Portraits and Bugs and Greens ... oh my!!

Apologies for the long distance between posts ... preparing for and leading my Women's Journaling Alpine Retreat gobbled up a bunch of my time and energy. I'm back and will resume paying more love and attention to my blog. Thanks for your patience!

This journal duo covers quite a range. Mostly, it entails portrait pieces. And as usual, with a variety of levels. The first image, on the far left was actually quite a hilarious and playful moment. I was in my Ashland Art Center Studio around 4:30pm, an hour and a half before the Center closes. A cheery and very talented artist sauntered by my studio and we began talking. Not only did she do fabulous Gold Plating and Calligraphy work, but she journaled too! And she wanted to take a Private Class focusing on portraits. In our discussion we realized our only time frame was then. Scouring around for an image to use as our portrait subject we dug one out of a magazine and we went to dedicated work, giggling at the spontaneity of the situation! This was the flash finish of that session. Kind of unfinished and raw but ... I can at least tell it's a face!

The wacky trio here in the middle of the page is visiting friends, Joan and Grant, and my silly husband. Our evening meal together was full of humor and seasoned stories. I finally got them to settle down enough to get this pose from them ... a fond memory just echoing in my mind.

So these five winged seeds ... how did they appear. I'd noticed a brilliant reddish one as I parked my car one day, so of course, I collected a handful. When I decided to incorporate the seed into this page, I opted for five (it's more interesting to design in odd numbers) and I went to work cutting out my windows and Mod Podging them into place. Can't tell you my delight when the color on the previous page appeared - - and it was a pale green (nice compliment to the reddish seeds)!

Continued wacky collectibles include the sliced Dairy Queen cover for my first vanilla cone of the spring is a constant memento and then, the cute lil' tags that come off a tiny battery my hubby uses to power hearing aids. They just looked like something to me and I found that I could fit them into the space I wanted to leave blank for the previous pages clear windows. And if I planned it right, you wouldn't see them in the windows! Wellah!!!  And then, as I looked
at them - - they became lil' bugs. Legs added ... and another smile comes to my face. Can you see how fun this can be?

During this time I'd begun teaching a six-week series watercolor class. During one of the early sessions I'd caught one of my prize students doing a great job replicating and experimenting with her greens. And with no head (no it didn't hurt her), she keeps her anonymity!

Did you count all the smiles and silly-ness? Yep, my journal is a constant source of joy and play . . . my playground of sorts!!!