Friday, August 14, 2026

Friday Face OFF (FFO) 8/14/26

 

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, AI. There just needs to be a face in your blog post, a link back to my blog and please use the image below. 
Thank you.
Well, this week has been a not art week. I did get a sketch done but that's about it. I wish I could say that my week was filled with fun things but in reality it wasn't. I'm not saying it was a bad week just weird week. 
 
I thought I would show you the faces I have in waiting to draw. 
I'm drawn to this woman's eyes, and of course no hair. LOL 

This woman's face speaks volumes. I think it would be a challenge to capture the pain she emits.  
 
I found this girl and thought she had beautiful features. Her crossed eye reminds me of how my eye was when I was a kid. I just gravitated to her.
 
I also love the expression on this girl's face.
These are just a few of the faces I have saved and want to draw. 

Here is my beautiful Granddaughter.
who is also a Master Sgt in the USAF
This is an older photo so she doesn't have her M.S. stripes.
 
 
Now for some features
Iris
 
Erika N

That's it for now 
Don't miss
Sunday in the Art Room this week.
 
I will be joining Gillena  

Now it's time to show me your face.
 Nicole    
 

Tuesday, August 11, 2026

T Tuesday

 

 Hi Everyone!
 
Today is Tuesday so I'm joining Elizabeth and Bleubeard for T-day.
Not much is going on here. Every day last week we had a medical appt. My yearly thyroid Ultra Sound didn't come back great. I will have to have a Fine Needle Aspiration (FNA) which means a trip to Salem. uhhggggg
 
I found this cool T-shirt.
I've been having so much fun with my  new air fryer.
Potato and beef bites. Yummm
This is much better than it looks. The beef has a garlic butter sauce on it. String beans were made on the stove.
I've been making many meals with the air fryer but forget to take photos. I'll try to be better at that. 
 
My Zinnias have take off.
Mr. M. has been watering them for me. 

I also have two squash blossom. I'm so happy.  I took this photo in the evening so the flowers are closed for the night. 
 
Like I said not much going on here. 
My drink for the day is a chocolate protein drink.
It tastes very good.  

Have a happy Tuesday
Nicole
 

Monday, August 10, 2026

Elections in the US

 Hi Everyone!
 
I'm skipping Monster Monday today because this is very important.
information. 
 
If you are worried about the US midterms, you have good reason to be so.
I have noted before that our right to vote will be distorted, and soon eliminated if the "thing" and his butt buddies get their way.
This is a very important video please  click and watch.
 
An excerpt from the video.

“According to States United Action, this year, there are 92 races for statewide offices that oversee elections. That's governor, attorney general and secretary of state. Of those races, 32 election deniers are vying for positions in which they would be overseeing elections,” 

Soboroff said.

“Let me say that one more time: 32 people who have questioned, or denied, or spread conspiracies about the 2020 election – which has been litigated over, and over, and over again – are running for positions that would oversee and administer future elections. This is a mayday situation, you guys.”

No matter where you live in the US, no matter how difficult "they" make it for us to vote 

WE HAVE TO SHOW UP! 

I know the "thing" and his corrupt followers will stop at nothing to protect their power.
 
Nicole 
 

Sunday, August 9, 2026

SITAR

 Welcome to 

SITAR is about ANYTHING art. Your art, someone else's art, writing, photography, the art of cooking, the art of sewing and textiles. Sharing historical art, street art, a story about art. Do you have a question or need help with art? Write a blog post and link it up here. We will all try to help with it. My only rule is that if someone asks for critique it must be done with generosity and consideration. 
This is a place of learning, encouragement and inspiration.
 
Today I want to introduce Kara Elizabeth Walker. She was born November 26, 1969.
  Kara
 is an American contemporary painter, silhouettist, printmaker, sculptor, installation artist, filmmaker, and university professor, who explores race, gender, sexuality, violence, and identity in her work. Walker is most well known for her room-size tableaux of black cut-paper silhouettes that interrogate romantic narratives of the antebellum South of the United States. 
 
She is regarded as among the most prominent and acclaimed Black American artists working today.
Kara was born in Stockton, California, actually not far from where I lived backed then.  Her father, Larry Walker, was a painter and professor. Her mother Gwendolyn was an administrative assistant. A 2007 review in New York Times described her early life as calm, noting that "nothing about Kara's very early life would seem to have predestined her for this task. Born in 1969, she grew up in an integrated California suburb, part of a generation for whom the uplift and fervor of the civil rights movement and the want it now anger of Black Power were yesterday's news."

When Walker was 13, her father accepted a position at Georgia State University. They settled in the city of Stone Mountain. The move was a culture shock for the young artist. In sharp contrast with the multicultural environment of Central California, Stone Mountain still held Ku Klux Klan rallies. At her new high school, Walker recalls, "I was called a 'nigger,' told I looked like a monkey, accused (I didn't know it was an accusation) of being a 'Yankee. 

Slavery! Slavery! Presenting a GRAND and LIFELIKE Panoramic Journey into Picturesque Southern Slavery or "Life at 'Ol' Virginny's Hole (sketches from Plantation Life)". See the Peculiar Institution as never before! All cut from black paper.  144 x 1020 in (365.76 x 2590 cm).
 
Some of her paintings.

 

Kara Walker feature in BOMB magazine 

Walker received her BFA from the Atlanta College of Art in 1991 and her MFA in painting from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in 1994.   Walker recalls reflecting on her father's influence: "One of my earliest memories involves sitting on my dad's lap in his studio in the garage of our house and watching him draw. I remember thinking: 'I want to do that, too,' and I pretty much decided then and there at age 2½ or 3 that I was an artist just like Dad."  She found herself uncomfortable and afraid, however, to address the issues of race within her art during her early college years, worrying it would be received as "typical" or "obvious"; however, she began introducing them into her art while attending RISD for her master's.

Walker once explained her artistic process as "two parts research and one part paranoid hysteria", a description that captures the entanglement of history and fantasy that pervades her work.  Even despite the rational aspect, there's a sense of uneasiness and complexity that ties and illustrates itself through her work.
 
Watch how this incredible piece of art was installed. 
 

Solo Exhibition at kunstmuseum Basel
This video explains her art perfectly.
  
Kara has many sculptures but this one a 2014  massive sculpt is made of sugar. 75 feet long, 35 feet high, and 26 feet wide
Artist Kara Walker’s popular new installation inside Williamsburg's Domino Sugar Factory not only recalls the torrid history of the sugar industry, but is also made of sugar itself. Entitled Subtlety, or the Marvelous Sugar Baby, the project for non-profit Creative Time features a larger-than-life sugar sphinx symbolizing the history of slavery in America. The controversial statue, which is surrounded by piles of sugar, is also joined by sculptures of children cast from molasses. 
 
The best video 
You don't want to miss this. 
 
Kara's span of 30 years of art is massive. So please take time to view  more of her art on line.
 Today, with the regime we have in the US, where history is being dismantled and erased we need artists like Kara to remind us of this part of US history. 
 
Nicole
 
I'm joining Gillena for 
 
 

Saturday, August 8, 2026

Saturday Rant

 Hi Everyone!

Yes, I'm going to rant a bit. Hang in there with me.

All of us that have a reasonable thought process know that absolutely everything the "thing" does is to destroy America. So much chaos goes on everyday, and that is by design, that we forget what the "thing" did in the past. DOGE is one of those destructive entities that is a lying, cheating, devastating force in the US and the world. 

A new government watchdog report delivers a blistering rebuke of DOGE, the Elon Musk led cost-cutting initiative, finding it repeatedly overstated its savings and took credit for cuts it didn't actually make.

The Government Accountability Office audit, covering June 2025 through this month, was requested by Sens. Gary Peters (D-MI) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and represents the most thorough and scathing government assessment yet of DOGE's public claims, The Washington Post reported. The "thing" and his butt buddie claimed billions of dollars in savings that it could not substantiate, took credit for work already underway, and refused to show its work, all while putting Americans' sensitive data at risk and hollowing out critical agencies," Peters said.

DOGE, which swept through federal agencies after the "things" second term began, dismantling USAID and gutting much of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.  The aim to cut $2 trillion in federal spending. It fell far short even by its own numbers, with its "Wall of Receipts" website claiming $215 billion in savings. The GAO examined $110 billion of that figure tied to contracts, grants and leases — and found serious problems. 

Among the findings: 108 of 264 leases DOGE claimed credit for were already in the process of being terminated before DOGE existed. Of 13,476 contracts DOGE said it had terminated, nearly 2,000 actually were not, and of $61 billion in claimed contract savings, more than half  nearly $35 billion, was either not actually terminated or couldn't be verified because DOGE's data lacked sufficient detail.

Roughly $27.4 billion in claimed cancellation savings came from contracts that were never terminated at all, with the GAO noting that other actions, like reducing a contract's value, may have occurred instead.

The GAO said it repeatedly tried to obtain information from DOGE, submitting written questions, but "the U.S. DOGE Service did not respond to our inquiries."

Fact-checkers and media outlets have previously found DOGE's self-reported savings didn't hold up to scrutiny, and updates to its website slowed dramatically after Musk's departure, with some claimed savings later quietly removed. 

I don't think we will ever know the truth and the damage that DOGE has caused not just to the US but to the world. One of the first things he did was to cut U.S. foreign aid. The resulting loss of life will be devastating. Musk while at CPAC waving a chain saw, high on Ketamine showing just how proudly he cut food and medical aid.  

Honestly DOGE was not truly about objective cost-cutting. Instead, its a politically driven campaign that inflated savings, evaded transparency laws, and bypassed congressional authority to hollow out federal agencies that the "thing" doesn't want or he now has full control over. 

Is power and wealth so intoxicating that the men and women in the "lost" republican party will do ANYTHING to achieve their corrupt goals? 

It seems they will.

Nicole 


Friday, August 7, 2026

Friday Face OFF (FFO) 8/7/26

 

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, AI. There just needs to be a face in your blog post, a link back to my blog and please use the image below. 
Thank you.
A few of my readers have asked how long it takes me to draw a portrait. 
When I first started drawing faces I could get one finished in an hour or so. I will admit the faces were NOT very good. As I've developed my own style and I've learned to add more details it does take me much longer. However, Mr. M. tells me I am fast at getting a face done. Lately I work a few hours at a time taking all week to finish one. Also I draw on different sizes of paper, that makes a difference. I have sketched a piece this morning and will time myself on it and let you know. I have seen a lot of artist that create hyperrealistic art and give the hours that it took. Personally unless you are selling your art I don't think it matters as long as you are having fun.
Which in this case I had a lot of fun creating this one.
She is one of my favorite actresses,
Olwen Fouéré
I did use this photo as a reference, turning it from color to black n white and working from both.

She started like this
 
The next photo 
 
Starting to get some details in. Like the little scare above her left eye.
 
I know some art teachers say to put in the details last but I can't seem to work that way 
 
I finished her up like this. I see a few things I should have done differently. However, I really enjoyed creating this.
 
Here are a couple of AI ladies.
 

 
It's time for some features.
 
That's it for now 
Don't miss
Sunday in the Art Room this week.

 
I will be joining Gillena 

Now it's time to show me your face.
 Nicole