Clearly I'm forgetting a meeting or an important mail run or something.
My calendar disagrees... aside from the regular Thursday reminders, my day is simply a generic work day. (It says something when sitting with an accounting program in front of you feels like a relaxing day)
The big school fundraiser went over pretty well, aside from Mother Nature deciding to dump waterfalls on us during the only portion that was scheduled to be outside (and ONLY during the time we were supposed to be outside) Our photo booth ran steady from our early start time right up until the end - people seemed to really like the way we set it up. Here is G in her Vampire costume at school.
This Halloween was our quietest yet. Between the home improvement projects and the work I did for the fundraiser, it took a bit of juggling to find time to carve pumpkins. I finally just shoved the paint brushes aside, put on "It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown" and got to work.
I went with a LOTR theme myself (is that any surprise?)
The EYE is always watching!
The carving was actually not difficult, and it ended up being very relaxing (though it took longer than one Halloween special to finish it) I used our wood block carving tools to outline the eye and the pupil, then just kept digging veins out, criss-crossing and making some deeper and more defined. Next I took the plastic pumpkin scraping spoon and raked it across the "white" of the eye to pop off what was left of the pumpkin skin, leaving the bits in the center so that it would be darker once it was lit up. I painted the pupil black with acrylic paint so that it would be absolutely black, then I scraped the inside of the pumpkin thinner to make it brighter when lit. This year I lit them with strands of battery operated white lights stuffed into a glass jar (no fire hazard that way, and more evenly lit) but those lights didn't even last the whole night so I don't recommend it.
This was the first year G wanted to try full face make-up for Halloween. Once she was all done I just had to set up the backdrop and get a good picture.
I *love* the effect of the mask.
I attempted to put my hair into ringlets the way I always see it done in movies, but it seems that 20 years of being away from a curling iron made my skills a little rusty.
My days are slowly winding down as the month goes on. The school fundraiser and all subsequent meetings are now done. The art contest at the school is nearly complete - just a couple more hours dedicated to that next week and I can mark that off my list. My only ongoing obligation to the school is to be the art docent for G's class. This will involve trainings here and there, and a once-a-month appearance in front of the kiddos where I'll have to talk out loud and sound like I know what I'm doing. (On top of the public speaking issue, we are also starting out with a clay project as our first lesson of the year. Ambitious, right? Perhaps stupidly ambitious?)
Next week is a big one for me - art lesson and family birthday dinner in the beginning of the week, turn in art contest entries in the middle of the week, host G's friend birthday party at the end of the week.
I am grateful for the 3 day weekend... perhaps with the extra non-work day I may be able to pull myself together for one more big hulabaloo before the holidays strike.
My weekend starts tonight with a trip to Glazer's for their closing ceremony of their Holga portrait contest. I have a lot of competition, so while my fingers are crossed... in reality I'm just looking forward to mingling with other photographers and picking up my copy of "Plastic Cameras: Toying with Creativity"
