Art Journal: Weekend Spread, Do Not Fear Success

This weekend's spread is all ready to receive writing which I think will be white gelly roll on the left side. I don't want to put in any writing on the right, but I'll have to see how much room I need.

The first layer of the background was gesso over blue watercolor crayon followed by several layers of green and blue tissue, art papers, and a computer printout of the female figure. The image is embellished by glitter glue. (I don't fling glitter, I squirt it! :)

Creating the image was a project in itself. I found a vintage image of Mata Hari. I am not particularly interested in Mata Hari herself, but the image presented to me all sorts of possibilities in terms of manipulation and embellishment. It took about an hour to colorize the whole image in Photoshop, resulting in about a dozen layers to achieve the final effect.

So what is this spread about? A couple of weeks ago during a meditation time, the words "Do not fear success" popped into my mind. It was an interesting insight that made me consider that my lack of progress in certain areas of my life may not have anything to do with a fear of failure, but rather from a fear of being successful. This insight is something that I am going to have to give some considered thought.

I debated with myself as to whether I should rephrase the title of the spread into a positive affirmation such as "Welcome Success". But since those were not the words that came to me, I stuck with the original statement.


ljgloyd (c) 2012

Art Journal: Weekly Spread January 16 Onward

Here is my spread all ready for my multi-day journaling for this week. Nothing fancy: just gesso over watercolor crayons, then stampings, followed by a drawing. I will handwrite my entries in black Pitt pen.

ljgloyd (c) 2012

Mosiac Spread: It's All About the Journey

This is my full weekend spread for January 14 and 15 (awaiting text for the 15th). It employs the mosiac and "hidden" tab prompts from earlier this week. I created the background by laying down some white gesso, fushia acrylic paint and black gesso. The mosiac tiles are cut from a paper I made of light wash of the fushia paint rubbed over by a thin layer of copper metallic acrylic paint. The labyrinth is a computer print out. I embellished with glitter glue. At first I was hesitant about using too much glitter but then I thought "You can never use too much glitter!" Woo-hoo.

ljgloyd (c) 2012

Art Journal: First Week

Here is the front cover of the journal:

The journal itself is a 9 by 12 soft-bound sketchbook. I painted over the cover in cerulean blue, green and copper metallic acrylic paint. I pasted a photo that was taken in a low-light setting by a friend. The friend who took the picture was going to delete it since it was so blurry, but I just loved the effect and knew it would someday show up in a piece of art. Here it is. Finally, the text is stamping on a piece of blue tissue paper.



This image was created for my January 8 journal entry (January 7 also had a similar image). I just didn't know what to make as a focal point image so I just traced my hand and started doodling in it. I painted black gesso around it for contrast and wrote the text with a Sakura white gelly roll pen. A number of people in the Book of Days group have commented that they too have used the motif of the hand in this week's journaling. How synchronicitous is that?

I am working on my multi-day spread for this week. I want to incorporate a mosiac effect into what I have already started, but that may not work so well and I'll have to use the mosiac effect on my weekend spread.

What I find interesting about this project is that I have had the discipline to do it every day thus far, even if it is only a word or two. We'll see how long that lasts.

More to come.

ljgloyd (c) 2012

Pantry Improv: Huevos Rancheros

My huevos rancheros recipe is not really an improvisation, rather my interpretation of a classic, soul-soothing breakfast dish. My guess is that someone originally improvised this from food on hand in the pantry.

From the pantry:
vegetable oil
corn torilla
canned refried beans
salsa (or you can make fresh if you like)

From the fridge:
eggs
queso fresco or some other soft white cheese

Completely cover the bottom of a large skillet with the vegetable oil. Heat the oil until it starts to shimmer. Lay a corn tortilla in the oil for about two minutes or until it starts to get crispy. Carefully flip the tortilla and crisp the other side. Remove from the oil and drain on a paper towel. Fry one tortilla for every serving.

Spread a couple of tablespoons of refried beans on the tortilla.

In another skillet, fry an egg in a bit of oil, either sunnyside up or over easy. Scrambling doesn't work so well because you want a runny yolk in the finished dish. Place the fried egg on top of the beans and tortilla.

Spoon a bit of salsa and sprinkle a little cheese on top of all.

This breakfast dish is wonderful for lunch and dinner as well.

Click HERE to read about my personal pantry improv project.

ljgloyd (c) 2012

Watching Bread Rise: A Metaphor for Growth

This week I made bread from scratch. I'm a bit of a foody, if you haven't already figured that out, so the process of watching the bio-chemical replication of yeast is something that fascinates me. Yes, I know, I need to get a life, and that is indeed what I hope to do this year.

Bread-making is an appropriate picture of life growth. Yeast is a living creature -- Saccharomyces cerevisiae -- a one-celled critter that procreates like crazy if you give it enough sugar and warm water. When you combine these happy little yeastie-beasties with flour, salt, a lot of time and a little heat, you get bread.

I have an idea for a long-term life project. I have been tossing the idea around in my mind for several months, and now I want to nurture it with the hope it will rise like bread dough. The idea is the flour, the yeast is the planning, and the sugar and warm water is the research. Hopefully, the planning and research will make that idea rise up into reality. I don't expect achieving my goal will be easy. I expect a little heat along the way, but you need some heat to bake good bread.

I'm sorry to be so vague on the specifics of the project. I'm still in the planning stages, and, if you have ever made bread, you know that if conditions are not right, the bread dough won't rise. So I'm not going to say any more about it now in case things fall flat.

But to leave you with a little more than my ramblings, here is the recipe I used to make the gorgeous loaf of bread in the picture above:

Thoroughly mix together in a large crockery bowl:

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cups all purpose white flour
1 teaspoon salt

In a separate bowl, combine:

1 package of dry active yeast
2 tablespoons of sugar
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons of warm water

About 10 minutes later, when the yeast is frothing on top of the water, add the liquid to the dry ingredients and thoroughly mix. Put a little flour on a bread board and dump out the dough on it. Vigorously knead the bread for about 5 minutes. (Great therapy). Return the dough to the crockery bowl and cover with a clean kitchen cloth. Put it someplace warm and leave it for about 3 hours.

After the dough has risen (it should double or even triple in size) add some more flour to the board, dump out the dough, and knead for another 5 minutes. Shape the dough into a ball and place it in a large cast iron skillet. Cover and let it rise for another hour. About 15 minutes before you plan to bake the bread, preheat the oven to 375 F. (about 220C). Uncover the skillet, put it in the oven and bake for about 25 minutes (or until the top is golden brown).

Prepare to swoon from the aroma.

ljgloyd (c) 2012

The Pantry Improv Project

This week I had to say goodbye to a good friend who is moving far away. As she packed up her household, she gave me the majority of the contents of her dry food pantry. This cache of food items, coupled with my own pantry, means that I do not need to do much grocery shopping for several months at least. Not only is this going to save me a lot of money, but it has also presented an opportunity for some highly creative kitchen fun.

I am going to try to use up all the items currently on the shelves and limit grocery shopping to only those essential pantry items used up and fresh food (produce, meat, dairy, etc.) In doing so, I want to see how many improvised dishes I can create. I will not go out and buy something new until I have used up the majority of items in the pantry. For example, I have nine cans of beans of several varieties. I will buy no more beans until these are used up. Similarly, if a recipe calls for an item not in the pantry, let's say water chestnuts, I will either adjust the recipe or make something else; I will not go out and buy a can of water chestnuts.

The successful pantry improvisations I'll share here.

For example, last night I pulled from the dry pantry whole wheat penne pasta, sun-dried tomatoes, tomato paste, chicken broth, white wine, Italian herb seasoning, garlic powder, black pepper, red pepper, and olive oil.

From the refrigerator, I selected kale, onions, poached chicken breast and parmesan cheese.

While cooking the penne pasta, in another pan, I quickly stir-fried in the olive oil the chopped kale, onion, and dried tomatoes until tender. Then I added a splash of chicken broth and white wine, the tomato paste, pinches of black pepper, herbs, garlic powder, and red pepper flakes and the diced chicken. When all of this was heated through, I added the cooked penne and topped it with parmesan cheese. I did not measure amounts. I eyeballed everything and resulted in about two fair-sized servings.

We'll see how far I get with this project. Hopefully, I'll end up saving money as well as developing a collection of recipes that I can use again.

In the meantime, can anyone tell me what I can do with a jar of powdered buttermilk and a can of sardines?

In the Studio: Creating a Mixed Media Painting

My thanks to those of you who gave me mostly good feedback on my post of a couple of days ago. The point I was trying to get across is that persevering in achieving a goal is as important, if not more so, than one's psychological frame of mind.

Yesterday, I was fooling around with a visual interpretation of this concept. I decided to document the process of creating the painting in this video. Thank you again for your support.



ljgloyd (c) 2011

I've Never Done Anything Worthwhile in My Whole Life Ever: Thoughts on Positive Affirmations

Last week I was in one of those blue moods that everyone gets now and again where I was reassessing my life and trying to see what, if anything, I had accomplished. I came back to a conclusion that I have articulated many times in the past: "I've never done anything worthwhile in my whole life ever." Yes, I admit that this is a bit over the top. My friend Madame T, a writer in Alabama, laughed at me when I said this to her a while back -- not because it is true, but because, as she said, I was being overly melodramatic. She was right and I have to admit that saying this to myself is not a positive affirmation and certainly could lead me to a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Still, though, I caught myself saying this to myself again last week, but this time I decided I would try out a little positive affirmation exercise that I had learned in a mind/body wellness course I took last year. I try to have a "quiet time" of meditation and prayer each morning and last Friday morning I added to my meditation a repetition of the words: "I am a winner. I accomplish every goal I set for myself". I repeated this to myself a number of times until I started to feel a little silly about it. I am not sure if that is because the act of repeating a "mantra" is alien to me or if, deep down, I had trouble accepting the concept that I might actually be successful in achieving a goal.

This particular day I went over to a relative's house to paint a backyard fence that had recently been built. We quickly got started and as I painted I felt myself enjoying the work. It was a beautiful sunny morning. The birds were singing. I was helping someone. All was good.

The painting progressed without hitch...until about two hours into the job and about three feet of fence short of finishing, when I stepped on one of the masonite boards we had been using in place of a drop cloth to protect the concrete in front of the fence. It was like I stepped onto an icy patch of pavement.

I could see myself going down as if in slow motion: my right knee twisting on the masonite board, my left hand outstretching to brace for the fall, the skin on my right elbow peeling off as it scrapped down the raw wood of the fence, and finally my ample backside hitting the ground with a resounding PLOP. I sat there for a moment, simultaneously feeling the pain in various parts of my body, thanking God that I did not hit my head on the concrete or the fence, and suddenly realizing that I, "the winner", had embarrassed myself in front of the entire neighborhood and everyone driving past.

As I hauled my body and bruised ego off the ground, my relative said "I'll finish painting. You go in the house."

"No," I said. "I can finish this." I proceeded to paint the last few feet of fence. I had to use my non-dominant right hand because the pain in my left hand was so bad that I could not hold the brush. My thought at that moment was that if I can finish the job, then I'm not really hurt all that much. It was less of an act of pride and more of an act of denial.

After we finished and cleaned up, I went right home and proceeded to soak myself in a hot epsom salt bath. I assessed my wounds and concluded that it could have been a whole lot worse. My hand was moving again and my scraps were superficial. My knee pained me but I could walk which was all that mattered. My pride, though, was quite wounded, and I felt the irony of my positive affirmation of that morning literally colliding with the reality of a hard patch of ground.

But then it occurred to me: I had finished the job. I had done what I had affirmed that morning: "I accomplish every goal I set for myself." I know it is a cliche' that we when we fall, literally or figuratively, we should "get right up, dust yourself off, and start all over again." These concepts become cliched because they are true.

Just as it took a long and subtle time for me to latch on to the "I'll never do anything worthwhile" idea, so the positive affirmation that I will be successful in all I do may take equally as long. I have to admit that it may take a lot of "stick-to-it-ness" to achieve it.

So, if I have one word to say myself, and to all of you, it is this:

PERSEVERE.

Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, a Blessed Solstice, and Happy New Year to you all.

ljgloyd (c) 2011

...make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness... II Peter 1:5-6.

Sometimes You've Got to Let Loose

This weekend I stopped at a store on the way to an appointment. In the parking lot of the store, there was a group gathered. I'm not sure of the nature of the gathering, but it appeared that everyone was having a lot of fun and that the event was open to anyone who wanted to participate. I did not have the time so I just shot this quick video and went on my way. In retrospect, I realize how busy and overcommitted I've been for the last few weeks. I could have been a few minutes late to my appointment. I really should have stopped and participated. It would have been good for me.

Sometimes you've just gotta let loose: