Ten things and five things and five more


10 things - paint
Originally uploaded by Kel_eh
I needed a porous green for a Gocco background. I wanted the ink to sink right in. "Watercolours" I thought, and tried my twinkling H20s which turned out prettily, but not the shade I wanted. So I went to get a little bit of green watercolour and the tube was rock hard. Happily though this launched me back into the mindframe for Carla's 10 things project. So out with 10 tubes of paint that I haven't used in years.
Tip: for those of you without a clutter problem you can still use dried watercolour by (carefully) cutting open the tube and treating the hardened paint like pan watercolours. I however have a serious clutter problem and have to find a home for the Gocco and its ink.

The five things come from heart and mind of gratitude. Liz does this often and it always inspires me. Yesterday's five:
- working with a school that values me enough that it created a job for me to fit my desire for more balance and space in my life
- friends that not only accept my eccentricities but value them
- family that I love so fiercely
- all the trees in London, especially
- early spring blossom

Today I am grateful for:
- my gentle, encouraging, funny husband,
- my abundance of art supplies
- the human connections made possible by the internet
- the chance to go to Artfest
- flannel pajamas and knitted afghans
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Gocco is here!

I was away over the weekend at our lovely, lovely friends in Wiltshire. I was helping my god-daughter earn her Brownie art badge (details here if you're interested). It was a weekend of beautiful weather and long conversations and laughter and oboe practice and wine and walking by the canal. We only got back on Monday.

We were excited because the Gocco was due to arrive by today... and it did! I did a little sketch and managed to burn the screen to print it before going to work, but had to wait to take prints from it when I got home. So here it is, my first Gocco print. I am so glad that I have more ink and screens ordered already! There is so much I want to try...
Gocco

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Say "I love you" with...

...Gocco? One of the things I love about my husband is his original taste in presents. He listens and he thinks. Sometimes people don't understand, they miss the true romance in a present that is chosen carefully to fit the uniqueness of me. Some of my favourite weird presents over the years have been... a pre-paid London travel card to celebrate my independence and sense of adventure... a 14 year-old TV Guide so I could look up what movie I was watching with his parents the morning after he proposed (it was driving me crazy trying to remember)... a video game that I really wanted (people assume it was one of those presents that was 'really' for him, but he doesn't play)... Troll beads chosen without hints for touchingly personal reasons. And now, for Valentine's Day, a Print Gocco - a very retro, neat little machine that does postcard sized screen prints. It's still being shipped, so I can't show you any results yet, but it is making us laugh in amongst all the adverts for roses, diamonds, champagne, etc. We don't usually do Valentine's Day, but because of 'the Plan' we wanted to celebrate the choices we've made in our lives lately. I gave him a scrapbook of all his grandparents, aunts and uncles I made from the slides I scanned at his folks.

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