Wednesday A Little of Everything

 Hi Everyone!

It's been a busy week, with everyday having to take care of some sort of business. I have the next 6 days free and then it begins again. 

Today another reminder that this Friday the 28th is FFO Self Portrait challenge. 

Ha ha this is not me, I'm certainly not this well preserved. 

However, the challenge is optional, you may still join in FFO with any type of face. I always look forward to seeing the diversity and wonderful art that all of you present.

One of the things Mr. M. and I had to do yesterday was change our insurance. We met with a very nice woman that got both Mr. M. and I the best policy ever. When I first spoke to her on the phone she informed me that insurance company's are no longer paying the agents and that it would be $25.00 each. However, after we speaking with her she informed us that "There is no charge. Insurance companies want people on an advantage plans and they will pay the agents for that." So, we didn't have to pay anything. 

We got home early and I decided that we should have our turkey dinner. Seriously, for us, what's the difference?  It's not like we have family to share it with. My kids are on the East cost, and my brothers are spread all over the country. I did forget to take a photo though. Here is one from google.

Haa haa haa no this is NOT my table. We had a very kidney friendly dinner with turkey breast, roasted sweet potatoes, fresh string beans, and my whole cranberries I canned last year. Now we get left over turkey sandwiches. YUM!

 

I guess that's it for now. Today I'm going to finish up a colored pencil, abstract face and just take it easy today.

What are  your plans?

Make them good what ever they are.

Nicole 
 

Monster Monday

  Today is Monster Monday. AI art that I have created using NightCafe It's fun, it's free and it allows some interesting creative time.

Before the monsters, just a reminder. 

FFO self portrait is this Friday. It is optional, I expect to see all my regulars. 😅

Now for some monsters.

 

Here are two that I got credit for in some challenges. 

 

Now for some pretties.

 

  

Hope you enjoyed Monster Monday and have a good week 

Nicole 

Sunday in the Art Room

 Hi Everyone!

Before I get to the art I wanted to show you a gift I received from Louise over at Standing into Danger After seeing one of her posts with Milkweed plants, I told her I have been trying to get plants or seeds with no luck. Well she went out and harvested seeds for me. This is the beautiful card she sent with it and I placed some of the seeds down on the card. Thank you Louise.

We will see how they grow next year.

Now for some art.

Below is taken from the Guardian. 

On my last FFO I mentioned that one of Frida Kahol's art pieces was being sold.

That it would break a record of not only female artists but Latina artists. Well, it did. The painting sold for $54.7 million. 

Kahlo vibrantly and unsparingly depicted herself and events from her life, which was upended by a bus accident at age 18. She  underwent a series of painful surgeries on her damaged spine and pelvis, 

and then wore casts until her 

 death in 1954 at age 47.

She started to paint while bedridden, 

During the years Kahlo was confined to her bed, she came to view it as a bridge between worlds as she explored her mortality.

The painting is the star of a sale of more than 100 surrealist works by artists including Salvador Dalí, René Magritte, Max Ernst and Dorothea Tanning.

Kahlo resisted being labeled a surrealist, a style of art that’s dreamlike and centers on a fascination with the unconscious mind.

“I never painted dreams,” she once said. “I painted my own reality.”

In its catalog note, Sotheby’s said the painting “offers a spectral meditation on the porous boundary between sleep and death.”

“The suspended skeleton is often interpreted as a visualization of her anxiety about dying in her sleep, a fear all too plausible for an artist whose daily existence was shaped by chronic pain and past trauma,” the catalog notes.

I, like so many other artists have been connected to Frida in some strange way. My Nan and Mom introduced me to her art when I was young. You know her art feeds my inner weirdness. 

Some of my other favorites are, of course, 

 Dorothea Tanning, and Leonora Carrington 

Is there a "surrealist" artist that you like, that you connect with?

Let me know in the comments

 

Just a note, FFO self portrait is this Friday. It is NOT mandatory. Just a fun addition to FFO.

Have a great Sunday 

Nicole  

  

 

Friday Face OFF 11/21/2025

 Welcome To Friday Face OFF (FFO)

This is the place to show off your face art.

You know, ANY type of face, nature, the face of a flower, Photography, drawings, paintings. There just needs to be a face in your blog post.

I get news from 1440 and this is what I found this morning. Many of you have drawn or painted Frida's face and my dear friend Gene Black quilted her face.

A Frida Kahlo self-portrait could become the most expensive artwork by a female or Latin American artist at auction tonight in New York. Sotheby’s estimates “El sueño (La cama)” will fetch $40M to $60M, potentially surpassing the $44.4M woman's record set by a Georgia O’Keeffe painting and $34.9M Latin American record held by another Kahlo self-portrait.

“El sueño (La cama)” depicts Kahlo asleep beneath a skeleton wrapped in explosives, a nod to a Mexican Easter effigy. While most Kahlo pieces are in Mexico under a law barring their sale, this self-portrait is privately owned abroad. The piece appears in a surrealist-themed auction, although Kahlo rejected the surrealist label.

Now for my FFO piece.

I'm working on a colored pencil piece but it takes longer than graphite so here is a graphite face.

It starts like this. I used mainly graphite, tinted graphite, colored pencil and white gel pen.

 Then this 

Then this

Then this. I wish I would have left her hair like this.

Finally I have this. Her head is cut off the page and with the hair it makes her look strange. Anyway, that's what I think. Mr. M. says that won't matter once I frame her.

 

Time for some AI art that I create at NightCafe.

I went on a fairy kick.

 

And then I had to go dark with them.  LOL

 

Now it's time to see what other FFO artists have created.

I'm going to show and extra piece this week. From Gene Black. 

It just seems appropriate. If you don't know, Gene is an amazing quilter and he did Frida in fabric. 

Next is my friend Barbara. She actually was the brilliant artist who helped get FFO started and introduced me to Gene Black. The three of us would challenge each other every week with portraits. Soon other artists wanted to join in and that's how FFO got going. 

She has been gone a long time from the blogging world but is back! So be sure to visit and welcome her.  

Christine always surprises me with all the detail she gets with her miniatures.

The next artist is Louise. She is a gem. Always has the most interesting and fun posts. Here she shares prairie dogs. 

Before I go I want to remind all of you that next week on FFO all of us will be showing our self portraits. 

I ask that it is really you from any age. Please include the photo you worked from. If you are creating from life, like looking in a mirror, just show any photo of you now. 

Any medium can be used except a photograph. Ya know, you can't just put a photo of yourself. However, it can be realism, character, surreal, abstract as long as we can see you in the art. 

 Any kind of expression. Create you as you see yourself.  November 28, 2025 to show your face on FFO. That gives you 1 week to work on it. All Self Portraits will be featured the following week on FFO. I hope you join in.

Now it's time to show me face art.

Nicole 

Can't help myself

Hi Everyone!

I wasn't going to post about this but it has been eating at me all week. I had a conversation with a, (no longer a friend), that simply knocked my socks off. Let's call her Sue. With all of my friends and family that love the "thing" in the white house, that subject is off limits. However, when speaking with Sue she told me that hitler was a very good man with his political ideas. Then, very quickly she said, " Well except for killing the Jews". I wanted to go through the phone and beat the hell out of her. Mr. M. heard the conversation, looked at me and shook his head no. Meaning she is an idiot, don't go there with her. I took a deep breath and said, "You need to learn history and don't call me again." 

I really do try to keep an open mind but that..... NO effen way! 

Sorry for the rant just needed to get it out.

Nicole
 

 Today is Monster Monday. AI art that I have created using NightCafe It's fun, it's free and it allows some interesting creative time.

I have lots of new monsters on NightCafe that I can't show all of them here so head over to my gallery to see all of the AI art.

If you have read any T.S. Elliot, or have seen the movie, "The Gorge", then you know of the Hollow Men. 

 I have created Hollow Men.

 

Of course, I know this poem. In the movie, "The Gorge", the Hollow Men are a result of a secret military facility that, naturally, went a miss, thus creating Hollow Men.

The best known line in the poem,

"This is the way the world ends. This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang but a whimper. Shape without form, shade without colour."

 

You know I can't leave you with this so here are some fantasy places that are pretty.

Hope you enjoyed Monster Monday.

Have a good week.

Nicole 

 

Sunday in the Art Room

 Hi Everyone!

Thank you for all the nice compliments on my very first colored pencil drawing on FFO. I have also received several emails from people telling me how difficult colored pencil is for them. In my opinion, I want to share the best youtube instructor for colored pencil. If you want an understanding in colored pencils and a host of free ebooks and worksheets this is where you want to be.

Her name is Kirsty Partridge. This is where  you should start if you are a beginner like me.

I have down loaded and printed several of the ebooks and a work sheet. 

This has 18 pages of total teachings. 

this has 13 pages of easy to draw skin. 

here are 8 pages, 

of ya know my fave, hair.

One of the worksheets. 

This is a 2 page check list.

She offers a lot more. I don't normally do this, download teachings, but these are so good and I really want to excel in colored pencils, so I did.

Yesterday I received a package from my kids. OMG!!! They are so good to me.

If you want to learn or just want to reunite yourself with colored pencil art check out Kirsty.

Have a great day today.

Nicole