souvenirs

We were lucky enough to have 3 days on Camano Island - I have never been there even though it's only an hour away 

This is the beach we walked down to several times a day:

The beaches here are rocky and desolate 

- no beach umbrellas or volleyball here -

 we love it this way.

Our beach had tons of driftwood. 

Some of it was entire trees.

Here's a crafty fellow who made his flag with driftwood:

The kids made a game of "setting the driftwood free"  ... they said it was imprisoned on the shore and longed to keep drifting :)

I enjoyed the view from the house and attempted painting it:

And the art fun continues with all of my souvenirs - rocks on my desk:

Here's my try at an anatomical heart:

But my favorite is this moon and sun face:

September is here with cooler days and nights ... putting us in the mood for hot cocoa and cozy corners ... but I'll have summer souvenirs on my desk long into the winter months.

shellac hack

Not having a lot of art supplies on a recent vacation ... necessity became the mother of invention 

Hairspray (I can vouch for this one in particular) is a great sealer for painted rocks

I had my micron pens and watercolor paint - but no sealer - hairspray did the job better than anything I have in my art cupboard at home!

self care cards

I had fun with my summertime art students a few weeks ago making decks of self care cards like these:

52 cards with self care prompts on the back:

Then we made boxes to keep them in like this one:

This particular card is good self care only if you have someone to wash the dishes too :)

I would be happy to email the PDF file so you can make your own deck of cards too. 

Although, it's up to you to gussy them up :)

(Let me know if you're interested when you leave a comment ...)

***leave your email address in your comment - but spell it out to avoid trolls - eg: "somebody at gmail dot com"

strength

morning art

20 minutes is all it takes

- it's almost better than coffee -

paper making today

It was a class I taught today. 

This is the student work :

We used junk mail and flower petals.

(The green paper I made after everyone went home. It's made from berry baskets.)

rare red

In the past I have very rarely used red

... I think I'm over THAT now.

pie on the windowsill

Journal pies:

Sitting on the windowsill with drying glue, paint, gesso, fingerprints ...

Art journaling is my choice for a morning practice of mindfulness. Similar to "morning pages" as touted by Julia Cameron - which I've never been able to do consistently. Probably because I'm self critical about the written word. Nevertheless, I have a story to tell.

How do you tell your story?