Showing posts with label art. Show all posts
Showing posts with label art. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 3, 2026

The Last WHAT?

           Our son, Brandon, from Los Angeles recently flew in around midnight, so his brother picked him up. We were in bed as he went into the kitchen and saw the 20 or so little figures of Jesus I was planning to give my Seminary students. They’re about an inch tall:

          Nearby I also had a weird little toy frog that I found in the back yard (tossed by a neighbor kid? Dropped by a hawk?) Well, you can’t let a pile of fun props go unnoticed, any more than you can not put googly eyes on your bananas.  So, even if though it was after midnight, Brandon created a wrestling match:

             The following night he created Leonardo Da Vinci’s Last Supper, complete with table, table legs, plates, and food all made of paper:

                And I don’t have to tell you which one is Judas.


             This guy has been making art from odd materials ever since he was in kindergarten, when the wax coverings of Babybel cheese became dragons, knights, giraffes and monkeys. What can I say? I love the way his brain works.

          Be sure to watch short life hacks on my Youtube Mom videos, right here.

Tuesday, July 30, 2024

Oh, You Artists!

           For some inexplicable reason, I have many artists in my life. They’re in my family, they’re among my buddies, and they’re even sprinkled heavily among my Facebook Friends. So let me tell you what they’re like.

          They have no idea that they are particularly talented. They tear up sketches I would save forever as evidence of miraculous talent. When they paint something amazing, they secretly think anyone could do it, if only they tried.


          This is not so. Trust me; I’ve tried. I hurry, I use too much paint, and what I see with my eyes never comes out my fingers. Artists can make a sweeping curve and it will look exactly like someone’s face.  I make a sweeping curve and it looks like a wrinkle in the paper.


          They are also too self-critical. They will make something or draw something and find a zillion flaws with it. Meanwhile, the rest of the world is gasping in awe at what they’ve done.

If I could go back in time, I’d be Michelangelo’s garbage man, and save everything he threw away. Today these items would sell for millions.


          Oddly enough, all my children and my daughter-in-law are gifted artists! It's their drawings (when they were tiny children! )that I have posted here. None of them are doing it professionally, but every time one of them dabbles with it, I am astounded. I wish I could get my brain to work like theirs, and be able to reproduce some amazing thing I’ve seen—or imagined.


          So, if you are an artist, be glad in the gift. Save your doodles. Stop second-guessing your work (or send it to me). And know that the rest of us think you’re pretty incredible.

No art instruction on my YoutubeMom channel. But lots of fun life hacks—check ‘em out!

Tuesday, February 20, 2018

More Than a Glass Menagerie


          You need to blog so your readers can know about your life, I was advised. People who buy your books want to know what you’re like.
          I’m like my books. 
          But they want to hear the daily stuff.
          Well, the daily stuff is exactly what I use in many of my books. Granted, these books are largely fiction.  But many of the funny incidents come from real life, and if you scroll through here you will see why I write comedy.  It virtually lands in my lap. (And one of my kids says there’s no point reading my books because it’s like talking to me on the phone.)
          But – ta da! -- today I’m going to share a normal, regular moment with you. I went to Seattle, Washington to speak to a large group of LDS women.  For those of you not Mormon, this is not a recovery group for people addicted to LSD.  It is an abbreviation we use, for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
          And no trip to Seattle is complete without seeing the sights, right?  So my dear lifelong friend (and fellow blogger, Nan Slaughter) took me to the Chihuly exhibit.
          Millions of people have seen Dale Chihuly’s sculptures, and millions of dollars have been spent to buy it.  But now we can say “millions plus one” because I have evidently been living under a rock and had never known about this guy. But I love his work.  It’s a phenomenal blast of utter creativity, things you never could have imagined on your own, even if you are addicted to LSD.  And no, I did not plan for that to be my theme, nor shall it be.  I’m just saying.
          His ideas are spectacular.  Bursts of color and motion, wild and whimsical, all done with glass.
Imagine taking the most brittle object on earth to create swirling, delicate wonders that leave everyone open-mouthed, staring in amazement.
He even incorporates his art in outside gardens, making you want to go home and completely re-do your yard.
I asked Nan why no one in her Samammish area has these fabulous sculptures in their yards and she said it’s because the huge pine trees there would fall over and crush them.  This is actually a thing, folks—the rainfall makes more trees drop there than you would think, and not long ago she had a car crushed by one. This is not her car, but you get the idea:
          So, even though Mr. Chihuly lives near Seattle, it seems to me we need not only a glass artist there, but a rubber artist who can create magnificent stuff that will simply bounce back. Seems he’d sell even more of them, right?  Just problem solving, here.
I cannot promise my books will never fall on your car, but I’m pretty sure the worst you can get from them is a paper cut, so order all you can carry right here!