wayfaringwordhack | Entries tagged with art

...and we are supposed to paint two pictures from our own photographs. I have been doing this for a while, of course, but it feels more weighty now because someone called it "our graduation" painting. 🤪. I have done two, but I think I will do another to replace the olive trees that perhaps highlights more of the things this course was specifically about. I'll see if I have more time before the weekend.

I really should post more. I cannot count the times that I have thought it, intended it, started it, if only in my mind. This is not an obligation I sense from anyone, not even myself, just a desire to have a better record of thoughts and happenings at this time in my life.

When I finally sit down to do it, it all seems so big. Too much to share, too much to sift through, which means I inevitably end up with the Bullet Point Post.

It is what it is. Let's just do a big one for now, with visuals, and then I will perhaps do myself the honor of respecting my sense of Should in the future.

Pottery:
I have not been inclined to do pottery since before Christmas. It just "weighs" too much in many senses of the term, and I literally set a mental block on wanting to do it because of the logistics of our move this summer. I am ready to put the wheel and kiln up for sale (if we can get a good price, this will save us having to ship them back to France where we could probably buy new ones for cheaper than cost here plus the shipping); J, however, is going to do a terra sigilata training with an amazing ceramist come May, and he wants to keep the material to practice. I have been thinking I could throw a few small vessels for him to practice on, too. Just to keep my hands in the clay. A couple of weeks ago, I did throw a tumbler for a friend to practice sgrafitto on, and it was humbling how much I felt like a debutant again. Silly to say debutant when I did, indeed, start less than a year ago. I do intend to get back to it, but when? Too much uncertainty about the future to hazard a guess.

One of the last things I sold:

Kitty
Pearl is doing well, already an indispensable part of the family with her own quirky character. She is, unbeknownst to her, getting ready to travel with all her shots and tests. She does NOT like the carrier, so we have to get a good calming agent for her. Picture of Pearl a the painting below.

Art
I have been painting a lot. I am also retaking a course that I was trying to complete when the war broke out in 2023. Aside from my classwork, I did a series of paintings of the kiddos.

Health
Ugh. I have an appointment with a surgeon today to see if he thinks I need to have a High Tibial Osteotomy for my arthritic knee. He had me do the x-rays last Friday to see how I bear the weight in my legs and proposed this surgery to correct it if it is what is causing the compression in the inside of my knee. I went into the appointment thinking he would say something totally different, so his prognosis was a bit of a shock. I still don't know how I feel about the procedure. I will get a second opinion.

Move
J's contract ends in July, and the kids and I will move back to France in June. Where we will go from there? Who knows. So far, J has applied for jobs in various French Overseas Departments. He can apply for another embassy post, but that will certainly mean waiting another year before he is assigned, whereas these other jobs could see him leaving as soon as September of this year. We are once again in the uncomfortable position of "sitting between two chairs," to use the French expression.

We will see where we land!

Travel
We have prepaid tickets back to France at the end of the month. We'll stay for three weeks and get the house ready. J's cousin will come back and take care of Pearl while we are gone. We still don't have her rabies clearance, so she can't come with us this time. Today we went to get our photos and fingerprints taken for our last Lebanese visa cards. If we had left Lebanon in Dec as we were supposed to as per J's first contract, we would not have had to do this. It was a painless experience*, so all is good. The officials assured us the paperwork will be done before we fly out, which is going to save us 200USD in fines for expired visas.

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*This is my 5th time doing it, and I have had to wait an hour (instead of the five minutes it actually takes) before on two occasions because the lady taking care of my papers had to chat and chat and chat with friends, totally ignoring me in favor of her personal drama.

My latest art endeavor has been painting. Oh, wait, I don't think I shared our last artful prompting challenge, did I? I will rectify that later.

I painted this from a photo we* took when we lived in Egypt. J has always loved the image and wanted me to paint it for him. So, two years later from when I said I would do it, here it is, 80x80cm (31x31in) in acrylics (a medium I rarely use).

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*I say "we" because we can't precisely remember who took it. I thought J did; he thought I did. After further reflection, I think he is probably right because he is more careful when setting up his shots of people, whereas I panic and snap the photo as quickly as possible for fear of getting caught. Since the image could have been framed better, etc., I am pretty sure it was on me. To make up for my mistakes, in painted form, I took time to compose it a bit better. The "props"--as in the obviously-indoor trashcan, the mop bucket, and mop--were already there, but there were at least 3 more squeegees, too; I moved them around a bit to give more focus to our napper.

...but following the advice of my pottery teacher, my husband and I created an instagram page to post our work on. We did it for the pottery fair that we attended this weekend--our first time showing our work to the public--and I think it paid off. We did not make a ton of sales (no one did, really; there is a lot of uncertainty in Lebanon right now), but it gave us a lot of exposure and nice validation that we aren't just clay hacks. 😜

Someone told me about cara, so I set up an account there, too, and will probably move the Instagram stuff over if I can get around to it. In any case, it is a family account and you can find us here: https://www.instagram.com/wayfaring_makers/ and/or here: cara.app/wayfaringmakers

The fair was, overall, a very nice experience, and we are happy we went. We met a lot of fun, creative people.

This piece did not go to the fair because I intend to keep it as a souvenir of our time in this country. I carved it all over with flowers found in Lebanon:

I had a lot of fun carving it and can't wait to try another form with a similar motif.
( and a montage of it outside so you can get the full experience: )

(I could have sworn I already posted this!)

My youngest son's favorite bedtime story is Goldilocks and the Three Bears, so when it came time to renew our art prompt challenge, I suggested we each illustrate a scene from the story. We decided to do collages with freehand-cutting. The youngest was very excited until I told him that he actually had to "re-do" his preliminary drawing with cut paper. At that point, he lost interest and just copycatted his brother's design. 😂

So the finished artwork, from the youngest's to the oldest's--the "oldest's" meaning mine, since my husband is giving a pass on doing the challenge this time around. He says he has too much to do what with surfing, pottery, knife-making, spearfishing, oh, and work.😝

My daughter (her art is above) fell completely in love with this method of art making, and I think she did such a fabulous job. I can easily see this as a book illustration. Of course she is the oldest by 3.5 years, so I am not comparing her work to her brothers', more commenting on how much she fell in love with the process and result when she never suspected she could like it so much. Similar to the way I feel about pottery after spending decades thinking I couldn't sculpt or make 3D art.

And now my battery is almost dead. Next up, Cubism!

So. Cubism. Apparently a major movement and instrumental in ushering in Abstract art, despite the fact that the two founders, Picasso and Braque, never painted what could be considered abstract art despite continuing their careers well beyond Cubism's start. Will I offend anyone if I say that neither my kids nor I were tickled to tackle the topic? But I put "Cubism" into the draw for a reason: Stretching ourselves and learning about things that don't grab our interest right away are both part of what these prompts are all about.

The accompanying prompt was "landscape," leaving my youngest far from thrilled. Therefore, we picked again to give another option, which serendipitously turned out to be "ninja." 😂🥷🏻

Colored pencils probably weren't what Braque and Picasso used, but that is what I opted for because I am a tightwad and didn't want to use my oils for something I am not that excited about.

Behold, the "Garden Gazebo and Fountain"

Color me bemused, but I kinda think it works for something that took a grand total of 15 minutes.

My daughter is really into digital art but not at all into Cubism, so to ease the pain of the prompt, I let her use her iPad:

My son, K, took his landscape to a more abstract level, but small victories (we parents take them where we can, right?):

And finally, youngest son's ninja. He was "inspired" by Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, inspired in quotes because he said the painting was too hideous to look at.

His ninja is much cuter than the demoiselles.

Hello, fellow bloggers.

Poking my head out of Internet obscurity to say we have been back in Lebanon for a week, come midnight. Our last two months in France were chaotic, not only with the holidays and goodbyes, but because I was diagnosed with stage 3 (of 4) of osteoarthritis in my left knee. ( Health ramble, feel free to skip )
I got out my paints and finished the two paintings I had started before leaving last summer. Here is one of them:

Fishers on the Nile, watersoluble oils

On a brighter side, we came back to the storms and rain. I really love the crazy winter weather here, especially when there is lots of thunder and lightning. But it is nice when the sun shines, too, and you can get both in the same day. 😁
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* He came back to get some work done on the house, like installing a new shower stall. Poor guy had no help from me because I was laid out on the couch. Thankfully, Farmer Boy was a huge help, and with Sprout chipping in, too, they were able to get it done.

**Things are calm here on the political and conflict fronts, so I am talking more about do the kids want to do activities, and if so, which ones, etc. etc.

(16 March 2024)

This "week's" challenge was Birds! (Weeks in quotation marks because we are doing a "painting birds" class together as a family and it is taking us longer to find days when everyone can paint and learn together. We still have one more segment, but we have finished the bulk of the lessons now.)

Enjoy a sampling of family fun exploring feathered friends.

Lots of playing with mixed media happening.😊 One of the most freeing things about this process is learning that I do not have to be married to a decision I make and can always paint over it and try something else.

For example, I painted a bird out of my composition because I wasn't happy with it. I don't like the resulting colors on the background. And that is OK because I can either move on or paint over the background again and then draw or paint another bird.

My daughter is loving the theme and even got bold enough to paint in a background!

(March 5, 2024)

Artful Prompting, 6

#inspiration #process #creativity #artist #Resources

This past week's prompt was Self Portraits, and thanks to Sandi Hester and her self-portrait tips video, I wasn't even apprehensive about doing it. I set out NOT caring about a likeness, just painting colors and shapes, and it was great fun. And they don't look anything like me. Except I do wear glasses and usually have my hair in a side braid.🤓😜

These are in order from left to right. The first one was done on super-cheap sketch paper. You can even see around my "artistically" applied gesso coating that the paper actually has a purplish cast. Anyhow. I began this with a blind-contour sketch of myself, and oh how I wish I had photographed it. It was charmingly hilarious as most blind-contour drawings are. I used acrylics, which I am not used to, so many skin areas are chalkier than I would have liked. I had a sunburn from skiing--silly me forgot the sunscreen--so those red splotches are pretty true to life. And I actually love the look of the red blobs of color.

I painted the second one while using the first one as a reference without trying to copy it. It was also done with acrylics but on watercolor paper. In fact, I re-used a painting of my husband's which was painted in response to our 4th prompt (the one I didn't share. He begged me to recycle his paper, so there you have it). I was in a hurry--needed to take the kids to music--and so I really rushed it, not correcting wonky head, etc., and I think I will go back and retouch it. Not to get a likeness or pretty picture but because it was fun.

The third one was done in a cheap sketchpad, beginning with a "head shape" laid down in Jackson's Watercolor Brush Pens (light brown and red). I used some Faber Castell Watercolor Pencils to get more shapes and then some gouache to smooth out the patchiest places. Like Sandi, I tried to hold my brushes and pencils very loosely and "awkwardly," in the interest of not being precise and trying to get some fun quirks. I will definitely be revisiting this prompt.

Husband and Daughter both did just one self-portrait in paint:

Each of the boys did two, one version in colored pencil and the other in acrylic when I insisted they use paint, too.😄

I think the green nose is to spite me🤣 when I told him to try using some different colors because I couldn't see his "paint" nose and mouth, only the pencil lines beneath.🤪

(posted 26 Feb)

For anyone keeping count, you will know that I didn't post our 4th prompt. We all did it, but none of us felt very inspired to share it. That happens. This past week, our prompts were Etel Adnan (a Lebanese American artist, poet, essayist) and China. None of my family felt very motivated by this one, either. LOL

Etel mostly painted abstract landscapes in flat color planes, so I got some photos of Chinese landscapes and did a dozen or so thumbnail sketches with color pencils* to decide on my layout. I tried to keep my colors in line with what I think she might have used but did not base mine off a specific palette of hers. She mostly (exclusively? I dunno) used a palette knife, but I couldn't find my smaller one and used a brush in some places.

This is not a style I have a particular affinity for, but I admit to not being displeased with the final result. (The taller mountain in the right is actually more purple, but as usual, the photo did not want to play nice.)

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*Not the best medium choice because one cannot get the same effect as with paint; and so it was hard to judge colors, etc. I wanted to go with a different palette, but my husband said he liked this particular combo and thought I should go with it.

13 February 2024

Our third foray into art prompts resulted in "Elder Son" and "Utensils." Oooookay. How odd to have gotten two family members in a row. So, some of us chose to draw utensils and some chose to draw with utensils.

This one is from Elder Son who did NOT have to draw himself (I just love the earrings):

Daughter's take on her brother with utensils. Elder Son must be hungry:

Husband's (he used: a skewer, a bottle cork, a pastry brush, a fork, a sponge, and his fingers):

I tried a couple, the first (blue background) was done with a pastry brush, sponge, gloved fingers, and a bamboo skewer. The second was done with a sponge and a plastic fork:

The likeness is not there, but hey, one can't be hard on oneself when painting with a plastic fork.🤣 And that made this a very liberating experience. However, my boy has the most beautiful mouth, and I really hated that I couldn't capture it.

While watching YouTube videos about mark-making, I came across an artist, Sandi Hester, who is really fun and whose work I will watch more as I delve into the illustrative side of what I want to do. The kids are also enjoying her, and Daughter's blue outline came about from a video of Sandi's. We have done many faces since watching that.

(These posts are pretty much copy-pasted from the art forum where I first wrote them)

29 Jan 2024
Two Fridays have come and gone since my last posting about my family's art prompt adventure. It isn't because we haven't been doing it, but because we bit off more than we could chew! The kids drew three prompts: The name of my youngest, one of their uncles, and Claude Monet!

So, two portraits (should you chose to interpret the prompt that way, and most did/do) and the style of one of the fathers of Impressionism. Whom, it turns out, my children did not know much about--no worries, we'll learn like we did with Georgia O'Keeffe--but they didn't even have a good grasp about what Impressionism is. They were discouraged and unhappy with any results they were getting, and this was when I realized just how much art baggage and assorted culture I have picked up over the years. I incorrectly assumed that with a little "YouTube refresher" everyone could be on the same artistic page I was.

So we voted, midweek, to drop Tonton (endearing term for "uncle" in French) from the challenge. That still didn't get us closer to knowing how to approach Impressionism, particularly Monet's style, who, unhelpfully to us, did *not* paint a lot of portraits.

Another vote decided we would extend this challenge for two weeks, and I dug into some fun activities with the kids, geared to get them to loosen up, "dab" the paint, and be conscious of values. That culminated in little copies of Claude Monet's painting "San Giorgio Maggiore at Dusk."

(Monet did this in oils and we worked in watercolor, making it harder to get his "blended dabbing;" but watercolor is definitely faster and easier to work with/clean up after with kiddos!)

They started to have more fun, which is the point of it all, but there are still pockets of resistance in my seven-year-old.🤪

On Friday, I will have portraits or "figures in a landscape" to show for those who are willing to have me share their work.😝

I have learned:

- additional things about Impressionism;

- some of the limits of the prompt challenge; but

- how to roll with changes to accommodate the goals of having fun with learning and creativity. The beauty of our learning style is that we are on no one else's timetable but our own. We can slow down or speed ahead as we want.

How did you creatively play this week? Learn anything you'd like to share or make anything you would like to post?
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(Follow-up posted 13 Feb)

I promised follow up on the Monet inspired paintings of my youngest son. I will share mine and then what my youngest son did. Because "self-portrait" is also an upcoming prompt, each person is not obliged to draw/paint themselves when their individual name is picked. So, Youngest Son, not too thrilled by Monet, chose to be inspired by George Meouchy, a Lebanese artist, whose exhibit we visited recently.

Arches Oil Paper, 23x31cm (9x12in)

This was immensely challenging, and I almost threw in the towel multiple times. I painted him a tad thicker than he really is, and trying to get proportions and a believable figure showed me just how much I need to do more work with anatomy. It is frightening and amazing how the smallest of brushstrokes can totally alter something.

And Youngest Son's George Meouchy-inspired rhino, a whopping 50X60cm (20x24) canvas panel, acrylics:

I love how brave he was in going big. Momma needs to take some lessons!

I thought I would share a new creative challenge my family and I are undertaking this year. Who knows if it might spark some ideas for anyone in need of such creative prompts.

The kids and I filled a tin with slips of paper inscribed with a hodgepodge of words (seasons, places, noodles <--7 year-old's contribution; he's so excited for it to come up in the rota), including artists, art movements, and techniques. Each Friday, we draw our prompts from the box (two to three) and then have a week to produce art based on them. We will start off Friday night with exploring the words and watching documentaries about the artists/techniques, and so. Even my husband is doing it with us.

The words for our first week (which we are doing now) are: Collage, Cyanotype, and Georgia O'Keeffe. The weather has been very non-conducive to cyanotype creation, but thankfully, we had lots of attempts from last year that we could use, especially useful given the "collage" aspect of the challenge.

I came up this challenge for multiple reasons:

1) I want to explore different ways of thinking, seeing, and doing, especially with an aim toward loosening myself up for children's book illustration;

2) I want to create with my kids and continue pushing them to stay in touch with their creatively fun kid nature, which is not always easy to do as many an adult can attest. And sadly, I think they might be picking up on my critical self-talk and discontent;

3) I find art a fabulous way to learn about the world, present and past, which ties into our wholistic approach to education. My kids and I have already had discussions about history (Dustbowl and Great Depression), geography, Native American spiritual beliefs, language for self-expression, moral issues (Georgia O'Keeffe's life--or commentary on her art--is not considered suitable for kiddos as many documentaries made me understand with the various tags of "kid-friendly"😜).

Our rules are: Have fun, Don't whine or complain, Creatively follow the prompts, Be encouragers.

My flower and the "feathers" (prints of Lebanese cedar needles) fulfill the cyanotype criteria, and watercolor experiments make up the other pieces. I didn't use a reference for the skull; just made something up.

My boys (yes, they have long hair) were inspired by O'Keeffe's lesser-known depictions of kachina dolls, and my daughter went for the floral take:

My husband is at work, so I can't ask his permission to post his.😉.

My kids, especially my daughter, has a strong aversion to abstract art, so tomorrow, I hope to do an activity that invites them out of their comfort zone to try it, even if they don't end up loving it. I think O'Keeffe's watercolors will be just the thing for inspiration.

ETA: art by Ti'Loup(left) and Farmer Boy(right):

I had a most amazing thing--a bright and happy thing--happen to me, and I think the world needs more trumpeting of news of that sort.

My art course just wrapped up, and there is a paying community alumni can access once it is over. I decided because of the financial and time burden, I would not be continuing. I said my goodbyes and expressed my appreciation for the course and my fellow students...and woke up to a message from one of the other students saying she would like to offer me access to the community for a year. She said she appreciated my contributions so much over the courses, all the time and effort that I put into helping others, that she didn't want to see my time with them end. I was very touched but felt I couldn't accept. Yes, the money is one issue, but the time-involvement "required"* is even more of a hang up for me.

Before I could graciously formulate my refusal, she went ahead and paid it, telling me that she did not expect me to be there all the time, no obligations.

I was so honored and touched by her gesture and the outpouring of love when the others knew I would be continuing.

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*There are no requirements, but I am not a half-measures person when I commit to something and I put a lot of time into something I am dedicated to seeing through.

There may come a day when plein air painting holds no surprises for me, a day when I go out fully prepared to face what may, a day when I have an utterly enchanting experience, one with the canvas, paint, and environs. Will you be surprised if I tell you today was not that day? No, I didn't think so.

Let's start from the very beginning. I forgot to bring painting clothes on our holiday.* The only thing I don't mind getting paint on--and let's face it, my messy self often gets bedraggled and paint smeared whilst arting so this is a real concern--are my pajama shorts and matching tank top. Because we're staying in a hotel located in the middle of olive groves, I set out nonplussed in my PJs, even though I ran across a farmer yesterday on my morning scouting walk.

I should have, however, taken the time to equip myself with better footwear. In the Lebanese heat, I spend 3/4 of the year in flipflops. But these tall thistles I painted the other day are not the only poky plants around.

Lebanon abounds with flora intent on protecting itself from heat and herbivores. Stepping off the rutted dirt track was an invitation to laceration. On the track were thousands of ants, stocking up on thistle seeds, so I had to be careful of where I set up my easel.

Lebanese hunters like to shoot birds. Small birds. So at the crack of dawn, the first notes of birdsong barely begin when they are overcome by the gung-ho, echoing volley of huntsmen taking down their prey...or at least seeding the countryside with spent ammunition.** Ah, country living.

Wouldn't you know that this morning, when I was out just before dawn, it was overcast? There have not been clouds over the mountains in the east since we arrived. There I was, ready to use the first rays to pick my perfect spot, and not a sunbeam was to be seen. All that effort of early rising and preparation and no light.

Not to be daunted, I put a song on my phone and set up where my photos from the previous day showed would be a likely spot. Not sure anyone else would know this song, but you might like the lyrics. It begins like this:

"Fear Is A Liar" (Zach Williams)

When he told you you're not good enough
When he told you you're not right
When he told you you're not strong enough
To put up a good fight
When he told you you're not worthy
When he told you you're not loved
When he told you you're not beautiful
That you'll never be enough

Fear he is a liar
He will take your breath
Stop you in your steps
Fear he is a liar
He will rob your rest
Steal your happiness
Cast your fear in the fire
Cause fear he is a liar...

So before I could get myself bummed about what might not go right, I gave that song a couple of listens and set to work.

The sun finally did come out; I didn't get shot; I only got bitten by one ant; and I got a painting in before breakfast. Well, almost in. I needed to step away from it and touch up a couple of things afterwards back at the room.

This is the limited color temperature palette of Yellow Ochre, Titanium White, French Ultramarine Blue, and Ivory Black on a repurposed oil painting paper. I think it is A4 (21x27cm) so not very big but big enough for this beginner.

It is muddy. It is begging for color. But it was an exercise in Getting Out There and Getting it Done. It was a challenge in observation and a crash course in What to Paint First. All in all, another fun time with the paint.

I used the remainder of what was on my palette to finish up a palette knife painting I had begun a couple of days before (also trying to use up the paint from scene in the first photo above). I don't know how I feel about palette knife painting (this being my first attempt at a landscape with it), but I do know I should have started with something simpler.

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*For my birthday, we are spending a week in the hills about an hour and half north of Beirut, not too far from sea or mountains. Will share pics later.

** This is maddening because it is not food they are after, but sport. 90% of the species they shoot here are protected in France. There are just some things that I refuse to write off as "acceptable cultural differences" and killing for fun is one of them.

(Kifkon = Levantine Arabic for how are [plural] you doing?)

I am fine but in an odd limbo-mode with the return to Lebanon. The mode isn't necessarily bad, just business as usual* with a helping of sliding back into a home after three months' absence. I don't really recall this sensation upon my returns to Egypt after extended stays in France, but I think the difference boils down to the fact that in those other stays, I was not at my own home. As much as I appreciate many things about my mother-in-law,** living with her for months at a time was seriously draining in a way that made it a relief to get back to Egypt and my own place, however hot, polluted, and noisy it was.

In addition to having my Color course at the end of this month, I have an overwhelming desire for a bit more structure and repartition of my creative forces. Make that my "forces" tout court.

I haven't written in so long, and I want to be writing. I find this talk pretty motivational:

Watch on YouTube

I took the art courses to get better at illustration (knowing the courses are NOT geared to that, but any skills are good skills and many things translate between fine art and illustration), but I haven't worked at all on my picture books.

I was pretty single-minded with the course, and I feel like I wasn't present enough with the kids. That needs to change and I need to do better during the next module.

I want to get in better shape. There is nothing good about the shape I am in now. I am not genetically predisposed to thinness, nor do I have what would be considered a good metabolism, suffering instead from hormonal imbalances that make attaining/maintaining a healthy weight more difficult. Aside from being in my late forties now, I have been dealing with a two-year-long bout of tendinitis in my left shoulder (and I am a lefty), which was preceded with a knee-injury that also came and went with varying degrees of fierceness for a two year period (and I still get flare-ups when something else is out of whack). All that to say, I've found it too painful for too long to be active. And any claim to good muscle mass I once had disappeared in a scarily fast way as a result of my inability to function normally in my body. I am fed up with it, though---and a bit scared that it is getting too late--and want to do something about it, even if it is just simple stretches every morning. I may not be a waif, but I am (or was) a lot more flexible than many waifs I know, and even my flexibility is going, making me feel so old and stove up all the time. So baby steps, but STEPS instead of just "waiting for the pain to pass."

I am at the "I have to get started making changes" stage but don't want to shoot myself in the foot or take on more than I can handle. I am considering how all of these desires can be addressed with a "one degree of change" mentality. I heard someone giving an analogy about how trying to affect permanent change à la New Year's Resolutions is synonymous to stretching out a rubber band. It does change, but when you release the unsustainable force of keeping it stretched, it returns to its normal shape. I don't want to be the rubber band; there are only so many of those stretches and rebounds one can do before cracks start appearing in the rubber and the inevitable happens. By stretching the band just a bit at a time, you can more easily coax it into a new shape. There are problems with the analogy but the point resonates with me.

We are probably going to take a short trip for my birthday, which means that any schedule I get going will temporarily be set aside again. But that is precisely the kind of thing I need to learn to deal with. I ALWAYS get thrown off track by something not being the way it usually is, but as I have said before, we have constant disrupts to our everyday normal with J's work and our educational choices.

What works for you in trying to form new habits or keep habits going in the face of uncertainty and frequent change? Do you track things, use daily lists, time slots, project files ...? Ugh, my brain is still a bit jet-lagged; I can't think of proper terms. Just tell me whatcha got, if you've got anything. :P

Enough about how I am. How are you, and what are you up to?

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* You know, trying to judge when we actually have city water by listening for a pump to come on and praying we can get enough water into our tank not to have to pay a private company to come and fill it for us; not being able to drink from the faucets, dealing with cockroaches everywhere, neighbors afflicted with hearing loss, drivers who think everyone in the village needs to hear how loud their hotrods can be... On the power front, things are better; e have constant electricity "switches" or micro-cuts (from generator to gov't elec) but so far only one 30 minute cut.

** An unfortunate incident happened in the extended family at the beginning of summer that doesn't involve me, husband, or kids (thankfully) that really brought home to me the depth of difference between me and my mother-in-law. I already knew much about our differences, but oh my, her brain and analysis of situations and the way to proceed, does not AT ALL align with my own. I like to think I am the one living in the margins of normal.

Wow. Where did the summer go? It has been such a blessing to be back in France for the past 2.5 months, in our own home,* and I can't believe it's almost over. The kids can't either, and I'm a bit disturbed to say that they're not excited to go back to Lebanon because they love it so much here. (Ti'Loup is getting a little excited, so that is something.)

I myself feel so torn about being here, living this kind of neither-here-nor-there experience. I knew I wouldn't be able to invest in things like having a garden and raising chickens again, but I didn't count on the feeling of not stretching into and filling the corners of our home because we won't be here that long.**. The sense of temporary looms over everything I do. Why clean out all the cobwebs and wash the windows when I know that they will just be there again/dirty when I get back next time? I know the value of doing those things, but I have so many other, more-pressing-to-my-mind (read: interesting or fun) things to do.

And my involvement in my art class (which was "officially" on break for the summer but still very active) took up a lot of time and energy. I participated in the July challenge and did 10 paintings, all done with water-soluble oils in a limited palette to continue working on the idea of color temperature. I'll share a link to a collage. All except the last one used a mix of Titanium White, French Ultramarine Blue, Ivory Black, and either Yellow Ochre or Cadmium Orange as the warm color. The last one had Prussian Blue instead of the ultramarine. I painted the last three en plein air, which was way more fun than I thought it would be. I have ordered myself an easel for outdoor painting to take back to Lebanon and hope it arrives in time.

We have plans to come back here for Christmas, even though it will be a very short stay, and next year, I think we will wait until the end of June to return in hopes that I might miss the allergy season and actually enjoy the first month back. That way we'll save on tissue paper and allergy meds. LOL. I also don't plan on doing any more art courses during that time (though who can say what will arise), so maybe I will have more spoons to take care of house and garden. And maybe the tendinitis I have been suffering from for the past two years will be well and fully healed; not being able to use my left arm fully (and I, being a lefty) was also a major cause of me not doing much, including driving places.

We did do a lot more cultural stuff than usual, though, really trying to be "tourists," and if I were a better blogger, I'd upload some photos to illustrate all this [please refer to the (-Time) portion of my subject line].

In Clermont, we went to the Henri LeCoq museum (natural history) a couple of times and hung out in the beautiful park of the same name, and once visited Bargouin Museum (archeology; and usually textile, but that part was closed. ARGH. That's the reason we went, and it was supposed to still be open). We also spent two days at a science festival called Nuées Ardentes at the foot of the Puy de Dôme that had concerts and theater as well as all the science exhibits.

We went to Carcassonne to visit family and see the famous Bastille Day firework display over the fortified city.

We got summer passes to Vulcania, where the kids rode the little rollercoaster countless times (makes me wish I could take them to an amusement park with serious rollercoasters) and saw a show with birds of prey and Vulcania's pyrotechnic show, which we had never stayed for before. Vulcania also has a new planetarium, which was the reason I sprung for the very-expensive passes, and we caught all the shows.

We also went back to the Fête du Pain,*** but the weather and my head (budding migraine) wasn't on our side, so we didn't stay long. On the social scene, we attended two birthday parties and had friends come over to hang out with us, as well as hosting an apéritif dinatoire for 30 of our neighbors.

All in all, it has been a very eventful, fun summer.

_____________
*I have been back in France during summer for long stretches of time spent in other people's houses, and it is NOT the same. :P
** I cringe every time I say "not long" knowing that three months of vacation is an extreme luxury, but it is relative to the amount of time needed to accomplish certain things.
***Hilariously, it was another friend from that "hour away" group who let me know the festival was going on again this year. Guess I didn't learn how to pay attention to local goings-on.

I cannot believe I have not posted since the end of April. I keep meaning to make a post. I keep thinking, "Oh, I can this..." and I just don't do it.

Well, at least in my case, no is harmed by my not following through. ;)

What we have been up to in a very small nutshell:

We've been back in France for over a month now. Can't say that too loud because the kids are NOT ready to go back to Lebanon and they don't want to talk about the return creeping up on us. J, however, has been back in Lebanon for 3 weeks now, and of course we miss him. But, we are loving being home.

I have been doing art. Finished the first painting module and am studiously practicing all I learned while waiting for the second painting course to start in September.

We have had the misfortune of momma bats thinking our house is a good place to have babies. I say misfortune because with windows getting shut resulting in mommas and babies getting separated, bats getting trapped in the sink, etc. we have found several babies dead. :( I have an infant bat graveyard in a large flowerpot by my door.

I currently have three juveniles--too small to take care of themselves--in a box on my kitchen table. :(

In happier news, though we can't expect anything from an annual garden, we had a glut of strawberries, then raspberries, and this is the first year that our currant bushes and gooseberries have produced well. If the weather doesn't get crazy we will have a lot of peaches, too. And it turns out that two of the trees we have grown from seed are nectarines. Each tree only has one fruit, but hey, we are happy to know what they are. It is not a good year for apples though. The grapes are going to produce a bumper crop, though, but we might miss those too since they usually ripen in September. Maybe next year we will come a little later in the summer and stay longer...

Here is a painting of the Gavarnie in the French Pyrenées that I did. I am making progress.

This has been a crazy month. I thought to have some downtime between the end of my drawing time and the start of my painting class, time I could spend continuing with my drawing practice, improving and cementing what I learned. But life had other plans. I got exactly one drawing in.

With the two Easters celebrated here in Lebanon and Ramadan, the school attended by our kids' friends was out for three weeks. So, we were inundated with invitations and activities. We went to a big Easter egg hunt in a park in the mountains, fossil hunting, lots of informal playdates, dinner with friends, and on and on. And our kids worked several times on the fort they have built with friends at a nearby creek. We also loaned (and are still loaning) our car to J's Lebanese cousin, G, because her son is using hers to attend his internship. I periodically have to borrow our car back and that weirdly makes me feel like I can't because I don't want to put G out.

I also had crowns put on my top two front teeth by the most unprofessional dentist I have ever visited in my life. It was a process so long and painful as to become almost comedic in its sheer badness. What should have taken a week, maybe two, ended up taking a month. The dentist said, "See you in 20 years," but I fear we will have to see him sooner. Not for dentistry--that will never happen again--but because he is a spearfisher and J is a spearfisher, and the two of them plan on spearfishing together. And the dentist would like to invite us out to dinner at a good fish restaurant he knows. Maybe I can ask J to get himself invited in the family's stead while the rest of us are in France for the summer.

If it isn't enough to have to fix my teeth, I have to get new glasses, after only a year of having these. Progressive lenses are expensive! And the fact that I have to wear the glasses all the time now means that I am getting to where I can't stand the weight of my current frames. My nose is constantly sensitive, and I feel my nasal passages are being pinched, meaning it isn't so easy to breathe. So, I sprung for some reallllllly light frames. Only I didn't ask the price first. OUCH. But I really think they will be better--and I am stuck with glasses for the rest of my life--so I went ahead and got them. They should be ready next week.

In the past month, our Internet went out twice, a week each time. And of course, my online painting class started just when I really needed access to the Internet.

So, I lay all that groundwork to bring up the thing that was really hard.

Amidst all that bustle, not one but two families in our circle of friends here had their kids (one seven and the other four) diagnosed with brain tumors. The 7-yo ( a little Lebanese girl) is reacting well to medication. She'll have another MRI on the 3rd to find out what the next steps are. But the 4-yo (an American boy) had to have emergency surgery. It went amazingly well, and I was able to donate blood for him.* They are still waiting on the pathology report.

This is such a hard, terrifying thing for the families to go through. I cannot begin to imagine the fear that gripped (and still grips) them. It seems silly and self-centered to say how we have been affected, too, but yes, it *has* affected us and our kids. It makes it hard to be in a good state to get things done.

We are going back to France for the summer in less than a month now (eep). I need to get myself together so I can prepare for that and take care of some remaining logistics. It is going to be a quieter, more relaxed time there, but we already have two birthdays lined up--one a camping trip--plus visits to the south to J's family. Also, I know from experience, there are going to be other things to either do or field, which for my personality is exhausting. Still, I am looking forward to being a bit of a hermit when permitted. Also, we travel before my painting class ends, so I will have a week of that to do in France. One of the logistics is figuring out the Internet situation. Do we get a router for 3 months and then resign or try to do everything off a mobile phone data subscription?

________________

* I don't know if I already blogged about this--what stays in my head as something I would like to blog about and what actually makes it into pixels is hard to keep track of--but giving blood in Lebanon is a nightmare. I tried to give before, only to be told I didn't have enough blood. When I asked what I could do about that, the answer was nothing. I then, a week later during a personal blood test, asked a lab tech (a young 20s something woman) why I couldn't donate, she told me, "Women are not desirable donors." Ugh.

Since then, I have also heard about people being turned away because the hospital didn't want European blood, another didn't want American blood. Just turn around and go home if you have ever been to Africa...

As you may (or not) remember, I was doing a drawing class online. It began back in January and the final segment--a 30-day drawing challenge--just ended a few days ago. It was a lot of fun but very time-consuming. I drew a lot, met a lot of nice people, and decided to take the next two modules from this teacher, one about confident brushwork and the other about color.

Although you can't see much detail, I will post a snapshot of the my 30-day-challenge drawings to give you an idea of what I have been up to.

Finished Challenge Collection.jpeg

Sorry for the fuzziness of the top images; I took the photo with my phone while standing on a chair. The keen of eye will notice that there are three duplicates. The bridge and Sprout in a towel were drawn in both the "normal" way with pencil strokes going any which way, and the other two I set myself the challenge of doing the drawing with only vertical pencil marks. The two water buffalo sketches was me testing two different types of paper.

While the kind of sketching I did in the class is a far cry from the illustration work I want to do, I know that the firm foundation and skills I am building will stand me in good stead no matter what kind of artistic undertaking I pursue.

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The Wayfaring Wordhack

Valises in Lebanon

Entries tagged with art

Final Week of Class

An ever-present Should

Nap Like an Egyptian

I don't know how long it will last

Artful Prompting, 9

Artful Prompting, 10 - Cubism

Back in Lebanon and other news

Artful Prompting, 7

Artful Prompting, 6

Artful Prompting, 5

Artful Prompting, 3

Artful Prompting, 2

Artful Prompting

Goodness Shines Bright

Plein air adventures while on holiday

Kifkon?

(-Time)+(-Energy)+(Things to Do)=?

The Danger of Always "Meaning to..." and Never Doing

Life

Coming up for air