Complete Sentence?

I'm not sure it's a complete sentence...but I'm calling it done for now. Or at least until I get more feedback from Jane. I wonder if a poet...or a writer takes almost a week to write one sentence.

I wanted my sentence to shout JOY....and I think it does.

Making Meaning

I enjoy living in a neighborhood where people visit in the street and share plants and hand off tools and tables no longer need.

I was happily puttering with this and that most of the day inside and out...and right in the middle of it I had a conversation with Patty as she was heading home.....she lives right at the end of my street. 

Ragged Robin by the pond

We swapped stories.....she shared about a recent meaningful trip.... and I shared a little bit about my current class...The Visual Sentence. 

I'm at the point in the class where I'm starting to join the pieces and parts trying to make meaning and connections with my little blobs of color. And that led to a conversation about what's important in life.

Patty and I ended up concluding that life is fundamentally about making and finding meaning in the things we choose to do...say...and create. Whether it's putting together the pieces and parts of a recipe....a puzzle...a garden...or a volunteer effort....or making visual sentences out of our shapes and colors. 

And all the better if the meaning is just pure enjoyment and awe of whatever is right and front of you...like the whimsical ragged robin plants at the pond. 

We both felt so much better after our street conversation.

This afternoon I glued two visual words together and felt like I had a phrase. 

Then I added  two more words.... all of a sudden I think I have what might be the start of a visual sentence! And it only needs to have meaning for me.

Immersed in Color and Shapes

Kathy commented about a post from a few days ago that had me smiling all day. She has a T-rex just like the one Paul found sitting on her kitchen counter right next to a bendable Olive Oyl. I hope you all know Olive Oyl from the Popeye cartoon! 

Kathy thinks about all the the things they do together....like dancing and whispering. They always surprise her. 💜

That got me thinking about our bendable Pink Panther...so now he has joined T-rex and tiny Jesus on my puzzle table. I'm sure there will be some shenanigans going on when I'm not looking!

Thanks for making me smile all day today Kathy!  

And it gives me a chance to show off how much I've done on the puzzle.

It's hard to leave this one alone....it's wicked fun and the colors are amazing! 

I started turing some of my gelli prints into visual words by adding paint and other media....as well as cutting around some of the shapes giving them irregular edges. 

The goal is to have several of these visual words...that I will manipulate more and connect into sentences. 

I'm finding the process quite fascinating...and I think it's going to surprise me in the end. 

It certainly has me immersed in color and shapes! And what's not to love about that! 

I've been cutting my shapes with Margie's scissors that she had for as long as I can remember. I'm tickled at how wonderful they are! Just another little joy nugget on a perfectly delightful day! 

Spontaneous Decision

(Just a reminder that if you are reading blog posts via email sometimes the photos are way out of proportion....and I don't know why or how to fix it. To see the posts formatted as the were meant to be, you can view them on the blog by clicking the title of the post or the link to the blog prompt at the end of the email.) 

I have at least a dozen studio projects in my head that I've been itching to do....but I made a spontaneous decision to sign up for a quick course by Jane Davies called The Visual Sentence. I am hoping it will help me loosen up and improve my printing and collage skills.....and maybe it will inspire me to get back to my Jane Davies inspired stripes project this summer.

So I spent the afternoon with my gelli plate doing the first couple of steps in the process....layering shapes with hand cut stencils and making bold gestures with paint and color.

Pieces and parts of these will eventually become visual words....that will join together to become visual sentences (hopefully). Finally we will embellish with paint and collage....and in the end maybe our sentences will even tell a little story.

One can dream.... spontaneously!