Here’s to the Land of the Longleaf Pine.

“Here’s to the land of the long leaf pine,
The summer land where the sun doth shine,
Where the weak grow strong and the strong grow great,
Here’s to “Down Home,” the Old North State!”
From A Toast to North Carolina by Leonora Martin and Mary Burke Kerr

I know it has been awhile since I last posted. I was doing good about making regular post, but over the past month life got in the way.  Remodeling, family visits, and work as a free-lance technical editor and teacher kept me quite busy and little free time for my artist career.

The little extra time I did have was used for the Mixed Media Madness Mission (M4) that my friend Jean offers to our Mixed Media Guild. This year’s theme coincides with the 1st Annual Palustris Festival. My last post I showed you a picture of one of my  inspiration photos. Today, my photo is a snippet of the final piece. We have been vowed to secrecy with our pieces only to show them at the Artist Alley gallery opening next Friday (March 26) evening. But a little sneak peak here won’t hurt.

All will be revealed March 26th, 2010

Hope you can join my friends and I for the M4 opening. We were tasked with a list of 22 items to use in our finished pieces, which creates quite a challenge. Its a great learning tool to help push your creative abilities out of their comfort range. Last year I completed in the event and was quite surprised at how easy it the pieces went together. (You can read about and see my results from last year’s challenge here: My Blog Post and Carolina Mixed Media Guild Showcase.)

This year’s list of challenge components are:

• Pine…Pine Needles…A Pine Cone…Anything and Everything “Pine” Will Qualify
• Something that Starts with The Letter *P*
• Light Bulb(s)
• Metal Washer(s)
• Fabric
• Something made of Wood
• Twine, String, Fiber or Thread
• Bead(s) (As many as you’d like, and as many different kinds as you’d like.)
• Key(s)
• Something Blue
• Coin(s) or Token(s) (As many as you’d like, and as many different kinds as you’d like.)
• Something Made of Glass
• Treasure(s) From The Great Outdoors
• Part or All of a Book
• Ribbon(s)
• Something from the Kitchen
• Foil
• Wool
• Tissue Paper(s)
• Thing-a-Ma-Jig (Optional)
• Doo-Hickie (Optional)
• Gee-Gaw (Optional)

Stay tuned next week to see what my final piece looks like. I think I was able to get everything in.