An Anniversary of Sorts

Forty years ago today, I met my beloved. It really doesn't seem that long ago. I had just graduated from high school. He was an "older man" by 3 whole years. I was from the north side and he was from the south side. We met while biking along the lake front in Chicago. It was the beginning of a wonderful life together. I miss him.

Journal Pages

I've been working in my art journal and thought I'd share a couple of my favorite recently completed pages.

On the pages above I was channeling Donna Downey and her infamous poppies. You can see how to make a page like this by clicking here. The quote by Mary Lou Cook says, "Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes and having fun."

And here is my first She-Art girl I made after taking Christy Tomlinson's fabulous She-Art class. This quote says, "She knew the answers would come with time."

Well, I'm heading over to my daughter's house today. She recently broke her foot and has a big old cast on her right leg - poor girl!

Wildflower Update

Remember the picture (2nd one down) from this post? Well, things have progressed in the wildflower garden up at the cottage and it's looking a lot nicer these days than it did back then.

Bunches of Daisies. . .

Lupines (I think). . .

and several colors of Phlox.

Even more varieties have popped up since I took these photos. Enough so, that I picked some to

put into a vase and enjoy inside!

Cool Old Cars

A Beautiful Way to Spend a Sunday

Yesterday I went to a wonderful art gallery to watch artist Tom Nachreiner demonstrate his plein air oil painting techniques. If you look closely, the canvas he is painting on is

upside down.

Above is the photograph he is painting from. Tom says that starting the background of his paintings upside down allows him to not get bogged down with the details of the photograph and concentrate only on the basic shapes.

Here is his painting (still a work in progress) shown right side up.

Part of the art gallery is located in the woods, which creates a beautiful natural backdrop for some of the sculptures.

Tail Wagging Fun

This weekend I am having a much better time than I was last weekend (see previous post). I am dog-sitting for my two sweet grand dogs, Shooter and Hank. They are the best dogs ever!

I decided to snap a few photos of them while they are here,

but that is much easier said than done.

Trying to get two dogs to stay still at the same time is no small feat.

My daughter is able to capture all sorts of pictures of the two of them posing quite nicely for the camera. But not me . . . .

One or the other is always out of focus.

Ahhh finally. . . .Here is a nice shot of Hank.

But the best way to capture them on film is . . . .

. . . while they are sleeping!