Cat Squares, 4

Posted on February 18, 2019 by

I am thinking these may be a little book…
with funny stories attached…  What do you think?


6. PURPLE MOUSE’S MAJESTY

Savitri loves purple.
All her favorite toys are purple, but Purple Mouses Majesty
is a perfect combination of color, long dangling tail, and rattling beans inside.

Purple Mouses Majesty has visited Mouse Hospital many times
for a new tail or belly surgery.

She does not share him.

To hear about classes, follow me on Facebook
or check out my new, improved dkatiepowellart.com

“Memory is more indelible than ink.”
Anita Loos, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.
“I think not….”
Me… why I journal!

 Hahnemühle D & S Sketchbook,
Platinum Carbon Pen with Platinum Carbon ink waterproof cartridges,
Daniel Smith Watercolors.

 

 ©D. Katie Powell.
My images/blog posts may be reposted; please link back  to dkatiepowellart.

☾

W14 4 27 WC PALMS PAT SQAs my Patreon supporter, you will have
access to some content not on this website,
sneak previews, goodies, discounts on classes.

I teach architectural sketching,
art journaling (art+writing), creativity, watercolors.
That annoying loud-mouth editor/critic in your head?  GONE!  How great would that be?

Posted in animals, art journal, creativity, drawing, memory, ritual, series, watercolor | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

SoCS: Yawn

Posted on February 16, 2019 by

I  journal and do morning stream of consciousness exercises, and
I’m again participating in Linda Hill’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday. 
I write to a timer, 15-20 minutes, no editing except spelling, and of course I add my art!
You can do it too!
Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “yawn.”

yawn.
sitting at the acupuncturists waiting for mitchell because he ca fall asleep
with needles in him and i did for the first time that day but not for long…
some part of me always says, “needles!” and i wake.
i’ve never slept so much nor been so tired since my mom died.
i am an insomniac but have been sleeping 5-7 hours easily
and if it is not a work day can do a few more after moving about to
shake the pain out of my body…
so tired all the time, yawning in front of the puter when i am writing.
crazy tired.  hoping that there is still recovery in this and i’ve not slipped some
sleep switch where i need 10 hours because that is never going to happen.
i’ve done 4-6 hours most of my life and now my body says moooore sleeep!

that’s all i got.
yawn didn’t take me anywhere.
not yet anyway but the timer’s not gone off so maybe cats sleeping long hours
and they can sleep on the most uncomfortable surfaces.
we have a small washing machine at the studio for textiles towels and
the like and the top of it slopes and usually has the trappings of the hoses and cords that get plugged in when in use tied to one side of it and they sleep on that thing for hours.
SLANTED.  BUMPY.

that all i got.

Here are the rules, as posted on Linda’s blog;  feel free to join the fun!

1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing (typos can be fixed), and minimal planning on what you’re going to write.

2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence – one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry – it doesn’t matter. Just let the words carry you along until you’re ready to stop.

3. I will post the prompt here on my blog every Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say “Write about dogs”; the prompt will be more like, “Make your first sentence a question,” “Begin with the word ‘The,’” or will simply be a single word to get you started.

4. Ping back! It’s important, so that I and other people can come and read your post! For example, in your post you can write “This post is part of SoCS:” and then copy and paste the URL found in your address bar at the top of this post into yours. Your link will show up in my comments for everyone to see. The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top. NOTE: Pingbacks only work from WordPress sites. If you’re self-hosted or are participating from another host, such as Blogger, please leave a link to your post in the comments below.

5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read all of them! If you’re the first person to link back, you can check back later or go to the previous week by following my category, “Stream of Consciousness Saturday,” which you’ll find below the “Like” button on my post.

To hear about classes, follow me on Facebook
or check out my new, improved dkatiepowellart.com.

“Memory is more indelible than ink.” Anita Loos, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.
“I think not….”  Me… why I journal!

 ©D. Katie Powell.
My images/blog posts may be reposted; please link back  to dkatiepowellart.

☾

W14 4 27 WC PALMS PAT SQAs my Patreon supporter, you will have
access to some content not on this website,
sneak previews, goodies, discounts on classes.

I teach architectural sketching,
art journaling (art+writing), creativity, watercolors.
That annoying loud-mouth editor/critic in your head?  GONE!  How great would that be?

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Hari-Gibbs-Fred Meets the Horses!

Posted on February 16, 2019 by


We set up the studio so the cats have a little more run time when they are in the studio.
*okay, truth be told they get under our feet sometimes
and this gives them a whole lotta space*
They can “explore the floor”
*that is what we call it when we tell them they can go “out”*
run around and chase each other in one door and out the other…
the hallway is their bowling alley.

But Hari-Gibbs-Fred went a little further…
He scurried between my legs into the  “stable” here the carousel horses live.

OOPS!  Caught in the Act!


“What is this room?”

Up onto one of the treatment tables next to Terri, the American Beauty Rose horse.
He was amazed and delighted with the carousel horses!
His eyes lit up, his tail perked and waggled…
He spent the next half-hour walking around making bread into the floor!

Now our biggest problem is they want back into the room…
They sit at the door and wail to go in!
We’ve created monsters!

*but we think everyone should have cats at work*

 

To hear about classes, follow me on Facebook
or check out my new, improved dkatiepowellart.com

“Memory is more indelible than ink.”
Anita Loos, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.
“I think not….”
Me… why I journal!

Hahnemühle Nostalgie Sketchbook, Pilot Metropolitan with Super5 Frankfurt ink,
Jinhao with Goulet 1.1 stub nib and Super5 Frankfurt ink,
White Uniball Signo, Da Vinci, Sennelier, Holbein, and Daniel Smith watercolors.

 ©D. Katie Powell.
My images/blog posts may be reposted; please link back  to dkatiepowellart.

☾

W14 4 27 WC PALMS PAT SQAs my Patreon supporter, you will have
access to some content not on this website,
sneak previews, goodies, discounts on classes.

I teach architectural sketching,
art journaling (art+writing), creativity, watercolors.
That annoying loud-mouth editor/critic in your head?  GONE!  How great would that be?

Posted in art journal, creativity, drawing, ink painting, journal, painting, pen & ink, process, sketchbook, watercolor, writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Nataraj

Posted on February 15, 2019 by


Nataraj and a whole lotta crazy journaling.

My mojo went missing.
Nataraj danced it back into my fingers!

Killing winter with orange!


“In order to be brave we must trust
that underneath it all there is
sanity and openness.”  Sakyong Mipham

To hear about classes, follow me on Facebook
or check out my new, improved dkatiepowellart.com

“Memory is more indelible than ink.”
Anita Loos, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.
“I think not….”
Me… why I journal!

Hahnemühle Nostalgie Sketchbook,
Pilot Metropolitan with De Atramentis Tobacco ink,
Pilot Metropolitan with Robert Oster’s Motor Oil ink,
Edison Nouveau 1.1 stub nib with KWZ Grapefruit ink,
TWSBI Eco 1.1 with Robert Oster Australian Sky Blue ink.

 

 ©D. Katie Powell.
My images/blog posts may be reposted; please link back  to dkatiepowellart.

☾

W14 4 27 WC PALMS PAT SQAs my Patreon supporter, you will have
access to some content not on this website,
sneak previews, goodies, discounts on classes.

I teach architectural sketching,
art journaling (art+writing), creativity, watercolors.
That annoying loud-mouth editor/critic in your head?  GONE!  How great would that be?

Posted in art journal, drawing, ink painting, journal, painting, pen & ink, process, sketchbook, watercolor, writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

zenkatwrites: Family

Posted on February 14, 2019 by

I cry all the time watching Blue Bloods…
I cry at the Reagan Family.
I want a little of what they’ve got.

Tonight when it ended I thought about how my family was so very “fuck-ed-up-ed”
*channeling my baby brother with that one*

Sometimes I wonder if I’d have more family if I hadn’t done
what it took to make myself feel better about me…
I was unhappy with my person.
When I put my foot on the path, it was a Buddhist path
because the words in some of the books spoke to me about a sanity I didn’t have,
and at the time I didn’t even have to deal with G-O-D…
*bad catholic experience, finally got over it, another story*
There was this wonderful place, a temple called the Bodhi Tree on Melrose…
There was an honesty in the books, and that honesty was lacking in my family.
*okay, maybe not totally but damn, you could not begin to make sense of
what was true and what wasn’t so do not even get me started.
My belly laugh came when I realized that maybe NOTHING
I’d been told by anyone was true —
so I had only my eyes and ears and the present moment to rely upon*

So it started with Buddhism and letting go of G-O-D
*i came back to that later another story, i promise*
for a present truth that was what I could handle.

Then I got sober.
*wow that put a crimp in family dinners*
When I wasn’t being offered another drink I was being told that this
silliness was another fad.  And so it is, 30 years later.

But AA and Buddhism did NOT tell me one thing that was true,
which was that I was going to be on a lonely path with not a lot of friends along the way.
They didn’t tell me that how to deal with the peeps
who didn’t want to glimpse their own problems, and that even if
you didn’t talk to them about their problems or even give a crap about their problems
they projected that you had an opinion about their problems and walked away!

*i could buy  a whole lotta paints if i had a dollar for everyone
who projected my disdain or my thoughts about their issues when in fact
i had no thoughts at all about them*

So, I miss having family… and I include family you choose and your birth family.
I give thanks for Mitchell and the cats.
I give thanks for Mitchell and the cats.
I give thanks for Mitchell and the cats.

I long for the Reagan family… the dinners, yes,
but more that people care about each other,
and when they fight they work through it.
They come back, they make amends, they know that love is a verb.

Wishing lots of love for everyone today and always!

To hear about classes, follow me on Facebook
or check out my new, improved dkatiepowellart.com

“Memory is more indelible than ink.”
Anita Loos, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.
“I think not….”
Me… why I journal!

 ©D. Katie Powell.
My images/blog posts may be reposted; please link back  to dkatiepowellart.

☾

W14 4 27 WC PALMS PAT SQAs my Patreon supporter, you will have
access to some content not on this website,
sneak previews, goodies, discounts on classes.

I teach architectural sketching,
art journaling (art+writing), creativity, watercolors.
That annoying loud-mouth editor/critic in your head?  GONE!  How great would that be?

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Painting George

Posted on February 13, 2019 by


We have a lot of creatives in my family.
My mom wanted to be an actress and took acting classes.
*i can hear my baby brother laughing because she did a good job acting all her life*
My baby brother was a frustrated songwriter and piano-man.
My grandmother did every type of needlework, as did her mom,
and they went beyond the craft into the expressive forms.

But nobody “made” it….
Hence we’ve always thought there was a family curse.


I have tried selling my art for 20 years.
I finally had to admit, yuppers, family curse…

But then yesterday Mitchell pointed out that my art is going to hang on the wall
of the grand Reception Room of the Washington State Legislative Building.
I am doing the replacement flag of the historic first flag!

Maybe the family curse is broken!

TEST ON SILK

To hear about classes, follow me on Facebook
or check out my new, improved dkatiepowellart.com

“Memory is more indelible than ink.”
Anita Loos, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.
“I think not….”
Me… why I journal!

Hahnemühle Nostalgie Sketchbook, Fineline Masking Fluid,
Lamy Vista with Monteverde Californian Teal,
Platinum Carbon Pen with Platinum Carbon ink waterproof cartridges.

 

 ©D. Katie Powell.
My images/blog posts may be reposted; please link back  to dkatiepowellart.

☾

W14 4 27 WC PALMS PAT SQAs my Patreon supporter, you will have
access to some content not on this website,
sneak previews, goodies, discounts on classes.

I teach architectural sketching,
art journaling (art+writing), creativity, watercolors.
That annoying loud-mouth editor/critic in your head?  GONE!  How great would that be?

Posted in art journal, creativity, drawing, ink painting, journal, painting, pen & ink, process, sketchbook, watercolor, writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

zenkatwrites: Why Sketch?

Posted on February 12, 2019 by

There are a few artists I follow because I love their work or their passion.
A few because I love them, or love what they say about art.
One because I can’t quite figure out why she has a huge following.

The latter I keep my eye on but rarely visit.
She draws the same thing every day.
She doesn’t do it because that is her passion —
as in, “I want to explore 100 hearts… I want to know about heart-ness.”
It is an exercise for her, like going to the gym.
*i hate the gym.  i’d rather dance.*
She talks about it keeping her in shape, like she is flexing a muscle.
I guess that is true, though I would say that if I was to do that
I’d still want to draw interesting things around me,
and throw in things I hadn’t drawn before
because if I know how to draw that-unnamed-object
*you would know who if i named it*
then I know how to draw that-unnamed-object and it is not really a stretch.

Because of the juxtaposition of Alicia Golden of Making Handmade Books asking:
“When Is It Craft? When Is It Art? Exhibits at SFMOMA”
and another week of the artist who draws the same thing daily,
I have to ask myself, why?
Why make sketches of familiar things you are not that interested in for the exercise of it?
*i heard no answer from the great art-universe so i took a look at myself*
What makes me want to sketch in a journal?

My story…
I tell our stories, of the cats and where we live and what we experienced,
of my creative urges and thoughts,
of surviving my family, and living to love them which is hard to do — loving cacti.
I don’t care so much about drawing the city I live in on sketch at a time —
unless it happens to be part of my story — though I understand that joy.
I want to tell the story of our lives, to delve in and see
what makes us happy and sad and crazy and
it helps me to reflect on what is real.

“Memory is more indelible than ink.”
Anita Loos, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.
“I think not….”
Me… why I journal!

I’m not a sketcher-person but a journal person who sketches.

I also look at my favorite blogging friends, and why I love reading them…
they are telling their stories.  Because I followed their stories I became friends
with some of them, though I didn’t set out to do so.
Modern day pen pals of a sort…

To hear about classes, follow me on Facebook
or check out my new, improved dkatiepowellart.com

“Memory is more indelible than ink.”
Anita Loos, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.
“I think not….”
Me… why I journal!

 ©D. Katie Powell.
My images/blog posts may be reposted; please link back  to dkatiepowellart.

☾

W14 4 27 WC PALMS PAT SQAs my Patreon supporter, you will have
access to some content not on this website,
sneak previews, goodies, discounts on classes.

I teach architectural sketching,
art journaling (art+writing), creativity, watercolors.
That annoying loud-mouth editor/critic in your head?  GONE!  How great would that be?

Posted in challenge, creativity, ink painting, pen & ink, writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments