My Immortal

This is my entry for the Dark Whisper challenge this week at Digital Whisper Ning site. I love that Kimmie started a group for the darker arts! Just my thing. We were given the two images of the lady and the tree roots and then told to merge them together and take it from there. Ooh, I loved this one!

She posted a video from the group Evanescence called "My Immortal" to get us motivated. I had forgotten that I even had this CD! So of course I went hunting for it and finally dug it up. I played it as I was creating this piece; especially the song, My Immortal. Hmm...so of course I had to give it that title when I finished!

I just had the best visit with my sister! She was able to stay a full week. I limited my time on the computer because I wanted to spend as much time with her as I could. We don't get to see each other very much; only a couple of times a year and at Christmas so I really looked forward to her visit. We spent our time being silly, shopping, and watching movies (well, one movie at the theatre a few times: Eclipse). Plus, we watched videos here at home. We're both suckers for sappy, sad love stories. So there we sat, watching these sad scenes with a box of tissues between us, tears flowing. It was great! ;)

Then she helped me upgrade my sorely lacking technology supply (as in NONE). I did recently get a Nook (she's had hers for a while) so we both were able to make a visit to Barnes & Noble and plug in there for awhile for the freebies and shop for books & browse online. And, who knew I could even add music to my Nook! Yes, I have the Twilight and New Moon soundtracks loaded so I can listen to them as I re-read all of those books (I know, I'm hopeless...).

Also while she was here I was able to finally get an Ipod. Don't laugh. I've never felt the need to have one before. But she brought hers along and I was intrigued. Now I see what I was missing. So of course I wanted one. I LOVE mine. One of the reasons I didn't have any of these things before now was I'm so out of touch with how to even begin operating one or even where to start. That's why I needed her: she took care of helping me create my playlists and loading one onto my device. Now I'm happily plugged in!

But it was sad to see her leave and now it's very quiet here again. So I'm slowly getting back in the groove, catching up with the massive backlog of email and the different Ning sites and my favorite art blogs. Hopefully I'll be all caught up in the next few days. It was nice to have that time with her. It was very special to me. :)

Changes

I've been trying to stay balanced with all of the changes that are taking place right now. A lot of things are going on behind the scenes here that I'm not ready to talk about yet. But I have had a little down time to soak it all in.

One thing I keep noticing: the image of hearts keeps appearing. This digital piece has the same "dissolving heart" that I have in my encaustic piece (see last post). Here, I've changed the color (one of the advantages of digital art). I love the poetry of Mary Oliver and recently came across a poem that I couldn't get out of my head. It was after I'd made the encaustic. The poem is called, simply, "Heart Poem".

These were the verses that really spoke to me:

"My heart, that used to pump along so pleasantly,
has come now to a different sort of music.

There is someone inside those red walls, irritated
and even, occasionally, irrational...

...Now again it is the wild man..."

I'm cleaning out my art studio (again). But this time I'm getting rid of everything that doesn't speak to me anymore. For example, I've accumulated a lot of scrapbook materials and all of the things that go along with that. None of that interests me anymore. My sister is coming to visit on Monday and staying for a week. She is really into scrapbooking now and I plan to load all of this into her car and send it home with her.

This will help me clear my studio and my head for what I really want to do and to move on. I think I hold on too long to objects for sentimental reasons. That's not a bad thing. But now that I realize that holding on is exactly the thing that holds me back...it's time to let go.

So, hopefully these changes will bring about the "different sort of music" I'm hearing. Something is trying to break through the cracks...let's see if it succeeds.

Tangled Heart

This is my new encaustic mixed media piece: Tangled Heart. I didn't originally start out to do just one color with the encaustic. But after I laid down a couple layers of the titanium white and then the red, I didn't want to add any more color. I liked the bold splash of blood-red on the white.

When I started to fuse the red layer it was really cool how the bottom left splash ended up looking somewhat like a heart that was breaking up and melting. I didn't want to touch it anymore after I fused this layer so I decided to work on the next part: the resin heart.

This wood board had a 4 inch square cut in it already so I decided to add a heart there. I used some copper wire in different gauges in zig zag patterns behind the hole and backed that with copper mesh. Then I added a heart covered in paper and resin. Here's a closeup of that part:

I put this piece in our great room and I really like how it blends in with the other pieces I've done. This one measures 12" x 12" x 1 1/2". I have really missed working with the encaustics. It's been so hot already this summer and the studio upstairs is just unbearable to work in if I have to close off the air conditioning vents. In order to paint with the encaustics I have to plug in the heating element, open both windows, use the exhaust fan, etc. and it's just too hot in the room. But this week we had a little reprieve and it was in the mid 70's all week. What a treat to play with them again!

Other things happening: Kelly Rae Roberts' course ended this week and that was sad. It's been fun checking in with her and reading the posts and comments from the group. But the Facebook group will continue and that's been a great help. There are so many energetic, fun, talented women in that group! I love reading those posts and looking through the blogs.

My sister is coming to visit for a few days! Yay! Hopefully it will be in the next week or so. We always have a great time when she comes so I'm looking forward to that. And I'm putting finishing touches on the two faces I'm painting in Sharon Tomlinson's Technicolor Faces course. This one is very challenging but I'm giving it my best shot. I'll post those when they are finished if they don't turn out too alien-looking. :(

Have a safe holiday weekend everybody! We will be staying home working on different projects around here. One of mine will be getting the spare room ready for sis. And playing more with the drill in the work room. I'm still not ready to show that project yet. But it's coming along! More to come on that later...