Mam'zelle Hepzibah

Self Portait

This is my self portrait inspired by Suziblu's Be Kind To Yourself vlog. I wrote a long blurb on the question: "Who am I?", then painted a portrait of myself over the words. After finishing this, I've come to the following conclusions about myself:
1). Altho I'm in my 40's, emotionally I feel like I'm still in my mid-20's, and this translates into my art. Don't I look young and attractive? Totally a ruse. (as my daughter said, "you look like Barbie!")
2). Even though we were supposed to be writing only positive things, I found myself writing all sorts of negatives and "should's" and "ought to"s. There I am, trapped in that Not Good Enough mode.
3). I love how I can delete the wrinkles and zits and imperfections from a self portrait by telling myself I am an amateur painter, incapable of painting such detail.
4). I think I look HAPPY and HOPEFUL in this portrait.

 

The Devil's Seed

Just posting some ATC's today, because I am having a bad day. Do any of you have teenagers? I have 2 teenagers and 1 tween. Let me tell ya, life is no picnic living with that kind of crowd.

I really admire bloggers who write about their kids in funny ways, like dooce, whoopee, and breed 'em and weep. They manage to make their children so endearingly witty and amusing. But the thing is, their kids are little. And therefore cute. My kids are teenagers. And therefore SO not cute. Teenagers aren't funny. They're tragic and irksome. And SERIOUSLY AGGRAVATING. Like I want to poke my eye out with a sharp object all day long just to dull the pain of dealing with three hormonally-unhinged spawns of Satan. Like I look at rat poison and have to sit on my hands to keep from acting on my impulses. Like I figure it's better to let the violence between them ensue and escalate, because it may help to cut down on the teenage population in my household.

Please check back with me tomorrow so you can see me take back all the evil things I've written just now and read my dry but witty rendering on the cute, comical, and incredibly adorable things they've done today.

Inspire Me Thursday---For the birds...

The theme for Inspire Me Thursday is birds, so this is my expression of that inspiration. I originally started the background several weeks ago, after the very first time I discovered Suziblu and her "How To Keep An Art Journal" vlogs. She seemed to be speaking right to me when she listed all the excuses you can't play in your art journal--- "I've got kids".... "not enough time"...."I'm not good enough"....  That's my #1 excuse: Not Good Enough. With capital letters.

So after watching her whip off a journal page, I went into my studio and did the same. I just played. For ME. It didn't have to be perfect, or a work of art. I just had fun. Then when I read the Henry Van Dyke quote and saw the theme for this Thursday's prompt, I had to add it on there. It's not perfect or compositionally astounding, but I love it, because I felt so FREE when I was making it. 

Closet Collage Artist

My husband bought me a scanner! Happy happy joy joy! Now I can post
pictures like a REAL blogger. 

First off, some stuff I made at work. I'm a Labor and Delivery nurse, and I
work night shift, so on weekends, when there aren't any patients, or the few
patients we have are sleepers (i.e., not in labor, just there for observation),
you have to find something to do to pass the time. There is only so much
time one can kill reading People and Star magazine before you want to poke
yourself repeatedly in the eye with an IV needle. And who in their right mind
can read nursing journals at 3 am?  >snore<  So I decided to amuse
myself by making collages cut out from said magazines. At first, I just made
little paper quilts, since I am also a quilter. Like this:

And this:

This first time I made one, my co-workers looked at me like I had an enormous
vagina on my forehead and asked, "But what are you going to do with it?", and
"What is it for?"  Like it had to have a useful purpose. Like, what is the point of
WASTING YOUR TIME cutting out snippets of paper unless it is part of your job
description or it ends the war in Iraq. I actually felt embarrassed, and mumbled
something apologetically, like, um...well..I'm going to...uh.... give it to my...er..
daughter to hang on her bedroom wall. That seemed to be an acceptable purpose.
Better than "I'm just doing this 'cause it's fun and I feel compelled to be creative."

Now, however, I cut and snip and glue openly and without shame.

My co-workers know exactly who's to blame when the article they are trying
to read has been shredded with scissors. The housekeepers hate me because
the nurse's station looks like a confetti bomb blew up under my chair. But, my
magazine collages are getting more interesting and I'm not embarrassed to be
caught doing them.

I discovered inchies thru Artjunk Girl's blog. This is an inchie mosaic with a
hat theme:

And this is the cover of my current journal:

And that is the story of my 12-step recovery. Hello, my name is Martha, and
I'm a collage-aholic.