following directions. or not.

if i had to grade this mandala on execution, i'd give it an A ... however, if i had to give a grade based on following directions? i'm pretty sure i get an F .... cause... well.... i didn't follow directions ... luckily, i am not being graded on any portion .... and in fact, i can rationalize away the fact that i did not follow directions. you see, the word was chaos. does this look like chaos to you? no, me neither.

so i was going with what i thought the norm was ... what's life? straight and narrow and color between the lines? so that's what is in the middle ... straight and narrow and color and lines and just so .... and then the rest? more real life, less norm? reality? the reality of my closet, my thought processes, my children's rooms, my art studio, my to do list is that chaos is just a little bit different that the straight and narrow and color between the lines.  real life chaos is the unpredictable, the not so tidy and colored between the lines. sure, war is chaos, but in my life, so is the laundry room and dinner time and rushing out the door after breakfast.... but MY chaos doesn't bother me. it's just not quite coloring between the lines. it is me. it is more free form and unexpected and this way and that way .... the chaos is important. it's life. i like my chaos and all those happy doodles that are outside the lines.

four mandalas ... cause i have far more mandalas than days ....

 four mandalas. only one is for a mandala workshop word ... prayer. the others were just for the joy of exploring the circle, the doodle, the contemplative doodling, the search for a quote to go.

whooooooo

i have a doodle book .... by jenny doh... craft a doodle .... it has an owl page ... so now so do i..... have an owl page. which is your favorite? i think i like the top most one best.

yes

this was my first mandala .... november 1st ... my new habit begun ..... look how many circles and arcs in this ??...... i circled it up for sure ..... i think if you checked my last 800and something blog posts, you'd say my shape is a square. 90% of my canvases are squares. i totally made that up. 75% of my canvases are squares. well... i made that up too. LOADS of my art is done on a square. i like squares. my mandala could be done on a square ... in a square journal ... but i didn't take the time to find a square journal ... which now i'm happy about, because i have room under each mandala to put a quote. so now that's part of my process ... mandala making and quote searching. so, in the time i've been away from my blog, i've fallen for the circle. but i have a commissioned painting to work on ... and that will be a square. if i can just make the time to do it in between my circles.

mandala: play

the mandala topic was play .... my first inclination was to play with my new supplies ... new color pencils ... new compass... new protractor ... new circle template ..... so i filled my circle with circles long before i ever thought about playing .... and then i decided to fill in my circles with play .... so ... let's play outside in the sunshine ....

mandala ... and balance

for the month of november, i am doing art every day ... different than nanowrimo a couple years ago where i wrote every day in my quest for a novel in 30 days ... but that was 50K words in thirty days ... so thirty pictures doesn't seem too hard. i have joined an online mandala course to keep me on track ... i get a lovely prompt emailed to me every day .... this is the sixth of november, so i've now followed six prompts ... but i've actually completed 14 mandalas.... above is my favorite thus far. the prompt was balance .. balance ... something i strive for, try for, hope for, want .... not sure i've had it lately. not sure it's super possible with teenagers in the house ....but, still working on it.  part of working on balance is art every day .... keeping in touch with the inner artist who is just THRILLED to buy a new set of pencils and markers, a fresh journal, a compass .... ah! the joy of a compass! who knew? i had forgotten how much i loved one.... middle school and high school had some compass joy for me! so .. here's to compass joy ... and refinding my blogging self.

bio

ok ... my one year sabbatical from blogging is over a wee bit early ... ok?

here's my artist bio that i have just updated ....

Elizabeth Beck is a mixed media artist who is intrigued by the secrets that can be hidden in collage work.   Elizabeth does colorful and exuberant art for the sheer joy of it and wants her work to reflect that happiness. She likes to explore the quirky, using interesting bits of ephemera, like maps, dictionary pages and bingo cards, to make traditional compositions.  Elizabeth loves Mona Lisa, Diet Coke, reading, quotes, alphabets, fonts, type, orange shoes, dictionaries, maps, the beach, reality TV, road trips, museums, messy paint days, Sunday School, kale, cookies, good friends, tennis, her husband Andy, and her sweet children, Drew, Julia, and Sophie Sunshine. Elizabeth lives in Atlanta with her husband, Andy, three growing-up-too-fast children, and a little dog that is supposed to be white but is usually more of a dirty beige. Contact at e.beck.artist@mac.com.  

mostly i just added kale, cookies and tennis.... the important stuff.

98

yippeee ... i have read 98 books this year ... i finished two yesterday on thanksgiving day .... rah!
read about them here on my book list if you want .... happy friday .... off to take a walk with my family .....


P.S.... it is now dec. 28th and i am on book 103 ... hurrah ... the best book of the year has been either blue jesus or the pecan man ....

happy thanksgiving....

here's wishing you a day full of things that you are thankful for .... 

and pie ... here's wishing you lots and lots of pie.

happy thanksgiving.

5 little birds ...

 i've been on a bird binge lately .... i brought five more home from pottery class ....

 so now i have ten sitting on my sideboard .... and one more in the kiln .... 

they're birds ... but they're also kinda plates ... and kinda bowls.....

bowl of blueness...

 i made a big blue bowl ... speck gray clay ... anne's blue with a brushing of impossible purple over it .... it could be a salad bowl ... or a chip bowl ... or hold easter eggs in the spring ... or gourds in the fall ....

or it could hold about thirty bananas ... if you were of a notion to have that many bananas and needed somewhere to put them.

patterns ...

when i was a girl, my mom sewed a lot ... she made dresses from patterns ... the patterns were tan crinkly tissue paper .... in my teens, i sewed a few dresses and skirts for myself .... even in my 20s i made a couple jumpers (it was the 80s, i was a teacher, jumpers were like a uniform).... but i never got as proficient as my mom was at sewing ... 

now i like patterns in my collages ... the paper is cool transparent ... i like the color too ... i like the wrinkles you can make ... 

 i have an art project going with little.e.beck.artist's class ... to make a piece of art to sell at an auction ... instead of taking in a horrifyingly white canvas, i've started it up with some dress pattern tissue paper .... that's a 24 inch square canvas ... nice sized ... 

 and then once i started putting tissue on stuff, i just kept going and put it on things that were just hanging around waiting to get worked on .... 

once again, starting projects ... not finishing them!