Tempest

It has been a couple of weeks since I posted. I've been taking a little down time. I haven't been feeling very artistic lately so I have used this time to get caught up on some reading. It's amazing the number of books I've been zipping through with my Nook, and I've missed that. I used to read so much more than I do now. I was also able to get some great poetry books (real ones, not ebooks) and have been using those as inspiration for some art pieces I'm excited to start working on. Plus I've really enjoyed just sitting and listening to the playlist on my Ipod. Heavenly!

I've been through these dry times before. This one is about to come to an end. The poetry and the music and the reading have all helped to re-fill my artistic well. And I'm starting two new courses: Mixed Media Faces by Monica Zuniga at Hands and Heart Ning site and Towers and Turrets, taught by Sharon Tomlinson and Deryn Mentock at All Norah's Art Ning site. Both look to be great boosts to my Muse!

I put together the little digital piece at the top of this post today. I thought I was going to enter it for Kimmie's digital challenge this week at Digital Whisper Ning site but I just realized it wasn't what she was asking for! We were given the image of the lady and were supposed to do her up her in a Teesha Moore style. Oops! I was just in a darker mood, I guess. So I used elements and papers from Tangie Baxter at Scrapbook Graphics (her Tempest kit). Appropriately enough, I call this one, "Tempest".

Hopefully other things going on here behind the scenes have calmed down enough so that I can really concentrate on these two classes this week. The videos are starting to go up and I am looking forward to sitting down with those and trying out the lessons. Hope to have more to show you real soon!

My Immortal

This is my entry for the Dark Whisper challenge this week at Digital Whisper Ning site. I love that Kimmie started a group for the darker arts! Just my thing. We were given the two images of the lady and the tree roots and then told to merge them together and take it from there. Ooh, I loved this one!

She posted a video from the group Evanescence called "My Immortal" to get us motivated. I had forgotten that I even had this CD! So of course I went hunting for it and finally dug it up. I played it as I was creating this piece; especially the song, My Immortal. Hmm...so of course I had to give it that title when I finished!

I just had the best visit with my sister! She was able to stay a full week. I limited my time on the computer because I wanted to spend as much time with her as I could. We don't get to see each other very much; only a couple of times a year and at Christmas so I really looked forward to her visit. We spent our time being silly, shopping, and watching movies (well, one movie at the theatre a few times: Eclipse). Plus, we watched videos here at home. We're both suckers for sappy, sad love stories. So there we sat, watching these sad scenes with a box of tissues between us, tears flowing. It was great! ;)

Then she helped me upgrade my sorely lacking technology supply (as in NONE). I did recently get a Nook (she's had hers for a while) so we both were able to make a visit to Barnes & Noble and plug in there for awhile for the freebies and shop for books & browse online. And, who knew I could even add music to my Nook! Yes, I have the Twilight and New Moon soundtracks loaded so I can listen to them as I re-read all of those books (I know, I'm hopeless...).

Also while she was here I was able to finally get an Ipod. Don't laugh. I've never felt the need to have one before. But she brought hers along and I was intrigued. Now I see what I was missing. So of course I wanted one. I LOVE mine. One of the reasons I didn't have any of these things before now was I'm so out of touch with how to even begin operating one or even where to start. That's why I needed her: she took care of helping me create my playlists and loading one onto my device. Now I'm happily plugged in!

But it was sad to see her leave and now it's very quiet here again. So I'm slowly getting back in the groove, catching up with the massive backlog of email and the different Ning sites and my favorite art blogs. Hopefully I'll be all caught up in the next few days. It was nice to have that time with her. It was very special to me. :)

Changes

I've been trying to stay balanced with all of the changes that are taking place right now. A lot of things are going on behind the scenes here that I'm not ready to talk about yet. But I have had a little down time to soak it all in.

One thing I keep noticing: the image of hearts keeps appearing. This digital piece has the same "dissolving heart" that I have in my encaustic piece (see last post). Here, I've changed the color (one of the advantages of digital art). I love the poetry of Mary Oliver and recently came across a poem that I couldn't get out of my head. It was after I'd made the encaustic. The poem is called, simply, "Heart Poem".

These were the verses that really spoke to me:

"My heart, that used to pump along so pleasantly,
has come now to a different sort of music.

There is someone inside those red walls, irritated
and even, occasionally, irrational...

...Now again it is the wild man..."

I'm cleaning out my art studio (again). But this time I'm getting rid of everything that doesn't speak to me anymore. For example, I've accumulated a lot of scrapbook materials and all of the things that go along with that. None of that interests me anymore. My sister is coming to visit on Monday and staying for a week. She is really into scrapbooking now and I plan to load all of this into her car and send it home with her.

This will help me clear my studio and my head for what I really want to do and to move on. I think I hold on too long to objects for sentimental reasons. That's not a bad thing. But now that I realize that holding on is exactly the thing that holds me back...it's time to let go.

So, hopefully these changes will bring about the "different sort of music" I'm hearing. Something is trying to break through the cracks...let's see if it succeeds.

Tangled Heart

This is my new encaustic mixed media piece: Tangled Heart. I didn't originally start out to do just one color with the encaustic. But after I laid down a couple layers of the titanium white and then the red, I didn't want to add any more color. I liked the bold splash of blood-red on the white.

When I started to fuse the red layer it was really cool how the bottom left splash ended up looking somewhat like a heart that was breaking up and melting. I didn't want to touch it anymore after I fused this layer so I decided to work on the next part: the resin heart.

This wood board had a 4 inch square cut in it already so I decided to add a heart there. I used some copper wire in different gauges in zig zag patterns behind the hole and backed that with copper mesh. Then I added a heart covered in paper and resin. Here's a closeup of that part:

I put this piece in our great room and I really like how it blends in with the other pieces I've done. This one measures 12" x 12" x 1 1/2". I have really missed working with the encaustics. It's been so hot already this summer and the studio upstairs is just unbearable to work in if I have to close off the air conditioning vents. In order to paint with the encaustics I have to plug in the heating element, open both windows, use the exhaust fan, etc. and it's just too hot in the room. But this week we had a little reprieve and it was in the mid 70's all week. What a treat to play with them again!

Other things happening: Kelly Rae Roberts' course ended this week and that was sad. It's been fun checking in with her and reading the posts and comments from the group. But the Facebook group will continue and that's been a great help. There are so many energetic, fun, talented women in that group! I love reading those posts and looking through the blogs.

My sister is coming to visit for a few days! Yay! Hopefully it will be in the next week or so. We always have a great time when she comes so I'm looking forward to that. And I'm putting finishing touches on the two faces I'm painting in Sharon Tomlinson's Technicolor Faces course. This one is very challenging but I'm giving it my best shot. I'll post those when they are finished if they don't turn out too alien-looking. :(

Have a safe holiday weekend everybody! We will be staying home working on different projects around here. One of mine will be getting the spare room ready for sis. And playing more with the drill in the work room. I'm still not ready to show that project yet. But it's coming along! More to come on that later...

Finding Balance

I can't believe how fast the weeks are going by. There are so many things I am trying to get caught up on and it seems like I'm just treading water here. It's very frustrating to realize that I haven't made as much progress in any of the areas I had hoped to and yet another week has passed! :(

I made this top piece as a sort of digital journal page. I was looking through my sketch book and came upon a series of fast little sketches that I did a while back. These were whimsical little drawings that I then transferred onto loose canvas. I am planning on painting these individual canvas pieces and doing more with them (yet another project). And I even know where I put the stack of cut out canvas! Yay for me!! :) The background is from Lori Davison at Scrapbook Graphics dot com.

Anyway, this digital piece came together as I was thinking about the word "balance". Kelly Rae has talked a lot about this in her ecourse. If you've been following along in the last couple of posts you know I'm taking her course on starting your own creative business. It has been an incredible course. So much information and so worth every penny. I have met some incredibly talented, generous and wonderful ladies along this journey! What a great experience!

Hubby and I met up with some old friends this weekend that were passing through town and had the best time with them. We met for lunch and I don't think I've laughed so much in a very long time. That got me to thinking about how I miss connecting with my friends in Ohio and made me a little more homesick for family/friends there. And then I started to think about the need to balance time with friends and time in the studio. I spend a lot of time alone creating and usually that's fine with me. But I realize that it's also just as important for me to get out and get some fresh air, interact with others and not be such a hermit all of the time.

I have all of these expectations for myself and what direction I want my art to take. Yet I also need to be aware of the need to balance that with time to take care of my health and to check in with my friends and family too. I'm so glad we had that time with our friends this weekend! It was a great eye opener and a fun trip down memory lane.

I do have a few works-in-progress to show. These are NOT anywhere near finished. This first one is from Sharon Tomlinson's class that I mentioned in an earlier post. Oh, it's such a challenge to paint faces! As you can see, I'm very new at it. I like the idea of the technicolor faces and this was my first try for critique. I used a model from a magazine as my inspiration and to be a guide for the placement of lights/darks on the face. Sharon has given me a few pointers and I'll now go in and see what I can do with it. What I like about this: the background!

This next one is a face that I sketched in my oversized journal I got a while back. It's filled with this heavy, cotton watercolor paper. Lots of texture and fun to draw on. This is purely for practice and play; no pressure. I sketched this face and then just started throwing paint on it. Actually it was paint left over from the face I was painting in Sharon's class. So we'll see where it ends up eventually:

And hubby has set me up a nice little workbench in the basement workshop. We've got a few drills, a bench vise, some copper tubing and lots of metal bits...more to come on that later!

Staying True

One thing that is really hitting home in taking Kelly Rae Roberts' course is her message: stay true to yourself when setting up your creative business and when making your art. There are so many ways to do things...so much inspiration out there...and so many helpful tutorials and articles on "how to" do things that it can all get overwhelming. And then you start to second guess...everything. Am I doing it right? Am I doing anything worth doing? WHAT am I doing? On and on it goes.

I've kind of hit that wall a little bit. I'm so thankful for the information and the resources that Kelly is sharing in her course. They will be invaluable in the weeks to come as I sort it all out. But I had to take a breather and just re-evaluate what it is I am wanting to do exactly. I'm not alone in this dilemma; I've seen others in the class asking the same questions. We're all just trying to make sense of it all and find our own paths. It's all exciting and the possibilities are endless, but you do have to start narrowing down where you want your focus to go!

I tend to be all over the place when it comes to my art. One week I'll really be into painting, then I'll switch to drawing and colored pencils or watercolors, then I'll do some mixed media on a canvas, then I may want to play with encaustics. You get the idea. But regardless of what medium I choose to work in, I have my own ideas on how I want my piece to look and I know a lot of times it's not what is probably considered "correct". Hubby always comments on my girls that I draw: "I like her but her neck is so long". Yes! I want to draw long necks. Maybe I'll stop at some point but right now I want to keep it up. It makes me happy. And happy Pam is creative Pam! :)

So I'm mulling all of this over and still trying to get some art made in the meantime. I started Sharon Tomlinson's class on painting faces in Technicolor. I must say it is a challenge. I don't paint faces too often. I love to draw them and color them with colored pencils and inks. But paint and me...it's definitely a steep learning curve. I'm on the verge of pitching the first canvas. I have so many layers on the poor face it's sad. But it's my first time actually painting a face on a canvas with acrylics. I've attempted faces with watercolors or painting on watercolor paper, which for some reason was a little easier than painting on the canvas.

Sharon had us sketch three versions of the same model. We were to find our own model. Of course with my abundance of fashion magazines laying around I had no trouble with that. We have three different canvases to paint so I have two more fresh ones waiting to start. These are small (6" x 9" canvas boards) so no big loss if I have to trash them. I'm going to persevere one more day with this first one and then call it a "warm up exercise" and start another one. But I want to wait for her next lesson to see what new things she introduces before I tackle the next canvas. I'm glad I saved my favorite sketch on canvas for a later lesson.

Last night I sketched a face in a little 3" x 5" sketch notebook and colored it with my pencils. This is kind of the idea we are going for with the technicolor look on canvas. It's so much easier with the pencils! I scanned her into Photoshop and put her into this digital collage but I wanted you to see the colors that I'm trying to get with the paints. By the way, the sketch is mine but the elements are from Tangi Baxter at Scrapbook Graphics. She is my favorite digital designer. I just lover her style! Now I'm going back to that darn canvas and try again...

A Little Magic

Things behind the scenes are moving along a little slower than I had planned. But I am making progress. I've had some family in for a visit and hubby had some trips out of town. Life just gets in the way sometimes and you have to stop and make time for family. This week, I hope, things have settled down and the real fun will begin. There shouldn't be any interruptions and I think I'll actually have an entire week to experiment with my new ventures.

I've been making new batches of CitraSolv papers and having great results with those. I've found with the terrible heat and humidity that the pages are easier to make if you do a few at a time rather than a whole stack at once. This was something that I didn't have much luck with in the Winter! But it's so much quicker and pretty much instantaneous with this Summer weather. I've got big plans for these papers and I'll show you a peek of that project later this week.

Some things that I had really planned on trying out by now had to be put on hold because the product I needed was back ordered for over a month. :( Can't be helped when you are at the mercy of online suppliers. Oh well, it's here now and I can finally get busy with it. :)

So, a little magic can start to happen this week (at least I hope so). I am excited to try these new techniques I've been reading and studying about. This whole thing is a new art form for me and will be just one big experiment. But you never know what can happen until you try. For the photo at the top of this post, I decided to use one of my recent sketches in a digital piece I put together. I added some magical bits and hope she can bring me some inspiration as I head into the week!

And I'm still loving Kelly Rae Roberts' ecourse. There is so much material that she is sharing with us on starting your own art business. It's a lot to take in but all of this will gel and begin to take form as I sort through it all. You may see some changes to the blog here and there as I learn how to tweak it and start to delve into the tech stuff. But I'm mainly in the information gathering stage right now and I know I can at least handle that much. ;)

So this week I'm looking forward to no interruptions and long hours playing in the studio! And, hopefully a few surprises to show very soon! And if not finished works, at least I hope to show some works-in-progress.

Dreaming Big

This is an encaustic piece I did when I first got my kit a while back. It's 6" x 12" on plywood. Nothing special but I keep it in my studio to remind me to dream...dream big. Kelly Rae's course is reminding me to stay focused on my dreams and not to get off track. That's something that I easily do: lose focus.

I saw this YouTube video in an encaustic group I belong to. It's an older video but I never get tired of watching this encaustic artist work. And she works BIG. Talk about dreaming big... I want to be her when I grow up!



While we're dreaming big, I always thought it would be great to have a warehouse-type studio. One with lots of windows and a workspace where you could spread out all of your tools and equipment...really let loose.

She is an awesome artist and inspiration to watch. Enjoy!

Discovery

This is my latest resined panel. It is 6" x 6" x 1 1/2". The sides are painted black. I tried to take a photo with the least amount of glare from the resin. There is just a slight bit in this photo on the very edge. I am getting a little more used to working with the resin. It's not perfect but a little better than the last one. I learn from the mistakes with each one. Ideas are definitely taking shape!

I call this one, "Discovery". As I was working on it I was thinking about the ecourse I'm taking with Kelly Rae Roberts (see button on sidebar). It's about starting your own creative business. This is something I've dreamed about for a long time and am working very hard to get going. I love this course. She is sharing what did and didn't work for her as she launched her successful business. It's been the exact thing I needed right now and I am so glad I signed up for it.

I have a lot of ideas for the direction I want my art to take. I don't have a single medium that I work in. I like to explore the different forms and see what results can come from working in them. I have a few surprises waiting in the wings. They aren't quite ready to show but are getting close.

These resined panels are really giving me a lot of inspiration. Hubby loves them. He wants me to do some bigger ones for the living room. I told him they are not easy! I want to work bigger, too, but I have to take it slow to figure out how the resin reacts to the different things I add to it. I'm going to do a series of smaller ones first. Then I will gradually move up in size. In the meantime, I'll be filling up the niches in the built-in shelves in the great room with my art. :)

I am really happy with this latest piece. It turned out exactly how I envisioned when I started it. That doesn't happen too often. I don't always have a pre-set notion of how I want something to look but for this one I pretty much knew what I wanted the overall look to be. I added different inks and other elements to this piece before adding the resin and was unsure how the resin would react to those. I was a little nervous when I started the pour but all turned out okay. So it's all a big adventure. The fun is in the discovery!

More to come on my experiments with yet another new art form and updates on my progress through Kelly Rae's class. I hope to announce the opening of my online shop soon!

New Directions

Here is a little bit of what I am experimenting with: pouring resin. This is pouring it in a different way than I am used to seeing. Usually I think of resin and think: jewelry. But I have seen some really cool artwork from artists who completely cover their canvases with resin after finishing their painting. They embed all sorts of objects in them first, then just flood their canvas. I thought I would start out small to get the hang of it. It takes some getting used to.

This piece is called "The Soul Knows". It's 6" x 6" x 1 1/2" cradled canvas panel. I cut this quote from a book that attributed it to Plato. I don't know if he actually said it but I liked the quote. The background is one of my CitraSolv papers. I just darkened the edges with walnut ink and then bravely mixed up a batch of resin. It doesn't smell bad; just a chemical smell. Of course, I had a lot of ventilation and my plastic gloves on, as they advise. Then I poured.

One thing about photographing these pieces. You can't help but get a glare from the resin. So, the top photo has the glare from the window and my big head (sorry for that). Here is an alternate version of the piece sitting on a shelf. The glare here is from a light in the ceiling. You can get a better view of the colors in the piece, I think:

Here is a side view to get a better view of the resin-coated front:

I really like working with the resin. I'll definitely do it again. It isn't that hard really. You just need to be sure that your conditions are perfect while the piece is curing. I happened to get dust on mine because I didn't cover it fast enough (maybe I should dust before doing another one?). I'll definitely cover it immediately after I get rid of the air bubbles. I did manage to get it smooth as glass and have no air bubbles. While I was busy patting myself on the back for that accomplishment, I neglected to cover it quickly enough to protect it from dust particles. :(

Other things are in the works and I will post those as soon as they are ready. My Muse and I are definitely on speaking terms again. She is very happy with me right now. We went on a little shopping spree on Etsy and found some awesome buys for collage art. Now, back to experimenting.

Out Of Synch

I drew this face today after working on some other projects that need drying time (something I have no patience for). I am trying to stick with my sketchbook habit everyday. But today I did something different. I knew I wanted to either paint or use oil sticks, so I decided to draw the face on watercolor paper. That way I would be able to use wet media on it without the paper curling up on me.

The top photo is the painting scanned into Photoshop and then manipulated digitally. I mainly used elements from Studio Gypsy's Junk Hound Kit at Scrapbook Graphics.com. I love all the grunge. That's the mood I've been in lately: grungy, dirty looking art. The messier, the better.
Here is the painting:

It's 5" x 7" pencil, watercolor and gouache on hot press watercolor paper. I don't know why I vacillate between (trying to draw) realistic and stylized faces. I can't decide which I'd rather do. Today, I like my long neck girls again. So that's what I drew.

It seems like my Muse is all over the place lately. Up and down, flighty, wanting to do one thing and then changing her mind and wanting to do something else...so I have about four projects in progress right now. Experimental pieces, encaustic pieces, and some jewelry pieces. Maybe I have split personalities...hmmm...better keep that to myself. ;)

So, lots of things in the works and feeling kind of out of synch. But I'm excited about what I'm seeing. Does that make sense? I guess there's a method to the madness. Right now there's more of a madness than a method, but we'll get there. I'll share what I have soon. There are some cool things taking shape.

One bright spot: I'm taking Kelly Rae Roberts' online course that starts May 31. I put a button up on my sidebar. If you click on it you can read all about it. The course looks to be pretty exciting. I've already seen some familiar faces in the welcome introductions. This is going to be a fun time! I'm definitely looking forward to what I'll learn from her.

That's all for today. Have a safe and fun Holiday weekend. I hope to have some new art to show soon!

Life

It has been an interesting week. Hubby had some health problems that had us worried. Just a reminder that Life sometimes gets your attention despite what you may have planned. Things are settled down now and we have a plan to proceed.

All of this running back and forth to doctors and specialists gave me plenty of time to sketch in the waiting rooms. I've included some of my sketches in this post. This first piece is a canvas I just finished. Fresh from all of the activity of this past week, I was thinking how all of life's experiences take their toll on us. Little by little, as we age, we bear the scars of life's journey on our face.

This was a sketch I had in my book done in graphite and colored pencils. I adhered it to a canvas and then covered the background with light molding paste. I used encaustic medium to embed the face more into the canvas. Then I added crackle paint to one side of the face. I liked the effect of the "aging" on the face. The encaustic medium gave the colored pencils a bruised look over one eye which was unexpected but perfect for the effect I wanted. The quote was from Dante and jumped out at me as I was searching through my little container of snippets. I am loving this new (to me) shade of purple: Golden's Dioxazine Purple. So yummy and rich!

This next piece is a drawing I had colored with the pencils and then scanned into Photoshop. I call this "Dreamer". I have been practicing with so many different kinds of colored pencils and am having fun blending them all.

This next one is called "Bella". I put her into a digital piece but thought I would just show the drawing here. I used the Derwent Coloursoft pencils on this one.

And this one was an experiment with all the different colored pencils. I didn't name her yet. I am still thinking of what kind of setting to put her into.

So I've been sketching faces every night while spending time with hubby. It's been good practice and I'm getting used to the pencils. I have a special project I'm working on right now but I don't want to say anything until I get the first piece finished. It will be a time consuming project but it can be completed in small stages. The first stage should be completed by the end of the week! I'm LOVING this one!

Look Beyond

I decided to be brave and try to re-design my blog background. This is not easy for me. I know nothing about html code or how to change it. Thanks to my friend Kimmie I was able to experiment a little bit. I wanted to add my own artwork to the background; make it feel more "me". Since my Warhol collage has been so lucky for me, I had to include it! The colored portion of the background is a scan of one of my CitraSolv pages I made. Oh, did I mention that I won the CitraSolv Art Contest for the collage category? My Warhol was a hit! ;) I also added a couple of my encaustic pieces to the sides of the background. I tried so many variations of this background and the size is still a bit off. I'll try and tweak this is I go. For some reason, changes that I make do not show up when I upload the new version. So I'll stick with this one for now.

I used one of my sketches in the digital piece at the top of this post. I call it "Look Beyond" because that is what I'm trying to do. Look Beyond where I am now and envision where I want to be. I have a lot of goals for this year and I want to stay on track with those. I had a milestone birthday on May 6 and that is propelling me forward. Funny how that can alter your perception of things. If nothing else, it has gotten me to really sit down and think about what I want to accomplish yet this year.

I am the worst procrastinator there is. It can almost be debilitating how I will put off something just because I know I can. Ugh! I've done this my entire life: from grade school through college and still to this day! So, while I'm realistic enough to know that I won't change something that's been a part of who I am forever, I can kick myself in the butt and get going! That is what finally propels me into motion: getting so fed up with something that I am forced to make a move. Wish me luck in sticking with it!

I've been doing a lot of work in Juliana Coles' online workshop Altered States. It has really opened my eyes to a lot of different aspects of myself that I was either ignoring or were just completely hidden. This is an awesome experience. The participants are very open with sharing their pages and their stories. I love it and it's been a constant source of inspiration for me over the last few weeks. I've ordered a few of her workshop booklets from her Etsy site and was so happy when she decided to offer one online. It did not disappoint!

One other great site for inspiration is The Painter's Keys. I receive Robert Genn's weekly newsletter that always gets me thinking. The latest one had this quote from him: "An artist may be a lone wolf. She may occasionally run with the pack. Most often she is happy foraging on her own. She may be wily and alert to opportunity. She may know that adventure can bring out her best. There are times when she's out for blood. There are also times when she's as playful as a puppy." That sums it up pretty well for me!

Dreams and Songs

I've been practicing my drawing every night! Monica's classes have gotten me inspired to really stick with what I enjoy: drawing and painting/coloring faces and then using them in my art. So every night while hubby and I share our evening either listening to music or watching TV, I have my sketchbook out and draw.

I want to learn how to paint them with acrylics. Monica teaches that, too, and that's my next step. These faces have been colored with pencils: colored pencils, ink pencils, charcoal pencils, and colored graphite (a new find!) pencils. I like the soft look of them and now I want to try painting on canvas.

These are two digital layouts I put together using a couple of my latest faces. I think of these two as the sisters because they ended up looking similar. The top photo I call "Muse Song". She just looked inspiring and the song she chants is "Believe". The second photo is called "Dream Weaver". She's the one who is bringing me such vivid dreams lately: all of them inspiring and full of hope!

The Midsummer Night's Dream elements came from Tangi Baxter's "Midsummer Night's Dream" kit at Scrapbook Graphics. She is an awesome designer and I love her kits.

I'm also working hard on my Extreme Visual Journaling class with Juliana Coles. This is a totally different kind of journaling and she explains her philosophy on her website. You aren't concerned with making "pretty" journal pages. Rather, you are after what's in your soul. I like that! It forces you to deal with the issues deep inside you at your core. I'm loving, loving this class! My pages are raw and not my usual style. But I like what she says: pretty art is for your art books. This is your life! So, when I'm brave enough, I'll post a page from my journal. ;)

That's it for now. I've just received the info from Monica's class "In My Garden". Now I must go practice painting!