North Bay Belly Dance Bazaar

I haven't posted about belly dance in a long time. Which was my original intent to ramble on (like it do in person) about belly dance. I really have been performing solo and with Rising Stars.

Today Rising Stars performed at North Bay Belly Dance Bazaar. It was rather sparsely attended (at least when we performed). There was only four of us. It is the same choreography we have done for months but my arms and neck are sore this evening. Maybe it was the three hours of sock knitting last night.

Loma Prieta 20th Anniversary

Today is the 20th Anniversary of the Loma Prieta Earthquake. The Chronicle the next morning was only eight pages due to the fact the newspaper had no computers or power.

I was at the third game of the World Series. Being a Giants fan, I hoped we would be coming back from a 2-0 deficit against the Oakland A's. When the earthquake hit, it felt to me as if it went side-to-side, then I could feel the stadium lift up. As it lifted up, I thought that we would just keep going and that it was all over. I looked over at the light standards which were swaying a little much and I thought would break in two. They didn't. Fortunately no one was hurt and there was minimal damage. Everyone in the crowd was very quiet a second or two then erupted in cheering and talking. We had no idea how bad it was. We thought they would start the game any minute.

My ticket with the corner missing - the ticket takers removed it when the game resumed 10 days later.

Once we found out from the people who had radios and little portable tv sets, we knew about the building collapses in the Marina, the Bay Bridge section falling and the Cypress collapse.

The crowds at Candlestick were asked to leave by the police on loudspeakers on the field. Everyone left orderly. It took us until 10:40 pm (about four hours) to get home what would normally be about 45 minutes to an hour. But at least we got home and had one to go to. It was a terrible disaster.

Candlestick shortly after the quake hit.

Pictures of the scoreboard before and after the quake. The scoreboard picture at the top says "Welcome to Game 3 of the 1989 World Series". The bottom says "Welcome Back to Game 3 of the 1989 World Series".

Journal Making

I have been participating in a online workshop Artist Journals and Sketchbooks. I completed the first assignment almost two weeks ago and was so inspired I made another journal:

All pages are made from Diet Pepsi boxes, gessoed, painted and altered, then sewn.





We had about 6.5 inches of rain in 24 hours on Tuesday. The worst October storm since 1962. I was getting a little bit of cabin fever from being indoors so DH challenged me to do practice my line drawing. Two minutes later:

DH was practicing his TV viewing.

Moleskine Madness

I have way too many Moleskine Journals.

I first started using Moleskine at work as a notebook but soon purchased more.

Last year I thought I would start a "green journal". The idea was to do a whole journal with green as the dominant color. That became boring real fast. The following layout from this journal is six pages cut, painted and laminated. I couldn't figure out how to photograph it. If I do I will post it later.


At that time, I took up knitting again. The journal on the left is for the year of 2008 and one the right 2009.

I glue in the pattern, a photo of the completed project, the ballband and I piece of the yarn used to keep a record of the project.

I learned how to make socks last year and couldn't stop making them.

This August I began a small moleskine book. The intent was to create a small art journal I could paste and paint in. The first step was to gesso one side of the paper and leave the other available to paste paper and photos. I had an old bottle of gesso I wanted to use up. It was so old that it had become kind of lumpy. I worked with it awhile before I realized I could add water to smooth out the consistency. I had used this brand of gesso in the past to prime wood pieces to take the paint better.

After I gessoed the whole journal and started painting I noticed the pages were very glossy. Then that little light bulb went off. I read the bottle and it was glossy gesso. I had just thought that it was the moleskine was smooth and the gesso reacted to it. But it is really glossy. I like to use water soluble oil pastels blended with baby wipes. Only on this surface the pastels comes right off if you are heavy handed with the blending. I solved that issue by using a lighter touch with the baby wipes and coating it with a light lay of clear gesso (which gives it "tooth").

The first three completed pages:

Acrylic paint, scrapbook paper, scrap from another project, water soluble oil pastels, clip art colored with color pencils, PITT pen.

Acrylic paint, scrapbook paper, stamps, sticker, bubble wrap and ink jet copy.

Scrapbook paper, water soluble oil pastels, clip art colored with color pencils, PITT Pen.

AJS Journal

I joined a workshop - Artist Journal and Sketchbooks in the Yahoo Group Artists of the Round Table. The workshop's first lesson was to create a journal. One of the suggested book covers was a composition book. I had never thought to cut out the pages before. I had recently gessoed a composition book cover, I cut out the pages (so easy), used some scrapbook papers to cover it along with some tape to cover the original black binding and hold the sewn pages in.

Front (excuse the wax paper on the surface of my worktable)

Front and Back

I found an old Strathmore drawing pad with three sheets in it which I took out and folded in half. One sheet from old pad of tracing paper (which had yellowed edges that was perfect), a thin paper bag and a piece of scrapbook paper complete the inside. I used DMC linen embroidery thread to sew the pages to the spine and painted the inside covers with heavy body acrylics.

I may paint and over-stamp the inside and outside covers later after the workshop is done.

About six or seven years ago I was altering composition book covers, but I always left the papers they came with inside. I never really liked the paper.

Below is one I made for my DH after a trip to Eugene, Oregon. DH is a MS Flight Sim freak, hence the airport/plane theme. I punched a hole in each page to fit the compass and then positioned the sticker with a real photo of the sky so where ever you are in the book you can see them.

Cover of the above.

The two composition books below were also made for DH. Only the one with the old truck is upside down on back cover not where is should be on the front cover. I was also using crackle medium which is not very visible in the photo. The plane picture is a photo transfer.

This last one is a small version composition book covered in a copy of a stamp collage I made. I made a larger version for a co-worker who just loved it. It has a little steampunk vibe I never noticed before.

EDM #243

I recently joined a Yahoo group - Everyday Matters. I was hoping to spark my drawing with the weekly challenges. The first challenge to click for me was #243 Draw a pillow. One of my favorite things to draw in my college art classes were paper bags and fabric so a pillow was ideal.

I got out my favorite pencils - HB, 2B and 4B and my ancient stub and an hour later:

The pictures aren't that good. The sketchbook is too big for the scanner and the camera flash made the drawing too light.

Rain

Everyone in our little family unit has been happy the last two days. Friday it was nearly 100 - I don't do hot. Yesterday we had dry lightning. One of these storms we get in our little part of the world once or twice A DECADE. And today we had rain that little know phenomenon in our drought plagued state.

I know we are kind of wimps in the weather area, but there is only so much "nice" weather you can take.