Super Size Me   

This isn't one of the 365 Day assignments, but thought I'd post it anyway. The Columbia Art League recently held a juried show with the title: "Eat Me" -- a focus on food and thoughts about food. My first thought was the super-sizing aspect of many of our foods, especially fast food. So I painted this little painting titled: "Super Size Me." It didn't make it past the jury process but I have it hanging near my refrigerator as a deterrent to snacking.

Cuddly Cobra   

Something fierce, made soft and friendly -  I thought a cobra was about the scariest thing I could think about curling up with, so this is a soft sculpture of a very cuddly cobra. I should have made this much smaller as I don't intend to keep it and it was hard to stuff. I'm really trying to abandon all product-oriented thinking, but I still resent spending the time on projects like this that seem a waste of time and effort. Guess it's my mid-western mindset....  Anyway, I'm sticking with the program - Day 65!

I'm not terribly fond of these food assignments - but I have always found beet juice to be fascinating. It is such a pretty color. So yesterday I played with my food, making designs with beet juice. I dropped a little milk in it to give it some variation in color. Interesting how some of these quick projects get you to be more observant of little things around you. This discipline is proving to prompt some creative thinking....something I need!

Today's junk mail was the topic. We receive an unbelievable amount of junk mail every day - mostly age related! I t consists of investment offers (4 identical ones today), hearing aids, all kinds of insurance, credit card offers, invitations for free lunches with sale's pitches for assisted living, etc., lots of requests for contributions to one cause or another....  So here is today's harvest from the mailbox: as you can see some of it is already shredded and all of it is totally useless - except for collage fodder.

Jellyfish

Plastic bag art was today's assignment. I tried a couple of things and ended up with blown up grocery bags. I gave each one a tail of streamers. They look kind of like jellyfish to me. This was not one of my favorite activities. Some days it's best just to make items, photograph them and then move on to the next day!

Yesterday's creative challenge was to make something heavy seem light. My first thought was elephants soaring over rainbows, but in the light of the events of the night before I went with the disaster of midwest tornados as the "heavy." An innocent, delicate ballerina light heartedly skips through the landscape leaving devastation in her wake. This is a colored pencil sketch.

Shadows are the assignment of the day. This made me very aware of shadows all day long. The photo that turned out best is in the parking lot of the MKT trail; me on my bike as the sun was setting low in the sky. I like this picture because it makes me look really tall. The strange Feb weather (60s) was especially helpful with this creative activity. Plus I got some exercise.