• Art - Blog - Creativity

    Thoughts of Springtime

    This time of year I’m really done with winter. Especially a long, snowy, brutally cold winter. My thoughts turn to warm weather, starting my seedlings and Easter. Pastel colors are everywhere in the springtime. My color palette tends to lean that way as well even when its really one of my least favorites to work with if I’m completely honest. Yet here it is…pastels.

    I think the pastels remind me of rebirth, soft and new…like baby clothes and accessories. Or maybe it’s just babies…spring is full of birth and babies! None here…and that’s 100% just fine. 🙂

    As I take this photo this is my view…pouring rain on the mountains of snow…now we are in a flood warning too.

    We are lucky enough not to live in the river valley so we just have to deal with local street flooding on occasion. So spring really can’t get here soon enough for me.

    Linking up with Art Journal Journey for Hello Springtime

    Art Journal Journey
  • Art - Blog - Creativity - Outdoors

    T Tuesday: spring break edition

    The calendar says its Spring but I think Mother Nature needs her head examined. It’s cold and snowy. So since the weather isn’t cooperating I figured I’d create something that would brighten the gloomy day.imagine spring

    I pulled bits together from my scrap bucket.

    imagine spring

    I even briefly set up my sewing machine on my workspace to get some stitching onto the page. I sewed this scrap directly into the book.

    imagine spring

    This piece was stitched together before gluing into place. Gosh I’ve missed using my machine! For some reason it inspires me.imagine spring

    Lastly I added the word imagine. I was trying to imagine what Spring should feel like. I’m linking up with AJJ for Spring.

    Art Journal Journey
    With it being spring break so many people are traveling. Mini-me and I did as well. It wasn’t a tropical destination. It was 4 hours NORTH of here for the state archery tournament. caribou
    We drove up on Friday and spent the night in a hotel since she didn’t shoot until Saturday. A snow storm was expected anyway so might as well go early. Thankfully we never did get any snow…just a cold wind.paul bunyan
    We had to do the usual tourist things…amazingly enough there was others venturing into the frigid wind off the lake for a photo op that were nice enough to take a picture of us. That may look like standing water under Babe the Blue Ox but its solid ice.
    After the tournament (at which she beat her personal best score by 24 points!) we headed for home but took a slight detour since we were that far north to visit Itasca State Park. Itasca state park
    As we turned in we quickly realized that we probably wouldn’t get to see the headwaters of the Mississippi as we had wanted. Some of the roads weren’t even plowed. Instead we just took a photo of the map on went on our merry way.Itasca state park
    I really wanted her to be able to jump across the Mississippi as I had when I was a kid…heck, I wanted to do it again now! Oh well…maybe another trip.
    This is typically when I share my photo challenge but I’m woefully behind. I will get caught up though and share them next week as well as the next months challenge.
  • Art - Blog - Creativity

    Roses are red….

    So far this month I wasn’t feeling the love for the color red. Maybe because from Thanksgiving to Valentine’s day we are swimming in it. Finally, yesterday after doing some cleaning and organizing in my art space, I was inspired to create with a whole bunch red.

    This is yet another loose leaf page that will go in my scrapbook journal.  I created on the back side of an ugly piece of scrapbook paper using two shades of red and a credit card to scrape it around.  Next I layered some German text from a Brothers Grimm fairy tale book. I find this ironic now as I’m totally obsessed with the TV show Grimm.

    I also used a new art supply…it’s plaster casting cloth. I sprayed it with color mists before lightly distressing the edges. I like the texture it adds although it is messy. The plaster likes to flake off if you manhandle it a little too much.

    I tried something new with rub-ons as well. I have a couple sheets of quotes that really don’t speak to me so I decided that using them as part of the background in a wildly random pattern would work quite nicely. I do love the effect and I’m not just throwing them out.

    The photograph is mine…taken at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum several years ago. They have a beautiful rose garden…it looks and smells heavenly.

    Linking up with Art Journal Journey for the tongue in cheek theme of Fifty Shades of Red.

    Art Journal Journey