Saturday, July 5, 2008

Collecting Rocks




















This drawing, done with Prismacolor pencils, was a prelude to my deep love of rock collecting. I have a wonderful collection of ocean rocks, which thankfully, I have well contained in huge glass vases, each rock, carefully placed for space and viewing. When I collect rocks, I am usually looking for the rocks with lines going through them. Dark rocks with light lines or stripes and on a rare occasion, a light colored rock with dark lines. The drawing shows my child-like awe, when finding just one rock...WOW...what a treasure! How unique, how was THIS rock formed, where did the lines come from, how did they get there....so many questions. When I go to the beach, with yellow bucket in tow, I am on a mission to scour the shore for the rocks, ( sometimes very, very tiny rocks) and oh the THRILL when I can see that I've had a good 'haul' to bring home! The photograph of the rock above the drawing was a very rare find, and needless to say, I have it on the legde by my kitchen sink, so that it's in my view all the time!!

12 comments:

Kim said...

a magical drawing Amy...
and I can understand your love for rocks...
this one is a beauty...
an art piece in itself....
enjoy your Sunday :)

Matthew S. Urdan said...

Very cool...do you know the geology of your rocks and/or what type they are...or are they collected for look alone?

Wendy said...

Amy,

The rock and the drawing looked awesome. I really like the drawing. I'm going to look on my beach for some pretty rocks and shells to take pictures of. Thank you for giving me the idea!

Princess Cupcake

Azure Accessories said...

I agree with Kim...your drawing looks very magical...

I'm a huge fan of rocks myself...but that shouldn't surprise you :0)

Cheers

:-) MaryLou said...

My husband would REALLY love it if I stopped collecting rocks. On a recent trip to Long Island I found so many that I wound up opting to send them home in a Priority Mail Flat Rate Box. :-)

Amy Lilley Designs said...

Hey Kim...yes, the rock collecting is in my soul...and that one IS quite the keeper...

Matt, I've decided to save all your questions in a separate folder and answer them @ the end of each month..LOL

Princess Cupcake, I can't WAIT to see the beautiful pictures I know that you will be taking of the rock and shells that you find!

Azure, no, no surprise there and MaryLou, my husband, bless his heart, carried a sizable rock back from Block Island, which I keep on the side of my kitchen sink and use to hold my 'Dobie pad'...AND, thank you All...glad that you like the drawing..

Matthew S. Urdan said...

LOL Amy!

Matthew S. Urdan said...

All, it's Sunday and I'm catching up on comments for the week. This is in response to your comment on my post: Declaration of Independence.

Henson--Thanks for sharing that...like I said to you earlier this week, I had the chance to see the Declaration of Independence on Display at the National Archives. It was one of those moments in life when you're so close to something so important it's not just like touching history, but it's like a wormhole connection to another place and time--while in the course of major world events, very few will be able to recognize their importance at the time, but through the the proximity to just a document like this, it really takes you to that moment in time, to that place, to that moment that really changed the world in the most significant of ways.

Crazy Working Mom--Et tu!

Len--like I said earlier to you, I can't imagine how difficult it must be for our troops in Iraq. They really must be wondering what they are fighting for, because it's not their freedom, our freedom, or even the Iraqis freedom. I really wish we could bring them home and they could enjoy the fireworks--even on a 98 degree night.

Mrs. Mecomber--great point...Especially after the breakup of the Former Soviet Union, there are a lot of countries in the world out there a lot younger than we are, even if their culture might still be a little bit our senior.

Kimmie--anytime you want to talk about Detroit just let me know. I'm heading back to Detroit this Thursday for four days. I'll also check out your blog. Ken's stuff is amazing. I'm glad you found your way here via Ken.

Amy--Absolutely. There's so much history surrounding the writing and signing of the Declaration of Independence, the Revolutionary War and everything leading up to it. I'm waiting til the Sam Adams special is available on Netflix, but I'll get to see it eventually.

Cheers!

Matthew S. Urdan said...

All, it's Sunday and I'm catching up on comments for the week. This is in response to your comment on my post: Digg This: Making the Most of Digg w/ EntreCard.

Thank you very much for your comments and the response to this post. It's been very gratifying and a great validation.

CLARIFICATION: At this time I also want to let everyone know that it is perfectly OKAY TO SUBMIT YOUR OWN POSTS TO DIGG. We have verified that with content on the Digg site. See the post above for details.

Pam--Thank you. Yes, spam is in the eye of the beholder, but I think we can agree that we don't want to receive shouts to digg posts such as: Today is Thursday. My dog died. I'm very sad. Plus my husband just beat me again.

You know what I mean...the ordinary and the content that just really can't be considered quality material appealing to a wide general audience.

Susanne--thank you. And thanks for raising the issue of submitting your own posts. But as Ken pointed out, Digg says it's perfectly acceptable. Digg does recommend that posts submitted do appeal to a wide audience.

The shout situation seems to be improving. Either everyone removed me from their friends list, or people have mostly received the message. I hope the latter. Because I did remove one friend today for shouting out about the same post 6 times. I buried his post and defriended him--nice verb, btw: defriend: what a horrible thing to do to someone. I guess I'm just a horrible guy. ;)

the judge--Thank you so much! I've favorited you on entrecard now, so I should be stopping by every day. thanks for the kudos and the tip about the bury command--see my comments to Susanne above.

luckygirl--Again, thanks for the kind words, and again--it's cool to submit your post to Digg. If everyone on entrecard does this right after they make the post, it really will make it easier for all of us to digg posts we want to while we are dropping entrecards. And as has been clarified, it's a practice acceptable to Digg.

Tasha--again, I'm not sure what you're asking. Feel free to call me on my cell--I did forward you my number. I'm not some internet predator that's going to follow you down and stalk you, really. Wait, there was that one time.... No, really. ;)

ellumbra--what a very interesting name you have there! That's an awesome way to put it--a shout is like a salesman visiting your door. Most of us aren't buying. That's why the salesmen that stop by should be very good salesmen with a very good product to sell in your post you're shouting about.

Patricia--my pleasure, glad I could help. But I gotta warn you, if you photocopy the print out of my post and start distributing it I'm going to have to cry copyright infringement on you and call my ambulance chasing cousin to chase you down and collect $0.38 in royalty fees.

Brad--thanks for stopping by and commenting here, and on my post Celebrating 10 Years of Rafting. I wish there was an active link to your blog or your email address so I could visit your blog. Please, the next time you stop by, leave a URL or at least a calling card where I could find you. Glad you found my posts informative and useful, and I welcome you as a reader.

Amy--just like I said to Tasha, call me. Just like I said to Tasha, you have my phone number so use it and call me if you want help. I'm not an internet stalker...except for that one time...but I'm reformed now. REALLY! No really, I'm a mensch! ;)

Jo, my pleasure! The ones that are asking for reciprocal diggs are going to find that they will be defriended by other digg users. But I think this is partly Graham's fault. On EntreCard, we have a culture of reciprocity. Graham didn't do a very good job of explaining what all of us were getting into on Digg. I think he assumed we were all rather literate internet social-networkers, and as we have discovered, that is a bad assumption. You know what they say about people who assume, right? ;)

Cindi--you're welcome. Like you, I'm very selective. You can see what I choose to digg in the digg widget I put in my left sidebar. Those posts will stay there a long time because I'll really be surprised if I ever digg more than two or three stories a day in addition to my posts--which, like Monday's post which is more or less just an announcement, I will not be digging at all.

Bill--thank you. Yes, change your behavior. Honestly, who has time to reciprocate on every digg? Even if the diggs being solicited for are for great content? It's like dropping 300 cards every day. Time is a commodity in short supply. It should be worth $4.09/gallon. Or something like that. But reciprocating every digg is just bad policy. It's giving a stamp of approval on content that might not deserve it, and probably doesn't. I think each of us would be hard pressed to produce more than one post of really worthy quality a week. Unless you're like Ken Armstrong.

Ken--are you looking for a job as my research assistant? Because you've got the position if you want it, Mate! Great find validating user submission of their own posts on Digg.

A--thanks for the validation of Ken's find. Yep, I turned off email notification within half a day of having 200+ friends. What a disaster that was. There needed to be better information passed along. Ah well, we're in a good place now. Thanks for stopping by!

Cheers everyone!

LizzyT said...

We are just the same, when we have been to the beach we come back with pockets full of treasures.

The Muse said...

Finding stones and rocks that appear to have been Gods own sketch pad...is an awesome thrill...I kknow all too well MS Amy!

And i agree with Kim who said your art was magical! Most Truly!

njemacreative said...

I love rocks. :) (being a geologist and all..) And your drawing is very captivating!