The Goat: June 2009

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

June links

Here are all of the links to the posts written in June 2009.

Geckos and Gum

I went wandering around a neighborhood today, with my camera, trying to find some interesting things to shoot. I found quite a few things. But these two made me smile.

This barn is a bird feeder. When I zoomed in on the feeder, that's when I saw the geckos! I kept getting closer and closer so I could clearly see both of them. I think they really like the barnyard!

As I was walking up the street I noticed this utility pole with this metal cover with all of these pebbles glued to it.

As I got closer to examine the pebbles I realized that it was gum! Hundreds of pieces of gum! I was actually chewing a piece of gum at the time and was sooooo tempted to add mine to the art project, but decided that I didn't need to leave my mark.

When I got this photo uploaded and cropped was when I saw the gecko on the gray box on the left hand side. Those little guys are everywhere!

Hope you have a great day!
Kristin

Monday, June 29, 2009

The Carnival

A few months ago - PRE cool new camera - I stopped by a shopping plaza as they were setting up for a the traveling carnival. I snuck around and shot a whole bunch of fun photos.

You can click on any of the photos to enlarge them.

I am just in love with all of the colored lights on the rides and backdrops. They are so unique in the way they look, but they also make me think of the Las Vegas Strip. I'm a sucker for a million lightbulbs!

The shapes and sizes of these are just incredible. When no one is around and you aren't busy trying to hold on to your tickets, stand in line for the rides or trying to get that hoop around one more of the bottles for the big prize, the backdrops are even more giant.

Doesn't this look very strange without any seats or anything? I am not quite sure what it's going to be.

The Merry Go Round was interesting. I think it was fairly new. All of the horses and the the poles and whatnot were still so very shiny and hardly worn at all.

More lightbulbs. I know, I'm obsessed.

Bumper Cars! The last time I did the whole bumper car thing I bashed into this one guy and he got really mad at me. Mad because I bumpered him. He didn't have a small child with him. He was bumping everyone all around him. I didn't knock him from behind. I think he was just mad that I managed to catch him.

He gave me the evil eye though every time we saw him again at the carnival. Some people take those things way too seriously.

The Pharaoh ride was not as gorgeous as it looked from the street. The face on this thing was really beat up. I'm not quite sure if maybe the truck hauling it rolled over a few times or what. I think the carnies slapped some paint on the face to hide the accident.

Just a quick snooze before things really get started.

Worlds Funest Skeeball. Yep, right there in faint letters. Funest.

OK, so it really says FINEST...but I originally thought it said funest and that's why I snapped the photo. LOL

More lights.

How many of you can see the words Wipeout and not hear the song?

I was actually looking forward to coming back to this carnival to take some pictures after all the rides were set up and when it was sort of dark out so the lights would shine. I came back the next day and the parking lot was completely empty. I guess they were taking everything down.

So...this is the carnival when it's in the process of being taken apart. It still was a lot of fun wandering through it when no one was there.

Have a great week!
Kristin

Sunday, June 28, 2009

RAM

I discovered something last week when I was reading the local free newspaper. I discovered that EVERY SINGLE Saturday from April through December is an art fair. In my town. Every single week.

I feel like such a dunce.

How do I not know these things?

Well anyway, it's called the Riverside Arts Market - RAM for short. It's like a mini farmers market and art fair all wrapped up into one. There's live music, street performers, face painting, people displaying art, jewelry, sculptures, and of course there's food.

Here, let me show you a smidgen of the fun we had.

It looks just like an art fair! I was so excited.

People can ride their bikes here and park them right here. There are two employee/volunteers down at the other end of the orange fencing who watch the bikes for the attendees. The RAM is located underneath this giant bridge (called the Fuller Warren Bridge) where it is shaded the entire time. It was 90º or so yesterday and it really didn't feel that hot.

I thought the little flags were cute on this booth.

This was the street performer that we saw. This was his last trick, fire breathing (or exhaling LOL) I missed the money shot where he actually looked like he was shooting fire from his mouth. I have a lot to learn with this camera! His name is Dallas the Fire Guy. He has lots of good shots on his website - Dallas

Keetha - I thought of you when I saw this vendor that had touchable art. It's along the same lines of your blog post that you wrote- here.

These were so interesting. I've never really touched artwork like that before. It felt totally taboo!!

I saw the belly dancer. She was so graceful.

The next few photos are from Miss Kay Art. She painted such whimsical pieces and I wanted to just fill up a room with them.

I was particularly drawn to this goat. Hmmm, I wonder why? I bet that goat could dance!

Look at the lovely ladies standing in the water! How funny.

snicker snicker - Miss Kay was a delight as well. We chatted with her for quite some time.

This vendor had all of these angel wings for sale. The little girls were packed into this booth. "mom, mom, mom, can I have this one? Mom."

This juggler set up just as I was sitting down to enjoy my food. Which was by the way, some of the best art fair food I've ever had. Crabcakes and veggies - YUM!!!

This little girl was just precious. She didn't want to leave this spot. I'm sure she's going to go home and try to juggle! I hope she starts off with whiffle balls.

I expect to go back to the RAM several times this year. I also plan on telling my support group friends about it. They are always looking for something to do that doesn't take them far from Mayo. Not to mention it's free entertainment... but plenty of things to purchase if you wish.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend.
Kristin

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Cat Overload

I was looking through some of my photobucket folders and I came across a folder marked "Random Images" - while there were indeed a lot of random images - there were a ton of pictures of cats. They made me smile, so I thought I'd share them. I have no idea where they came from or who the photos belong to... I didn't take any of them.

Enjoy!! and have a fabulous Weekend.
Kristin

Funnel Cloud

We had a little bit of excitement yesterday afternoon.

My husband was on his way out to do an estimate when he called me and said "go to the patio and take your camera."

He was parked outside our condo building watching this and calling me. The roadways were packed with people driving slowly and watching the funnel cloud. People were pulled over on the shoulder of the road with their cameras, clicking pictures. The local TV stations have video cameras on the downtown buildings and several of those cameras captured this entire event. When I could no longer see the cloud, I watched it on TV.

It was a bit scary because I'd never seen anything like that and it was a bit thrilling because it was so clear. I could actually see the thing moving! I was nervous because I had no idea where I was supposed to go if this tornado decided to come to me. I'm on the 5th floor of our condo - literally in the attic of our building. If the roof was to blow off, I'd see the sky. I decided to go to the stairwell on the first floor, if needed.

But the funnel cloud dissipated long before I even had to think about protective clothing, getting my neighbors, getting my cat in her carrier and any number of other things.

All this time the lightning strikes were all around - it was really loud. Cracking and Banging. Boom! The storm really picked up as the funnel cloud vanished. My Cable TV went out. The lights flickered. Internet down. Hail and rain pummeled us.

Then it was over.

The sky cleared up and the sun was shining again. It was an exciting 40 minutes.

Have a wonderful weekend!
Kristin

Friday, June 26, 2009

Wreck This Journal part 3

Welcome to this weeks Wreck This Journal update!! I've done a lot of wrecking, drawing, handing the book to friends, asking them to write in it and I even sent off the "ask a friend to destroy this" page in the mail to a friend that has two young boys. I can't wait to see what they end up doing with that page.

I spent most of last week going door to door to all of Wreckers that participated in Jamie's The Next Chapter group. Everyone who participates has the exact same journal, but everyone does something different or interprets the prompts on each page differently somehow.

If you get a chance, please go visit some or all of the Journal Wreckers at The Next Chapter.

Write with a pen in mouth.
I really disliked the prompt for this page because I'm not an artist and I don't just come up with things to draw. So writing with a pen in my mouth, concentrating on moving the pen, there was virtually no way I could think of what I was drawing while concentrating on getting the pen to stay in my mouth and draw on the page.

So I did what any non-drawer does. I saw a picture of a girl with glasses and I said - BINGO! that's what I'll draw! So that's how I came up with the subject material for this particular masterpiece :)

I write out all of my grocery lists on post-its, so when I was finished with them, I put them on the Write Your Grocery List page. I noticed that on one of the orange notes I put down Yogrit. My sister used to say that when she was a kid and I've never stopped grinning over that particular word, so I use it when I can. I know...it's yogurt.

This is my contribution to the Magazine page...this came from SKIRT magazine. I think it was last months issue. You can click on the picture to enlarge it to read the text. I made little cuts on the side to make it sort of skirt-flirty. I've fluffed it up several times, but it goes flat as soon as I close the book.

I colored in the opposite page. Not quite sure what else I'm going to do with that page, but it needs more.

I drew two sets of fat lines and thin lines and thought they looked like bar codes, so I started taking the bar codes off of items that I purchased and added them to this page. Fun, huh?

This was a lot of fun. I was looking forward to doing the Create a Nonstop Line page. I was watching the TV show MONK while doing this page and it was their Christmas episode, so I drew the wreath and the tree. My husband was frying up some bacon, so that's what the wavy lines represent. Zora and Stella are my nieces and since I was thinking of them, I added their names to the non-stop line.

This the Found Objects/Things page. Some of the items were found in my house, but several of the items were found outside. I tore out the Make a Funnel page and then I drank the water from the funnel. After it dried, I put it here. The "it" card is an eBay promotional card. I've got a bread tag, a rubberband from some veggies, popscicle sticks, a discount tag, the little bird from an expired CC and the match book cover from a book of matches that came in an MRE (Meals Ready to Eat) that I got during Hurricane Francis a few years back. I think this will become more full by the end of July.

Someone else in the WTJ group also used dryer lint for the Put Pocket Lint here page. I don't normally wear pants with pockets, so this really was my non pocket lint, I'm just positive!

Tear this page out - Put it through the laundry. I did! I taped it to the last page and back cover of the book.

Remember when I said I needed help getting a picture together in my brain in order to draw? Well I went over to Claudine Hellmuths blog and saw this beachy picture and immediately sketched the Kristin version on the Color This Entire Page page. So this picture was inspired by Claudine Hellmuth. I enjoyed coming up with the design and coloring it, it was a lot of un.

I worked on so many more pages, but I'm going to hold off showing you all of them because I'm going to need to show something the last weeks of the event! I'm cruising through this book and am really having a blast.

Thanks so much for stopping by.
Have a wonderful Fabulous Weekend!
Kristin