Bunnies dancing through fields of wildflowers towards the sea. This week I’ve been participating in The Happy New Year Challenge, hosted by Artist Karen Abend , a free five-day event with prompts from Artist Gaia Marfurt . The drawings on this post are from days two, three, and four. You can see day one’s piece here .  The challenge has been fun. And, self-revealing of sorts.  Hearts Born While doing this challenge, I’ve learned that prompts tend to freeze me up rather than free me to create. That’s bothersome. Maybe my deeper self is reminded of art time in grammar school when I felt discouraged and timid to draw, paint, paste, and craft my creations because they didn’t look like the ones the teachers favored. House and Fly flying high and loose in the cerebellum. Another aspect of the challenge that reared up my young insecure self was sharing my work at the challenge’s Facebook page. I got one, two, once three, likes for my work while others got double digit and triple digit likes.

Today I’m linking up with Art for Fun Friday and  Friday Writings . And, yes, indeed, today is Saturday. 🙃  Art for Fun Friday I created the fabric collage (above photo) recently on the backside of the board that we use for a makeshift coffee table. The board sits on top of Daddy’s hassock which, too, needs mending. (So many things to repair in this house.) The board’s original purpose, once upon a time, was the Husband’s drawing board.  Here’s the collage on the board’s front side, which I call the front because I covered it earlier this year. The collage is a combination of fabric, wallpaper, magazine photos, and vintage magazine ads. Fun! Friday Writings Prompt:  bleeding hearts Some people consider me a bleeding heart . The more hostile simply say effing libtard . I say, “you’re welcome.” Who’s the Bleeding Heart? You drop money in the church basket. You pray and ask for prayers. You go along with whoever you think has the the money, the glory, the fame, the power. You scoff at t

For  Art for Fun Friday : Acrylics on tiny canvas (turned into a magnet) This week I’m sharing with  Thursday 13 ,  I Like Thursday ,  Art for Fun Friday ,  and  Friday Writings .  For  Thursday 13 and Friday Writings (prompt: ordinary) ( 1) Where oh where are my red reading glasses? (2) What oh what do I make for our main meal? (3) I’ll vacuum tomorrow. Maybe. (4) Dear Diary, says the Husband as he passes by me clickity clacking on the iPad. (5) What shall I do today? (6) I’m doing a load of bottoms. Do you want your jeans washed?  (7) Have you been drinking water? asks the Husband. (8) It’s garbage day. (9) Mail call! (10) Sniff, sniff, achooo. . . Really need to dust. (11) Jazz, rock, swing, tropical, what shall we listen to? (12) Going outside. (13) Kiss, kiss. I love you. Night-night. For  Art for Fun Friday : Acrylics on canvas For  I Like Thursday:   Mama’s Gravy LeeAnna, host of I Like Thursday , asks participants to share a Thanksgiving recipe that we love. If I could, I’d s

Landscapes usually make their way out of the recesses of my mind to paper or canvas or fabric. I don’t think about it.  It’s what happens.  This time I experimented with something in mind. I wanted to compose a scene with people and to use bold colors. It turns out hearts like to find a place in my pictures. I like that. Okey-dokey. I’m sharing with Art for Fun Friday . Cheers, One and All!

Art for Fun Friday ( 1)  Thursday came and went before I finished my post for  Thursday 13 .  So many things by which to be distracted—painting, housekeeping, weeding, reading, gardening, wandering on the Web, watching movies, talking with the Husband, cooking, and so forth and so on. I love my life as an old lady.  (2) Today’s prompt for  Friday Writings  is “a hobby that brings you peace.” Gardening, definitely. Painting, also. I like it when they overlap, for example, the  planter box of transplanted Jupiter’s beard in the above photo. The left side of the box was painted a couple years ago. I painted the right side this week because I decided to place the planter at the southeast end of the sidewalk and I wanted something colorful to face the street.  (3) Doing research is fun. Sometimes I think of Google as being an 8-ball when I &ask a yes/no question such as “Can I plant canna lilies next to vine geraniums, maybe two feet away?”     Of course, Google never gives me a simple

Here’s one of my work-in-progress projects, a wall hanging I had planned to enter into this weekend’s county fair. When I got to this point, I didn’t feel like rushing the details. There’s no need for me to do a slap happy job simply to make the deadline. Nor to work into the wee hours like this was an essential job. Nope. After all, I can always submit the wall hanging next year, should it tickle my fancy. Tickle, tickle. I love how the volcano turned out. The green velvet fabric is actually a sleeve from a top I wore in my single days and the red zipper is from a dress Mama sewed for me when I was a kid.  That blue ziggy line shiny material is part of  Mama’s blouse circa the late 60s/early 70s. The plaid heart came from one of Mama’s sleeveless  blouses. Mama was one styling chick! Sharing today’s creativity with Ms. Gillena’s Art for Fun Friday at  Lunch Break.

(1) Let’s see, today, for our main meal the Husband and I ate a melange of five left over dishes from the last two days, or three. Or, four. Garbanzo butternut soup, couscous with chimichurri sauce, sauteed onion and squash, ground turkey   burgers, and roasted red and green peppers. The flavors blended quite well together, surprisingly and with great relief. We ate our portions all up. No leftovers, hurrah! (2) To go along with our meal I concocted an ooh-la-la drink. Passion fruit juice with a jigger of rum. Ooh la la! (3) The Husband and I toasted to the last day of our 25th year of marriage. Tomorrow: Hello 26th!  Clink, clink.   (4) Maybe next year we will be dancing with our friends and family to celebrate our 27th anniversary. I also would like us to throw a party for the septuagenarians among us. We shall see. (5) The last two weeks I’ve been working on my entries for the county fair. That’s some of the craft entries in the photo above.  (6) Yep, that’s a juicer. Good friend L.

The poem I wrote last week settled something deep inside me. It also opened a gate of craziness, a joyful one.  I wrote, I painted, I breathed.  So, today, I’m sharing this post with Art for Fun Friday , hosted by Gillena at Lunch Break  and Friday Writings , hosted by Poets and Storytellers United.    For  Art for Fun Friday : A month or so ago I bought a package of canvasses of different sizes online. I didn’t read the descriptions carefully so disappointment was mine when they were delivered to our door. I thought they would be canvasses stapled to frames. Oh, well. Next time. They were cheap, so I kept them for those times I want to throw caution to the side and let the visual artist in me explore, experiment, enjoy.  Wow, I really said that: artist. It did not come easy to believe. Okay, back to topic. This painting is Exploration #1.  Yesterday, I globbed pastels, crayons, and acrylic makers onto an 8x10 canvas. Yuck. Today, I turned the painting upside down and continued onward,

My latest painting experiment was slathering, scraping, and scratching acrylic colors with a palette knife. Scritch, scritch….scrape, scrape… scratch…scratch…skritch… scrape….I love the sound of painting. I’m sharing with Art for Fun Friday , hosted by Gillena at Lunch Break . ❤️

(1) This morning we walked around the block. Definitely a big deal for me who haven’t done much walking. I’ve been getting my exercise playing in the garden, hauling, digging, bending, reaching, pulling, and so forth and so on. I also got a good workout vacuuming the stairs last week.  There’s nothing like stretching my legs though. Best of all, my knees didn’t pop and cough until I took my shoes off, thank you very much. Yeah, I’m still waiting for my turn with the knee surgeon. (2) Other than in my head,  I haven’t felt much like writing. Thus, my latest absence.  (3) It took me awhile to start letting go about feeling guilty for not writing, which I’ve been doing for fun and for a living most of my life. The latter, unnecessary for the present, thankfully. I’m rambling.  (4) Once upon a time, one of my high school teachers told me I could never be a writer because I ramble too much. She, with her bra strap constantly peeking out of her sleeveless blouse. The wise one also discourage

I got brave and tore the wrapping off a brand new canvas a couple weeks ago. Here’s my work in progress.  Sharing with Art for Fun Friday , hosted by Gillena of Lunch Break . 

Molly’s dining table was a single white shelf that once belonged to the Husband’s dad who used it in his office. The shelf was the perfect height for Missy Molly by Golly to enjoy her water and meals.  As you can see, Molly’s table is no longer white. Painted and slapped-happy glued with fabric scraps, snipped pictures and photos, and rose petals, it was.   Was I ever excited and impressed to see the rose petals stay in place when I set the table upright? The Husband asked if the colors will fade. We shall see.  Molly’s once dining table will become a plant shelf on the table, which was Molly’s dining table in her  young and spry years. Jump.  I consider this end of the living room where the table sits as being Molly’s space. It was where she came out of her carrier the day we brought her home and where she let go of her last breath to soar into the Universe over a month ago.  And, in between times, this well-lit, airy side of the living room was where the pinky-nosed (wilde) cat ate,

Once upon a time I felt brave to take a beginning drawing class from a working artist. She was totally into calderas. All over her studio were canvasses, finished and not, of all sizes of calderas, realistic to abstract. They were all awesome and amazing! Such passion! I wondered if I ever would be passionate about something like she was of painting volcanic calderas.  I painted this landscape for our upcoming July calendar. When I was younger, July was all about backpacking in the Sierra Nevadas, thus the mountain scene. I have no idea what I’m doing when I paint. It just happens.  Today’s link up is with  Art for Fun Friday . Come along and visit with me.