Almost a Month

Every person is born into life as a blank page and every person leaves life as a full book. (Christina Baldwin)

This past month has been one whirlpool of emotions. It almost feels like a year or more. My sister's sudden death, my bazak trip to the US to say goodbye, my new bond with my sister-in-law that graciously  open her heart and home to me. All are still swirling around in my head. Since my return, I have been more or less in a robot state. Not really being able to sit and do one thing for more than 10-15 minutes. Jet lag should have stopped already. Today decided that I have to post and get back to my creative being and hope that this will help move ahead while keeping these new feelings close to my heart. I am grateful that I have this blog and my art and to be able to get these feelings out.

On the Tuesday after my arrival home, our workshop was held in a nearby park, Park Shoham. It was a good feeling to be back and with all my special artist friends. This is a special place with antiquities along with shade trees and picnic tables. We had visited this place previously on a Passover break in 2015

Park Shoham 2017

Click movie icon top right

As you can see the park was alive with wild flowers and thistles. We were lucky with the weather as well, a cool day after several very hot days.  I did take a lot of photos and a few sketches. What a surprise that one of the yellow flowers was also growing in my "garden"

Botzin Mifuratz

Image from Park

Sketches

Pencil and crayons

23 x 33 cm

Ammi visnaga

From Park

Ammi visnaga

Charcoal and conte

23 x 33 cm

Rock

Doodle Colored I

Every morning is a new garden. (Leza MacDonald)

Old entry. 

Isn't it wonderful when you discover a new flower in your garden! My garden isn't really specially cared for.  We dried our lawn when the water prices got too high. Its mainly wild grass, lavender, perennials, and in this season lots of wild poppies.

Today

I started this blog maybe a week ago. Wow how life manages to change so fast. You get into a routine and everything falls into place that is till you get the jolt. That's what happened to me last evening when I received a surprise call from brother-in -law Tommy.  My baby sister had suddenly passed. She hadn't felt well and didn't sleep well so decided to take a morning nap, and quietly slipped away. They say a sudden heart attack. Right now as I am writing this I feel as if I am "robot" mode, trying hard to digest it all. Debbie was our miracle baby, born 68 years ago at the weight of 1lb 6oz!!! No more short sweets posts, just a hole in my heart, These flowers are for you Debbie!!!

36 x 25

Crayons  Oil Pastels over Doodle I

Brown Paper

Out of the Box

When you come to a roadblock, take a detour. (Barbara Bush)

Each year Heleni prepares a special project that we work on at home and bring in for a general critique.  This year was a bit different. We were to prepare a presentation verbally and visually about a subject, concept, or idea, not necessarily about art. We all drew lots and each week, we take a break from our work for the presentation. On the 18th of April, my turn came.  

Instead of giving a talk about getting out of the box I decided that it would be better to have them do it as part of an exercise.  I brought paper, crayons, colored markers, charcoal etc. So I told them to start a drawing and timed it to 5 minutes. Then instructed them to tear the paper in two sections. Place one section face down and continue on half that was shown for 2 minutes. Then do the the same for the second half. Then I asked them to cut the halves in half and gave another 2 minutes on each quarter. 

Neomi and I made a collage of the work on a cardboard format. 

100 x 70 cm

We mixed them all up for this collage,here is an Album link where you can see the work as well as some general images. All had a grand time and I hope that somehow I helped them look at their art with a new perspective.

My Visual Display

10 x 20 x 6 cm

I got out of the box by making small statues in small boxes. Haven't done this type of work since my college days!