Ice Cream . . . Colors

     Soft ice cream colors have always been my favorites.  Even when I'm trying to use the more intense colors, my art work often turns out in the mid-to-light range of colors.  A few years ago, I bought a book designed especially for quilters called Color and Cloth by Mary Coyne Penders.  The idea is that you use snippets of fabric from your fabric stash to make different quilt patterns according to Ms. Penders' instructions.  I was thinking that the color ideas would apply to all kinds of art - not just quilts - and they do in many respects.  For instance, the first lesson asks you to make a color wheel using small bits of plain colored cloth and then make one using printed cloth. 



Solid Fabric Color Wheel




     They're fun to make by drawing two circles, with one inside the other, on a piece of cardstock.  Divide the circle into a dozen equal parts.  On tracing paper, copy one of the small sections to use to make a pattern for your fabric pieces.  Cut the pieces of material and glue them onto the circle.

  

      Of course these don't really have anything to do with women...or do they.  We all wear clothes and furnish our houses in the colors we like the best.  You can buy a new car in the color of your choice - as long as it's white, gray, or whatever the color the car manufacturers have decided we want this year. 
 
     Once I decided to make my own color book.  It's turned out to be another of my "works in progress."  Earlier I had purchased a blank page album, so I decided it would work fine for "My Color Book".  As I worked, I discovered that it is much easier to make each collage page on a piece of cardstock and then attach it to the book page with double stick tape.  Each page of the book concentrates on one of the six main colors plus black or white.  When those are done, further pages will have two or three colors together.  Most of the finished pages aren't focused on women, but the new pages will be.



At the beginning.







RED - passionate, exciting, anger, love 
Creative Idea Number Six

PURPLE - Dignified, regal, power, spiritual
Creative Idea Number Seven

     The background for this collage was made by tearing tissue paper into pieces, coating a piece of cardstock with Mod Podge, sticking the tissue paper to it, and applying a final coat of Mod Podge.  While it dried, I found pictures and words for the collage.  After trimming them, I coated them with Mod Podge in the same way.  One mistake I made was to place a piece of wax paper over the whole thing and roll a brayer over the wax paper to flatten out the tissue.  Only, it wasn't quite all dry and the wax paper suck in a few places pulling the color off of the cutouts.   That just proves that even with the power color purple, mistakes happen.  
     Smarty and I'll be back soon.
                         Carol







A Lapse in Etiquette

        I love Smarty.  I really do...some days more than others.  Puppies just seem to arrive with so much baggage though.  While we took our short walk this morning, Smart found something horribly gross smelling to roll and rub his neck and one shoulder through.  I don't know what it was, but since we live in the country, you can let your imagination go to work. As soon as I got close enough to smell him, we came directly into the house and he had a shower.  I like a little perfume myself, but really, Smart boy, what were you thinking?



Smarty Phineous Welsh Corgi as a "mature"  three year old.

                                    Lately he's had a few other lapses in etiquette:

- Like the day he decided to visit the neighbor's dogs with out an invitation.

- Or what about when he hears me call him and perks up his ears before he looks in my direction.  Then his brain tells him that I must not mean him as he has important stuff to do.  His head drops  back down and he continues to to whatever he was busy with before I so rudely interrupted him.

- The other night Riley Dog came over, and Smarty immediately let Riley know that this was his house and everything in it belonged to him...including all the people. 

"That's no way to treat a guest," I told Smarty.

But he just looked at me and trotted off to the other side of the table.

      Wouldn't it be great to know what's going on in their brains.  How much do they understand?  What makes them mind sometimes and other times not at all?  Could it be that they're smarter than we are?  What do you think?  Please comment.

Smarty and I'll be back soon.

Carol



Don't Wash, Dry Clean Your Hair

     Did you ever wonder how those gorgeous movie stars of the 1950s kept their hair so perfect? 

     Recently I read a 1957 book called Eleanore King's Guide to Glamor where Ms. King explained some of the mysteries used by them.  She, herself, went to a beauty operator to keep the gray out - not by dying her hair but by plucking it. She did this 1 1/2 hours weekly for 13 years.  If I'd done that, by the age of 35 I'd have been bald!

     Ms. King also mentioned that many dark-haired women of the time didn't wash their hair very often so that their natural hair color would remain.  She personally met many women in their 60s who had gorgeous hair which they dry cleaned most of the time with only semi-annual shampoos.



  Idea #5: art journal

     
     After step #1, you "scale" the head by parting the hair every quarter of an inch, and with a comb, loosen as much of the dead cuticle on the part as you are able to do. With vigorous shaking, the scale should fall out.  If a woman wanted to add her favorite perfume to the witch hazel (step #4), she could but she would take a chance of making streaks in her hair.

     So, I'm thinking that this whole process sounds like a bit too much work for me.  Some how I don't remember the shampoo of the 50s being so harsh on the hair that it damaged it, but I was just a child then so maybe it was that bad.  And, I can't really believe that not washing your hair will keep it the color you had at the age of twenty. 

     How often is often enough to wash hair?  Ms. King suggests that a middle of the road schedule might be to wash once a week and dry-clean the next week or wash one week and dry-clean the next 3 weeks.  Which ever you choose, good luck.

Smarty and I'll be back soon.
Carol 

 

The Story of Adrianna

     I was born in 1867 with pale china skin and hand painted blue eyes like most of my friends. My molded hair has such a beautiful shine to it.  My name is Adrianna.  My mistress, Miss Mary Louise, sewed me a fine cloth body by carefully following a magazine pattern.  Although many of my friends had molded jewelry, Miss Mary Louise enjoyed changing my jewelery to match my different outfits.

      My green velvet promenade dress matches the one worn by my mistress.  She makes calls, but we are "at home" every Wednesday at 4:00 p.m.  That's when others can come call on us and we'll be sure to be here.

 
      Here's an example of the type of dresses I wear when Miss Mary Louise and I read, write, paint with watercolors and sew.  Sometimes we play dominos or paste pretty scraps in books.

    
     We go to a ball or the opera some of the evenings.  All the ladies dress in silk and lace which makes such a lovely rustling sound when they walk by us.  I have pierced ears so I can wear many different earrings just like they do.  Underneath my dress, I wear whalebone stays and a crinoline so my dress will stay puffed out and my waist will look as small as possible.  It's hard to bend over in all these clothes!

      The main thing a woman is to do these days is to be a proper wife.  There are rules for everything, and the men don't think the ladies are as smart at them.  The men are positive that women aren't  nearly smart enough to vote, but I'll be around a long time and I plan to watch it happen...with my china blue eyes.

    

Creative Idea #4

Here I am in the body Miss Mary Louise made for me.  I'm so
embarrassed!

My book was made from a report cover with white paper
 pages stapled inside.
All my clothes and accessories are cut seperately - many of
them from magazine pictures.



Smarty and I'll be back soon.   Carol