Eye & Art Candy

Last time I posted I was in a total funk.  I got lots of great advice in the comments - so thank you!  (One piece of advice I haven't tried yet is to paint a portrait of the inner monster that narrates the negative soundtrack.  Here's the link - I will definitely do this one day soon!)  After getting outside, I was able to shift.  When I came back in, I worked on this page, which I'd started yesterday, thinking I would paint something with another jar.  But as I started doodling, something else happened completely.  And in the end, I was happy.  Art DOES make everything better!

Sunday night was the start of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year.  Usually we have a big dinner in Pine Lake, and last night was no exception.  Forty families doing a potluck together is a wonderful thing.  However, my dad was under the weather and he and my mom weren't able to get up to Pine Lake -- they were home in Brooklyn.  I could feel the tug of war in my heart.  My sister and brother, Aunt, Uncle, cousins and friends were all up at the lake, expecting us.  But I decided it was more important to be with my folks.  Luckily, my husband and Samy agreed; so I cooked and brought dinner to Brooklyn.  Here's a mandala I drew while talking with mom in the kitchen (of course, she greatly improved the food I made!).   Mom and Dad - may the coming year be sweet and bring you health and happiness.  Shanah Tovah.

Today, Freddie took Samy to play tennis and then she had a friend over. I was able to spend the whole afternoon in my studio!  Here's the progression of what I created.  It went through a lot of variations.

 and some string.  Now I'm happy!

The Diva's challenge this week is to create a Pinwheel for Peace.   Here's my attempt.  I used a template of an origami pinwheel, however my design ended up looking more like a kite because I added extra triangles...  I did use the tangle called "pinwheel," though (and escalator & clothesline)!

Finally, I received two envelopes with lovely Artist Trading Cards -- from Linda Phinney (who's Imagine card is hand stitched and who also sent me a tag too!) and Andrea at Falling Ladies - who paints the most magical, wonderful watercolors.  Aren't they gorgeous!

There's a new challenge up at Scrapping the Music - check it out.  These songs are so much fun and inspiring.  And your submissions don't have to be scrapbook pages.  Heck - have you ever seen a scrapbook layout from me?  So go take your art journal or zentangle tile over to STM and play along!  In my next post, I'll tell you about what I did for the challenge. 

Remember -- we're less than two weeks away from Fall Fearless and Fly.  I can't believe the amazing artists who have agreed to do guest posts during this challenge.  Carolyn Dube and and I are so excited.

Thank you for visiting! If you are so moved, please leave a comment. Hearing from you means the world to me.

Faces, Tangles, and Journal Pages oh my!

I love mixing styles -- can't you tell?  Fairies are on my mind because Inspiration Avenue is gearing up for the Fairy's Tea party on September 23.  And when the Diva's challenge this week was to break free of the traditional string, fairy tangles seemed the thing to do!  Then, A Year in the Life of an Art Journal challenged us to say something to ourselves of 10 years ago.   So I decided to put them all together!

Ten years ago, I was a 44 year old mother of an 11 and 1 year old.  Samy, then 1, demanded constant interaction and connection.  She was sweet, loving, cheerful, and exhausting.  Mariel, then 11, was just starting see me as a separate human being, and of course beginning to notice that I was less than perfect.  That summer, she developed Bell's Palsy as a result of lyme disease and her face was partially paralyzed (it has since gone away).  Her dad and I were in an extremely acrimonious phase of our often turbulent post divorce life and were only able to communicate through a mediator.  Needless to say, life was stressful.  Now that Mariel is 21, and Samy is 11, most of my days are calm and joyous.  I learned so much about myself and life over the past 10 years.  Even though Samy still loves to chat, she can also become immersed in a book.  Mariel's dad and I have an uneasy friendship, and of course, Mariel is glorious and all grown up now -- 21 and a senior in college.  Ten years ago, I couldn't imagine that I would be in a place where I would spend significant time painting, meditating, practicing yoga, and working in my garden.  And although the journey was sometimes difficult and traumatic, the years seem to have flown by.  Sometimes you have to look back at your past and smile at how far you've come!

The challenge at Stampotique is to use orange, mustard and navy -- not colors I usually use too much.  But I love how they all worked together in this piece.

The lady in this art journal page was inspired by this photo on the Moxie Fab blog.  I'm sorry I didn't photograph the process on this page -- the background went through so many different variations -- and most of the time I hated it so much!  But in the end, I rescued it and now I like it -- something I wouldn't have believed I could have said even 2 hours ago!

I got the idea to add the rectangle for journaling from this great video on Roben-Marie Smith's blog.  If you haven't seen her tutorials, check her out.  She's amazing!  Also, she is closing out her online art shop and there are a lot of great deals to be had!

I watched another great tutorial on layering stencils on Ronda Palazzari's blog.  She has created albums to store all her stencils, and shows how she decorated the album covers.  This tutorial is applicable to all sorts of projects, and I highly recommend it!

Speaking of Ronda, she will be our first guest artist on "Fall Fearless and Fly," the challenge Carolyn Dube and I are co-hosting at Artists in Blogland.  Every other week, there will be artistic prompts designed to get you thinking about setting intentions and shedding emotional baggage to step into 2013 as your bravest, most fearless self.  Have you ever done a juice cleanse?  Think of this as an art cleanse!  Any medium goes, and Aritsts In Blogland has great prizes and giveaways.  Each week, there will be an amazing guest artist participating!  Carolyn and I will be kicking off the art on October 1st.  Here is the line up of our guest artists: Rhonda Palazzari, Jane Davies, Maria McGuire, Marcia Beckett, Dina Wakley, and Joanne Sharpe!


While you are waiting for October 1st to roll around, check out the websites of these amazing artists & grab the blog button to help spread the word about all the fun we’re going to have!

Happy Paint Party Friday and Show and Tell Saturday and Creative Every Day!

Thank you for visiting! If you are so moved, please leave a comment. Hearing from you means the world to me.

Face 3 and ATC Swaps

29 Faces:  Here's face 3 for the 29 Faces challenge.  This is my attempt at a self portrait (lol!).  Because the summer ended yesterday (I know not officially but it's back to school time for us), and because it was the second to last page of the journal I started on June 1, I thought it would be good to review what I learned over the summer.  It turned out to be quite a bit!  The design at the bottom and under my neck is Copada, the Diva's weekly challenge tangle.  We'll see if I can tackle my September goals!

Organizing Challenges:  One of my goals is to get better at organizing the challenges in which I participate.  Do any of you have suggestions for how to keep track of challenges, links, etc?  I find it all a little overwhelming! 

Upcoming Challenge:  Speaking of challenges, my friend Carolyn Dube and I will be hosting one beginning in October at Artists In Blogland.  Make sure you follow us and AIB to get all the info.  It will be about setting intentions and clarifying our thoughts to enter 2013 as our most fearless selves (and there will be cool prizes and give-aways)! 

Hot Off the Presses:  I will be teaching an all-day art journaling class at Rock Paper Scissors, a wonderful craft school and store in Montclair, NJ (only 15 miles from Manhattan), on Sunday, October 14, from 11 - 5.   It will be limited to 10 participants and the cost is $90 (not bad for 6 hours!).  This is so new that it's not even on the RPS website yet, but you can email Beth at info(at)rockpaperscissorsnj(dot)com to reserve a spot or for more information. 

Mini Canvases:   I created this 4 square set of flower canvases to illustrate various quotes I've been collecting.  I hope you can see all the yummy texture, which made it hard to paint the words on them!  Even though they are only 3 inch squares, they took me forever!   I'm going to enter them in Anything But a Card's September challenge. 

ATC Happiness:  One of the only good things about coming home from the lake was finding ATCs (Artist Trading Cards) in the mail.  Check out these gorgeous cards from Heather Santos:

 Arnoldo L. Romero:

and Lilian Reyes:

I'm loving the cards I received and doing these trades!  I have a few more, if anyone wants to swap.  Question -- how do you store and display your Artist Trading Cards?  Let me know!

Also linking up to Paint Party Friday, Creative Everyday, Artists in Blogland, and Balzer Designs.  Visit the artists there and share some love!

Thank you for visiting! If you are so moved, please leave a comment. Hearing from you means the world to me.

See the Wonder

My younger daughter Samy worries.  If you met her, you wouldn't believe it.  She is so outgoing, warm and connected.  She is a wonderful actress and singer, and wouldn't hesitate to launch into a song if you asked her.  The last thing you would think is that she worries, but she does.  For example, while doing her summer assignment on The Giver (a great book btw!), Samy had to list 12 milestones or traditions that children in the book celebrate.  She couldn't even begin, because she could only think of 9.  What about the other 3?  She couldn't stop focusing on what she didn't know -- even though what she did know was so much greater. 

We all do this -- we focus on what we're not -- not thin enough, not pretty enough, not good enough.  Even many of the amazing artists whose blogs I follow are hard on their work -- and I think it's beautiful!  We all have so much to offer -- so much to give -- and so much to celebrate.  Embrace your positive.  That is my message for today!  In that spirit - here is my contribution to The Diva's challenge to use Mooka and Assunta in a design.  I hope you like this butterfly, a caterpillar no longer.  Ta Da!

 

I am participating in Artists in Blogland's ATC swap.  I never made an ATC before.  In fact, I had never even heard of them and wasn't sure what the point of doing them was.  But then I received these adorable cards in the mail from Marcia Beckett and I was so thrilled!  Aren't they just beautiful?   UPDATE: ATC means "Artist Trading Card" -- a phrase I only just learned myself.

Receiving them made me so happy, and also inspired to create the 6 I needed to make for my part in the swap.  I used these fashion ladies I painted once upon a time, and embellished them with bits and pieces of some of my other paintings and voila!  I liked them so much that it was hard to part with them -- but off they went to Utah, Kentucky and Germany.  It is so fun to think that my artwork is going around the world!  Receiving and making ATCs was so enjoyable that I'm going to make some more!

One of my big fears is painting big... Because of my work as an illustrator for greeting cards and tableware, I've never painted bigger than what fits in my scanner -- so 11 x 14 is the max.  But I have decided to tackle this fear, and also explore the intersection of yoga and art by taking Flora Bowley's e-course "Bloom True."  I just signed up!  It starts September  10 and I'm very excited.  

Imagine; mixed media on canvas.  16 x 20. $250

So that this course is not too much of a shock, I bought a few big canvasses.  This one is 16 x 20.  It's called "Imagine," and is mixed media on gallery stretched canvas.  Digitally, I added the words "you see the wonder of the fairy tale," which is a lyric from "I Have a Dream" by ABBA, one of the songs in Scrapping the Music's August challenge.  (The original only has the hand painted "Imagine" on it.  And it's for sale!!)  If you haven't visited Scrapping the Music yet, check out their August challenge -- it is so much fun to be inspired by music and lyrics, and the Design Team is so supportive.

Linking up to Creative Every Day, Paint Party Friday, and Artists in Blogland (links are on the sidebars).  Cheers!

Thank you for visiting! If you are so moved, please leave a comment. Hearing from you means the world to me.

The Wonder of Summer

I am honored to be Artists in Blogland's monthly challenge winner for July.  Thank you!  I love being part of the AIB community.

One of the things I love most about summer is watching my garden.  In the Phantom Tollbooth (one of my favorite books), a conductor leads an orchestra each morning at daybreak and twilight.  But instead of music, the musicians and their instruments play the colors of the sunrise and sunset.   Each season, as first my irises, then my roses, and then my black eyed susans bloom, it is as if somewhere, a conductor, is calling them forth.  It is pure magic, and each season, I marvel in wonder at the beauty of nature.

Coming back to New Jersey from Pine Lake yesterday, the sight of my garden lessened the sadness of leaving the lake.  Here's what greeted me:

 

In honor of summer, and my garden, I painted this canvas.  The words say:  I look in wonder at the magic of everyday life.

 

It's funny -- yesterday I felt so blue.  Perhaps it was knowing I'd be leaving the lake for a while and my vacation was over.  Yesterday, the weather was pristine -- the sky was blue and clear, the humidity low and the sun shining.  And yet, I felt dull and flat. The beauty of the world contrasted sharply with the sourness and impatience I felt inside.  No matter how much I tried to remind myself of the charmed life I lead, I did not feel blessed.  I felt adrift and without purpose.  (I hadn't painted in 3 days...hmm....)  The best I could do was stay quiet and remind myself that things change -- this too shall pass.  Thankfully, it did.  I swam some laps in the lake before leaving, and then was greeted by my beautiful garden upon returning to New Jersey.  Nature has such a way of lifting the spirits.  All was right again!

Artists in Blogland Challenge for August is "Wonder."  Anything Goes' current challenge is "Summer Days."  And Try It On Tuesday's challenge is "Anything Goes."  So I'll be linking up there.  This piece was made with 5 elements:  canvas, acrylic paint, a stencil, stamps and stickers, so I'll also be linking up with The Second Floor Challenge and Out of the Journal.

Here's a tangle for the Diva's challenge this week, which was to use Shelley Beauch's tangle "Brayd."  Zentangle is the name of the game at Inspiration Avenue this week, so linking up there as well.

 

UPDATE:  I had so much fun with Brayd, that I did another.  Again, I couldn't resist using "paradox" inside the triangles -- my pen just wants to go there...  Thanks Shelley for such a versatile tangle!

Thank you for visiting! If you are so moved, please leave a comment. Hearing from you means the world to me.

As If I Could Forget

Dilip Patel, one of the regulars in the Diva's Design challenges, often uses the challenges to add to his Zentangled Ganesha series.  Dilip, although this design is not a true Ganesha, I did it in your honor.  Namaste!  I am linking this up to Inspiration Avenue, where the prompt is "perfectly pink." 

 

Since I wrote this post, I learned that Dilip's father passed after struggling with cancer. My heart goes out to Dilip and his family.  May your memories always be a source of joy and the love of those around you always be a source of strength and comfort. 

The Diva's challenge this week was hosted by Erin Koetz Olson.  She has a great blog, and is also a paramedic and is participating in Relay for Life.  She created a mandala to bring attention to this worthy cause.  Here's what I did:

 

Of course, I HAD to add color, and had fun using my gel pens and markers.  I can't resist bringing my mixed media self to the Zentangling world!  I know some of my tangles are unorthodox, and appreciate sharing them with this great community.

For anyone visiting me from the Diva's blog, please check out Paint Party Friday, where I am the featured artist this week.   I think it would be so great for some of the wonderful artists from the Zentangle world to link up to PPF and share what they are doing. I am also linking up to Creative Every Day and Artists in Blogland.  

Have a wonderful week.  If you are moved to comment, please know that hearing from you means the world to me!

Dare To Dream

In the book "Five People You Meet in Heaven," author Mitch Albom describes each person's heaven as their favorite place on earth.  (This book is a wonderful and quick read, and will quickly make you realize how important each of are to the tapestry of life.)  If this is true, I know my heaven will be our little lake community in Pine Lake Park.  Our bungalow is truly modest - 2 bedrooms, a bath and a galley kitchen that comprise less than the square footage of the first floor of our house in New Jersey -- but it has all I need.  Our small lake is, to me, water of well-being, peace and healing.  Each day as I swim in it, I feel baptized and blessed.  The sound of the bull frogs and crickets each night are the lullaby of the universe.  I am so lucky to be here!

I have basically moved up here for the summer -- and it is so conducive to painting, meditating, contemplating, and stillness.  Here is a piece I just finished, called "Dare to Dream." 

 

Scrapping the Music's prompt this time around was the song "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," which is near and dear to my heart.   I chose the lyric "dare to dream," from the phrase "and the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true."  This canvas includes pieces of fabric I designed for Robert Kaufman, collage and stamped paper I made at CREATE, and the zentangle Mi-Mi 80 from the Diva's 80th challenge. For years I've dreamed about spending the entire summer at Pine Lake -- and here I am!

I'm linking up at Paint Party Friday, Art Journal Everyday and Artists in Blogland too.  And here is one of my favorite poems about dreams, by Langston Hughes:

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.

Dream on!

Thank you for visiting! If you are so moved, please leave a comment. Hearing from you means the world to me.

Why Crawl Through Life When You Have Wings to Fly?

If you are coming from My Desert Cottage you are in the right place for the blog hop!  Welcome to my blog.  Pics of my studio, such as it is, are at the end of this post.  But first:
12 Hours of Yoga!
I woke up today with every muscle in my body aching.  Yesterday I participated in the Garden State Yogathon.   Garden State Yoga is is the studio where I teach, and the studio gathered together teachers from all the area studios for a 12 hour yogathon (YES - 12 hours!) to raise money for 3 charities.  My team raised money for Off the Mat and Into the World. The Yogathon was very successful -- we raised over $30,000 for three terrific organizations.  Here are some pics (that's me in the pink top!).

Let's Go Fly a Kite:  

Inspiration Avenue's challenge this week was to do a design inspired by "flight."  The question posed was what do you think of when you hear the word fly or flight?  My first thought was "Let's Go Fly a Kite," from Mary Poppins.  I know it's not a particularly profound or deep association, but I over the years, I have watched Mary Poppins about 30 times (I have 2 daughters - 21 and 11!), so a kite is what immediately popped into my mind.  I had been wanting to work more on auraknot for the Diva's challenge, and this prompt inspired me to create a kite from that tangle.   As for the saying, my yoga philosophy has taught me to look at everyone around me as a holy angel, sent from "command central" to either show me the way or, through difficulties, teach me a valuable lesson.  As my teacher says, once you see everyone around you as an angel, you're an angel too.  (Here's a video link for seeing the divine in your everyday life.) So "why crawl through life, when you were born with wings?"


Here's a beautiful butterfly that was on my buddleia bush yesterday - a reminder that we all have the potential for flight inside of us.

Love Comes in Many Colors:

In 2009, a young man, Codie Blake, came to live with us.  His mother had been our babysitter and my friend, and she died on December 26, 2009, of complications from breast cancer.  Codie has become part of our family.  In a few weeks, Codie will be getting married.  On Wednesday night, we met his fiance's family.  Like Codie, she and her family are from from Jamaica.  Meeting them inspired me to create this in my art journal:  "Love Comes in Many Colors."   Because indeed, it does.  One Year in the Life of an Art Journal had sun in their prompt this week, so this design will be visiting that blog, as well as Creative Every Day and Paint Party Friday.  I also reformatted it for a greeting card for Mojo Monday's sketch challenge.  Let me know your thoughts about putting a mixed media page on a traditional background... I'm not sure if it works...

Where Bloggers Create:

Karen, at My Desert Cottage, has created a blog hop party called "Where Bloggers' Create."  We had until July 14 to spiff up our studios and photograph them.  If you click on the links in the right side bar of her page, you will be amazed at all the beautiful studios.  And Karen's is amazing! I'm embarrassed to say that mine is not spiffy at all -- I just kept going from one project to another, so when I photographed it, it was a mess.  But I create best when I am surrounded by all my materials.  So here it is:

In all the little drawers are designs created from my illustration work.  You can see stencils spilling out from some of the open drawers under my table.  Most of the books are reference books in different styles, and I have a lot of books about Jewish history, art and symbolism since that's a big part of my licensing work.  A big clean up is clearly in order!

Finally, thank you to Scrapping the Music, for naming me the winner in Challenge #202.  I am very honored.  If you haven't done STM challenges, the next one was just posted and involves the song "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," and/or a song your mother sang to you.  I highly recommend visiting them and participating.  Song lyrics are such great creativity prompts!

Thank you for visiting! If you are so moved, please leave a comment. Hearing from you means the world to me.

PS - Here's my itinerary at CREATE New Jersey, starting Wednesday, July 18 (how nice of them to hold an art retreat on my birthday!):
Wed. July 18, 9-4: Find Your Beautiful Self Portrait
Thurs. July 19: 9 - 4:  Mini Masterpiece Canvas Journal
Thurs. July 19 - 6 - 9PM:  Scribble Paint
Friday: July 20: 9 - 4PM:  Carving Stamps for patterning
Let me know if we're in any of the same workshops!

Who Are You Not To Be Fabulous?

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” Marianne Williamson. 

I first heard these words in a yoga class in 1998.  These beautiful words gave me permission to fully embrace my gifts and talents, which I had long tried to keep "small" for fear that others wouldn't like me.  I have since learned that true friends are also the truest champions.  It is one of the greatest joys in life to be cheerleaders for one another.

 

I had already started a journal page based on this quote, but hadn't known what to do with the border.  The Diva's challenge, to use the new zentangle "Auraknot", provided the answer.  Inspired by Try it on Tuesday's Bingo Card challenge, I made her using lace to stencil the little blue dots next to the jewels/bling, several background papers, flowers, and of course butterflies.  I love this lady!  I feel like she has emerged out of a magical mist.  Her color inspiration is from Summer of Color week 5, which is based on the ice cream flavor Wild n' Reckless.   She's also going to visit Paint Party Friday and Inspire Me Monday.

While we were away last week, my younger daughter Samy and I had several conversations about group dynamics, both in our summer community and in school.  Eleven is a tough age for girls... I created this picture with the the message I hope she took away from our conversations...

 Last but not least, here are a few vacation pics:

Samy and two of my nieces taking in the sun!

 

My dad reading from the Declaration of Independence at our July 4th parade:

My beautiful girls:

Thank you for visiting! If you are so moved, please leave a comment. Hearing from you means the world to me.

Wednesday Mashup and Vacation Week!

Saturday:  Jersey Shore, Here We Come


Bright and early Saturday morning, we loaded up the car and headed off for our July 4th vacation.  First stop, Jersey Shore. Unsurprisingly, it was slow going in traffic, which gave me the chance to sketch the back of the car in front of us -- thus illustrating the fact that every moment is an opportunity for art!)
We spent a beautiful day at the beach in Spring Lake, where I actually went into the ocean!  Then we drove back home, picked up our dog Boots, and headed to Westchester to our cabin in Pine Lake, which is my idea of heaven on earth.   Sunday was a lovely day with swimming in the lake, and hanging with my girls.

Monday: If You Don't Have Something Nice to Say, Speak As Little As Possible.

On Monday, Samy and I headed to Bob's Furniture store in Yonkers to buy a couch.  We quickly picked one.  (I HATE SHOPPING and always want to get it over with as quickly as possible. So no comparison shopping for me.  Pick it and get it over with is my motto)  We looked forward to paying up, getting back to the bungalow, and enjoying a day at the lake.  However, our salesman was new, and every step of the process took exceedingly long.   Finally, I (discreetly) asked another salesman if he could help, and after 2 1/2 hours (I joke not), we were finally on our way.  I have to admit that throughout the process I was internally impatient, annoyed, and resentful.  But, I have to state that I was outwardly as gracious and patient as possible.  In fact, the salesman thanked me for my kindness when we were leaving!  Even though I did not FEEL patient, I guess I appeared patient.  After all, everyone starts out as a beginner.  Lesson: if you don't feel patient, be silent! 

Tuesday:  I Finally Get to Paint!

I have limited supplies at the bungalow, but I couldn't wait to dig in.  Here's what I created.  I was inspired by the Diva Challenge this week, which was to use a beautiful tangle called Fiore de Pietro, or Peter's Flower.  Rho Densmore created this pattern as a memorial to her brother-in-law, who died unexpectedly in June.  I thought that the words from the song inspiration at Scrapping the Music went beautifully with Rho's tribute to her brother.  The song is "Freedom," and the lyrics are about living each moment to the fullest, because "life is very short; we're here and then we're gone."  Of course, Rho has permission to use this as she sees fit.  The color inspiration is from Summer of Color, week four:  Lemon yellow and strawberry pink.  

Wednesday: Mashup Time!


I have limited supplies in the bungalow (and no scanner, so all these images are from my iphone).  Here's my table and what's on it:  

some Gel pens, watercolor pencils, glue stick, matte medium, gesso, punchhinella, a doily, last summer's magazines, and acrylic outdoor paints I had left over from painting some flower pots.  Here goes:

1.  Scrape on gess over punchinella and doily to create texture.  Glue down some book pages.  Scrape on lime green and turqoise paint and throw down some bits of magazine scraps.  This made me think of... 

  

an elephant!  So I glued in more book pages to make the shape, added some doodling, and here's my happy elephant!

I had cut out this great picture of Janet Jackson while I was going through the old magazines.  I glued it on the other side of the page, and gessoed over it.  

And Janet became this colorful lady!

I will be sending the elephant and my fearless lady to Paint Party Friday, Artists in Blogland and Creative Every Day -- please go visit all the fabulous art on those sites.  

Wednesday Night - Fireworks! 

Wednesday night we went to Peekskill for the fireworks.  A storm was approaching, and Mother Nature vied with the fireworks for attention.  I caught some of it in this video.  It was SO COOL!

Hope you had a great 4th of July.  


And ... before I forget ... drum roll please... I was Inspiration Avenue's showcase winner last week!  I will be adding the badge to my blog, but you can read all about it here! 


Thank you for visiting! If you are so moved, please leave a comment. Hearing from you means the world to me.