Easter Eggs!

It's all about chickens and eggs this spring for us, isn't it? This Easter we decided to try something different: naturally dying our eggs. It was so much fun that we got totally carried away trying too many things and ended up with 40 eggs. Crazy. But check them out!



My favorites were the "onion" and "red cabbage" eggs. Onion because they were so easy and quick, and fool proof, and cabbage because of the lovely blue we got.

The onion ones are the deep golden rust-colored ones. All we did was wrap each egg up in the outer onion skin and put a rubber band on it and boil in water with a splash of vinegar. So easy, so cool.

The blue ones were more of a pain, and I almost gave up on them. We chopped up red cabbage and added in some vinegar and started boiling. And kept boiling. And the eggs were still bright white after half an hour. And an hour. Plus, the dye was pink, not blue... so I was a bit worried.



It was getting late so I decided just to turn it all off and let them soak. But when we woke up, we were in for a surprise - LOOK!



(The ones in the back were soaked in coffee grounds.)

Here are the results of our grape juice boil and our spinach boil. I now wish I'd let the eggs soak in the spinach overnight as well. Live and learn!



We also tried beets (the pink washed off in the end). Those are some of the brown-looking eggs in the first photo.

Anyway, it was interesting and a nice change up from the regular store-bought dyes. Happy Easter!

Oh, wait, I have chicken coop pictures too - I know you are wondering what we got done this week with that! Well, we got one of the people-sized doors done. And now it's raining, so I don't know if anything else will get done for a bit - we need to work on the the roof.

You Are An Art Hero

Yes, YOU. My Art Hero.

I have been blog-hopping for both the OWOH thing, and also for the Bead Soup Blog Party... and I've been so happy to see all these interesting blogs, and inspired by so many people creating so many different kinds of things... people getting published in magazines, and writing books, and selling tutorials and teaching classes... and I've been following some friends on Facebook who have been in Tucson selling what looks like hundreds (thousands?) of beads, beautiful handmade beads, the amount of which I have yet to make in all my years of bead-making... all these people living creative, productive, brave artist lives...

and I feel... inadequate.

I don't know how you do it. Many of you also have children. More of them than I do even. Many of you also suffer from health problems that sap your energy. Many of you work full time jobs in addition to being artists. And yet, you still create. Often. And beautifully.

I have not been able to find, or, make the time. It's been a very tough year. One thing after another. I don't know how I'm going to do it. I've been trying to find other ways to feed my muse - ways that fit into this life I'm living now - ways to be creative that fill the gap - but it's not the same as melting glass - these things don't make my heart sing the way the glass and fire does.

But. I'm inspired. By this post by Kesha Bruce, and by all of you. To see you doing it, shows me that it's possible. So. Thank you. I, too, will find a way.



(Inspiration Mind Map by Paul Foreman)

Google Art Project

Have you heard about Google's new Art Project? I just did, and I think it's the best thing to happen to the internet in forever! Check it out, you can tour famous art museums from around the world, you can zoom in on amazing works of art to see detail probably closer up than you could if you were standing right in front of it in person!

Just look! at the face in Sandro Botticelli's "The Birth of Venus" and you'll be hooked too.

Kathy Dorfer's Art

On Facebook, a little while ago... there was a crafty pay-it-forward kind of thing going on. I signed up to receive a piece of art from Kathy Dorfer, and in return I promised to send out 5 things to other people who would then promise to send out 5 things to other people and so on. Pretty much everyone should be getting a bit of free craft/art this year from someone on Facebook!

Anyway, my gift from Kathy arrived today and I love it, and wanted to share it with you. I adore crows, so I've been admiring her art online and now I own a piece. Happy!





Check out this blog post of hers, she is giving away one more of these little paintings, maybe you can get lucky too!

New Beads and That Tree

First, the tree, it's almost done. It needs one more leaf for sure (I didn't see it until I took the photo - funny how that works!) and maybe or maybe not something else.



And then some new beads. The birds are from working with Kerri Fuhr's Raven Tutorial. I adore her beads... mine are no where close, but I like them anyway. And then some Peace beads, one is a heart, and then an ancient scrolly thing that is part fossil and part cave drawings... you'll see what I mean. All are up on Etsy today.

Painting Today...

So here I am, painting, when I have all these glass ideas floating around in my head... I don't know why I do this! I've been dreaming of melting glass since before Christmas, and then I get a chance and what do I do? Paint. It must be some sort of self-sabotage thing. Or maybe I just needed a tree to get grounded with. Whatever, I'm just going with it... the leaves aren't gelled down yet... and I think it's still missing something, but I don't know what. And now I'm going to go melt some glass and think about what this thing needs...

Alzheimer Art

I'm spending the week with my grandma so that my mother can go on a much needed vacation. So far, things have not been all that difficult or unpleasant, and I'm very thankful for that.

I'm fascinated too, by the what my grandmother is creating these days. I've shared some of her art on this blog before, she's a fine artist and a fiber artist... she's got an amazing work of art, much of which is hanging in my home. She can't remember how to cook, needs reminders to eat, forgets she's got a great-grandson named Luke, and all that other stuff... but she's got her creative process down cold, even if her art is not what it used to be. These days she is working much smaller than she used to, on plastic backing instead of cloth. Things are very modern, abstract, sometimes very chaotic, sometimes simple and soothing. She uses a LOT of red and yellow and purple - red seems to be a color that attracts her more than anything. I have a feeling these are little glimpses into her mind, what remains of it, anyway.

This is Grandma. Sitting and sewing her work, and, standing, drawing a design for her newest one:





Here are just some of the works she has completed since last October when she moved into my mom's home.























(PS. I'm still working toward my 500 Beads for Alzheimer's goal - I've sold 147 so far this year, once I reach 500, I'll be cutting a check for $500 and mailing it off to an Alzheimer's Association. A big, BIG 'thank you' to everyone who has purchased one of my beads!)

Paintings

I've been painting this week as I try (ever-so-patiently) to wait for my glass studio to be finished... it's more fun than cleaning the house or doing yardwork, that's for sure, though there's a small part of me that keeps thinking I should make some jewelry or at the very least get going on the taxes... but no, painting it is. And coughing... it's going on week 2 of this flu thing that has been going around. Luke and Frank seem to be almost over it so I should be soon too, since I was the last to get it.

So I've been painting girls of all sorts. Fat mermaids, expecting ladies, and this face that was not supposed to be as realistic as it is... nor as cartoonish as it is... but it is what it is. Luke says she's me, but she's not really.