Accents, a story

Today while watching Sharon of All Norah'S Art talk about class supplies, I found myself getting tickled over her words and mannerism's; she's always a delight to read or watch and listen to. There were several comments made about her cute Texas accent and pronunciation of certain words. So it brings back memories of accent and speech problems I've had along my merry way through different sections of the states. I've been from Upper Michigan to Illinois, Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, Arizona and Wisconsin; so I now have my own mixed accents and mixed way of speech!
I was born and raised in the U. P. of Michigan. That's the Upper Peninsula of Michigan,  mostly along Lake Superior and lake Michigan, too. It's the part of Northern Michigan that people tend to think is Canada or part of Wisconsin. Nope, we're YOOPERS, folks in Michigan who live ABOVE the Mackinac bridge. According to Yoopers, those who live BELOW the bridge in Lower Michigan are TROLLS. Ya, you know, those little guys who live under the bridge in the Fairy tale. Some like to say that we talk like in the movie, "Fargo", but really we don't! Close maybe, but not that bad, hey?
When I first married, we left the U.P. en-route to Texas but ended up living in Illinois. Now you wouldn't think there's much of a change from the U.P. to down in Illinois toward Chicago. That's when I first discovered I had an accent! I never knew! The first question after meeting someone was, "so you must be from Canada, hey? NO, really? Well then you must be from way up there in Minnesota!
No? Upper Michigan, the U.P., really? I always thought that was part of Canada, you talk like a Canadian." Really? Well, Illinoisans have accents, too. It's just a tad more modified and toned down from Yoopers. I lived in Illinois just long enough that I thought I was toning down the Yooper accent.
While still in Illinois, I went through my 1st divorce and later met and married a guy from ALABAMA. I took the new husband to my hometown in the U.P. in the Winter to meet my family. That visit is a story on it's own. Let's just say that he had my siblings and the whole neighborhood in stitches, laughing over his speech, accent and antics playing in the snow. I mean, he had seen snow but never heaps of snow! Here's a sample: On the way to the golf course to go sledding, we stopped in town to buy a cheap sled or coaster. It was a like a thick piece of plastic that you could roll up for storage. My hometown is on a steep hill, so you learn to park accordingly and you learn the penguin way of walking in the Winter so you don't slide all the way down Main street on your keister. We come out of the hardware store and he says he's going to try that coaster on the sidewalk and slide down to the car. "NOooooo! Don't do that", I yell, as he sits on that slippery piece of plastic and takes off. OMG! A minute later he has flown off the sidewalk and is wedged under a parked car! People, after seeing he's OK, are standing there laughing their butts off, as he exclaims, "Well, ah declare! Ah didn't know it was gone take off like that!!" Whoowee what a ride!"  We get him out from under the car and we head to my Grandma's house which sits by a tee-off on a high hill on the golf course, making it the favorite place for kids in town to go sledding. It's a nice sunny day and the hill is crowded as we trudge up and stand in line awaiting our turn to slide down. Now again, CJ doesn't bother to wait and listen to me, nope, he unfolds that piece of plastic, jumps on and away he goes! This time the yell is, "Y'all look out!! Move Y'all!! Whoa, Y'all look out!!!", as he literally flies down the hill, scattering kids and adults in his path. He comes to a halt in my Grandma's yard, up under the clothes lines. Grandma is in the kitchen window, shaking her head and laughing. I am red faced and refuse to go back up the hill after running down to make sure he stays put. I worry for the safety of the kids who are all laughing and pointing to the crazy "hillbilly guy" who just cleared the hill and went for a heck of a ride. It was also during this week end that I learned the difference in what things are called. We had a local hill for sledding near our Location ( a Location is a number of houses together in a country spot, we had 15 houses). The sledding path was cleared of trees, but was very bumpy as it was on a small bluff and along the sides and at the bottom were trees. Once again, he's on that coaster and still not waiting to learn how to use your body to steer or your feet for brakes. Down he flies, catching good air over the bumps and at the end of the run, realizing he's out of room, starts to tumble and crashes to a stop in a patch of brush and pickers. He struggles up, brushing off snow and then says, "Aw man, I got briers stuck on my a**!" The kids are just doubled over laughing as he tries to remove the 'pickers' from his sleeves and pants, which are now also torn down the back seam! The kids want to know what a 'Brier' is because we call the burrs 'Pickers'. To this day when we have get togethers we laugh over the week end CJ came home with me.
I moved with CJ from Illinois to Alabama, to Tennessee and Mississippi! I learned real quick to just keep my mouth shut and try not to talk while straining to listen and figure out what all the folks were saying to me! They would do anything to get me to speak and then squeal in laughter! I had to learn real fast that you didn't ask for milk; it was sweet milk or butter milk but not just milk. Tea wasn't ice tea and there was no such thing as a cup of tea (hot tea)....it was Sweet Tea, which is actually too sweet, iced tea that you brew and then make in a gallon jar! Coffee was the same, thank goodness, except when I eventually went to New Orleans and took the offer of a cup of coffee. After spitting out the first sip, I learned what Chicory coffee was! I also learned that my POP was soda, sody pop or coke; mainly that you got a bottle of RC cola, emptied a bag of salted peanuts into it and drank it along with a Moon Pie or pack of peanut butter crackers for a snack.  And, oh boy, cornbread was a trick! Now up here in the North, cornbread is yellow and sweet, cut into squares, like cake. CJ said I never made the cornbread when I cooked, so to please him, I made cornbread one evening for supper. He asked "why" I made CAKE and served it with our meal? Took a while to catch on that cornbread is white, no sugar is added and it's cooked in a black cast iron skillet and cut into wedges to be used to push veggies and greens (a whole 'nother story) onto your fork.....or you take a bite of onion, take the wedge and get a forkful of food, and then a bite of cornbread. The left over bread is saved and when you want a snack, you go get a slab of that bread, crumble it into a tall glass of sweet milk or butter milk and spoon it out! My daughter thinks it's a wonderful snack.....I still refuse to do that!! I learned, too, that a meal can be a plate of veggies and greens or peas and greens with cornbread and not meat and potatoes!!
Anyway, I could continue on for days about accents and different words and ways of doing things. MY FIL at that time always called me "Yankee" and delighted in laughing over my accent and ways. I live back near home now after a long time in the South but my daughter is a true Southern Belle and has remained in the South all of her life except for a short time when I brought her to "da U.P." and attempted to make her into a Yooper. My brother and a friend came down to Alabama and picked us (my daughter and I) up. During the long trip back home, the two guys tried to teach DD how to talk Yooper! We laughed 'til we cried teaching her how to speak: the alphabet... A,eh...B,eh....C,eh....D,eh! She let them bring her through the alphabet several times and then she looks at my brother all serious and says, OK, y'all, I get it! And do the animals go.... moo,eh.....meow,eh....tweet tweet,eh? That was when my brother learned my little Southern Belle was a step ahead of him! She was a instant hit at school, sort of. All the teachers adored her accent when they could understand her and she had all the little boys swooning over her, making it a bit hard to befriend the girls! It all worked out but in the end she opted to go back to the South. Coming to the cold U.P. was too much of a change for her to handle.
Now she calls me and I still have to ask her to repeat things because she definitely has that Southern drawl!!! Her favorite trick is to get me to talking and then put me on speaker for her friends to hear her Yankee mother!!

Poppies Revisted

Today I went back and tried to do more to the poppy piece. I guess I did improve on it somewhat but it just isn't pleasing me. I made a mistake early on with charcoal and it just wasn't a mistake that I know how to overcome, I guess. I did want more of the checkered background to show through and around the poppies but it's just too dulled and the layers hid most of it. But once again I'll show it because it is what it is. Sooner or later I'm going to learn from all these mistake pieces and make one darn good art piece that I like!....sheesh....

I added the butterfly, bumble bee and more flowers, a bit more color here and there; the additions are all ripped from napkins.

Journal Pages, maybe

I'm still working on these pages just a little at a time as I watch TV and such. These are more of the pages that I ripped out of a notebook I had started some journal pages in. So eventually these will get holes punched and be put together in a binder of some sort. I play on them and then set the page to the side until I pick them back up and decide what else I can do on them. Each page started out with 3 small notebook pages glued together. This is the same piece I made the bookmark from. Just thought I'd show a few that are nearly done....I think. More pages of learning what and what not to do.

This one has layers of torn wallpaper and music pages, metallic paints, a napkin for the bunch of grapes and a Alice graphic from a decoupage sheet. I just add writing lines with charcoal or a marker and then wipe most of it back off.

This one started out as a pocket page so I left it as a pocket and just re-glued it. It may need some sewing or staples or something. This has a couple different wall paper pieces, acrylic paints, markers, glitter, torn script and a graphic of a stone angel. I think this is done, although a little butterfly might find it's way to the roses.

Not really room for writing on this page, it's just for keeping notes or a surprise.

This one wrinkled when I was gluing it but I kept it anyway. It's a torn piece of wall paper, music sheet, acrylic paint and the graphic with a touch of markers. I might leave this one alone, now. That's it for tonight! Just thought I'd post something twice today to make up for the days I don't get on here! I think clicking on the picture will bring it up bigger.

Background Play

In Sharon's (All Norah'S Art) Faces class we're just getting used to navigating on Ning, getting to know the delightful members, beginning to learn ways to make backgrounds using security envelopes and napkins, and getting needed supplies before the class actually starts. So last night I pulled out a piece of 5x7 flat canvas board and made a background. I managed to get carried away "playing" and sort of over did the canvas, losing much of the checkered security envelope detail I wanted to show through but that was the least of the mistakes. I'm still going to do more on this later, this is just the background and it awaits either painting a face or maybe collage type things on top. We'll see.

This starts with Lascaux Perlacryl paint in 3 or 4 colors swiped on the canvas. Then a layer of torn checkered security envelopes and a few pieces of torn script and music sheets, a bit more paint and then pink peony flowers ripped from a napkin, some colorful swirls cut from scraps and then poppies ripped from another napkin. Lastly a few pieces of copper metallic thread and stamped dots. I nearly completely lost the swirls because of too much layering (I doubled some of the pink flowers as they were too light...so I thought). I then had the not too bright idea to rub the swirls with charcoal to help define the edges in spots even if I had lost the color. That was the major mistake....I knew the charcoal would smear and I still went ahead with it rather than simply reach over for something else. It's still not bad, just not what I intended at all. Art is like that and play leads to learning.....if you heed the lessons learned!

My Book Pile

I've been busy still trying to declutter the art room in order to make more room for different clutter! I am making headway, just slowly. On a small shelf next to my chair was a stack of books and so I took the pile down to see what all was there. It was a stack that I spent last Winter with and many days out on the deck last Summer.

I had a horrid case of Cellulitis in my leg (actually both legs) and ended up from late Fall until late Spring in bed or doing couch duty, staying off the legs. So I ordered these books and along with these were also numerous Cloth Paper Scissors, Somerset Studio's, other various how-to art books and sketch books, pens and pencils and last but not least always a novel or 2 to read and a book for Found Words! There was barely room for myself and tiny doggy to get in that bed and I always had to unload it each night! The pages of these books are all marked and dog-earred although I can't say I did DO any art to show from them. I think it was a matter of too much all at one time. My mind flowed from one idea to the next and couldn't settle on any one thing for very long. About the time I thought I decided what to try, a new book would come and I'd start all over again. So, in one of the books I found this scrap of paper as a bookmark along with many other scraps starting supply lists! In one of the books I had come across a exercise of drawing with your LEFT hand. Right! Hard enough to learn with the right, let alone the left. So, in still trying to be brave and showing the bad, I scanned this scrap and thought I'd show it. Using my left hand is hard enough but trying it while sitting in bed surrounded by piles of books and a dog is another thing!

Give it a try sometime! It's so hard but fun.

The main books by my side were: COLLAGE JOURNEYS (a practical guide to creating personal artwork) by Jane Davies, TAKING FLIGHT (Inspiration and Techniques to give your Creative Spirit Wings) by Kelly Rae Roberts, MIXED MEDIA SELF-PORTRAITS (Inspiration and Techniques) by Cate Coulacos Prato, COMPLETE GUIDE TO ALTERED IMAGERY (mixed-media techniques for collage, altered books, artist journals, and more) and right at the end came Somerset APPRENTICE! Of course, there's still other books waiting in my Amazon Wish list but I'd say if you want any books to get started, these I listed are just awesome and I can't really pick a favorite.

Part of decluttering in the art room is having to get rid of years of painting publications (how-to & patterns). I have toted these magazines with me from state to state and town to town. I sat last night going through 5 containers, leafing through each magazine. Each one, all the way back into the early 80's brought memories of where I was and my life at the time, good and bad, happy and sad. I even lamented the books and supplies I had to leave behind a time or two! It took all evening but I do have a bare spot on the media shelves and a huge box is filling to be given away because I just cannot throw these items away.

Even if I don't use my books or supplies every day, just sitting and being surrounded by them make me happy and give a sense of well being. Do these things do this for you?

Charcoal & Stuff....

Once again I haven't had anything much to show and I've been busy with the clutter and getting ready for those much anticipated classes that I dearly need; I'll even show proof of that!
I did get signed up for the Shades of Grey and finally got signed up for the Faces class with Sharon/Norah'S; I still have the Fantasy Folded Altered Book class going and my book is feeling very very neglected and I also have a class at the Junk Art Queen's Society (also on Ning) for painting a Rooster which is still waiting in the wings. I just wanted to get my art spaces cleared and in some sort of order before I start. Otherwise I'll end up trying to work on everything at once in one place and really get myself into a bind. I just still have a problem going into the art room to work on clutter cleaning and not sitting down and playing with something! It's a horrid habit and I can't stop it! I did make some headway, however, and when I find my camera I might show a picture. I wonder if someone 'borrowed' my camera and it's out in the shop? H'mmmm.
The other day, Emelie from here http://emeliesartandsuch.blogspot.com/ talked about trying her hand at charcoal for the first time and was brave enough to post a picture (which wasn't bad at all). So I got out the NEW charcoal pencils I just got and some of the pencils I've had here and never touched except for some outlining, one of my small practice sketch books and had them ready. As it always happened, I was watching my Thursday night must-see TV shows and my hand reached for the nearest things which was the charcoal and book. So I played, giving the TV and sketch book half attention each. Not that full attention to charcoal would've done any good! Anyway, I started to sketch 2 different faces and they weren't really too awful for a first ever try. BUT, then I decided to try and fix them and they got worse and then even worse! You know what happens if you try to mess with eyes or lips after they're already drawn and have a touch of ink also? On top of that, I had never worked with anything using eraser for highlights etc., either. That's a new trick! And I was getting the charcoal smudged all over the place! Again, I was going to just toss these and not let anyone see but what the heck, if Emelie can do it, I can, too. It did dawn on me that it's only in my mind ( a scary place) that I can hear people laughing and making rude comments. Might as well show them and then I have a beginning shown to compare when I post pictures of improvements!! Right? So here goes:

See those eyes, well, you can't miss them can you? The more I tried to fix them the bigger and worse they got! She looks like she belongs on the Edward Gorey site  http://goreydetails.net/home.php for sure! We won't mention the ears, her see-through shirt neck or anything else, either. Right?

Now,  she's not as bad as the first but again, she didn't start out as bad but when I tried to make corrections to the eyes and other things it just kept getting worse so I quit. I can see that me, charcoal and eyes will be having a battle! I better learn better pencil and paint first and leave the charcoal for outlining and such.

I'm off to search for that camera.....

Classes

I decided that this year I would finally take some on-line classes and try to learn a thing or 2 or 3. Funds are way short so I have to be choosy even though I'd like to take a whole bunch.
I signed up already on Ning for one painting class which I haven't done yet for lack of the right supplies, I just ordered supplies and will sign up for the Shades of Grey with Pam Carriker as soon as my package arrives. And then this Friday will sign up to take the new class with Sharon of All Norah'S Art. Yes, the much anticipated class is about to unfold and in her honor for all her diligent hard work answering our pleas for a class, I've even changed my music to go along with her blog post announcing the class!! Wanna-be face painters are dancing in their seats in anticipation!!! The gang's all here......roll out the barrel!!
Go here:  http://allnorahsart.blogspot.com/
Go here:  http://www.pamcarriker.com/