Blog Post Two C: Confessions From The Art Desk

My art desk is a mess. Hello, my name is Lisa and I am a dabbler. Is there ink and paper? You bet. (I’ve got over 20 shades of black up there) Is there at least 6 bottles of glue? Of course, but they all have a different purpose. Is there 17 spools of ribbon, the beginnings of acetate-based sequins, a Dremel with appropriate safety gear, plasti-dip, foam and watercolors? Well, yes… but I’m using those… simultaneously.

Way back in high school (and we will not be discussing how many years ago that was) my mom would take us to the local library every week or so during the summer break and I would take up a new hobby. I knew every book from the Draw 50 X by Lee J. Ames by heart. When I had exhausted the rather small selection of drawing books, I learned… other things. There was hand-writing analysis and palm-reading and caricature painting. Nowadays, every time summer rolls around, I feel an itch to learn something new (and to read 50+ books as if there were a pizza party waiting for me in September) It may sound childish, but over the years, every single one of these summertime interests have come in handy.

This summer, I only made it to 22 books (hence my absence from the blog in June) but I’ve also started playing with liquid latex and how it reacts to fabric (most of which was on purpose), paper, ink, gold leaf, rice flour and Yupo (which is a different category of paper I’ll have to go in later on). Oh the textures I can create. No idea how I’ll use this arcane knowledge, but if I can merge my obsession with fairytales and watercolors with one of my daily forklift projects, I’m sure it will be very helpful soon enough.

I hope everyone uses the end of the summer to try something new. Wishing you cross-stitches and wood burning - but maybe not those two together.