Love!

Tags

Altered book, art, art journal, Art Journal Every Day, collage, friends, gratitude, gratitude journal, love, Valentine, zentangle

Here is my gratitude journal entry for Valentine’s Day eve. Yesterday was a day full of love for me. I had lunch with 3 of my BFFs and we had the opportunity to talk for more than an hour and ate yummy food. After that I was picked up by our Art Association director to help her with a SPARKS program. I’m not sure what the acronym stands for (feel free to google it and let me know), but it is a wonderful program! What we did was give some community members who have memory problems and their family members a tour of our current exhibit. The current exhibit includes art by Jesse Coraggio and Justin Behm. They are young men who grew up in Beaver Dam and went off to get art degrees from UW Steven’s Point. They show a maturity beyond their years in their art. We were inspired to play with watercolors and ink after touring the exhibit. We used white crayons to hide messages on the paper and learned about mixing colors and blowing paint with a straw and a hair dryer. We also added salt to our watercolors to see how Jessie got some of his interesting textures. After they were dry we used a variety of black pens and markers to highlight the negative spaces or draw shapes and words. Everybody was really engaged in the activity and it provided so much rich conversation. I really enjoyed partnering with Jessalyn, too. She is becoming a new BFF!

Today has been all about cats and art. The cats mostly were ornamental and watched me as I played with a lot of different media. I’m creating a window display for a fair trade store that we have in town and it has been really fun. At this point I’m covering boxes of different sizes with paper and gesso. They will display the days of the week when I’m done. Maybe I will take some photos of the process and the product!

What is bringing you joy this Valentine’s Day? Who loves you and who do you love?

Tonight my sweetie and I are having a nice homemade dinner and then off to a concert! Tomorrow we are cleaning at a Buddhist temple. Making mashed potatoes as an act of love. Yum.

Existential Landscapes, Flowers, and Cats

Tags

altered art, art journal, cat, collage, David Foster Wallace, existentialism, flowers, friends, gratitude, landscapes, zentangle

This is a sketch for a Zentangle Inspired Art(ZIA) piece that I’m working on, but it kind of makes an interesting landscape on its own. I am almost done with the piece and I will include some kind of copy of it in my journal in the next week. I have been working on it off and on all week and I’m pleased with the result. Stop back to see how it turned out.

I’m continuing to play with different methods of journaling on my pages and I’m really loving this super loopy writing inspired by Dina Wakley. It makes my gratitude for air conditioning look beautiful.

I enjoy listening to audio books while I do some kinds of art, particularly some of my larger ZIA pieces. I have been listening to The Broom of the System by David Foster Wallace. It has been interesting to draw flowers while listening to the twists and turns of the tale. At some points it made me laugh out loud and at other points I just let the story wash over me. It inspired my title. I fall more into the camp of flowers and cats than David Foster Wallace on the existential crisis spectrum. However, in my youth I struggled greatly with these big ideas of purpose and place in the universe. I have a great love for language and philosophy that permeate this book.

And some days include skulls mixed in with the hearts and flowers.

 

Creative Challenge Continues

Tags

Altered book, art journal, friends, gratitude, gratitude journal, Kelly's 30 day creative challenge

I didn’t really follow the prompts for yesterday or today, but I did create. I actually spent yesterday cooking and eating with friends. Today another friend came over and we ate and played with art supplies. I helped her get started on an altered book art journal – yeah! and we watched movies. My son and husband are out of town so I’m getting some good play time in while I’m home alone. They are in Branson, MO making lots of music so that can be my connection for Kelly’s 30 day creative challenge!

Family and Friends

Tags

altered art, art journal, coffee, family, friends, gratitude journal, sketch, tulips

Friday I met some new friends of mine at a local coffee shop and we walked from there to the house of one of them. It has been so lovely getting to know them. Spring is coming and it is wonderful to be able to get outside and walk. The air was still a bit nippy, but the company and coffee kept me warm. My nephew and his wife and son came over for dinner on Saturday. My mom joined us. It was a lovely day with simple food and flowers and good company. My son was so great playing with the little guy so the grown-ups could talk. Here is a sketch I did from a photo of the little guy. He was playing piano but here it looks like he is smelling the flowers.

“Spring” is a sketch I did for a card I made for one of my new friends. She is in my yoga class and we have taken to going out for coffee after class. This was an award for her for cleaning up after her 3 dogs now that all the winter snow has exposed an entire winter’s worth of poo. If you look closely you can see that the letter R has a foot stepping in something. This amused my son and I for hours.

 

You may have noticed that I am really grateful for coffee. It is more that I am grateful for the social aspect and the sense of community. However, I really do enjoy a good cup of coffee. My husband is also ubiquitous in my journal. I am so fortunate to have him in my life.

My robin is a little off, but overall I feel pretty good with my increasing sketching. I am also feeling more comfortable with using the Inktense pencils. I’m not entirely happy with the orange of his breast, but I feel like I’m getting better at undertones. I guess I will need to keep practicing! Yeah!