Winter

I have been re-reading Terry Pratchett's fantasy novels. Come Tusker, come Rooter, come Snouter, come Gouger! Dash away, dash away, dash away all!!

The 22nd of December is the Solstice, an event which our ancestors celebrated for thousands of years. The Collage Obsession challenge, "Candles," seems to go very well with that observation.

Trio

This is my Collage Challenge "Trio," an electronic greeting card. A set of singing cats seems appropriate to the season.

Travel

This week's collage challenge is "Travel." I'm not going anywhere myself, but the theme made me think of a delightful little whimsy about a sailing ship that went to another planet.

Pattern Play

This week's Collage Obsession challenge is "Pattern Play," which reminds me of the assignments I had in Design class when I was a Fine Arts student.

This weeks collage challenge is "Thanksgiving," so I paid tribute to the valiant warriors who preserved the tradition through the ages, laying down their lives and their sacred honor to save The Bird from the clutches of the barbarians. Alas, we shall never see their like again!

Science

My response to the collage challenge "Science," is a panoply of tools from the very beginning ("The secret is to bang the rocks together, guys!") to the utmost in scientific perfection...

Black Cat

I'm a little late when it comes to a black cat for Halloween, but here is my response to the current College Obsession. I think of her as The Sultan's Favorite.

PATIENCE

This week's collage challenge is "Patience." This is what I came up with; I can't think of anything to say about it, except that I had a devil of a time with my vultures overlapping!

In answer to popular requests (well, one person DID ask about it) here is a nightmare in blue chiffon, "Shelob's Night Out."

This week's challenge is Dreams and Nightmares. This morning I was dreaming about a sapphire blue evening gown with lots of chiffon, but there isn't much pizazz in that, so let me consider the nightmare side of my subconscious -- centipedes, spiders, and the faceless unknown.

Alter Ego

My alter ego is an archaic bitch. But which one is actually pulling the strings?

The snowy landscape was taken in my back yard, the drawing is one that I did about ten years ago, and the photograph is one of myself in my thirties.

This week's Collage Obsession challenge is "Masks." I have used the anonymity and inscrutability of that which is concealed and unknown.

I am honestly not sure if I've done this challenge right or not. The challenge is to take a sepia picture (provided, or one of your own choice) and colorize it using a provided pastel palette. I chose to use a picture of my husband and myself in fancy dress, in Brighton in 1979.

The Collage Obsession challenge for this week is the number thirteen. I thought of a hangman's noose because a school chum taught me how to tie one when I was about seventeen, and it traditionally has 13 coils in the knot.

Big Rock Candy Mountain

Here is something that might be called "Landscape With Candy," or "Constable With A Sweet Tooth." It's a scene that might be found on the slopes of the Big Rock Candy Mountain.

The challenge to depict "Peace" made me think of the Pax Romana, the peace by force of arms that the Roman Empire enforced for 250 years.  The motto, "Speak softly but carry a big stick" is a more modern description of the same theory.

This is my response to the week's challenge -- Sloth.  Here is a couple "sleeping in," when they should be up and doing.  Those hands may be sheltering them, or about to give them a rude awakening -- who knows?

Complimentary Colors

This week's Collage Obsession is a challenge to use complimentary colors in specific proportions. I chose yellow and blue.

The Collage Obsession challenge for this coming week is "Roots". I started out with roots, a nice menacing circle of tree roots. Somehow it morphed into a lament for Marilyn Monroe. Oh well, sometimes those things happen.

What's in the glass?

This week's Collage Obsession challenge is to put something inside of a glass -- for which I have no one to blame but myself! What I discovered in my glass is a miniature cossack, captured in an upturned glass at the bottom of the sea.

This week's Collage Obsession challenge, posed by Rick St. Dennis, is "Greed." My mind has been on the economy, the stock market, and I thought of pearls before swine. There is also the old Wall Street saying that "Bulls make money and bears make money, but hogs get slaughtered."

Gluttony

Rick St.Dennis posed "Gluttony" as this week's Collage Obsession challenge. Nothing immediately occurred to me and I had to let the concept percolate overnight. I mused over chocolates to die for, and the lady whose name they carry, land yachts of the 1950s, and wolverines. And slathering desire that makes one's tongue hang out.

"Wounded Love"

I cheated on the Collage Obsession challenge, by using the color as a tint. I feel guilty. So, here is another response, with the true color -- although I didn't use very much of it -- as the blood of Aphrodite.

The new Collage Obsession challenge has been posted and it is ... the color "honeysuckle." It's a shade of pink, and pink is not one of my favorite colors. However, pink is for girls and it fits in with something that's been on my mind. Another rock star has come to the end of the line before the age of thirty. That's a sad waste of talent and life.

The Lady is For Burning

The new Collage Obsession challenge is "The other side of the sunset," represented by the bright glow of the sun sinking behind the hills, which I found very evocative. The sun is a ball of fire, of course, and that led me to thinking about other sources of fire.

Life Without the Internet Sucks

I have just recovered from two weeks without internet service, "on account of not my fault." I first became involved in the net world when I worked for the Xerox Corporation, in the 1970s. That was the era of Arpanet, an early network used mostly by defence contractors. In forty years network service has become a utility that most of the Western world uses without thinking much about it. Those two weeks reminded me how much I have come to depend on the net for social communication, shopping, information, and news. It amazes me, it really does.