Lining the nest on the cheap ... with thoughtfulness and creativity.

Squirrel Animal Medicine

Gathering, Activity, Preparedness.

 

The gathering power of Squirrel is a great gift. It teaches us balance within the circle of gathering and giving out. They remind us that in our quest for our goals, it is vital to make time for play and socializing.  

Squirrel teaches us to conserve our energy for times of need. If your totem is Squirrel or Squirrel has recently entered your life, lighten your load of things that are unnecessary – things that you have gathered in the past and may be cluttering your life – thoughts, worries, and stresses. 

Squirrel is also the totem of action. Ask yourself are you too active, not active enough, afraid of enough, hung up on accumulating and collecting. Squirrel people tend to be a little erratic – trying to do many things at once. Take the time to stop and listen to your inner self – and don’t forget to play!

Why all that makes a whole lot of sense to me ...

This morning, while I was sitting on the back porch drinking a cup of coffee, I watched a squirrel gathering leaves and twigs on the ground and taking them up to it's nest in the top of a pine tree. I could hear the "stuff-crunch-stuff", and then the squirrel would scamper back down, grab another mouthful of leaves and twigs, haul it home and do the "stuff-crunch-stuff" thing again. I watched the squirrel do this about nine or ten times. I assumed it was girl squirrel cozy-ing up her nest in preparation for having babies. She was decorating.

For a few days now I've had home redecorating on the brain. Maybe it's my artistic nature. Maybe it's the lure of Spring and things being "new" again. Maybe it's that I want to get out of the rut I feel I've been in for too long. Whatever the reason, the urge to re-do my nest has been biting my butt pretty hard.

While the will is there, sadly, the wallet isn't. The upside to a seriously limited budget is I like the challenge it presents.

I'm sure y'all have seen all those shows about how to decorate on a budget, on a shoestring, or the classic "Makeover your living room for under $500!" Those kinds of shows are great for inspiration/ideas, but if y'all are like me, that $500 is bill-paying money. Who's got a spare five Ben Franklin's laying around for throw pillows and knick-knacks? Not moi'. So I have to be really creative. Shopping has be done at thrift stores, yard sales, flea markets, etc. I'll have to refinish or re-purpose things I find or that I already have. A little ingenuity can go a long way when it comes to decorating.

I've already said that my thoughts on the color scheme is based on 'water'. Calm, cool, soft ... like this sea glass ...

I want to blend pale aquas, khaki, mocha, lavender, light blues, and sea green through the house, but I also want chocolate browns and the occasional "pop" of brighter versions of the colors like this great rug ...

I'm also pretty crazy about this pillow ...

 

I want to play with textures and different finishes. I have a tv cabinet I would like to refinish like this chest of drawers ...

I want to keep it an overall contemporary decor with some eclectic touches. It should feel relaxed, yet artful and interesting. I despise 'matchy-matchy' decorating. I think it lacks any originality, personality or imagination. The husband would argue that.

So, I'm on a mission to decorate without spending much money. I might even try to do one of those self-imposed tricks like only giving myself $50 or $75 per room just to see how creative I can be. Do one room per month. I think that would be a lot of fun!

The other side to my decorating plans is getting rid of a lot of stuff. I want to really 'clean house'. Not only does that reduce clutter and junked up closets, it also helps me un-clutter. It makes me feel burdened to have so much stuff. Didn't used to be that way - the more the better! - was the motto. Now I just want minimal. I want to open a cabinet and see it organized. I want to open my sock drawer without it exploding.

And that mindset bleeds over into my life in general. I need calm. I need to de-stress and let go. I need to get outside and plant flowers, go hiking, sit in the sun. I've spent the past several years in a space, both mentally and physically, that has been the complete opposite of where I wanted to be. I think now is the time to change it ... and sewing a new throw pillow or two is a great place to start!

Namaste', y'all ...

Evolution of Circles and Dots ...

Shame on me for not updating on the 'Circles and Dots' in progress. Been busy with it almost every day but just haven't gotten around to getting the images loaded into the computer and dragging 'em through Photoshop. Took some time this morning to do that but didn't get overly exacting on taking the warping out. Digital cameras do that distortion thing - which makes me nuts. I hope y'all will overlook my slackness.

Here's where it is thus far ...
 
The original inspiration for the painting. Metal wall sculpture entitled "Particles" by J. Warren ...

The background. I squirted white and aqua paint onto the canvas (36" x 48") and used a large, flat brush to blend and move the paint around ...

The brush has a really cool feathery edge to the bristles and makes interesting brush strokes ...

Made the circles with a compass and then painted them a dark chocolate brown ...

Some of them I glazed with silver and gold ...

I also added sparks with black using a liner brush ...

I painted the circles to appear rounded, more like rings of metal ...

Painted the first of the dots ...

Painted more dots with different colors ...

Painted a few more ...

The dots all have different detailing; some are flat color, some swirls of color, some are more detailed and have shadowing to give them form and dimension ...

I added shadowing to the circles, dots and sparks to pull them from the background. I'm going to go back in and give the shadowing another glazing layer to deepen the color and give the painting more depth ...

Detail of shadowing ...

I've still got quite a bit of work to do on the dots. Those little buggers are time consuming! Good thing for me I enjoy the detailing part. I also haven't decided on a title for the work, but that's okay for now. I'm just enjoying myself and happy being in the studio.

Namaste, y'all ...

Happy Dr. Seuss Day to ya'!

Today is March 2nd ... Dr. Seuss Day! Hope y'all have a razzellem, doo dazellem, foo fazellem day! For fun, you can go visit Seussville.com to celebrate!

Namaste, y'all ...

Circles and Dots and Dots and Circles

One afternoon several months ago I took my daily stroll out to my mailbox to check the mail. Among the usual junk and other assorted stuff I was kind of surprised to find a catalog called Touch Of Class. I have absolutely no idea how it wound up in my mail that day. I don't recall ordering it. Not my usual preference in decorating style. But I figured, what the heck!, and flipped through it as I walked back to the house.

Well, H.E.L.L.O.!

Nope, not my taste in decor, but certainly my taste in some of the artwork! I just loved some of the contemporary canvases. What really caught my eye were a few of the metal wall sculptures. I took a pair of scissors to that catalog as soon as I walked back in the house. Ideas! Ideas! Ideas! I clipped and clipped and stuck all of those little nuggets of inspiration into my art files. I keep a filing cabinet in my studio with images of other art, greeting cards, magazine clippings, etc. as inspiration and future reference materials.

One of the things I particularly liked was this ...

It's called Particles by J. Warren. This mysterious person, J. Warren, is rather elusive. I've looked online for a website but can't find any other reference than the metal work in Touch Of Class and a couple of other places. Disappointing. Would like to see more work.

Anyway, it's been in my folder for some time now, waiting on me. Today is the day! Since I'm currently only creating art for my house I don't feel bad about snitching the idea for a new piece of work. My idea is the basic circles and dots, with a twist. Of course, I'm not a metal worker, I'm a painter, so that's the first deviation. Instead of landscape, I'm going vertical. Canvas is 36" x 48". Not sure what's with all this big sized stuff lately, but I'm not going to fight it.

More 'twisting' is I've washed canvas with fat brushstrokes, blending shades of aqua with white, to create my background. What the game plan is - create the circles and dots in varying shades of purple, sienna and copper, with some small touches of moss green and maybe a bit of buttery yellow.

I also want 'sparkle', like lead crystal when it catches the light. Somewhere in all my craft and art supplies I have a package of glue-on crystals ... remember the craze of painted sweatshirts and Keds tennis shoes? I think I will use the crystals for a few of the smallest dots. Not too many or it'll get tacky and over done with bling instead of the scattered twinkle of light I'm looking for. And just for giggles, I Goggled those sweatshirts for a scary fun flashback ...

I'm still trying to figure out the best solution to making the large circles. Although a liner brush and liquidy paint gives a nice thin line I'm not so sure about making the lines completely uniform all the way around. My hand isn't that steady! I'm considering painting the edge of a large bowl, then pressing the bowl to the canvas. Vaguely like rubber stamping, I suppose. I can use varying sizes of bowls for the different sized circles. I'm going to try a test one on another canvas first. I'm pretty pleased with the background I painted a little while ago (waiting for it to dry now) and don't want to muck it up!

So, I'm off to the studio to play with more purple paint!!!

Namaste, y'all ...

Playing with purple paint.

In Wednesday's post I talked about the evil abstract triptych and my desire to start over. I also had a fixation with purple and felt compelled to do something with it on the painting. Well, that's exactly what I did ...


Took the abstract down from the wall and gave it a nice coat of white paint ...

Let that dry and sort of sketched out an idea with a field of lavender flowers because I was thinking about them, too ...

Somehow it felt as if it was going to end up too literal if I kept up with that particular idea, which is not what I wanted. I wanted abstract, an "idea" of a field of lavender flowers, and I wanted texture - so I added Golden's Molding Medium with a large spatula, then mushed it around with my fingers to give it some movement, reminiscent of the way lavender flowers grown in rounded clumps and rows ...

Went into the studio after I got home from doing the grocery shopping on Thursday and discovered two cat paw prints in the texture medium. Crazy ass cats. Must have sneaked in there and danced around on the table when the medium was still wet. I got the texture medium back out and smooshed it on the canvas to cover the paw prints. Now, I'm not sure exactly what came over me, but I couldn't stand to wait for that to dry before I got busy with the paint. I didn't argue with myself. I grabbed my spray bottle, misted the canvases, squirted on some paints and went somewhere off into abstract land. In a matter of a couple of hours I had this ...

Dancing In Lavender, acrylic on canvas - 10" x 30" triptych.

I do believe I shall leave this one alone.

Namaste, y'all ...