Arty Weekends

Hey, hey folks!

I have had a couple of exciting weekends lately. Both dealing with art!! YAY!!

I really needed something to bounce me out of my creative block. And so last weekend I attended a Junk Journal Class here in Modesto, taught by a great instructor Aileen Roberts at the Nasco store here. Aileen is an Altered Book Artist and lives just 3 blocks from me in a great big old house that is painted bright yellow and egg plant! So cool. It is a landmark.

Anyway, we started out with a Trader Joe's advertising booklet. This is a great resourse for a junky funky art journal. Then we scraped some paint and threw other stuff down.

This is the front cover.

The back cover.

 

And one inside spread. It was a blast and hope Part 2 will around the corner soon. Please go check out Aileen's blog and website, Outside the Margins, and make sure you check out her own creation of spray watercolors called, Color Mists. They are lovely and add a great finishing touch to collage, paint, ink, etc!

Yesterday, I traveled to Fremont to the Niles District back to my friend Maria's Studio for a day of whatever type of art we wanted to work on. Maria carved 100 rubber stamps this summer and WOW they are cool. (no, I did not take pictures) Dang!) Anyway, I asked her to show me the real basics. I still have a way to go, but these are what I carved yesterday on little Dollar Store erasers:

It was fun just trying to unwind, relax and wrap my busy brain around this very tedious task. I have a long way to go, but this was fun and I know soon I will going to another class that will stretch my carving senses even more. Oh, Lotus?????

Anyway, with that and my recent falling escapades, I have been busy, but moving slow. So onto the falling drama:

First I went "mud wrestling" in San Francisco when I slipped in a muddy flower bed, did the splits and went straight down on my left knee. Not fun. I was muddy from head to toe. My knee bruised and was a little sore, but not bad. Then last Saturday I fell down 3 stairs and really screwed myself up. Nothing broken, again just bruised and very very sore that had me walking with a cane for a few days. So have actully been lucky.

So my new goal is to keep upright. I saw this quote a few days ago, and decided this is me exactly:

LOL!

Well that's about all of the happenings for me, except for this:

Since the St Louis Cardinals and the San Francisco Giants are in the playoffs this week and my son, when he was growing up here was a diehard Giants baseball fan, that now lives in Missouri and is now a diehard Cards fan:

Go Giants!!