Rent a Pineapple

Pineapples are by far my favorite fruit. The fresh fruit has all sorts of health benefits to it, but today I learned that it has been a symbol of welcome and hospitality since colonial times. Affluent hostesses would have a pineapple as the centerpiece of the table, and it would ultimately be served for desert. As a guest, it was a high honor to know the hostess had displayed the expensive treat for your visit.  Less wealthy hostesses had the option of renting pineapples so the welcoming gesture could be bestowed on her guests as well.

Today, a pineapple graces my art table, along with four pears, a stuffed country cat and a vase of fresh tulips.  They are all fodder for my latest endeavor, art journal sketching and watercolor. Its been years since my days of sketching from life, but many examples from fellow artists and a downloaded video from Interweave Press gave me courage....well, except for drawing the pineapple....i'm afraid of it. 

But here are my first attempts at the tulips....

I'm encouraged to keep going at it...work my way up to the welcoming pineapple...wonder if i will get there before i cut it up....

Maria

A week of good buys

Our freeze on time off finally came to an end on April 8th, so I happily took two half days this week.  On Wednesday i treated myself to some retail therapy in downtown LaGrange--The bead shop there, Circle of Stones, just moved from the center of the block to a beautiful, full of windows corner location! And i mean JUST moved...the glaziers were working on the new door and upon leaving i had to carefully sidestep the fresh sealant! I FINALLY found the antique copper lever backs I have been searching everywhere...
One of my other favorite haunts there is the resale shop. This time around i scored three, gallon size bags of greeting card envelopes for 50 cents each (a hot commodity when you make over 100 Holiday cards every year!) and  four of the most adorable rustic little chairs for me to display jewelry (or the Studio Muses!) on--check them out--

Friday saw the start of Miss Emma's spring break, so again i made my escape from the place of employment early. I was right on time to pick her up at 11:30 and then we headed over to Andersonville (this appears to have become a tradition). Lunch at Hamburger Mary's, perusing the Brown Elephant, and the discovery of a FAB new shop called Four Sided. We spent a hurried 15 minutes there before having to beat feet back to the car to evade the meter maids--but re-parked much closer and spent an hour looking!! An awesome, eclectic mix of nifty new stuff and an amazing collection of vintage ephemera! I picked up something old and something new...

On the vintage side, not sure what i will do with the watch faces, but they are cool--they had 4 out of 5 of the letters of my name in giant Scrabble tiles--and i picked up two flash cards that caught my eye--one is describing the phases of the moon and the other proclaims the Special Powers of algebra--how could i pass that up??

And the piece de resistance is the beautifully carved hand for yet another jewelry display! Oh--and did you notice the little B9 bingo chip?? I'm going to glue it over the strange carved out circle on the base of the hand...

In addition to spending money this week, I also met with the bead peeps and finished a pride bracelet. (Now you get to see the new carved hand in action!)

Now it is time to get back to some sketching and art journaling...so much to do...so little time....

Happy Full Moon!!

Crusade 49

So it would seem that everything is late these days.  Even though PSL has been over for a week, all the other projects and things in need of my attention have filled in the time like water...I have been working on my Forensic Self Portrait for the Street Team Challenge here and there all month--still don't consider the pages finished--and am posting them to you two days after the official end of the challenge. oops. Well, what can you do. Better late than never?


Michelle provided us with a wonderful sheet of "evidence" labels and other such fun images this month, and i promptly printed them in several sizes. Also inspired by Michelle's love of black, white, red and brown color scheme that dominates her artwork--i decided to adopt it for this particular art journal. It seems it is fate to do so as the cover of the book is red and I already had several black, white and red pages completed in the book. It was very satisfying to my muse to rummage through my drawers and folders of ephemera in search of anything that fit the color scheme, and then limit myself to that pile of items.

A tag inside an envelope that tucks behind the panel...and look! there I am!

And an envelope pocket for the all important forensic report....

Leave me a comment and let me know what you think so far! I love to hear from you!


Have a lovely Saturday!
Maria