Embrace the Rain

A few blog posts and conversations met up with me in the rain yesterday.  I know -- that seems like a mis-typed sentence -- but bear with me.

Yesterday it poured here in New Jersey.  I was happy for the rain.  Then I have no dilemma about whether to do work in the garden or be in my studio.  The choice is clear!

While waiting for inspiration to strike, I checked in with Paint Party Friday -- and found these two posts and images, with were in such synchronicity with my day:

I LOVE this art journal page by Debbie in Seattle at Art Life Now:

The colors perfectly say rainy day, gloomy mood, stay inside. The expression perfectly says -- back off, beware -- I'm cranky!  And the way Debbie did the journaling -- sort of like a ransom note, perfectly suits the image and feel .  I like the way Debbie just embraced how she was feeling, and celebrated it.

This evocative image is from Tammie Lee at Beauty Flows.
In Tammie's blog post, she shares a beautiful poem about how sadness is a part of life, and it's important to accept the tears, as well as the laughter.


Both of these posts made me think about not just accepting, but embracing all of life's ups and downs, highs and lows.  Without the lows, are we able to appreciate the highs?  Maybe Eve bit into the apple in the Garden of Eden because life was so perfect, it got boring.  I know I've had the experience of going somewhere on vacation that seems perfect.  But after a while, it's a little too hot, or too windy, or the sand gets into my bathing suit, or the ice melts too fast in my gin and tonic, and before you know it, there's something to complain about.  We humans must need the bad times to really appreciate the good times.  

Thinking about this reminded me of a conversation I had with Judy Shea this week. 

I was sharing my exciting news about StencilGirl, and she told me she had been approached to teach an online class but was worried about saying yes to the offer.  Judy is warm, supportive and oh-so talented.  I have no doubt that she will be an amazing teacher.  But she had doubts.  I told her that as long as I don't think I'm going to hurt anyone, my philosophy in life is to say "Yes I can," and figure out the details later.  (Thanks mom and dad, for instilling this confidence in me.)  I'm happy to say that after our conversation, Judy emailed me that she had accepted the offer.  I'm excited to be her first student!  Just check out her blog post with a step by step tutorial about image transfers.

After all of the blog visiting and ruminating, I decided to embrace my rainy day. 

I pulled out a lot of neutral ephemera - pages from an old dictionary, paper and this fun little garland from the "Yours Truly" collection by Glitz, which looked like rain drops to me.  I NEVER use neutrals, and decided to do this in part because of the current prompt for Fall Fearless & Fly.

 I randomly ripped and glued down the paper onto my art journal:

And knocked it all back with gesso:

 I scraped on some Raw Umber and Titanium Buff fluid acrylics, and stenciled in some diamonds:

Added some tree trunks from a Metro Arts stamp, foliage using vibrantly inky paper towels I saved from ART is You, some washi tape, a hand-made stencil, doodling, and voila.  The scallop border across the top is also from the Glitz collection.  

Thank you for visiting! If you are so moved, please leave a comment.  I read and love every single one.  Hearing from you means the world to me.

What are you embracing today?