Dreamin"

This is actually an art journal page I did not so very long ago. I am teaching an art journaling class at the St. Louis Art Guild in June and realized I have been doing more painting than journaling so I spent some time just playing this week-end. The trick I am using is to just use up whatever paint I have left on my palette in my journal. That way I can get some textures and backgrounds done. another thing I did was to take all those bits and pieces of scrappies left after a project and paste them into the blank pages. Everytime I did this, it seemed to fall together into a nice page, ready for writing. A bit if magic without a great deal of work. Drawing has been my other passion this past week. I do love settling down into just the tones of black and gray and getting those shadows just right. blending charcoal, highlighting a cheekbone..oh my..it's got to be better than prozac. The world just drops away until someone comes tapping on my studio door wondering if dinner will ever appear. Thank goodness for Boboli pizzas !

Giving yourself permission to just play is so important to being creative. Even Leonardo had his journals where he played with fantastic ideas. Some of his ideas were so fantastic, he had to write in code on the pages to stay out of trouble ! The gift of play is one we should all give ourselves and the ones around us. It can be quite contagious..the dog will start dancing, your mate will tell funny stories and then you can have fun watching milk turn pink when you throw in white protein powder (It was strawberry..but really white in the can)

The weather here has been gray and rainy. I miss the sun and have begun to have beach fantasies. The upside is that all the plants seem ecstatic with all the rain. My little salad garden is growing madly and I can almost start to do some tiny harvesting on my parsley plants. The cucumbers look a bit down trodden, but I am hoping they will perk up along with me when the sun comes out.

Today we are planning a birthday celebration ! Our Demi dog will be 6 today so we are planning on cupcakes, presents and cards for the birthday girl. Mr. Steve gave her a bit of a haircut this morning so we can see her eyes a bit better. Tonight will also be our grand finale at the Agility classes she and I have been working on. She's just not a night girl and kind of walks through the course without too much excitement except for the "A" frame scramble and the high walk. Those she enjoys so she runs to them. the nice part of the class is that she has gotten much better about taking commands from me..even hand signals. though last week they had placed some doggies beds on the side lines to get them out of the way and my sleepy girl ran off the course and plunked herself down on one of those comfy beds....it was rest time for her !