Play Date...

Today I managed to set out to find the hotel gym and get in some exercise.  I'm such a good girl!  After a shower, leisurely breakfast and leisurely morning, Erin picked me up to take me to her house to meet her lovely family and see all her artwork.  After the grand tour we settled into Erin's studio to have some play time.  Erin worked on a piece she started before that is turning into a graffiti type and looks awesome.  This picture doesn't do it justice.

Erin gave me a canvas board so I could play too and I had a blast playing with modeling paste, a rug grip as a stencil and some fluid acrylics.  I also played with some of her inks to make the circles.

During our play time we were also joined by her two dogs and two of her four cats.  I've been missing my cats so it was nice to get to pet all her furry kids.  Her human children are cool too and it was a lovely afternoon.  Erin's husband made us a delicious dinner of chicken piccata, mashed potatoes and caprese with their home grown tomatoes, I'm such a bad photographer these days.  I should have snapped a picture of the crew at the dinner table and the awesome spread.  Erin's family is such a pleasure and it was a thoroughly lovely afternoon.

Now, to pull together all the supplies I will need for my class tomorrow which involves creating fabrics and papers with mono printing.  Can't wait!

Portland, Oregon...

Landed in Portland last night to attend Art & Soul retreat.  So excited to be spending an entire week learning and creating.  Today my friend Erin, who I met last year at Art Is You, picked me up for a day of exploring downtown.  She took me to many wonderful places including Scraps, a center where artists take their leftover supplies for resale, Cargo, an import store, Blick's and a few other places I've forgotten the names of already.  It was a windy rainy day or I might have manged to take more photos but I saw many wonderful things and bought some fun papers to use for collages.  We even popped into a cool store that has some of Flora Bowley's artwork so that was cool to get to see some of her originals.

Below is a pic of Cargo and some of my haul for the day.

Tomorrow I'm off to see Erin's home, meet her family and see her artwork in person.  So looking forward to it.  Tomorrow night is the opening party for Art & Soul.

Play Time Part Two...

Will wonders never cease!  Two posts in one weekend.  ;-)

Saturday I had a lovely art play date with Ann Bailey and her friend Patty.  We also spent some time with the rest of her talented family.  Click on her name above to see their work.  I decided to live on the edge and take my new blank 36x36 canvas and below is the resulting work.  I thought I might spend some more time on it but I've decided it is finished.  Now to decide if I want to keep it or sell it.  I was going to put it over the fireplace but it is too dark for that spot so we shall see.


At lunch time we headed out for some fast food and on the way back saw a family with free kittens.  We couldn't help ourselves and stopped to look.  Their poor mother was run over that morning and the family was able to collect two of the four kittens.  Ann had been looking for a kitten so decided to take the little boy and call him Artie.  My old grey cat Scooter had passed a few weeks ago so I decided I would take the little girl and name her Trixie.  They both had an immediate flea bath and fortunately they are young enough to not think you are trying to kill them.  I have a lot of experience with that through my teen years with indoor outdoor cats (before they had things like Advantage).  She is so tiny and such a little love bug.  I haven't been able to put her down for long all weekend.  The other cats are afraid of her even though she is a fraction of their size.  So funny to watch but everyone is slowly adjusting.


I hope everyone had a nice rest from Labor today.  Hugs!

Some Play Time...

As usual I am so behind on catching up. So a few weeks ago I had the pleasure of taking a Donna Downey class at a local scrapbook store, Altered angel. It was so much fun learning to use pan pastels. We learned to examine a picture to see what colors exist and created two pieces. The first was a recreation of an existing piece and the second from a photograph.






I've also bought a larger art journal book from Hobby Lobby and played a bit. The first I was in a pastel and stencil mood and the second is some color play.








This is a small collage I've been working on and I think I'm done.





I hope everyone has a safe and blessed Labor Day.

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