March has been a little nuts in my neck of the woods - not one, not two, but THREE Nor'easter storms rolled through here in the space of eleven days. And the weather forecasters got anticipated accumulation wrong for my home town in each instance. Winter Storm Riley on March 2nd caught us quite by surprise. We were supposed to get a couple of inches starting AFTER the evening commute. Instead it started around eleven a.m. and was coming down at the rate of 2 inches per hour. Plus very high winds. So the area surrounding my home town experienced ice, covered by slush, covered by heavy wet snow, lots of downed wires and trees, and cars and school buses full of children stuck everywhere. I had been at the office for a meeting. Left before 2 p.m. and it took me two hours to get home and this is how that trip ended:
Stuck at the bottom of my own driveway! Jay left the same area 20 minutes after me and it took him three hours to get home. I had the driveway cleared and my car moved by the time he arrived.
The storm also knocked over our back yard neighbor's fence. We're hoping he decides to just take it down.
In total about 8" of wet heavy snow.
The next two storms brought LESS than was forecast for our area - Winter Storm Quinn on the 7th gave us about 6" (originally forecast to be in the 10-16" band). Luckily, we had some warning this time and all stayed home to ride it out. Followed by Winter Storm Skylar on the 12th which only left about 2" and instead skirted to the east and north and pounded Boston. Now that we are days away from officially being Spring, I'm hoping this nonsense will slow down!
The weather hasn't stopped me from traveling for work, or from living my word PLAY while attempting to keep up with Life Book, FIT, and One Little Word. My most recent creative efforts:
All watercolor, except the face. I chose excerpts from the Desiderata for the writing exercise. Tried to use drawing gum and a calligraphy nib as a resist technique (that was the lesson). Failed miserably, but at least I tried! Ended up having to go over it with a white paint pen to make it legible.
I tried to make the proportions on this face a little more realistic than my first (which were not meant to be proportional but whimsical) The eyes are still huge, but I like it for the expression.
Another Life Book exercise - my Quirky Bird - designed to showcase my own unique quirks and weirdness - like how much I enjoy singing in the car, loudly, and badly, but with complete abandon because there is nobody to hear me, shush me, or squelch my joy. - and how I am naturally clumsy and have two left feet (this poor bird's awkward feet were not an accident) - and how I have a tendency to wear my heart on my sleeve...
A 6x8" mini vision board for my FIT journey. No explanation needed.
I joined Susannah Conway's "Your Soul Speaks" class about tuning in to your intuition. The most recent exercise was to create a vision board of what your soul looks like right now. This is what came out for me.
And finally, another Life Book lesson - this time an intuitive abstract painting with watercolors and acrylic. Finished with a botanical image. The artist teaching this lesson had beautifully drawn leaves in ink. I practiced on scratch paper and found my freehand ink skills were akin to a toddler drawing, so went with a Posca paint pen to complete this. I used a photo of a sunset in California as my inspiration... feel like I maybe ended up with a sunset on Mars???? So entirely different from anything I would normally do!
I'm loving the time I'm spending being creative just for me. None of these are art works, they won't be for sale, they won't end up framed or shared anywhere but here and in the classrooms. And yet they make me so happy.
What is making you happy these days? How are you making time to PLAY?
5 comments:
Oh, Cheri, I really enjoyed seeing your artwork & am so glad you are finding time to just PLAY and be your creative self!!! That snow, on the other hand, doesn't look FUN at all - it's been colder than usual here the past two months ... but nothing like that! :)
Wow, your artwork is amazing - I especially love the first one.
The weather seems to be crazy wherever you live at the moment, just as we think spring is on its way - we get another snowfall. It's losing its novelty factor now - please stop!
Can you believe that for leaving 20 minutes later it added an hour onto Jay's journey? At least when he got home, you had done all the hard work clearing the drive!
More stunning art! I also just love the first one. We're still buried under snow--first one 13+ inches; last one 17 1/2". It's going to take awhile to get rid of it. With no temps much above freezing this week, I'm not hopeful despite the fact that Tuesday is the first day of Spring. Your artwork cheers me up, though!
Actually I dare to disagree - those are artworks! Just because they are "just for you" doesn't mean they are not artwork - they sure are. And I like them.
It's nice to see that Tam still does the quirky bird; that was my favorite lesson in one of her earlier Life Book classes. I like her teaching style, she is a lot of fun.
I hope that crazy winter weather will finally get to its end. Driving in snow and ice is no fun. We had some good rain here, so much needed after most of the winter was dry. My garden looks much happier right now.
Play is certainly evident in your beautiful art. We have watched on the news reports about those snow storms hitting your area. We have been lucky in that regard for the last few weeks, most of the storms have been staying south of us. Hopefully once the snow is gone a glorious spring will arrive. ... Mary-Lou
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