The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.......

In 1999 my son was 13 years old. He was so impressed with my TV Guide covers, who wouldn't be, that he wanted to create some of his very own. 

Having no TV Guides around, he found a Reader's Digest somewhere and the TV section of our Sunday paper. 

Here are the results......They're Animatronic, of course. (Photographed in sequential action shots....)

Viewer is required to pull the tab on her wrist...

Eyes start to close and tongue comes out....

Eyes closed and tongue in full Gene Simmons  position...

Another pull tab creation...

grrrrrrrrr. 

My Dad would be proud.

Altered 'books'.....

When you're an art major all your life, you always have to be doing something. Creating. All the time, whether it's in your head or reality. It's a curse sometimes.

The thing you're creating has to be something different, clever, innovative, creative or......maybe.....sorta stupid. (Wasn't stupid at the time. In fact, it was the smartest thing in the world, to me.)

When I was in high school, when  high school was first invented, I used to take my father's TV Guides, the day they arrived, and sorta, well, improved them. The height of creativity.

What I did had to happen  before Dad got home so that the new and improved version would end up in the 'mail of the day' pile. Like it was supposed to be there.

The first few were quick alterations, without too much thought. Slowly, they got more complex. Some even had moving parts.

Oh, I was something. Really something.

See for yourself.......

The knife was cut out of some catalog, the blood painted with acrylics, my paint of choice.

Cigar and hat cut out of another magazine

Jimmy Durante's face cut out and glued on, hair painted (on the top person).

Cut out and glued on.....

Bullet holes burnt into the cover with a rod of incense.

Mia Farrow's eyes were erased and repainted....(a pencil eraser would totally erase the color from the TV Guide cover. It was that kind of paper. Lucky for me.)

This one is hard to see. There's an arm coming out of the bears mouth, like he just ate someone.

And, of course, lots of blood. (I was truly gross.)

Now, this is the first of the moveable covers. Notice the 'pull' tab at the bottom. If you gently pulled on it, the mouth opened.....see below....
"arrghhh!"

Big teeth drawn, cut out and glued to Johnny Carson.

All the details painted on with acrylics.

No comment.

This is one of my favorites, I think.  (how the news is really made.)

Babs lighting up...cut and paint.

Second in my moveable series. Pull up and down gently on the pull tab at the bottom and Columbo is readjusting his tie, up and down, up and down....see below.....

Hand painted her middle finger on with acrylics. ( I worked sooo hard to match the skin color.)

Painted the fish in her mouth.

Cut outs and painted blood. 

There were more, but these were the only ones I saved.

I always heard chuckles as I hid around the corner while Dad was checking the mail. But he never, ever said anything.

I think he was used to this sort of thing.

What a guy.

Art project.....

After having a discussion about abstract art, I had the students construct these abstract sculptures. The nice this about these is that they can be stood up on their own, or hung from the ceiling.

Cut 12 Strips of white paper for each student...2” x 12”, stacked on top of each other and stapled together at one end.

(In the photo it looks like there is one strip of white paper....there really are 12 pieces there. Biggify and see...)

Prepare Multi colored strips of Railroad board (sorta thin colored cardboard)(google it..) , 3” wide x 20 (+)” long, one for each student.

Close up of the stack....

Don’t do anything to the first strip on the stack.

Take the second strip and start rolling, bending, folding, twirling etc. into some design. Make sure the ‘strip’ folding keeps the strip aligned in a straight line. (you don't want your strips going to the right or left and then sticking out all over the place later.) (well, maybe you do!)

Two strips folded or curled....

Do the same type of thing to all the rest of the strips except for the last one.

When all the middle strips are manipulated, staple the top and bottom strips to each other at the opposite end of the first staple.

Manipulate the designs happening within the top and bottom strips to get the look you want.

Close up of stapled end....

Select a strip of 3” wide railroad board in the color and length of your choice.

‘Fence in” the white paper construction with the cardboard and decide how big a ‘fence’ you are going to make around it.

You decide this by tightening the 'fence' and looking at the resulting design within the cardboard ring.
The smaller and tighter you make the circle, the more the design gets compacted.

Mark off where you want the strip to end for the size you pick. Actually cut it a little bigger so you have a place to glue it together to make the ring. There should be just a little overlap. Secure with 2 paper clips until the glue dries.

Here I glued three of mine together to make an interesting mobile.

This took less than one 80 minute period. They came out great and it was a good project to do early in the semester because even the 'nervous' artists were successful.

P.S. Don't even ask me why my fonts are different sizes and colors....as my student's say, " I didn't do it."

I don't have time to figure it out.......!

The Princess and the Pea....

This is so typical of my cat, Sophie. Everything has to be purrrfect for her. Always.

WHAT THE HECK IS THIS THING???

This is one of the cutest things I've ever seen, but I have no clue as to what it is??

Check out it's little fists.......

(sorry, I don't know how to get rid of the little pop up that appears at the bottom...)

Things my husband thinks are weird....that I do....

This morning I was asking hubby what I should make my new blog post about...

He said, “write about the weird things you do and eat...”

“What? (pause) Weird things? (another pause) (blink) I don’t do or eat anything weird....I’m sure I don’t know what you are talking about.”

He started laughing hysterically.

So here goes...(with his help, because I don’t see it this way...)

1. I eat sardine sandwiches. Sometimes. With mayo. And sometimes with onions.

2. I don’t like music. I tolerate the Beatles and Billy Joel just fine, actually most music from the 60’s and 70’s, but after that the music died. I find it very noisy and I don’t like noise.

I will drive in my car in silence many times....

3. My TV preferences: Ice Road Truckers, Deadliest Catch, and anything about food.

These days I’m watching old episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Hour on www.hulu.com.

HE has been caught watching episodes of Housewives of Orange County. 

4. For breakfast I have 2 slices of whole wheat toast with globs of low fat cottage cheese on it, garnished with walnut pieces and chunks of prunes. With green tea. 

(NOTE: I think this is the most unweird breakfast there is, but he doesn’t...)

5. If there’s no dessert in the house, I will pour chocolate syrup into a spoon, squirt whipped cream onto it and savor it. Then I will do it again.

5 1/2:  My husband says I’m somewhat ADD. I know I am, but these days it’s not weird anymore.

Example: I was looking for an image of cottage cheese for this post. I got a photo of an enormously fat person bending over with ‘cottage cheese’ thighs. (Look at your own risk) (You may be sorry...), then there was a link on the sidebar to Optical Illusion. I am going to do a unit in my art class on OP art, so natch, I clicked on it and got the above....... (He's the one that insisted I post it....) (I will NOT use this with my class.)

6. I won’t wear hats. My head and hats don’t match. No way, no how.

7. I hate the sound of bagpipes. And this has nothing to do with my dislike of music, which bagpipe players claim they are making. Fingers on the chalkboard to me.

(for the more daring blog readers, the alert ADD me found this....)

8. I try to clean the house. I clean things that the two other inhabitants in my house don’t even know ever, in a million years, would need cleaning. And then they mess it up. It’s not that they are slobs, not at all, they’re just not neatniks. I’m not either, but I like a certain order.

9. Expanding upon #8, my husband claims that once in a while I will stop what I’m doing, look around and say.....“I hate this! I hate this! I cleaned this house yesterday, and now look at it!”

It’s never dirty, I must admit. But it does have that lived in look sometimes, as my husband says.

Yeah, like 50 people live here!

10. My hair. I have fine, wavy to curly, blonde hair. Hair that humidity loves. I invented bad hair days. One iota of humidity curls up the tenderly straightened strands into  ‘every which way but loose’ concoctions. So I take all precautions not to get my hair wet unless I’m shampooing it. Plastic bags, newspapers ...... mostly hoods.

I cannot have a jacket without a hood. No hats. EVAH !! It’s my cross to bear....

 

That's it. I don't think any of it is weird. Can't be that weird. He still married me almost 35 years ago. Maybe HE'S weird.