Nostalgia...

In every real man

a child is hidden that wants to play.

Friedrich Nietzsche

A few days ago,

i was thinking about my childhood

and how fortunate i was

to have such loving parents

and so many cool toys. :-)

I wanted to share with you

some of the toys i remember most.

i'm guessing some of you

might recognize a few of these. 

The 1970's version of an ipad.

Even then, there were selfies.

giggle.

This actually played music.

I was so impressed. 

Who hasn't played with Fisher Price?!

i remember the pig was my favorite.

Just cause he was so damn cute.

Yeah. Barrel of monkeys.

We spent hours playing with these little guys...

hooking one arm into the other.

Why we didn't end up in an asylum

after 2 hours of this

i'll never know. ;-)

colored lights,

the freedom to create what we wanted,

and a dark room...

what more could an artist want?

DON'T BREAK THE ICE...

You had to slowly knock out the ice blocks

without breaking the whole surface.

If the surface broke,

and your little guy fell through,

you were scarred for life.

And you lost the game.

Double whammy.

Who remembers these?!?

Basically, a free trip

to the emergency room.

I smashed more fingers, wrists and elbows with these babies

than i care to recall.

(yes, elbows. I sucked)

For a while back in the 70's

telephone pole wires everywhere 

had these "Clackers" hanging from them.

This is how we rated

whether a town was cool or not.

"Yeah but dad, they're probably really BORING here!!

I see no clackers ANYWHERE!"

Today's Canadian health & safety version.

(yawn...)

Poor kids. They don't know what they're missing. 

ah.... Doodle Art.

An overdose of fun.

And of butterflies.

These large format posters

were sold in tubes back then,

along with the markers.

Kind of like a huge coloring book page

on its own.

They all had specific themes.

My favorite theme was the underwater ocean one...

For obvious reasons.

In one of my past lives,

i was a fish.

Ah... another free trip to the hospital...

Basically, a pen with a metal tip 

that you plugged in until it was hot enough to burn wood.

Or skin.

Or the kitchen table. 

It came with several different tips,

and a series of different wood designs...

Flowers, horses, scary clowns.

Whenever i needed to threaten my brothers,

this was the object of choice.

Who needs Mafia when you have a wood burning gadget?

...and the Etch a sketch... ;-)

Do any of these resonate with any of you?

Did you have a favorite toy as a child,

or a favorite thing to do?

I have tons more i could share

but i'll keep those for another post.

Thanks for hanging out.

xox

bubbles... AEDM - day 21

ok, i  guess i must be doing the Art Every Day Month except for Weekends and the Occasional Day Here & There challenge. :-) If anything, this little exercise has connected me with some very talented creatives! So already, it's worth it.

This little drawing (in watercolor, colored pencil & white acrylic paint) was actually a f*ck up. :-)
I meant to do this cute little painting on a white background - nothing but the little girl blowing bubbles in clean, white space. I'm not even sure how i ended up adding color to the background, but i did. And before i knew it, there was way more color than what i wanted, and the cute little painting quickly became less & less of what i had envisioned in my head. Once you go overboard with something, you may as well go way overboard. So i decided to add more bubbles & artsy fartsy flowers. And there you have it.

Even if the end result isn't what we wanted or envisioned - sometimes, it's as important to learn to compromise, or be flexible - just go with the flow. Rather than rip up the page & throw it out, why not go with it & see where it takes you? The end result may not be what you wanted, but it may not be that bad either. And so what if it is bad? Maybe you're not the best judge, or maybe bad to you is good to someone else. Keep it anyway, as a little reminder that things don't always go as planned, and in the end, it's ok anyway.

fun with collage!

There's something to be said about the process of collage... kind of a process of discovery, really. Beginning something without much of a clue about where or how it'll end. I'm not as organized as many of the true collage artists... I don't have a box full of little bits & pieces, waiting to be used in some future masterpiece. I basically pick an old magazine, leaf through it for a few minutes & cut out a few pieces that seem interesting to me at the time. This one took about an hour. I believe we should all allow ourselves at least an hour of playtime per day. Otherwise, we carry the weight of the world on our shoulders, don't we?

...or maybe that's just me. :o)