Art practice.

My latest bit of typography art.

It's the name of a children's church song for those that don't know.

I think I'm going to start creating one piece a week—or every other week—for practice.  If anyone has a favorite song lyric, short poem, scripture verse, quote, whatever, feel free to hit me with them.  I'll probably start uploading full sized pdf files for download.

Christmas 2011.

I'm only a month late posting these, but I'm nothing if not a procrastinator.  I do have an excuse.  I took several hundred pictures and it took a while to sort through them all and decide which ones to edit and then which to share.

Notice how there are very few photos of adults.  I did take some, but considering most of us lounged around like tacky bums for most of the holiday I decided to bestow mercy.

Now onto the nieces and nephews!  (Plus 1 adult and 2 out of focus shepherds.)

Cousin Ring Around the Rosie.

Watching said Ring Around the Rosie.

Pssssst.  Don't tell the older of my younger sisters—does that even make sense?—that I posted photos of her kids.  

Oops.  

At least I didn't mention names.  And I did attempt to choose photos that were either from the side or else not complete ones from the front.  Or a little blurry...  Well, whatever.  I tried.  Do you think she won't notice since I typed this in very small font?

Year of the dragon.

Happy Chinese New Year!  AKA Lunar New Year.  Dragon years are often the most revered and are said to bring high energy and prosperity.  I could definitely use a bit of both.

via here and here.

In many Asian societies, birth rates often rise in dragon years because babies born during those years are gifted with luck and strength.  This bodes well for me because not only is 2012 a dragon year, but I was also born in a dragon year.  Double yay for me!

If you're not sure what animal you were born under, here's a chart.

via

I'm expecting good things from this year!

Taking a break.

Poor Writer Wednesday.  It just came back from hiatus after the holidays, didn't even get a decent return, and now I'm sending it off again.

I'm not taking a break from writing, just the Wednesday scheduled writing-themed posts (which may or may not include Writer Round-Up as well).  I still plan on blogging on the subject when inspiration strikes, but lately I've been struggling more and more to come up with something useful to say about it.  On the other hand, I've got a long list of non-writing related topics ready to go.  

I don't know how long Writer Wednesday (and possibly Writer Round-Up) will be gone or if it's even coming back.  I'm at the point where I'd really like to decide, once and for all, what this blog is going to be.  Is it a writer blog?  A personal blog on which anything goes?  An arts and crafts blog?  What?  By the one year mark in mid-March I hope to have that figured out.

I haven't blogged about my non-writing resolutions for the year yet, but one of them is to overhaul this website.  It needs a new look, definitely a new tag line (the art of creation was always meant to be a placeholder), and a clearer vision.  I doubt I'll have all of that resolved by March, but at least some of it?  In the meantime I plan to just go with the flow.  Blog about whatever strikes my fancy.

If anyone has any suggestions on what I should do with this place, let me have 'em.  

Is it ok to use adverbs again?

An exceptional batch of articles this week!


Lies that Can Poison Our Writing Career #1  by Kristen Lamb

Sensory Tips for the Distractible Writer  by Therese Walsh  (Yes please!)

Five Productivity Tips  by Ann Aguirre

A Singularly Unpopular View of Adverbs  by Keith Cronin  (Love this!)

25 Things Writers Should Know About Finding Their Voice  by Chuck Wendig  (Great article, but lots of profanity.)

Use a Rewrite to Add What Your Story Lacks  by Beth Hill

The Business of Character Engagement  by Jenny Hansen

Labor of love.

Who knew writing was so physically demanding?

source

I wouldn't mind one of those analogy generators.

Self-portrait.

It's a sad state of affairs when a person is forced to take photos of oneself.  In the bathroom mirror.

It was either that or continue to look at the pathetic lone picture that's been circulating the various social media websites.  It wasn't even a recent photo.

D tried to help, bless his heart, but he just doesn't have the knack for portraits.  Granted, shooting into a mirror isn't the ideal set-up for a photo session, but at least I'm kind of in focus, don't appear 30 pounds heavier than I actually am, and my hair looks like it belongs on a human, not a poodle with heat stroke.

The shower curtain in the background makes me laugh.  It reminds me of the backdrops in grade school photos.  I don't even want to think about what grade I'd be in at this point. 30th???

Yes, I know how to smile.  I just can't pull it off in a photograph.  Sad, but true.

Gift giving 3.

If you haven't already, see Gift giving and Gift giving 2.

As my Photography skills have increased over the past year I've finally gotten to the point where I can create semi decent typography art.

Here are some of the pieces that I gave as gifts this Christmas.

Here they are framed.  The photos were taken at an angle because of the glare and reflection from the glass.

Not too shabby, eh?  I think I'm ready for my etsy shop.  ;-)

Gift giving 2.

I mentioned in yesterday's post that today I'd share what was inside those brown boxes.

Lots and lots of clay.  What else?  I've forgotten the final ornament tally, but I know it was somewhere well above 300.

Here are photos of some of the ornaments I gave to family members.  Again, like yesterday, I apologize for the sad sad photos.  I had a small window of time to take them in and it was a dark, rainy day.

Personalized ornaments and Merry Christmas in various languages.

For this batch of ornaments I added glitter to the wet clay.  I also used glitter to write the names.

I left the glitter out of this set and used sand to personalize them.

More clay garland.  

This time I went with:

a star, a star, dancing in the night

let your heart be light

merry & bright

in the lane snow is glistening  

Lyrics from 4 different songs.  10 points if you can tell me the names of all 4 without looking them up.

I didn't only make clay ornaments so if you're sick of clay—what's wrong with you???—this photo is for you.

Hand-glittered wooden snowflakes.

To put my ornament and garland-making into perspective, I went through nearly 5 pounds of clay.  I suspect I inhaled half a pound from fumes alone.

Stay tuned tomorrow for more gift giving goodness.  Typography art!

Thou shalt not kill.

The Round-Up is back!


Warm vs. Cool  by Donald Maass

Does your denouement murder your characters?  by Jason Black

Dialogue—My Characters Talk Too Much  by Beth Hill

Gift giving.

Most people hate wrapping gifts.  They stay up late into the night on Christmas Eve because they've put it off until the last possible moment.  For me, wrapping—ok, maybe not the actual cutting and taping—is half the fun of gift giving.  I love paper, ribbon, raffia, string, tags, bells, anything I can think of to make a present even more special.

This Christmas I went simpler than usual.  Brown paper, boxes, and bags.  String.  Red, white, and aqua blue paper tags.  A few clay tags here and there.  Still lovely to my eyes.

I gave a few batches of my homemade laundry soap.  

I made labels...

...and tags.

Sorry for the crappy photos.  I only had one afternoon to take them and it was a dark, rainy day.

Stay tuned tomorrow to find out what's inside those boxes!