Promise me

Another  journal page for the Traveling Journal group I’m in via Facebook.  This one is for Laura and the theme was Strength and Encouragement.

I used a double complementary color scheme with the colors phthalo blue and violet as the main colors and added orange and yellow as the complementary colors.  Wow that sounds so color snobby. But I confess that I used my color wheel to help me determine what a “double complementary” actually is.

So what is a “double complementary” color scheme? It is two adjacent hues and their respective complementary, which is the color directly opposite it on the wheel.  The complementary color for blue is orange.  And the complementary color for violet is yellow.  Does that sound as dry and boring to you as it did to me? It’s hard for me to write about but to read more on color theory visit: The COLOUR Theory Tutorial

Does the quote sound familiar? It was said by Christopher Robin to Winnie the Pooh. I love Pooh Bear.  I wish my grandson did as well because I could watch it over and over.  Have I mentioned that I have Pooh Bear PJ’s?…I got them for Christmas several years back and I still wear them….so comfy.

Thanks for visiting.

Who Am I?

Another page for the Traveling Art Journal. The theme this time is self portraits. The journal belongs to Valerie, who is the groups leader.  I hope you like.

If you’re a reader of my blog you’ve probably seen this stencil before.  It’s one I created when I took Maryann Moss’ class on stenciling. 

As I said before the theme is self -portraits and we’re also supposed to tell something about ourselves.  I used collage elements to do just that.

The barcode below was from a concert I attended and I’ve included it because it left a big impression on me, hic…

All I want is an umbrella in my drink and served to me in Hawaii, Italy, Greece, Fiji, or Tahiti.  Or any where on an ocean beach. (I thought I’d better say an ocean beach before someone reminds me that we have a “beach” in town called Tingly Beach. Unfortunately, that beach is nothing more than a refurbished ditch bank.)

Every Girl Needs a Pet

Another page for the Traveling Art Journal.  This page goes to Julie coon.

Gypsy Spirit

A new page for the Traveling Art Journal.  This page is for Fadwa whose theme is The Gypsy Spirit.

I used a quote from the book, the Gypsy Spirit, by Margaret Elizabeth Sangster (1838- 1912):

“Just around the end of September the feeling begins to grow on us. There is something about the tragic splendor of the dying leaves and the fading summertime that touches a vagabond chord in the heart.”

 

For the background, I glued calendar pages to the substrate and then colored them with Ranger ink Distress stains (color: Forest Moss). It didn’t go on like I expected but I liked it anyway. Some spots were definitely MUCH darker than I originally wanted. I also add some light green crackle paint (color: peeled paint) in select spots.

One More Day

Another page for the Traveling Art Journal.  This one belongs to: Paula K.

The theme is music lyrics

The song is One More Day by JD Fortune from the album Death of a Motivational Speaker.

One More Day by JD Fortune

The page:

The background is colored with pastels as set with a fixative.  The sun and stems and leaves are painted with acrylics. The flower is created from a book page and colored with stamping ink. I also used a charcoal pencil to outline the flower. The title is made with purchased precut letters.

One more note: I know my family is going to give me a hard time for using a song by JD. I can’t help it that I’m still the oldest teenage fan girl alive. :)

Reaching for the Stars

Here is a new journal page using a quote I found recently. It’s the first page for the new Traveling Art Journal Facebook group. 21 people have joined the group and all will have a chance to work on a page in each others journal.

Stretching his hand up to reach the stars, too often man forgets the flowers at his feet. By Jeremy Bentham

My Walking Stick

 

“The best, the most exquisite automobile is a walking stick; and one of the finest things in life is going on a journey with it” ~~~ by Robert Coates Holliday

 

I post or so ago, (it been so long I’ve forgotten), and before I left California, I wrote that I was working on a walking stick.  This stick was one I cut off of the big butterfly bush that was growing in the back yard of my house in Woodland. Every year I had to trim this huge bush because if I didn’t it would grow to be well over 9-10 ft tall. And when in bloom, it would also be full of big, fat, round, scary, black bees.  What I didn’t realize when I cut this stick was that it would become a beautiful walking stick (Well I think it is anyway.)  It was so sturdy and firm and miraculously shaped just right for my height and hands. 

When realized what I had, I decided to leave it be for a while and let it dry, then paint it. I didn’t know how long it would take to dry out so i left it for a year… more than enough time. Then I took my Dremmel and cut off and sanded the nubs.  Then painted it with gesso and acrylic paint. Then added some doodles and finished it off with several coats of outdoor Polyurethane.  This is the finished product:

 

I’ve taken it out for a spin, very nice. :)

Well, here we go.

Saturday will be our last full day in California. We're almost done packing and we leave Northern California on Saturday morning.  We'll be on the road all day and spend the night in Needles. By Sunday morning we'll leave the great state of California (and I do mean that sincerely) and head to our new home and new life in NM.

It's hard to believe it's already time to go and, at the same time, it's taken a long time to get here.  I've made my peace with the notion that we are moving and, in fact, I'm really looking forward to it. Excited you might even say.  I have plans.... big plans. They involve children, grandchildren, reaching out to family and friends, a new art studio, hiking, biking and more.... My head is spinning just thinking about it.

Needless to say I haven't created much art lately, well, not unless you call lettering "Studio" on packed boxes art. No, I don't either.

Good news, my guy got a job offer in New Mexico on Thursday and he starts October 11th. They are giving us a lot of time to get there and get settled before he starts. The timing couldn't be better. It's such a relief. He's been looking a long time. So I guess it's all meant to be.

It's late, got to pack some more so I'll say goodbye from California.  Talk to you again from New Mexico.  Wish us luck. Waves Bye. 

Saying our goodbyes to our favorite beach

As you may have read, we are moving to NM soon and in these last few weeks that remain, we are visiting some of the places and restaurants we have loved in Northern California. Saturday, my guy and I went to say our goodbyes to Stinson Beach.  We’ve celebrated our anniversary there a few times and spent many a weekend walking the long stretch of beach over the last 23 years both with and without our daughter and her assorted friends. There were a lot of great memories created there.

Here is my guy looking out at the ocean after a long walk.

My feet in the water. It felt so good.

Do you see where the hill tapers off into the water?  That’s where we started our walk. There’s hardly any one that walks out this far unless they live there. (There are houses to the left of where we were standing.) It was our “3 hour tour” but, alas, we didn’t get stranded on a lovely island.

Here is my tribute to our lovely weekend.

We Had Jungle Fever

This past weekend I went to help My Girl get a room ready for the new baby. “Little G” is due in a little over two months.  My Girl sweetly said that I inspired her desire to decorate the room in a jungle animal theme when I gave her stuffed giraffe and baby clothes with cute jungle animals on them.

So for weeks she searched for just the right pictures that we could paint on the walls taking into consideration our level of painting expertise and the time required to do it.  Because I’m not in the same town our time frame was short and the images had to be uncomplicated and easy to do. Not only did we only have a few short days to paint but we also had to shop for baby accessories to fit with the painting and go on a hospital maternity tour. (I’ll be with her and her husband in the delivery room.) 

The animals are not as detailed as I would have liked but we think it came out great. We had loads of fun and we worked out butts off getting the room done.  Here is what we painted:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not too bad for a couple of amateurs.  We also got a lamps, rugs and other jungley accessories to round out the jungle theme.  It was a great bonding experience.

Art in Bolinas

My husband and I spent Saturday and Sunday on the coast celebrating our 23rd anniversary. I can hardly believe it’s already been 23 years that I married the love of my life, my best friend. But because things haven’t been easy recently, we were really looking forward to some badly needed stress relief in the form of a ocean visit and together time getting reacquainted with the things that made us fall in love all those years ago.

Saturday we left home and drove two hours to Stinson Beach where we were going to spend the night at the quaint Sandpiper Inn. We enjoyed each others company, the sunshine, and always gorgeous Stinson Beach. We got there early and spent almost the entire day on the beach. First we walked and talked for hours and hours. Then had a few drinks, ate dinner and went back to the beach to watch the sunset. What a lovely day it turned out to be!!

Sunday after breakfast and another brief walk on the Stinson beach, we hopped in the car and drove a few miles to Bolinas. We found several art galleries and a wonderful museum but what really WOWed me was the painted beach wall.  It was a free form, ever changing wall of organic art. Hand painted art, stencil and graffiti art and even a face carved to a rock.  Take a look at all the beautiful photos I was able to take with just my IPhone.

This is the Gothic Dolphin:

 

Surfing Frankenstein

Surfing Raquel

Pack It In, Pack It Out

Stone Faced Girl

 

Aren’t they awesome? I came home inspired !!

A Frizzy Day at the Beach?

I was born and raised in Albuquerque and the only beach in NM is Tingly Beach which is basically a glorified lake.  Truth be told, it’s really more like a dirty ditch bank.

So the first time saw the ocean (in 1980) was during a weekend trip to New Orleans. I was amazed and it was rejuvenating. It puts all my worries into perspective. I was thoroughly in love with it. So much so that after a year I started having dreams of the ocean calling me.  After a week of these dreams, I knew it was time to schedule another trip. The dreams stopped then but reoccurred every year and would continue until I scheduled another trip to see it.  In the seven years that I lived in NM after that first trip, I managed to visit Hawaii, Grand Cayman, the Bahamas, Mexico, Los Angles, and San Diego. Several more than once and all just to see the ocean.  

Since moving to California in 1988, we’ve visited the beach at least once a year….usually on our anniversary. It’s a must do for both My Guy and I.  I wish we could go more often but we keep further moving east. Why are we doing that, why??? 

My dream is to own a cottage on the beach with a large studio over looking the ocean.  Every week we buy a lottery ticket in hopes that we may one day own that cottage as well as travel to as many beaches as we can possibly see.

The picture above could have been me after my last perm at the beauty shop.  After the rollers came out I wanted to scream.  I told the woman all I wanted was soft curls and this is what I got.  Not only was it frizzy, it was fried. arrrgh!! 

Well, I wasn’t about to let that woman touch my hair again but I had to cut off as much as possible without shaving my head.  Luckily, I found a hair stylist who was able to cut all the frizz off and keep some of the curl. While it was pretty short when she was done, it looked much better. Next perm, I did it myself and it came out nice, if I say so myself. 

What was I thinking?

I really liked this first page when I finished it but the more I look at it the less I like it.  It’s too busy and the text color is funky. The text started out ok until I tried to write on dark blue paint with a blue pen and realizing it wasn’t going to show, I used black. What was I thinking?  I have other more suitable color pens. Why choose one that won’t show up and then replace it with one that stands out like a sore thumb?  OK it’s not for sale and it won’t get published and except for a few eyes it really won’t be seen much.  So why does it bother me so much? 

On this next page, it’s a topic I’ve covered before but I can’t quit thinking about it.  I really want to travel.  I mean I really want to travel.  My Guy and I were planning a trip to Europe for our 20th anniversary but we hosted our daughter’s wedding instead.  We loved every bit of our girl’s wedding and had a blast helping her plan it. OK, ok, she planned and we paid but you know the real joy is in writing those checks. ;)

However, when it was done I was left with wander lust. Yeah, I’m still lusting after a trip to Italy.  Do you know of anyone who might be giving away a free trip to Portofino? NO? Shoot!

Since there are no free trips I am willing to work for the trip. I can carry your bag for you (purse size) should you need help. All you have to do is pay my way. :)  When do we leave?

I suppose by now you’ve noticed that’s the Eiffel Tower on the journal page and you know it’s in France not Italy. Honestly, I’m not really so geographically (is that a word?) challenged that I think it’s in Italy.  I just didn’t have a picture if the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

Thanks for visiting. If you have a moment, leave me a note. I’d love to hear what you think.

Painted Flower

 

This is one of the paintings I’ve been working on.  I really like how it turned out.  I’m a little sad that the image doesn’t do it justice.  My scanner is on the fritz and camera phone was a very poor second choice.   I couldn’t adjust the color properly to make it look like the actual painting. 

I’m flying tomorrow  to visit my girl, her husband and my mom in New Mexico.  I can’t wait to see them, especially my girl.  Even though I talk to her 4-5 times a week by phone I still  miss seeing her beautiful face.  Unfortunately, it will be a short trip. I’ll be back on Monday morning.

Saints and Sinners

The Saint, on 6” x 6” canvas

Here’s a project I’ve been working on for a little while.  It’s of Saint Anne, the patron saint of seamstresses and tailors.  The background papers are sewing pattern paper and a page from a book that just happened to be about sewing.  That was serendipity as the book itself was not about sewing and the page was the first one I opened to when I picked up the book.  

The background color was a blend of several colors from my pastel box.  I really love using them for backgrounds because they blend so well.  I used Krylon Fixative to set the colors.

I found the image of St Anne and printed it on my laser printer and transferred it to the canvas using the Chartpak blender pen I wrote about earlier.  I enhanced the color using acrylics and colored pencils.

The scroll at the top is a rub on and the flower is from scrapbook paper.

 

The Sinners:

In my last post I wrote that we were going to Stinson beach for the weekend.  We did and had a wonderful time.  We walked on the beach for hours just talking and laughing and getting sunburned noses.  We enjoyed every minute of our time there.  My husband is such a doll…dreamy sigh. 

Here’s the sinner part: While we were sitting outside a local restaurant waiting to be called for dinner we saw a big SUV pull out of it’s parking space and smack right into a Mercedes car parked on the street.  As he pulled forward after hitting the car, there was a huge dent on the car door.  OUCH!  However, when the guy pulled forward he acted like he hadn’t hit the car.  I could tell he didn’t  intend to leave a note or offer to pay the car owner for the damage he caused. 

I didn’t want to confront the guy but I couldn’t let it go either. I decided that the best thing to do was give our name to the restaurant hostess in case the car owner came looking for information.  The hostess went out and got the license plate number of the guy who did the damage and left a note on the car after the SUV driver left.  I don’t know what happened as the car owner hasn’t called. But I felt better after leaving our number as witnesses.   Years ago I had a similar thing happen to my car but I was lucky because the guy who hit my car left a note for me.  I just wish these guys had manned up and left the note themselves.

It pays to blog

I want to thank my very, very sweet daughter for making some Biscochitos for me for Christmas. She read my Christmas Questions blog post and decided to make them for me Christmas morning.  I thought I’d died and gone to heaven, they were sooo good.  Thank you my precious girl. (By the way I hope you are feeling better.)

I haven’t posted in a while but not all was lost, art wise, while I was gone from blogland. I managed to get two journal pages done while traveling to New Mexico for Christmas and another was created last week.  Those are below.

Today, I finally completed the Texture prompt that Kathryn posted weeks ago at the Soul Journal site.  I actually started it a few weeks before Christmas but Christmas projects took precedence and this one was put aside for a while. However, I knew I’d be back to it sooner or later because I liked the idea of it.  Instead of adding it to my journal I used a canvas board and created a freeform piece.  I really like how it turned out.  The size is 5 X 7.  I used fabric flowers, foam leaves, lace, buttons, watch parts and beads.  All were covered in gesso.  The gesso was also used as the adhesive.

The following journal page was created due to the flight we took from home to New Mexico for Christmas.  We are very discouraged with the airline industry.

This was a fun page created on Christmas Eve and Christmas day:

This last page was the most recent and based on our New Years Eve activities:

How was your holiday?

Where has the time gone?

I can't believe it been months since my last post. (oh, that sounds like I'm in a confessional) This year has been very busy, fun, emotional and stressful. I run the whole gamut of emotions from extreme happiness to sadness and everything in between.

My daughter got married in May in San Diego and had a reception in our home in June. The wedding was on the beach and was just beautiful. The reception was fun as well. My brother came to the reception as well as lots of people from my daughter and husbands work place. Then a few weeks after the wedding reception daughter and new husband informed us they were moving to New Mexico. What??? My baby moving three states away? I know they chose NM because that's the only other place she's liked and because there are other family members there. But my baby moving three states away? Once I got over the shock I volunteered to drive with her while new husband drove the moving van.

OMG what is it? W-h-a-t is that thing on the side of the road? Drive faster please, we need to get away. OK not necessary, that is one in a series of dinosaurs statues on the side of the road in eastern Arizona. I took as many pictures as I could as we were driving by them earlier this month. They are just too funny.

The trip to NM earlier this month was long but we got closer as a result. I stayed with them in their new apartment for a few days after we got there. They both got lucky in that they got jobs right away. She had a job lined up even before she got there and they loved her. (What's not to love, she's adorable and a hard worker when it doesn't involve housework. )

This new "empty nest" is very different and very quiet. I thought it would be easy to deal with but it's harder that I thought. Last night my husband had an evening managers meeting and didn't get home until 8:00 pm and it got lonely here. This house is entirely too big for us. When we bought it we thought our dear girl would be going to college in Sac but instead she moved out soon after we moved here, then she got married.

As far as my art, I'm working on two journals, and some ATC's. I'll upload some soon. The above image was a self-portrait taken during a long walk I took in August. The image below is from the same walk.