GirlSwirls

How to Draw a Radish

2008-08-20T13:44:00.000-07:00

http://www.joysikorski.com/index.html

Check this site from Joy Sikorski (aka Joy Radish).

Lots of clever drawing ideas and lessons for

"For Grown-Ups who are Fun, and for Smart Kids.

(and All kids are smart, of course!)"

The lessons reminds me of Ed Emberly's 'how to' lessons and are great for kids learning shapes and their relationship to each other to create bigger images.

And with the Headline

"ALWAYS HAVE FUN AT WORK, that's what work is for"

Joy also gives us great projects to amuse yourself in your cubicle.

The Amazing Lyrebird of Australia - Unseen Footage

2008-08-02T13:34:00.000-07:00

Celebrate Whats Right With the World

2008-07-29T13:27:00.000-07:00

In this 22-minute short film, "Celebrate What's Right With The World", Dewitt Jones (world-class photojournalist for the National Geographic) asks: "Do we choose to see possibilities? Do we really believe they're there?" He assures us that there is always more than one right answer. Celebrating what's right with the world helps us recognize the possibilities and find solutions for the challenges before us. This inspirational, best-selling film utilizes stunning photography and powerful dialogue to help viewers approach their lives with celebration, confidence, and grace. "As I celebrated what was right with the world, I began to build a vision of possibility, not scarcity. Possibility... always another right answer." - Dewitt Jones
Inspirational and made me think of Una and her wish to be a wildlife photographer. Enjoy.
Celebrate What's Right With The World

Road Trip ToThe Stinking Garlic Festival!

2008-06-23T12:26:00.000-07:00

So yesterday we took a road trip up to Washington's Long Beach peninsula. The first destination planned was the Ocean Park Annual Garlic Festival. I found myself as disappointed as British fur trader John Mears in 1788 when he named nearby Cape Disappointment [link] after his inability to locate the Columbia River's mouth. Because you know it's only several miles wide and a few nautical miles south of where he was! I counted three vender's selling anything garlic related and two guys walking around dressed up as bulbs of garlic. So if this is what constitutes a garlic festival these days I'll stay home and roast my own. I was looking forward to garlic ice cream...no such luck.

After walking around the other vendors selling their typical Sunday market kind of stuff we ventured back south a little. This brings us to the city of Long Beach. Touristy town with t-shirt shops and carnival rides, enough for the girls to be interested in for a while anyway. We started off with a horse pulled carriage ride through downtown. The main attraction here of course is Jake the Alligator Man. The questionable mummified remains of a creature with an alligator body and the head of a small human (shrunken maybe). [link]

OK, our seashell souvenirs in hand from Marsh's Free Museum [link] we headed across the street to the bumper cars. Woo Hoo, you know how that goes.
Off to the bakery and then the beach, tide was too high and coming in so we couldn't drive far on it. Unfortunate, it being "the longest beach" and all.

It was quite the whirlwind day of traveling after a couple of hours on the beach we headed further south and homeward stopping for a short hike to the North Head Lighthouse [link]. This is at the Cape Disappointment State Park [link]. It's a short easy stroll to this lighthouse and there is another nearby only slightly more strenuous of a hike to get to. Una and I (Dad,duh) got to take the tour inside and up to the top. What a view! Kaya could not go because they have an age limit of seven and our friend Sara couldn't either because she had on sandals. But we waved to each other and took pictures of each other from the ground and the top of the lighthouse.
View our photo album online. [link]

I think it was pretty much coffee break from there and then the ride home, girls slept on the way and woke up when we pulled into the driveway so then it was a late night of watching the BBC's Planet Earth series. I highly recommend this series now on DVD. The world we live in is amazingly incredible and how little we are aware of it is astounding. Get out and explore it!

Amazon.com Widgets

Paper Monsters....

2008-06-17T23:53:00.000-07:00

Went to the Aquarium last and fed seals, Yea!

They are amusing but the local Aquarium is kind of pathetic. The girls enjoy it and it's fun being there with them as long as they enjoy it. Hey who doesn't enjoy feeding seals? We looked at the fish tanks and of course the touch tanks with assorted tide pool creatures, star fish and the like. I'll post pictures when I have time to edit them.

But thats not what this post is about.

Went to the beach and pranced delicately over barnacle encrusted rocks, scampering around real tide pools. We saw some really neat creatures and fish too. Forgot the camera at home so no pictures for you there either. We are having some really low tides this week and first week in July are expecting even lower low tides.

Thats not what I was intending on posting about either. I was just trying to catch you up.
Monsters....

I got some nutty idea a week ago about making Paper mache monsters. Actually it started with a want of making something out of paper mache. Then there was this broken piggy bank which actually looked like a cow(?). I liked the colors and shape of the funny little legs and somehow we came around to dinosaurs. I don't know, run with it I thought. The girls decided stegosaurus and brontosaurus were to be, and so they are. Well they still are coming into being. The original paste recipe has taken two days to dry. I wanted to make the shells stronger so after we coated the skeletal forms in paper and paste I painted them with drywall mud. (I was lacking in plaster of paris and figured hey this will be even stronger....right?)

That didn't work as well as planned, there was alot of shrinking and cracking. So I put another layer of paper and paste over the plaster shell and hopefully they will be dry for priming.

It was a big mess and lots of fun. I think Kaya enjoyed ripping newspaper up into strips. Una was still enthusiastic on day two but is tiring as am I of the drying time wait between steps. Damn! Instant gratification...Is it too much to ask for? Ahh patience...So in the meantime, here's what we got going on.

What's that, sunshine?

2008-06-08T21:26:00.000-07:00

We made it to the Cannon Beach Sandcastle day after all. The rain stopped wasn't exactly sunny, however we saddled up and went out to the beach. Not much of a turn out this year. I think that can be blamed on the weather. When we got there the beach was starting to clear out since the tide was on it's way in. We had time to walk the beach and see what sculptures were there though. Many seemed unfinished. There was one great one still underway with a crew of about six busily packing and carving sand. Wouldn't you know it though my camera battery died when we got to that one so I unfortunately did not get any pictures of it. Here's some pictures I did manage to get.

This all inspired the girls to want to play in the sand too of course. Then then needed to go to the bathroom....so we left the beach with intentions of returning. The public restrooms happen to be located next to the playground so naturally all plans of sand castle building were forgotten. We spent the rest of the afternoon on swings and slides.

We returned to Cannon Beach today with pails and shovels and a large array of plush toys and fairies only to have a last minute change of mind, theirs not mine, to return to the playground once again instead of the beach. OK fine with me. There's no picnic benches at the beach anyway. Next time I am bringing the laptop.

Sandcastle Day!

2008-06-06T08:57:00.001-07:00

June 7, 2008 Cannon Beach Oregon

Is been really rainy the last few days hopefully it lets up enough for us to go to the beach and see these amazing sand sculptures. Maybe we'll make one of our own!

Poster art by illustrator Winky Wheeler

Get Ready, DRAW!

2008-06-05T21:32:00.000-07:00

GirlSwirlS Gallery

2008-06-05T20:30:00.000-07:00

We want to let you all know GirlSwirls now has their own domain at www.girlswirlsart.com. Visit us there to see the latest creations from these girls. We will still be posting our things of interest and exploits here for your enjoyment. Our weekly (or there about) art themes we will still continue and they will be posted here at GirlSwirlS.

So expect some changes in our format here at check us out at GirlSwirlS Art Gallery.

More Coloring Fun

2008-05-21T12:04:00.000-07:00

Print out and color this page my vegetarian friends! (click on the image at left for full size page) I myself and the others here at GirlSwirls do love animals, but we do eat them. Especially bacon, damn we love pig fat!

Some Coloring Fun

2008-05-20T20:48:00.000-07:00

Thought you might enjoy a coloring diversion....

Color SNOOPY Online HERE

'Parade' Theme Submissions

2008-05-20T11:09:00.000-07:00

The Theme this past week was 'Parade'. Here are the GirlSwirls thought's on that subject.

Clown Feet
by Kaya

Dragon Parade
by Una

This week is Celebration of the Arts week at school. So we are not having a theme posted for this week but will post any creations that may come out of the art workshops at school!
Do you have an idea for a theme or a work of yours you would like to submit?
Email it to us at GirlSwirls.

Creative Inspiration One

2008-05-11T21:34:00.000-07:00

Creative Inspirational Theme For The Week Of May 12 Is
Parade.
Remember if you would like to participate in this exercise
and would like to show us what your take is on this theme just create something....anything!
Then email it in a jpeg file format to GirlSwirls.
Have Fun!

Submissions must be emailed by May 17th
to be considered for publishing on this site.
Feel free to submit art anytime however.
We will trade art with you.
One of your works for one of ours!
(jpegs only please)

GirlSwirls art up for sale!

2008-04-27T09:00:00.000-07:00

OK, So... The Girls want to sell their art. Una's idea really and Kaya is along for the ride. I of course am all for it, why not?! We went clothes shopping this weekend and I'll tell you what it wouldn't hurt my feelings a bit if they had their own money to buy dresses. :-) So that's in the works.

However what we really are excited about, the GirlSwirlS would like to invite you to help us with our creativity. Taking an idea from IllustrationFriday.com we would like to solicit theme ideas from you, our friends. The theme could be anything, a creative spark to motivate us to create something. For instance it could be something as simple as a color, RED or a place like JUNGLE. The girls and I, either together or individually will create some work with this theme in mind. Then post it here.
We also would like to invite you to create a work of your own based on the chosen theme of the week. Email your theme submissions to GirlSwirls.
Each week will choose a theme and post it here on Sunday. Then we (and you) have a whole week, till the next Sunday to work on this theme and submit it by email to GirlSwirlS.
Please submit in a jpeg format only. Submissions can be created with crayons, paint, collage, photographs or sculpture. Anything you like really as long as you can scan and send it to us. We will pick one submission to feature here on our main page along with our own for your viewing pleasure. I am sure we would like to show all the work we create and receive but time and other constraints limit us.

Be sure to include any specifics about the work, like its size or medium. Include a personal website if you have one (we'd like to link to you) and a valid email address. We will not release your email address to any third party but would like to add you to our lists for future newsletters and updates. If you would not like updates please state so in your submission email.

NOTE: All submissions must be original work of your own. By submitting the work you are acknowledging this and giving GirlSwirlS and in subsidiaries permission to reproduce said artwork either in part or whole within its websites or print editions.

Astonishing cephalods

2008-04-06T13:43:00.000-07:00

This video is amazing, we had to watch it over and over.
From...

Animal Planet Sand Art

2008-04-05T15:04:00.000-07:00

SEE MORE SAND ART VIDEO'S HERE.

Just an Update...

2008-03-28T08:25:00.000-07:00

...for those who are interested.... I have finally uploaded the newly designed GirlSwirlS Blog as you can see. We are still working on improving it and are having some difficulty with being able to rearrange some of the page elements, so expect to see some more changes to the look of the site in the future. But the most important elements are here. Please explore the portfolios in the right hand column for each of us. The girls are such prolific creators, and all of it is so interesting that I realized the task of continually updating the posts to this blog with their work was going to be too time consuming. SO, now we each have a Flikr account for posting images to the web of new works which you can view here as 'portfolio slides'. The far right column will be reserved for sites we visit and like (and so should you), and other interesting tidbits. I'll try to keep the site updated at least once a week, but may update the portfolios more often. I'll reserve posting's for photos of our adventures or other treasure's and occasionally highlighting some of the more particularly interesting works of art.

Check back with us for exciting news coming soon from the girls about how YOU can participate in their creative process!!
ENJOY!

Youngs River Falls

2008-03-28T08:01:00.000-07:00

Very wet, cold and we forgot our rain gear...probably all made it more fun anyhow. We played around in the woods for a bit today. What a spring break, we have had rain, sleet, hail, sunshine, and more snow this year then I have seen here. It's snowing right now in fact....it must be spring!

Field Trip!

2008-03-18T11:17:00.000-07:00

Remember field trips? You got out of school for a while sometimes for the whole day! Everyone was in maybe a little better mood than usual, the teachers a bit more relaxed in their manner. There was that feeling like you had when you knew you were going to have a substitute teacher. You got to ride the bus, looking at different scenery than you were used to on the ride to and from home everyday. Well we all had a field trip today. All of the Una's school went to look at two cannons that were recently discovered on the beach. They are believed to be from the USS Shark which went down trying to cross the treacherous Columbia River bar in 1846. So I took the morning off and Kaya and I went along. Yea! The sun broke out from behind the clouds just in time to give us an enjoyable couple hours at Nehalem Bay State park.

More Information on where the cannons came from Here and Here.

Cat House

2008-01-22T13:10:00.000-08:00

by Una

SNOW!

2008-01-06T15:51:00.000-08:00

Hurricane 'Betty'

2007-12-10T18:05:00.001-08:00

So a little lapse in updates. I have many things to scan but we have been busy with the extreme weather and its aftermath. See our web album for some pictures. http://picasaweb.google.com/bambooturtle

I would like to post a quote from Kaya I found funny though. This was said after telling me if the cat came in their bed after she fell asleep I was to wake her up to see.
".....so umm, it's like I always says to myself....When I'm awake, I'm awake. Sooooo - I hope I can get back to sleep after you wake us up.....I hope I can get...back...to... sleep."
(at which time she fell promptly to sleep)
Needless to say I did not wake her up.

Wall Paint!

2007-11-24T17:05:00.000-08:00

Since the studio is being sheet-rocked and finished off next week the Girls and I had a little fun on the wall today. What can't be seen very well in the picture is all the little stuff and notes that have been drawn on the walls in the last year or so. Kind of an interesting record of projects past and future.
But soon a finished and new studio space in its place. The girls even have their own drafting table now and new 'cubbies' will be built for all their craft supplies as well as mine! I am pathetically really excited about having at least this one space (and office) finished. simple pleasures.

Jurassic Buddha

2007-11-06T18:40:00.000-08:00

Not really art maybe, but creative none the less!!
The small green one in the lower left was balancing on top of the brontosaurus on top before it fell.

Happy Halloweenie!

2007-10-30T21:11:00.001-07:00

Busy making
Bunny and Kitty
Ears and Tails Tonight!

Happy Halloween!!

Where sheep come from.

2007-10-08T18:35:00.001-07:00

Where sheep come from....a study.

HOLY SHEEP!

2007-10-07T10:45:00.001-07:00

Winter Approaches...

2007-10-07T10:35:00.001-07:00

Yep, must be winter..a lovely day at the beach, HA!
The fall deluge has begun and I anticipate some indoor down time is on its way. This will allow some studio time for myself and the girls and their creativity has already produced many new works of art. The refrigerator and walls are filling up quickly. So we decided to create this website for our family and friends to enjoy some of our favorite pieces. Hope you enjoy!