A Lovely Vacation...

I've been on vacation for a week and have thoroughly enjoyed puttering and playing in my art room.  I did manage to get the dining room and art room cleaned up for the family Christmas Eve dinner.  It will probably not be this clean again until the next big family get together/sit down dinner which may not be until Thanksgiving so I'm going to show you what it will rarely look like.

This is my 'paint caddy' that I found at Home Goods.  Of course that isn't all my paint but it at least holds my craft paints and sprays.  It also travels in the car nicely for those times I play at friends' houses.

So, one thing I wanted to play with was using strips of old papers and couldn't refrain from using some corrugated cardboard, aka Starbucks coozey's.  I haven't decided what I want to do next with these yet. 



I had another idea to use old business cards in stacks of varying levels so I grabbed a canvas and started playing.

I then painted it with grey gesso,

and then a layer of tissue paper because I just love all the crinkles.

In the last steps I just played and played with layering in colors and voila my first piece of abstract art.  I really want to learn some more layering techniques with color but I'm really pleased with the outcome.  I have a bigger canvas that I'm going to do the same thing with but try out some other colors.  Someday I'm going to manage the right lighting for a better picture.  I'm thinking a trip to the hardware store for some mondo lights.

Another thing I promised myself I would finally try is carving my own stamp.  I have some real carving materials but didn't want to take a chance on screwing it up so did my first one on some of that foam used for kids projects.  It took a little time but I'm definitely going to have to play with it some more.

One of the other things I did on my vacation was an early birthday present from my brother.  We never spend any time just the two of us so I asked for a date night.  It was so much fun!  We went to see Sherlock Holmes which was awesome and then went out to dinner and just had a great time chatting about life.

So my week was filled with Christmas and New Years Eve dinners with the family (by the way, I have an awesome family that actually enjoys spending time together and we always have fun), some early birthday celebrations and time to be creative.  Oh, and lunch with the lovely Mary Freeman.  Sigh, I have to go back to work tomorrow and I just don't want the fun to stop.  If I could just get them to pay me to not work.  ;-)

Well, I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and I wish everyone a New Year filled with new adventures and may you accomplish at least one thing on your to do/goal/resolution list.  Hugs!