Week 47--Fairies

We are nearly bidding 2016 farewell. The magic of a brand new year is almost upon us. And what else to expect to spread cheery good will than fairies, mystical little winged creatures?

Freebird sent us her "Teal Star Fairy" from Arkansas.

Be sure to check this little cutie out on her blog. Love the sparkly beads. Perhaps we'll see her again, sometime?

Our official response is a close-up, a favorite doodle of an eyeball. Try as we might to draw the whole fairy....

That's it for now, until next year...!

Most Pressing

What with all the holiday activities, it's hard to take a moment and just...breathe. Isn't it?

This week's topic is "fairies," the mystical, magical creatures. The idea grew out of book in our library, Lady Cottington's Pressed Fairies. It's a collection of sometimes scary, always amusing, images of what the little winged things would look if they were smushed between the pages of a book. My sister gave it to me for Christmas many moons ago and it's...interesting.

According to the all-knowing Wikipedia, in 1828, Thomas Keightley described fairies as women who "knew the virtues and powers of words, stones and herbs."

Thus, give us your fairies twinchies! Pursue the powers of herbs, stones and...words! Lofty goals, yes? Also, consider a teenie donation to Wikipedia, a non-profit encyclopedia, to help them keep the gears grinding and the home fires burning.

Get your goodies to us on or about 2PM Tuesday, December 27, 2016! Send them to 1xeritas@gmail.com along with notes, ideas, inspirations and blog links, and we'll post the art--our last of this year!-- later that day.

Thank you for your participation and for stopping by. May the spirit of the season be your guiding inspiration, always.

Week 46--King

There is really no way to introduce this offering from Freebird, other than to let the image speak for it-, or more correctly, Himself.

From Arkansas, in her signature beads:

In her own words, "Here is my king twinchie.  I decided to make the picture of Jesus that shows him with the crown of thorns.  It is the one that has reversed colors, black background and white drawing,  I love the contrast that it makes." Be sure to check out her blog!

Here, from Arizona, our contribution to this week's twinchie, a more secular take on the theme:

A photograph of a traveling checkers game. We can't believe that it's the only checkers we have around, not even RED playing pieces. We'll have to correct that!

Until next time....

It's Good to be King!

Dear Gentle Readers and Artists,
My apologies for delayed postings. There have been some technical difficulties (and a lot of wasted hours) resulting from the Google virus attack. I believe everything is back to normal and up-to-date. We resume our regularly scheduled programming with this (and be sure to check out the other posts).

When the TwobyTwo for "king" popped up no the radar, we immediately thought of the Mel Brooks movie.

From the Official
Movie Poster

But, we'll steer clear of that and keep this family-friendly, shall we?

There's a future king who's a real cutie:

Copyright:
Daily Express

There were three kings that traveled a-far:

There was a king from afar:

King Tut
biography.com

And a king that was "far out."

Steve Martin as King Tut
A Wild and Crazy Guy
Saturday Night Live, 1978

What is a king without a crown?

Don King

Oh, what were YOU thinking?

How about this? You can be king for a day and the mantle is light!

Show us your "king-ly" twinchies!
Send your images to: 1 xeritas @ gmail. com along with a blog link or note by 2PM, Tuesday, December 13, 2016 and we'll post them later the same day (as long as those Googligans stay out of our computer!).
Have a brilliant day.

Week 45--Ice

Just when we thought summer couldn't linger any longer! BAM! Winter. Freezing rain, ice and snow. In Arizona. In November. BRR. What better way to prepare for making "ice-y" twinchies than feeling ice cold?

Freebird sent this adorable treat from Arkansas with a note:

"I took this opportunity to make a favorite pattern of mine.  I love it!  A Kawaii Ice cream cone with a purple bow."

We love it, too1

Our official response, which resembles nothing like what was intended:

It's a collage and a play-on-words, so to speak.

Thanks for visiting and be sure to check the blogs of the participating artists!

Until next time...

Ice, Ice, Baby!

If you have frozen water, you have ice. If it's a frozen lake full of water, you have an opportunity to go ice skating. If it's a sheet of ice on a pond, you could be skating on thin ice. If you're walking on thin ice, you could be in trouble of a different kind.

If you like ice cubes, you like your drinks cold. You could like Ice Cube or Vanilla Ice, rappers. We used to get a treat in summer, water ice. We know! It's redundant, but that's Philadelphia for you.

And who doesn't like ice cream? I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream! YAY!

So show us your ice twinchies! Send your entries to:
1xeritas@ gmail.com by 2PM, Tuesday, November 29, 2016 and we'll post them later the same day!

Week 44--Yarn

There are so many different ways to make yarn and use yarn.

We couldn't wait to see how Freebird was going to show us her yarn. She chose to tell her story in her signature beads:

We're glad to see her back to her creating self. Be sure to check out her adventures on her blog! Her response to the previous week has been posted here.

Our official response was knitted:

You can learn about what we're doing with that here.

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you join us again.
Until next time....

Spin a Really Good One

If you have some yarn, you can knit, crochet and stitch your way through a ball, hank or skein. Of course, you could spin some yarn if you don't have any already.
If words are more your medium, you could spin a really good yarn, which means to tell an outlandish story. Like how I was kidnapped by aliens.
Kidding!
While I get back to our regularly scheduled blogging and artistic endeavors, try your hand at expressing yourself with yarn or what have you? However you translate a good yarn, send us your yarn twinchies to:
1xeritas@gmail.com by 2PM Tuesday, November 15, 2016 along with blog links, etc. We'll post all the goodies later the same day.

Week 43--Tangled

The work this week is "tangled," no less to honor the howling days of Hallowe'en and Dia de Los Muertes than any other reason to be creative.

I'll be running solo this week. Here is the official response to this week's challenge:

You can check out this blog post for more particulars on the collage and more, including my recipe for spaghetti sauce. Inspiration is where you find it, right?

Meanwhile, send out prayers and good vibes to Freebird.

Update, November 15, 2016:
Freebird's contribution to this challenge:

Until next time...

O, What a Tangled Web!

And so begins a poem by Walter Scott from 1806.

It is a fitting title for a blog on the internet or attempting to create decorations for Hallowe'en celebrations...or, to create itty bitty art masterpieces!

You can have a spider web that's pretty and tangled up

You can be "Tangled up in Blue:"

Nobel Poet, Bob Dylan

You can have a tangled mess of earbuds:

Or Christmas lights

If you a tangler, your very art is tangled (shameless personal plug here):

There's plenty of inspiration out there for that kind of thing!

Show us your "tangled" art. We could be "Tangled up in You!"

Send your artwork to:  1xeritas@gmail.com by 2PM, November 1, 2016, along with blog links and/or notes of inspiration. We'll post them later the same day!

Week 42--Quill

There were many different ways to take a "quill," and in true fashion, all of the responses were of different mediums and different interpretations.

First up is Zoe, a quilller from Australia. She created a trio of twinchie abstracts:

These are, according to Zoe,

"A quilled take on abstract paintings (from left) "Black Square" by K. Malevich, "Castle and Sun" by P. Klee and "Composition VIII" by W. Kandinsky. 

Next we have Freebird, a bead artist from Arkansas:

With beads, she "painted" a quill with an ink pot. We ponder what powerful words would pour from that pen! Mightier than the sword, indeed!

Our official response is a merging of quilling and quillwork:

You see? They're all very different, which illustrates how any artist working in just about any medium can participate in the TwobyTwo! Thanks for stopping by. Hope you consider trying the twinchie challenge yourself!
Until next time....

Call it What You Will

With apologies to Annette Carlo, one of the first artists we've met that quill.

We have to apologize to artists everywhere as we snuck "quill" on the list as we thought it might be a handcraft that we'd like to try.

But really, our first thought was a creature that only a mother could love:

Very difficult to hug, we imagine. The internet thingie is full of images of people that thought they could get friendly with a porcupine. Were they ever wrong!

Ouch.

Native Americans of the Northern Plains use porcupine quills to create quillwork. It looks like flat beads, but the quills are dyed then wrapped and woven around ropes and reeds:

Then, there is quilling, the art of wrapping paper into coils and other patterns. It was considered a very popular past-time for the delicate creatures, ladies of leisure (!).

An artist we have met in the blogosphere concentrates her art on quilling. Zoe has allowed us to share this image, representative of her work:

We also follow the work of Kia, another quiller.

This year, the United States heart stamp art was created by a quiller, Yulia Brodskaya

You could just use a quill for calligraphy or fancy handwriting:

Write the novel of the century:

Or just create a fine signature that will be recognized the world over:

Maybe yours, too, could be worth millions someday!

Show us your quill-related twinchies!

Send your images to 1xeritas@gmail.com by 2 PM Tuesday, October 18, 2016 along with blog links or notes and we'll post the entries later the same day. See "The Rules" for more information. Thanks for participating, even by way of checking out the "inspiration."

Week 41--Copper

If, indeed, there is a collective consciousness and inspiration is everywhere, then this week's responses drew from that collective wealth. The artists, with very different mediums, illustrated eerily similar ideas.

First up, Freebird beaded an entry to the periodic table:

And it snuck into our official response:

Be sure to visit the artists' blogs to see what they've been creating. And if the spirit moves you, to participate, next time, any time!

It's that time of year for posting next year's list! So you will see "2017" as a new page. It took a couple weeks to sift through the working list and narrow down the choices to 26--coincidentally, one for each letter of the English alphabet. We may rearrange the words yet, which is why there are no dates on the page. Get ready for another exciting year!

Until next time....

Person, Place and Thing

We love words that can have different meanings; words that can be nouns or verbs and are very useful for colorful language.

Take "copper."

It can be an animal: copper butterfly or copperhead snake.

It can be mineral; it is elemental after all.

It's not a vegetable, but the moniker can be applied to certain persons that are responsible for keeping the peace. We're not making a political statement, far from it. My father-in-law was a police officer for 40 years and very much disliked being called a "cop."

There's a television show called, "Copper." We haven't seen it.

Copper can be very exciting! It is very good at conducting electricity and it's responsible for moving a LOT of water.

As a salt, it's a semi-precious gemstone in a lovely shade of turquoise.

It can also show up in your pockets as money!

Now, how will it show up in your art?

Show us your copper twinchies! Send images to 1xeritas@gmail.com by 2 PM, Tuesday, October 4, 2016, along with anything you'd like to say about it and any linky-dinks. We'll post the goodies later the same day!

Week 40--Astronomy

Look to the stars and what do you see? 

Freebird captured a spaceship and Saturn in her signature beads:

If you could rocket into space, where would you go?

We're not planning on going to Pluto soon, but we occasionally visit the observatory that was responsible for finding the dwarf planet. Thus we have:

Be sure to check out the blogs to learn about the artists and their inspiration, to see what they see. Perhaps, to try your own hand at interpreting the challenge, to boldly go where none have gone before? 

Until next time....

In the Night Sky

When you look up in the sky at night, what do you see? There is the moon in all its delightful phases:

There are stars, which us humans have grouped into constellations.

Depending on your point of view, you can see Ursa Major, the Big Dipper or Crux, the Southern Cross:

Crux from Taiwan
by PK Chen

We can pick out Scorpius in the sky by the bright orange star, Antares:

And on a clear, New Moon night, the Milky Way. So many stars!

Our favorite star cluster is The Pleiades.

The ancient Greeks have their stories of all the stars, referred to as the Seven Sisters, as do just about every culture on the planet. You probably see the stars every day here on the ground, as they have been stylized for the logo for Subaru.

Show us what you see! Send your artwork to 1xeritas@gmail.com by 2PM Tuesday, September, 20, 2016 along with your notes of inspirations and blog links. We'll post them later the same day.

Week 39--Jewel

It must be the craziness that is the last official "hoorah!" of North American summer, but "things" are moving slowly around here. Or just the distraction of family, barbeques and toasted marshmallows. MMM.

Freebird sent us her beading pattern for her "jewel." We're impressed with her dedication: even if she's busy with family, she still has time for her art and this challenge:

We can't wait to see the finished product; she'll post it on her blog when it's all done!

We went with drawing a ruby cabochon as a scarab beetle. The added challenge was to draw black-on-black then to try to photograph it.

On our Flickr feed, so far.

We all hope you like what you see, that you visit the artists' blogs and comment appropriately. Or perhaps? Try your hand at whatever inspires you and create your own twinchies!

Until next time....