sun flavored

it is an impossibly beautiful day

iced tea and sun hat

bubbles and blue sky

if you live up here ...

(near Seattle)

... you know how impossible this is

*

has spring sprung where you are?

or have you jump into summer too?

spring banners

 I finished my project

- that's always a good feeling!

spring banners

stamped using my own carved stamps

tea bag papers

vintage book pages

watercolor paint

machine stitched

strung on sisal twine

only $18

(a shameless plug)

glass adventure

last night I went to a wine bottle slumping class

(Covenant Art Glass in Everett WA)

I thought it was a hot shop (glass blowing)

but their specialty is stained glass

the owner is artist Stan Price and the salmon paintings on glass are his

the shop had lots of examples hanging in the window

both of his own art and of student art

he calls his studio a "learning studio" and his focus is on classes and workshops 

... for the average person as well as for the stained glass enthusiast ...

it is always an inspiration to me to visit someone's art workspace

I have a fresh sense of what is possible

and a new respect for a completely different medium

the wine bottle part was fun and I'll tell you more about that in a later post
they won't be ready for a couple of days

but I knew you would love to see some of the beautiful art

*

have you attended a class or workshop lately?

I'd love to hear about it

tea on the go

(ignore the laundry in the background - I know you can :)

my tea bottle goes with me most places

and a good book goes with me when I know I'm going to have to wait

(The Samurai's Garden was a beautiful book I read years ago and last week I found it at the thrift store)

and in my tea bottle is a really good instant green tea from Japan

today's errand?

oil change

tires rotated

junk like that

...

but tonight - slumping wine bottles at a local hot shop

intrigued?

hee hee

:)

*

what are you up to today?

spring banners and the super moon

what I'm working on today:

more spring banners for my shop

(seen here in the "hanging out to dry stage")

I use my own hand carved rubber stamp designs

hand paint them

and adhere them to teabag papers

(I'll show you the finished banners when I'm done)

and the super moon as I saw it this morning at 5:30:

... strawberry flowers ...

home to faerie kings

and ladybird beetles

journaling

it has been a very busy week

now it's friday, and I feel the need to string at least one cohesive thought together

my journal is a good place to go for that

lately I've been using a large sized spiral notebook

(instead of the mini moleskine I've used before)

*

I begin with covering every bit of the lined paper with something

(torn up bits from magazines and my clipping stash)

my glue is

my ever present jar of mod podge

applied with a cruddy but big paint brush

(usually I use matte instead of gloss, but I happened to grab this one today)

for my "thought"

I like to take a paragraph of text and circle the words that mean something to me

then I block out the rest

and finally I gesso and pretty it up with pencil or paint

my words today:

silent

past

hope

share

who

memory

place

     step 1: circle words                                   step 2: block out the rest                           step 3: gesso and pretty it up 

then I take those words and use them to string my thought:

I add some more bits and scraps

pretty it up with gesso, paint, pencil, etc.

and in about an hour I have some of my sanity restored

:)

happy friday

we're skidding into the home stretch here

hopefully you are too

:)