I imagined it might be great contrast to the darker and chaotic background.  It passed the test when it was auditioned.  Aside from that, I like orange and maroon together. Then I found some other collage and watercolor scraps to use for leaves that could help the florescent green in the background 'pop'.  So down they all went...glued in place.  Afterwards, I found a gradation study from a couple years ago in that same scrap bag.  The scrap was painted yellow-green to purple.  So, I used the yellow-green end to cut out the pieces for the stem and bottom of the bloom.  They added piz...

 Do you remember making paper snowflakes when you were young?  What reminded me about making them were the instructions in the book 'Make Every Day Creative'.  They are pretty easy to make, although decorating them is something else.  It is certainly a departure from what I normally make, but it was fun!

Binge-watching a show makes you feel like you're in the 'thick' of the characters' situations including getting a feel for their individual strengths and weaknesses that make them who they are and why they choose certain paths of actions.  Doing so, you grow in empathy or disgust of them more quickly because you have far fewer interruptions than if you were watching one episode each week. That is the way it was for me watching "Travelers" that is currently on Netflix.  The show ran from 2016-2018 (34 episodes total) and has an interesting premise.  That premise is that a super AI from a distant future monitors all actions/non-actions in the then current time as it tries to save humanity.  (As you might imagine, things are not going well for humans in the future.)  That said, the AI has the ability to transfer the consciousness of a being in the future to a person in the then current time--at the instant just before that person is about to die.  Those sent, ...