Cliche` ...

   Ok ... so I goofed and posted my cliche` entry a week early, that gives me an excuse to post a new one today ... ha!

     Although I wanted to use one of Mort's suggestions, I could not find a horse to lead to water or a chicken that would consent to loosing his head and as for kicking the bucket ... the only buckets around here this week were "buckets of rain" so I opted for ...

   Something fishy's going on here!

     I've been staying at my sister's house this week while she is camping in the key's in the rain. The beauties in the photo above are just a few of the many African Cichlids that I am tending while she is away. I won't go into how this is a hobby gone wild, I won't tell you how many fish she has now, or mention how many tanks it takes to keep them, I will not use the word obsession, I'll just say that last year she turned 40 ... enough said, right? 

   This is the most up to date list of links to the other journals participating in the Round Robin ... check em ` out ...

Kat... "From Every Angle" http://journals.aol.com/mskatdabrat/FromEveryAngle/  

Mary..."Alphawoman'sblog"  http://journals.aol.com/alphawoman1/Alphawomansblog/  

Aunt Nub (AKA) Liz..."Aunt Nubs EmptyHead"  http://journals.aol.com/montaukny/AuntNubsEmptyHead/  

Celeste..."My Day and Thoughts"  http://journals.aol.com/csandhollow/Mydayandthoughts/  

Steven..."sometimes photoblog"  http://journals.aol.com/sepintx/sometimesphotoblog/  

Monica..."Mamarazzi"   http://journals.aol.com/photographybymon/Mamarazzi  

Becky..."Where Life Takes You"  http://journals.aol.com/ryanagi/Wherelifetakesyou/  

Gypsy..."Gypsy's Journey"  http://journals.aol.com/wildwickedgypsy/GypsysJourney/  

Carly..."Ellipsis"   http://journals.aol.com/ondinemonet/Ellipsis/  

Alan..."F-Stop"   http://journals.aol.com/botdotdotdot/F-Stop/  

Kimberleigh..."Life as I live it"  http://journals.aol.com/demandnlilchit/LifeasIliveit/  

Karen..."Musings from Mavarin"  http://journals.aol.com/mavarin/MusingsfromMavarin/  

Betty..."My day My Interests"  http://journals.aol.com/rap4143/MyDayMyInterests/  

Duane..."sotto voce"   http://journals.aol.com/fdtate714/sottovoce/  

Nancy..."Nancy Luvs Pix"   http://journals.aol.com/nhd106/Nancyluvspix/  

Sharky..."Substance; or lack of"  http://journals.aol.com/babyshark28/substanceorlackof/  

Robbie..."Robbie's Ruminations"  http://journals.aol.com/krobbie67/RobbiesRantsRaves/  

Michael..."Confessions of a Madman"  http://journals.aol.com/madmanadhd/ConfessionsofaMadmanInsightsinto  

Patrick..."A Stop At Willoughby"   http://astopatwilloughby.blogspot.com/

                                                      

I'm away ...

   Every year about this time, I stay with my sisters dog Angie while they go camping. I'm doing that again this year ... I've been there since Saturday and will be staying a total of 8 days.

    Not sure why she does not have computer set up at home <grrrrr> so I'm going through slight withdraws but ... she only lives a few blocks from me, so I'll be stopping by to feed my fish and check my mail, maybe even post an entry or two (not sure).     

     Theresa bought about 20 lbs of fresh muscles to take to the campgrounds with her and at the last minute decided not to take them so ... we had them for Father's day, YUM!!!

     This time of year is so busy ... Just wanted all of you to know why it's so quiet here at "Rain." The links below are photos I took of my sisters house last year when I stayed with Angie, feel free to look around if you like and I'll be back in about a week.   Click Here,     Here,     and Here! 

     BTW ... it's still raining everyday here, has been for weeks and weeks now :(                

                                              

Help wanted ...

     Looking for your ideas on what to do with 3 gently used beets and greens. The beets were used only once, as photo prop and are in near perfect condition, with the exception of a huge slice made in one of them to expose the blood of the vegetable. Beets are vegetables, right?

     Maybe you could leave me your favorite family recipe for borcht, or ... ahhh ... ummm ... what else would one do with beets? They are so  ... so ... so ... RED!!! Ewwww ...

                                               

Cliche`...

       You can't get blood from a turnip ...

     The photo ... but sometimes you can from a beet!

     This weeks photo challenge was sort of difficult, it really made you think ... thanks Kat!

     I used cliche ` finder <- click to check out some of the more popular clichés, I saw a few that I thought might work with for a photo. Not sure why I chose the turnip one, but I do know that I chose a beet for the photo because it's much bloodier than a turnip. 

     Others I considered ...

Laughter is the best medicine.

That's the way the cookie crumbles.

Talk until you're blue in the face.

Poker face.

The calm before the storm.

Bakers dozen.

What ever floats your boat.

She's a living doll.

Cut it out.

     I just got home, that's why I'm a little late posting my entry, but I actually have two hours to spare. I had two birthday and one Father's day gift to shop for after work, then met Karen at Boca High School ... we both signed up for a realistic painting class with  "Italian Renaissance Master Artist, Arnold Moskowitz" ... how's that for a title? The class starts next Wednesday ... I'll let you know how it goes. After sign up, we went to Guppy's (Big Daddy's) for dinner and then shopping at Target, fun night out!

  

    Edit:  Oooops! I'm a week early ... not sure how that happened, I must not have been paying enough attention. I thought the RoundRobin challenge was every Wednesday! Guess I'll have to come up with a different cliche `photo for next week!            

                      Good night all ...

                                       

 

 

 

                       

The Creativity Game ...

Photo's are of Stephanie painting a giraffe face ... forgot to photograph the dragons.

On day 2 of the convention I decided to move away from the airbrushing and take some beginning face painting classes but first, I wanted to play Oliver Zegars Creativity Game.

Let me just say that I was so not prepared for this game. Keep in mind that although I do consider myself to be a somewhat creative person ... I have not had any paint or drawing instruction and certainly no real experience applying paint (make-up) to skin.

Luckily, I'm not easily intimidated or excessively shy, because this game was defiantly not the right place to start, especially as it happened to be filled with so many experienced painters.

Here's how we played the game ... first 2 people drew a color card, we drew medium green and burgundy. Those were the background colors along with white. Then someone drew another color card for the line color, it was yellow ... black and white lines were also allowed for highlights and shadow. The next card drawn was a shape card, it was an oval. Last card was the character card, we chose a dragon.

The following step of the game was to paint our faces respecting the guide lines chosen with the cards. Ahem ... did he say paint medium green, burgundy and white background ovals with yellow, black and white outlined ovals to make your face look like a dragon????

There was no demonstration ... just instruction to get to work creating our dragons. I felt a little better when I realized that surprise had swept the entire room and I was not the only one perplexed by the thoughts of all those colored ovals.

I was verysurprised at how distracted I became by the oval thing ... yep, I was stuck on oval, but like everyone else I began applying my paint.

The more experienced in the group knew to use the white to highlight the places where a light source would naturally hit. Me, I was still stressing over all of those ovals, but kept painting.

Once most of our faces were covered in oval shapes using the assigned colors, the yellow lines started to be applied. We were making oval eyes, oval scales, oval nostrils and teeth ... we even did our best to make oval fire for our dragons to breathe. Oh my ... ovals, ovals, ovals!!!

I was doing just fine until I decided to look around at the other dragons, by the time the black and white details were being applied many of the faces would have qualified to be used in a Broadway stage production. I kept applying my ovals and soon it was time for us to put down our brushes and move on to the next part of the game.

Here's where it became important not to feel embarrassed or intimidated, for the beginners (me) as well as for the experienced (nearly everybody else). We moved to the head of the class and placed our chairs in a huge circle. Ummmm ... now it was time to discuss each individual dragon out loud.

We talked about the things that we liked, the things we wish we would have done differently and the things we would defiantly do again next time. Every single person in that room walked away knowing so much more about face painting than they did when the walked in.

Oliver and Stephanie were among my favorites. There were several raffles throughout the weekend for a hour one on one session with the instructor of your choice. I decided during that class that If I won, I would have chosen one of them because they both had such warm eyes, because Oliver spoke the language of art with such passion and because I figured that where one of them goes, the other is not far behind. I'll bet they would have both been there.

Imagine for a minute, being told in a Belgium accent that even on your worst day as a face painter you will paint so much better than the five year old. You paint his face to look like a dragon and the five year old becomes the dragon. GRRRRRAAAAAARRRRR!!!!! (Ithink he said GRRRRRAAAAAARRRRR!!!!!)

I was not eager to have a photo of my dragon face taken at the time, now I sort of wish I would have. I would like to have been able to compare it to the amazing green and burgundy with yellow dragon I will learn to paint by the next time we meet. Thank you Oliver and Stephanie for the inspiration.

Round Robin

 

     I am so excited about the out come of last weeks Round Robin Photo Challenge, Stephen from sometimes photoblog chose crystal as the subject. If you did not see the photo he entered, GO HERE and you will understand completely why he chose that subject. Great photo Stephen, great photos by all that participated. If you have not taken a look at the other crystal photos yet here are the links again.

Aunt Nub - Aunt Nub's Empty Head - posted
Carly - Ellipsis - posted
Alan - F-Stop - posted
Duane - sotto voce - posted
Karen - Musings from Mâvarin - posted
Kat - From Every Angle - posted
Robbie - Robbie's Ruminations - posted
sharky - Substance; or lack of - posted
Monica - Mamarrazzi - posted
Dawn - Dawn's Drivel - posted
Coy - dancing in the Rain - posted
Becky Yanagi - Where Life Takes You - posted
Betty - My Day, My Interests - posted
Patrick - A Stop At Willoughby - posted
Celeste - My Day and Thoughts - posted
Tess - FirstDigitalPhotos  - posted
Derek - Picture of the Day - posted

     Kat from Every Angle has chosen this weeks challenge. I knew that with this artsy group, the challenges would probably be ... well, challenging and I was right. Kat's challenge is Cliche`. This is going to require a little thought, feel free to leave cliche` ideas in the comment my threads if you like, I would welcome the help. If you have not accepted this challenge yourself yet ... then what are you waiting for? Break out those cameras and play along.

     BTW ... my Cliche` graphic above was fun to make. The background is actually a photo of the models on the runway and people photographing them on opening night of our face and body painting convention.

     My camera and the person behind it are not so good at taking low light room shots (yet) so the photograph did not come out so great, however it did make for a fun and colorful graphic background once I filtered it a little with photo shop. I encourage you to try this at home of you have the software!

                            Happy weekend all

                                   

The convention continued...

I hope you don't mind!

     The lineup of instructors was amazing, they were indeed among the mast talented painters in this industry. I know we were all wishing that the convention would have lasted long enough for us to attend every single class.

  

A few interesting faces and heads ... obviously bald heads make a great canvas.

     On the first day I took only airbrushing classes, with Pashur, Mark Greenawalt and Donna Nowak. During those three classes I got a crash course on everything you need to know about the equipment, paints, marketing, maintenance and techniques for starting an airbrushing business. 

     With all of the amazing information I received in those few hours ... bottom line was that at the end of the day when we went to our late night jams to practice, those of us that were using the equipment for the first time had to come to terms with the fact that we would be practicing dots, lines and swirls for a long time, before we were going to move on to anything cool.

  

I decided that to make the most out of my convention experience, I should practice the basics at home and move forward in a different direction the following day.

      Day two, I thought I would start out with some beginning classes, but first I really wanted to attend Oliver Zeger's creativity game class. This would turn out to be an experience to remember and deserves an entry all of it's own.

    I did get in a few beginning classes, this was a good idea because I picked up a lot of good tips and techniques that most people had long forgotten. The rest of the classes I took were geared towards the experienced painter and each was an amazing journey on it's own, instructed by the most creative artists. Mama Clown and her simple and quick techniques, (she is the one that organizes this convention). Natalie Simard's class was another of my favorites, she created some of the most enchanting characters of the convention, you will see them in the Mid Summer Night's Dream Ball entry,  yep ... saving the best for last!

   

   I can't leave out Jinny Make-Up Artiste (photos above), one of the industries most talented and everybody's favorite, or ... the Wolfe Brothers, (photos below) the first face is Nick Wolfe, or is it Brian?  Oh ... it's the twin that wears the watch. Both of them are really cute, really nice and extreamly tallented. They do a lot of monster and other creatures for Disney or Universal. Next year I'll be taking as much instruction as possible from all 3 of these amazing artists.

  

      BTW ... someone stop me once I've exceeded my allotted quota of using the words amazing, awesome, creative, talented or artist ... I just can't help myself!