Just another phase in life

For awhile I have been recovering from a serious foot and ankle surgery. I wasn't ready for such a long recovery and with the weather here as bad as it is, I have not been out and about at all.
I had to give up my metalsmithinng because of my health and the lack of funds at the college.
The arts are always the first to go in a budget crisis. It has been hard to give up all my time in a class setting and the friends at cllass. but, now I am going to try and make this a building time for myself and my art.  I want to relearn all the unused information I have neglected and get back to some 2D pieces.  I have to relearn how to size and post.  I have a new program for that and have to spend the time to re-learn how to do what used to be easy for me.  I have gotten back to visiting WetCanvas sites and following some of my old buddies there.  Hope to be able to participate and post there soon. Life has a way of making us grow and I am in a relearning phase.  

Changes....and more changes!

Here I am again trying to get back on the art wagon.  It took me awhile and a couple of tries to get back here. I hope I can keep posting now.  I have neglected my 2 D arts for quite awhile, I've been busy in the 3 D world of metals.

Golly gee whiz!!  I didn't realize how long it has been since I have posted here.  It wasn't because I was having fun, that is for sure.  I do want to get back on the internet and back to my art.  Now... I don't have a printer or a program to digitize and size any art that I do, so getting those will be my first order of business.   Be back soon, I hope.

Update on the Monarch Box

  My box project is getting ready to sand and finish.  I have one piece of soldering to do, I just couldn't get one little piece ( out of 8) to sweat solder!   I tried several times and even sawed another one out, just couldn't it to stick.  I was afraid I would un-solder the other 7 pieces or melt the whole box top, so I stopped for the day.  Tomorrow I will try again and then decide how much more I want to do to the box.  I have considered cut outs on the top or bottom, plexi in the bottom as a window and several other ideas.  Time is the deciding factor and I am running out of it.
   I have tried several new techniques, including using a raw potato as a heat sink.  It worked!! I have so many ideas and so little time.........

This is what it looks like when I leave class late in the afternoon.  I don't know who's farm is, but it makes a nice picture.  It is cold and rainy and the ground is still frozen.  I like to take sunsets and cloud shots, I will try this one again when the ground is green.

April Showers

Here I go again... It is raining hard with thunder and lightening out tonight, so I am here at my computer.  I haven't been doing any art other than for my  metals class.  I need to finish my current project and start taking pictures of what I have done this year.
   I am currently working on a lidded box.  It will be a tribute to the Monarch butterflies I see in my yard.  I have always like to watch them, when I was a kid out on the Kansas Prairie I would sit in our garden watching them.  They liked to eat the dill plants as caterpillars.  I was totally mesmerized by the 'pillars.
   I started the box before I knew how endangered the Monarchs are becoming.  I hope they revive and find new lands to feed on.  I have a milkweed pod and a catalyst on the lid of my box and will put a real preserved butterfly inside.  I pinned it several years ago and found that it is marked as a male.  It is beautiful!
   Hope to finish it soon and get started on my hinged locket.  I will try and post soon.

 This bird house will be out again this year.  Hope another family of wrens moves in.  It has had wrens in it every year since a grand dter painted it.

Wishfull thinking...

I am going to try and do more new art to post more often.  This picture is of a trip I took with my grndter in 2011.  We went to an art show of illustration for children's books.  Several artists were featured and examples of their works were shown.  Their bios were also displayed, so you could put their faces with the work each one did.

The display was in a castle like building that is the entrance to the Edsel Ford Estate in Michigan. Note the "rope" of hair hanging from the ramparts. This show was at the time TANGLES was released at the theaters.

Woe is me

Woe is me!  Here I am again making an attempt to get back on track.  Hopefully, this post will be part of a series of days that I can remember to come here and post.
Here is a picture of my current vacant rental.. comes with fenced yard ,maintenance and plenty of food.  Ha Ha Ha!

Enough of the explaining here goes.....  I have been doing mostly jewelry lately, I am taking a metalsmith class.  I make "real" jewelry - meaning I use silver, copper and brass from sheets of metal to fabricate my pieces.  I love the sawing, pounding, soldering and polishing my projects.  I will post a picture of one of my pieces, as soon as I get one taken and sized.