Days Thirty-Two to Thirty-Eight: What Is It?

Day 32: I was having an off day and tried to paint what I felt, which is always an interesting experiment. In this case in ended in the question you see in the post title: what exactly is it? At first it was all dark blues and blacks with a dash of glitter, and a weird shape that could perhaps be a mountain, or perhaps a hat. But then I started feeling a little better and wanted to brighten things up a bit so I added the yellow. Art is weird.



Day 33: At the library our summer programming has an international theme, and they've asked me to plan some events for teens as well as kids. I'll be doing one on a kind of Japanese ink art called sumi-e. The event isn't until August, but they needed the budgets to buy supplies last week so I had to plan it out anyway. In order to figure out what I needed, I tested out a few different kinds of ink and paper. Below are my favorites of several quick things I threw together for this purpose. Do you sense a theme?





Day 34: I worked more on my house-between-the-worlds story. I don't want to give anything away, so I tried to blur out the words but still show you a picture to give you proof that I did indeed write something:



Day 35: A friend/wizard rock musician I enjoy seeing every time they tour in North Carolina is sick and unable to come on tour this week (which means I won't be seeing him tonight when I drive up to Asheville for the show). I made this sign to cheer him up and wish him a speedy recovery.



Day 36: I've often heard it said that it's a good thing to "color outside the lines." The expression, of course, referring to coloring books and purposefully coloring outside the picture that's been drawn for you. I thought about it, though, and wondered if anyone had ever drawn a picture where it wouldn't really make sense UNLESS you colored outside the lines. I didn't have time to make a whole coloring book of them, but here's one, pre-color:



Day 37: I got a coupon from Target for a free 8x8 photo book from shutterfly. My good madness for today involved collecting old pictures (and taking some new ones), adding text, and formatting the book. I'll show the finished product when it gets here in the mail!

The coupon:



Day 38: More house-between-the-worlds. I hate to keep doing this, but it's a long-term project so it may pop up a lot between now and December. I'll try not to count it as my good madness every day, though.



Day 39: It hasn't really been too dreary here in NC, but when I heard a weather report that it's supposed to snow here on Thursday I got a little down in the dumps. That, combined with just having reread a book of A.A. Milne's poetry, produced the following poem. I'm oh-so-ready for spring!

That Time of The Year


It’s that time of the year when the rain comes down,
The time of the year for rain.
The sky unfurls like an ugly grey sweater
Joints ache and wheeze with the pain.

It’s that time of the year when my skin fits too tight
And my thoughts circle round the drain.
It’s the time of the year for cold and drear,
The time of the year for rain.

It’s that time of the year that’s hardest yet,
The time of the year that’s the worst:
When spring is so close and you feel it so much
You know that you’re going to burst.

It’s that time of the year when the rain comes down,
Or frost or sleet or snow.
Or maybe it’s nothing at all coming down,
Just that solemn drab stillness all around
And a promise of change coming in on the breeze,
With its hints of sunshine, that “not quite yet” tease.
Enough of it! Really!
Don’t mean to complain,
But I’m sick to death of the rain.