Long Time

Yikes, life gets busy.  I think it has been two weeks since Jackie reminded me how long it had been since I'd blogged.  And I meant to at the time, but then I ran off to do something else and forgot about it.  So here I am now, my lovelies.

What have I been up to?  So far this year, I've taken a life drawing class (from which I have no photos because the setup to take some would be too elaborate).  Anyway, the value in a life drawing class is to polish your drawing skills and to become more nimble not in producing finished work.   I've been to Las Vegas twice, once for Art & Soul and some carousing with girlfriends from our Yahoo art group, TreasureArtTrends, and once with the MINI peeps for A MINI Vacation in Vegas.  One of my very best friends from high school days became more severely ill and was hospitalized.  She died just after I returned home.  We went on an overnight road trip to Flagstaff with a hundred or so other European cars.  I've planned several projects for the art group.  I reunited with another of my very best friends from high school after 40 years of no contact.  I'm working on ongoing projects. Somehow or other, I managed to lose 30 pounds without realizing it was happening.  And I've started working out, going to the gym several times a week, and doing water aerobics.  Oh, and I'm taking an online Extreme Journaling class with Juliana Coles.  And I'm looking for a job.

You know how I love my art girls and trips to Las Vegas.  So combining the two was a fabulous getaway for me, despite my reluctance to be away from The Sports Fan.  For one thing, every time I leave him here alone, he goes shopping.  This trip was no exception.  I came home to new graphics on the MINI.  This is our second MINI Cooper S and while we've thought about it and certainly intended to put graphics on our beloved little guy, CoopahS, we never came up with an idea we liked.  Together with our graphics guy, Mike, of Aesthetic Creations, The Sports Fan came up with an Iron Maiden theme for a roof graphic.  The Steve Vai guitar neck bonnet stripes just popped into his head and shortly thereafter, appeared on our car!  For nine months, the new MINI had felt unloved without a vanity plate or name, but it now has those as well.  Naturally, all I can find is the above photo of the bonnet stripes.  Yes, Steve Vai has a guitar with seven strings instead of six!  Here's a side view of MiniTym on The BEAT, taken in Prescott, AZ.

For quite a long time, I've been wishing that someone would take advantage of current technologies to teach art classes online.  Plenty of people teach classes with PDF files and forums with pictures added that allow feedback and a conversation between the teacher and students.  But with streaming audio and video easy to produce and post now, there's no reason not to use those technologies to help students have a richer online learning experience.  I was thrilled to discover that Juliana Coles was going to teach her Extreme Journalism class in such a way.  I signed up in early April and have been learning and enjoying both the class assignments and the other class members for two months.  The class is scheduled to end on June 30th, but I think our group will be together longer than that!

Here's my messy worktable and a spread from my altered book journal, which was formerly one of a set of six 1960 encyclopedias.  I took it apart and removed half of the signatures, made tab signatures, then reassembled the book by sewing it together and replacing the endpapers.

This is a quickly drawn self-portrait colored in with watercolor crayons that were then worked over with a damp brush.

So there's the news from me!  What are YOU doing?