The Second Day (30-Day Writing Challenge)

The challenge for me isn't so much about writing for 30 days, the challenge is writing something GOOD for 30 days.

Well, here goes nothing.

Let's talk about this image. The photo is of a piece of artwork I created several years ago. I made it with crayons and fire on leftover sheet rock. I was attempting to do a sunset/sunrise-type picture. I think I succeeded.

The fun of melting wax and using it to "paint", for me at least, is 75% process and 25% result. The process is really cool.

I unwrap the crayons (obviously) and use a small propane torch to melt the crayon on the sheetrock. Then, once I have enough colored wax down, I use the torch sort of like a paintbrush. The fire swirls the colors together. Kind of like when you put cream in your coffee or tea.

Sometimes I use glass beads to give it a 3D look.

It feels like part art and part science experiment.

Sometimes I carve the sheetrock before adding color.

The sun was sold to a lovely lady who lives in Denver, Colorado. I feel confident it won't melt there.

A lot of the process is scaping off the muddy colors. I like to keep the scrapings, beads and all because sometimes something really cool comes out of it. Like my Victorian Lady. I just sort of saw her profile and took it from there.

I tend to like sky scenes. Sometimes ocean scenes will crop up once in a while. There's just something about making the swirling patterns, watching the colors combine and repel each other that makes this art form so satisfying to me.

I'm not sure if the above piece is sky or ocean. I don't really care. I guess it is whatever the viewer thinks it is.

This one was definitely intended to be an outer space piece. It is one of my favorites. I used silver crayons. I love using the metallic colors because the wax separates from the other colors and sort of floats on top.

Some are just for fun. Like this one.

I'm sad the glare makes it hard to see the edge. Can you tell the pink and yellow on the right side are raised up? And that the colors right in that area look a little dull? I solve this by using a razor to scrape off the top layer. It not only smoothes the picture out but also removes the colorless waxy film that dulls the colors.

I'm hoping to be able to have a crafting area and an art room in our new house in New York. That house will be a lot smaller than this one, but smaller means less cleaning.

We leave for our new home in Upstate New York in 10.5 weeks. Time is simultaneously flying and dragging. I want to be there already, but I'm not ready to leave.

Keith was securing a mirror for transport yesterday. The box wasn't the right size. I told him, "Well, just cut it here and tape it together." He said, "I know that. It just isn't working out the way I had wanted it to." I told him that was too bad. He should just give up and unpack everything and we should stay here.

He knew I was joking. Mostly.

I've been counting down the weeks, but maybe it is time to switch to days. 73 days. we leave in 73 days. Can that be right? Nope. I think I like counting the weeks better. I'm not sure if it makes it feel longer or shorter. It does feel more manageable. Maybe because it is a smaller number?

Ok. I'm just rambling now. I'll stop. Thanks for reading this far!

This has been day 2 of the 30-Day Writing Challenge.

All images original artwork by Jonica Bradley