Day 196 ~ Write a ten-word fantasy story.

fantasy 1 : hallucination 2 : unrealistic or improbable mental image

Day 195 ~ Make a monster.

Silly monster. Went for the papier mache on the balloon again, but really glopped it on, leaving an opening for the mouth. I propped it up on a glass and got the idea of the gobs of paper for legs. I was able to build them up against the glass, but they kept oozing down so I tied them up with string, which I thought added a nice monstery touch.

She took two days to dry. She's a she because girls don't get to be monsters enough. And her name is Washington because she is made mostly of The Post. Anyway, thank goodness it's been in the 90s around here because I was able to bake her in the sun (only one brief mishap with a sudden shower and I forgot she was out there). Funny thing is that when she was dry she smelled like bread from the flour in the papier mache.

Washington The Monster is sprayed with five different colors of spray paint. Her antenna is a pipe cleaner wrapped in yarn. Teeth and claw toes are painted paper. And googly eyes. Many of them. Oh, and a red yarn tail. She is 16" tall, counting her antenna.

Day 194 ~ Make something to be walked on.

To be honest, I just couldn't get a good idea for something to be walked on, so I went with making something by walking on it.

If you aren't into non-representational images, this isn't going to do much for you, but I happen to think it's really beautiful and I'll try to explain why. I find it very exciting to manipulate media (paint, usually) in ways that create intricate textures and layering through randomness and spontaneity. The 'happy accidents' are organic and natural and that's where I see the beauty.

An image like this asks the viewer to respond in a personal way. Nothing is obvious or forced. If you are at all inclined, it's a fun image to put into an app that allows you to rotate it and/or blow it up for more detail. I feel that if an image works at every orientation, it is a good design.

This is a 6X6 detail of a piece of 140lb watercolor paper, 22X30. I placed the paper on a homosote board on the bathroom floor smeared paint on a pallet (starting with ochre, then sepia, then black which is a throwback from some classical oil painting lesson when I was a kid), stepped in the paint (careful, if you happen to be trying this ~ have something to hold on to because it's slippery!) and walked on the paper. Now you know why I was painting in the bathroom ~ I was able to wash my feet in the tub without trailing footprints through the house.

I keep a collection of papers like this for my mixed media pieces.

Day 193 ~ Make a sock puppet.

An old Smart Wool sock, buttons for eyes from my mom's old button tin, nostrils of black paper dots, and for the ears I cut pieces of mat board in long triangles, scored them to fold in half, then I covered them with brown corduroy material. I glued them in position first to make it easier to attach them with needle and thread. The mane is three different pink yarns sewn on and knotted in sections. Pretty cute, huh?

Day 192 ~ Create a family crest for your family.

Sorry, this didn't quite fit in my scanner, but you get the idea.

I looked at pictures of family crests on the web. Took note of the format, which often included a shield, two figures on the side, a banner with words (sometimes in Latin) and another figure (usually a knight's helmet) in the center on the top of the shield. So you can see what elements I copied.

The two figures on the side were easy! YoYo and Bela. The shields often have a repeated graphic silhouette, so I used that area to represent our nine cats ~ Mim, Cooper, Naomi, Gus, Zubie, Theo, CJ, Mishi and Augie. The violin is Judy's. The trees and wreathe stand for our beautiful home and land which is a constant source of amazing delight. The Latin phrase on the banner is Ars Longa, Vita Breva, which means Art is Long, Life is Short. We both felt that an apt representation for our lives.

The design started as a pencil sketch, painted with watercolor and with some details added with colored pencil. It's 81/2X11.

Day 191 ~ Make something with sugar.

Not to be confused with Day 188's project (making something with your lunch before you eat it, although Noah does suggest we might want to eat this one, too, but I think I'll pass).

I wanted to build a horse (of course) out of sugar cubes, but couldn't find them in the grocery store (maybe they are no longer made?). So I settled on a 10.5 oz. bag of miniature marshmallows. I thought I was going to be able to stack them into a standing structure. Not happening. Marshmallows don't harden if you leave them out of the bag overnight the way they used to. They stick together if you wet them, and they also turn into a gelatinous mass. Good old white glue saved the day, as well as giving up on the standing structure idea and adhering the marshmallows to a board, much the same way I made the pencil horse on Day 167. She looks like she could be standing because I saturated the shadow to make the background uniform.

I used all 10.5 oz of marshmallows. From the tip of the tail to the pointed right front hoof is 16".

Day 190 ~ Make something really big with newspaper.

Single sheets of newspaper opened up, placed on the grass and weighted by small rocks (it was windy). Had to keep running up to the porch so I could look down on the image to see if I was getting the proportions right. I put myself in the picture so you could tell the scale.