A Snowy Nature Walk

I've been reading and following the weekly exercises from a book called The Artist's Way. I am really enjoying it and am feeling more creative and in tune with nature since. This past Sunday I went for a walk through Hudson Springs Park with my camera. I saw wonderful textures and my imagination had fun on my walk in the woods after a big snowfall the night before. I saw trees that looked like the perfect setting for a Hobbit or Fairy's home and even spotted a little grapevine twig in the shape of a heart - a sign for me. I'd forgotten how fun it could be to just enjoy nature - getting out in the cold, alone in the woods (there were a couple of others I passed on my walk, but mostly it was me, the trees and lots of snow. My walk reminded me to always enjoy the beauty in whatever is outside my door!

My sign, a perfect hear in the snow at my feet.

It sure looks like a door for a hobbit or fairy's home to me.

The colors were just beautiful against the white snow in this milk pod.

The creek was still flowing and the root system looked like fairy condos.

It was amazing, these leaves had survived the snow and wind.

Happy New Year

Wow, way too long since my last post. Thank you Diana, dear friend for the gentle nudge. I've been doing more work in my art journal and have scanned a couple more pages to share. My last year has been a bit rough due to my husband's illness and these two pages were created during that time. I've been taking a few online workshops and learning lots of fun new techniques and will try to be better about posting more often! I have an online subscription to lynda.com (a wonderful website that offers tons of lessons on how to do just about anything using tons of different software applications). They now have tutorials for blogger, so one of my New Years resolutions is to learn a little more about posting and make my blog more interesting. I'll try to post more often.

Workshop page

I've been taking a workshop with Christy Tomlinson called "She had three hearts" and it has really inspired me to play in my journal. She shows lots of ways to use products that have been sitting on my shelves and haven't used in months. The two hearts (I know I should've added a third heart since it's called - She had three hearts) are stamps I made from flip flops. Who would've thought the bottom of a flip flop would have a cool little dot pattern!!! Just one more way to get me looking at everything for potential texture! I used Ranger Color wash, gesso, stamps, sharpie fine line marker and Portfolio water crayons. What fun I'm having!

Art Journaling

I've been having fun working in a small (5 1/2" x 8") spiral bound journal. Just putting things on a page, trying to make a point to "use what I have", which is tons and tons of art supplies I've been collecting for several years! Some of my pages have space for writing (quotes or whatever pops into my head at the time) and others were ok without any words.

Spring ATC swap

I participated in a Spring ATC swap on The Art of Altering ning group I'm in. We made 3 spring themed ATCs, sent them out and were supposed to receive 3 in return. So far, I've received 2 of the 3 cards. Both just beautiful! Here are the cards I received from my dear friend Darlene (who's in the same group and ended up with my name - yeah me:) and a new friend Beth. I love Darlene's First Flower of Spring, the colors are beautiful and it's hard to see, but she added her signature glitter too. Beth chose bright sunny colors and I love the glittery bling she used at the top.

Moving my Blog

Well, I'm moving my blog from Typepad to Blogger! The only bad thing was the name I wanted was unavailable. I hadn't been very good about posting on a regular basis, so it made absolutely no sense at all to have a blog and be paying for it every month. My good friend Diana mentioned that you could "move" a blog, so I thought "What the heck, I'll give it a try". It really was pretty simple to do. Now, let's see if I'm any better at posting on this one:)

Another great Artiscape class!

I scanned my pages from another class at Artiscape - Paula Hardesty's "A Symphony of Backgrounds". She is a wonderful instructor and I always learn fun new things in her classes. These two pages were done using Golden's fluid acrylic paints - one of my favorite mediums to work with. The quality of their products is just amazing and the colors are just phenomenal! We stamped with gesso (the white image areas) and fluid acrylics on top of a background we built layer by layer. I was very happy with the results. I can't wait to try more color combinations.