The Mobile Sketchbook Tour & Oh so much more...

Last week I received an email that the Sketchbook tour was coming to a city near me, Buffalo. The problem...it was coming in 3 days and was from 5-9pm on a night where I taught class after work until 6pm.  Therefore I knew this was going to be a long day to begin with and then I'd have to drive 1.5 hours to Buffalo to see the mobile library and back again in same day.  I did a call out to some friends thinking that if I had some fun people to go with it may not be so rough. Luckily my friend Sarah was up for an adventure.

So after an all ready long day/week we headed out to downtown Buffalo on a beautiful Thursday evening. It was great to get some time with Sarah to check in on how life was going and we got to enjoy Fall time in Western, NY.  We made it to the mobile sketchbook library and spent some time checking out books.  There were some really talented artist and some other let's saying interesting sketchbooks.

After spending some time at the mobile library we went into the WNY Book Arts Center which was sponsoring the tour; http://wnybookarts.org.  This was an awesome store/arts center.  There was all kinds of homemade cards, screen prints, and book binding equipment. There was also altered books throughout the stores as decorations.  And to celebrate the sketchbook tour the store held a sketchbook making station. It was super cool.  They used scrap ink screen prints as the covers that you were able to choose from and showed you how to create a sketchbook by adding papers and binding the book together.

We left the event and completed our Buffalo adventure with going to The Pearl. Apparently this is a well known Buffalo brewery. I had the most amazing gouda cooked with beer soup and a wonderful chicken wrap. My friend had the most delicious looking turkey bacon sandwich on sour dough bread with french fries. Yummy!!!

We headed back in the opposite weather then when we left. It was down pouring and lightening for most of the return trip and we got back late but it was totally worth the long day. So glad we went!!! Thanks Sarah!!!!

Haunted Houses

My mom was in town this past weekend and I had purchased a groupon for the Dark Matter Charity Haunted House. The proceeds go to the Ronald McDonald house; https://www.facebook.com/pages/Dark-Matter-Charity-Haunted-House/158747210863168.  So although my mom and I went to the haunted house even though neither of us like horror/scary things.
The worst part perhaps was the 45min. wait outside when it was cold out and misting.  We froze!  But I guess it was worth it...in the sense that we were totally scared the entire time in the haunted house.  The actors and design of the house was very spooky. We screamed a lot, I dragged my mom a lot and she almost had a heart attack.  In the end, we survived but had to have some cookies and chocolate afterwords to relax. :)

Halloween Outfit

The goal of my Halloween outfit was to make sure I can run in it and that it can be transformed and last until actual Halloween.  I'm running in the Johnny's Run Like Hell 5k this Saturday to raise money for Camp Good Days. My mom is excited that she will be in town and can watch the race.  Perhaps the best part of this race is that it is literally around the corner from where I live. My friend Stephanie (and neighbor Bob's daughter) is also running the race so my mom will have company on the side lines.  It will be an interesting race because it is at 3pm which is a random time for a race but understandable when a bar is hosting the race as post race food and drinks is at the bar.

I searched and searched for a costume that I could run it, that would be inexpensive to make and that I could hopefully reuse when my friend comes in town for Halloween.  I decided on being the queen of hearts from the Alice in Wonderland Version.  I like that her back story is that her most spoken words were "Off with your head" yet no one ever was beheaded because her husband would secretly step in to save everyone.

I purchased all of the materials to make my outfit for $10. A couple of weeks ago I took my friend to Craft Bits & Pieces and purchased some red and black felt, black ribbon, and a fake rose.  Then we went to Saver's wear I purchased a black t-shirt and then we went to JoAnn Fabrics where I purchased some white, red and black tulle and thicker black ribbon.  That Sunday I set out to make the tutu skirt.  My pattern for the outfit was the picture below I found online.

Now what I can tell you is that tulle stinks to work with and no matter what I did it doesn't look picture perfect like this one does.  The tulle always bunches up and then the colors start to mix. Especially when you run and your arms rub against it and it twist while you run.  Oh well... the point is the outfit was cute, didn't cost much and it serves it's purpose. :)

Here's some race pics! I ended up trimming the dress shorter and changing the headpiece to a rose on a bobby pin.

I came in 2nd place in my new "older more mature" age group and surprisingly came in 10th overall for women.  There was a total of 308 runners.  I felt like I ran faster than I did. Oh well, it was still a wonderfully fun run.

Believe it or not it was a costume race but there was a lot of scrooges who didn't dress up.

Neighbor Bob, his daughter Stephanie that I run with, me and my mom.

Me getting my 2nd place trophy.

Experimenting with Acrylics and Epoxy Resin

Since this summer I've been seeing a lot of artwork that has a very polished finish look to it even though it's on canvas. This was beyond a gloss paint finish put on the canvas.  During First Fridays a month or so ago I finally got to ask an artist what the finish was and it turns out it's an epoxy resin that is put over top the finished painting to give the final product a high gloss finished look.

About 3 weeks ago I finally took the opportunity to experiment by trying out some new techniques.  I had been waiting for good weather to work outside but I finally gave up, laid down a huge tarp on my basement floor and got busy creating.

What I did:

1.  I took acrylic paint and paint sample cans (picking out my colors as I went along) and literally threw the paint down on the canvases.  Yes, paint splattered all over (hence the tarp). It was so much fun (even way better than splatter painting).

2. Once I had all of the paint thrown on I took a spray bottle full of rubbing alcohol and sprayed it all over the paint. You will see the paint start to bubble and separate.

3.  Then I picked up the canvas and hit one of the edges with some force against the tarp over and over again. I would turn the canvas and hit each other edge and would continue to spray the canvas with rubbing alcohol to help the paint flow.  I continued to do this method and occasionally stopped to throw on more paint until I was satisfied with the way the canvas looked.  This technique creates an awesome marbleized effect.

4.  I let the canvas completely dry. Then I purchased a two part epoxy resin from Michaels using a coupon.  I used a throw away plastic bowl and plastic throw away knife to mix the resin.

5.  I then poured the resin all over the canvas and used a foam brush to rub the resin so that it would cover the entire canvas.

6.  Then 5 min. later I had to breathe warm air over the little bubbles that formed on the canvas to get rid of them.

7. I left to dry over 48 hours and tada beautiful pieces of artwork were created.

*These top 4 pics were taken with the craptastic phone I have.

*These and the very top photo were taken with my camera. Note: It's difficult to take pics even with flash off of because of the glossy finish. The one below is hanging on my kitchen wall so it as a reflection in it no matter what I did.

**Here's some tips I learned along the way. The resin dried quickly on the new canvases but on the recycled canvases that had paper and other mixed media on them already it took weeks to completely dry.  I used sand in the biggest painting and I really liked the look of this and it didn't seem to affect drying time.  You could do a lot of experimenting with pouring the resin on unevenly and leaving some of the paint exposed. You could also experiment with creating layers using the resin, such as a coat of resin, paint, and then another layer of resin.  The toughest part is that the resin is a fairly expensive material even with a coupon and it doesn't stretch that far.  Also big note, use a newer tarp. Apparently mine was old and the protective coating was warn down. Hence when I finally went to pick up the tarp weeks later the paint had seeped right through the tarp and so had the resin stuff the tarp to the basement floor. Needless to say I'm in the not so fun process of repainting the basement floor!

A Week and Weekend Full of Celebrations

I'm lucky enough to share my birthday and surrounding days with amazing people. Over the past 1.5 weeks I've gotten to celebrate my sister's and friends Teresa, Sarah, and Marcy's birthdays.  I've also met about 5 other people with my same birthday, but not my year. ;)  The cool part is that I got to celebrate all week long!  Here's how it all went down:

As mentioned in last week's post I got to enjoy the Fall weather for about the first time on a beautiful day at a local park for my friend's 40th birthday. Then my family came up to celebrate for a day.  During the week my co-workers had a cheese/cracker and strawberry treat for me, and Thursday I went out to Veritas Wine Bar with a friend for a glass of wine and cheese platter.  Thursday night my friend Christopher surprised me with a mini peanut butter cream pie on my door step and Friday we celebrated my friend Sarah's birthday with pot luck dinner party with our friends. Saturday Marcy and I headed to Glow in the Dark Mini Golf http://www.opryglowgolf.com/lo_Rochester.htm and later went to see a band at a Murph's. We then met up on Sunday for Sky Zone trampoline fun http://www.skyzone.com.

One thing I learned; at 35 y/o while I have the energy and skills to do all of these physical endeavors I should maybe not go quite so hard all of the time.  Yoga, an hour at Skyzone. mowing the lawn and running a mile was enough to put me over the top. I could barely walk for the next 2 days!

Fringe Fest and Photofinish 5k

Last week and weekend was pretty crazy. It seemed like a whirlwind but there was a lot of fun to had.  Here's the low down on what went on:

1.  My friends convinced me to run the Rochester George Eastman Photofinish 5k race.  It was at 8am on a Saturday morning. While I was kicking my friends for dragging me out of bed when I wanted to sleep in, I ended up being very grateful to them for talking me into participating in the run.

It was a beautiful fall morning and there was 1,201 runners. This was a philanthropic event that has raised 1 million dollars in the past 4 years that goes back to the Rochester community to support local non profit organizations.

There were many inspiring runners including a small boy in the wheelchair division who melted my heart. Unfortuately my competitive streak came out. Mostly I wanted to redeem myself from my poor performance from the Bagel run. I had been working on speed running for the past 2 weeks in order to prep.  My goal ended up being to meet a tiny 7 y/o girl who was booking it.  I didn't run past her until the last quarter of a mile and then only because I made myself sprint to the finish line. I ended up beating her but only by 10 sec.. I was satisfied with my time though...23.26.  I wouldn't have done that well though if she hadn't been there to motivate me.  I placed 94th out of 1,201 runners so not bad for a woman turning 35.

The post race snacks were great and perhaps the best part was the photo booth that they had for free. You could get together with friends before or after the race and take 3 poses that were shot and printed out for you right there on the spot. This was super fun. I liked having the memento from the race because I don't run with my phone and often times never get a pic of the run.

**Next race: Johnny's Run Like Hell Costume run in mid-October.

2.  I splurged for my birthday and scheduled a 50min. massage at Onondaga School of Therapeutic Massage for Saturday afternoon following a friend's birthday party.  I ended up getting a call Fri. evening that there was a late cancellation and so they offered me a 100 min. massage for the same price of $30!! I definitely said YES!  I ended up with the most amazing massage 2 hour massage because they still ended up going over by 20 min.!!!

3. Saturday evening I met a friend for dinner and then we ended to one of the last Fringe Fest events.  We went to see PUSH Physical Theatre at the Eastman School of Music. I was partially excited because I had never actually been to Eastman.  This ended up being quite the adventure. The theatre we were in was king of small and it felt worse than airplane seating.  I had a really tall bleached blond older man next to me who ended up taking off his sandals, sitting cross legged so his stinky feet touched my thigh the entire time and my friend ended up with an intoxicated middle aged woman who's cell phone went off not once but twice during the performance.  All we could do was laugh about it afterwords!!  As for the performance...it wasn't like either of us expected or thought it to be. Some of the stories we didn't quite get the point of and we though the physical aspect of the performance would have been more like their last performance but throughout the hour.  The narrator which was the co-founder spoke in between performances and he did tell pretty funny stories so I felt like there was a bit of a comedy routine/life lessons throughout.

Following the performance we stepped out onto Gibbs street and saw some street performances including live music and a magician. We had dessert while walking. We then went our separate ways and I moved on to Writers & Books to view the Word Art performance called Love Letters. This was a combination of the Love Rochester blog (where you write a love letter about Rochester via a blog post or a postcard) and then they projected the messages onto the outer wall of Writer's and Books.  Music played in the background and wine and cookies were served. I thought this was a really neat concept but wished more people had turned out for the event.

4. Sunday morning I finally made it back to yoga! And I went with my brand new lulu lemon yoga mat. My awesome friend Libby surprised me and sent me this mat for my birthday. I never ever would have spent the money or asked for something this luxurious but man did it feel great doing yoga on that mat.

5. Sunday continued to be an awesome day. It was an amazingly beautiful fall day. My parents and grandma came up to celebrate my birthday. My mom made me my favorite chicken dish and chocolate zucchini cake with chocolate ice cream. They also brought me flowers. My dad helped me with some home projects and unfortunately cut his hand pretty bad right at the end. He refused to go to urgent care for stitches so I sent him home all bandaged up with a splint on his finger. :(

6. I finally received the final ATC card from the community swap. This was the first swap that I received all of the cards back!