Day 15 of the 15 day Challenge!

 After several months of trying to figure out how I was going to take the art journal, that I made, with me to Italy I made the decision to take it apart and just take the 2 signatures/sections I made for the city of Rome. 

I purchased post cards from Italy at the International Festival that all of our 7th grade students attend each year.  I addressed some of the post cards so that I could send them back home to family members. I am so excited about this trip!  It is so hard to put into words what this means.  I have dreamed of this day for over 3o years!  This year has been a year for setting goals and going after them one at at time.  Getting on Facebook, starting a blog, setting up Skype and work toward my trip to Italy.  I had planned on taking my lap top, so that I could blog about my trip from Italy, but decided to pack light this trip.
Next blog entries will be pictures from Italy! Ciao for now! 

Day 14 Bella

Bella decided to take Elmo's pacifier.

Day 12 of Challenge

Page from one of my art journals.  I took a couple of ATCs and incorporated them into a page of my journal.  It is fun to start with just the ATC and then add to it.

Day 11 Painting for my living room

This is a painting that I did for my living room.  I just wanted to have some fun and create a painting using colors that would go with everything in the living room.  It was so much fun!  I would love to have the time to be in my art studio  right now painting instead of grading students art work but I am grateful I have a job!  

Day 10

Lacy just got her hair done!

Day #9 Sunrise

 It was a beautiful view looking out of my hotel window to see this scene on the morning of the Chicago marathon.  The sky is like looking at a new painting that God has done it changes daily.

Day 8 Day at the Como Zoo

Just a few of the animals at the Como Zoo in Minneapolis, MN.  I went there this summer to take pictures with my new camera.

Day 7 Sense of humor

I took the picture of this sign when Ken and I were taking a walk by a frozen lake.  I couldn't help but laugh when I saw where the sign was.  Living in Minnesota you have to have a sense of humor when it comes to the weather during the winter.

Day 7 Wishing I were there

If only this was a close place I could go to on a regular basis.  After a long day it would be so peaceful to sit and listen to the waves of the ocean coming up on shore.  I love being by the water, beaches and sun!  Hope some day to be able to go back to this place in Mexico.   

Day 6

There is something about watching the horses when I am at my Mom & Dad's house. It is calming to watch these beautiful animals. This is a picture I took of one of the neighbors horses. I loved the yellow wild flowers that were growing in the field where the horses were...and so did the horses.

Day 5

This is my visual journal that I am making with my 6th grade students.  I came up with a way to make our art journals instead of buying them pre-made.  The outside cover gets personalized with things/images we like.  I was showing my students how to experiment with the placement of the different images before gluing anything down.

Day 4 Moose when he was a puppy

When I started looking at old pictures that I had taken I found this one of my son's dog.   Moose was a puppy when I took this picture. Looking at pictures is something I have always enjoyed doing.  I used to love looking at the old photos that my grandmother had.  Every time I went to her house I would sit down and go through the pictures... even though I had looked at them all before.  There was something about the photo capturing that moment in time.  No one would have know about that moment unless it had been preserved through the photo.

Day 3

I went into my art studio tonight and found my "mini me" on the shelf.  This is one way for me to use some of my school pictures...creating a mini me.  Maybe I am on to a new idea...putting my school pictures, that I have no need for, into art work.

Day 2 of Challenge

Cool cloudy day in my backyard.  It began to rain so I wasn't able to get many pictures taken.  The colors of the leaves seemed richer today.  I know it won't be long until they will all fall off and will be replaced with snow.  Days like today make me want to have a bowl of hot chili and homemade apple sauce.

15 day challenge

I decided to challenge myself to post a picture every day for the next 15 days.  I know it sounds silly but for me this will be a great 1st challenge.  I leave for Italy in just 18 days and 15 entries will be a challenge for me to do...but here goes.  Today's photo is from my back yard.  There are a few leaves that still have beautiful  colors.  I am still learning how to take a good photo.  I love taking pictures!

25 days until Rome Italy

So excited about my trip to Rome, Italy.  I have been experimenting with different suitcases and backpacks to see which one works for me.  I have been fortunate to fly several times in the past few months.  I do NOT like the backpack I have.  Now I know I want a backpack that has a pull up handle and is more box like in shape.  I have a few more weeks to find it. People are telling me to pack light.  That is a challenge for me...I like to have things for "just in case" situations.  I really want to take only what "I need" and not want "I think I might need."

Beautiful Fall Color

Decided that I needed to stop working on my "to do list" and get outside and enjoy the beautiful fall colors.  I took my camera to capture some of the things I saw.

God paints the sky

Time gets away from me when school starts in the fall.  I have been working on some new art things but still need to take pictures of them.

My husband and I saw this sunset when we were on our way home this past weekend.  I am always in awe of the sky at sunrise and sunsets.  God paints an amazing new picture in the sky every day.  It is moments like this one... that helps me slow down and notice what is around me that I might otherwise just pass up.  So glad I had my camera with me!

Great Great Grandpa?

A new page in my art journal that I finished last night sitting at my Mom and Dad's kitchen table.

I took a photograph of my drawing and cut this man out of it. I glued him on the page of my journal and began to design my page. I wish I knew for sure who he was.  A few people in my family think this my Great Great Grandpa Mc...but others thought the other man, in the picture, was my Great Great Grandpa Mc.  I am still trying to find the origional photo... to see if my Grandma Mc wrote who they were on the back of the photo.  She was always really good about doing that.  As a child, and grown adult, I loved looking at all the old photos that she had. I would pull them out every time I would visit her.

Todays Abstract Painting

 This is a close up view of the painting .

Decided to do the painting using 4 canvases instead of just one.  This is what it looks like before framing.

Identical Twin Girls

The girls in this artwork are my mom and her identical twin sister.  They were the inspiration for this work of art.  I asked both of them to describe to me what it meant or how it feels to be an identical twin.  It was difficult for them to come up with specific words to describe it.  I choose a few to express a small part of how they feel.  I have already started another one with them as the subject matter of my art.

Family members I drew from an old photo 30 years old

I drew this from a photo that my grandmother had.  I used to love to look at all the old photos that she had.  I made the mistake of not writing on the back of this drawing who the relatives were in the pictures...so now I am trying to ask other relatives, that live here in TN, if they know who they are.

  Look at how yellow the paper is getting.  Not sure if they had acid free drawing paper 30 years ago...but I did not know about it and therefore I did not use it.

Sisters Trip to Chicago

 I decided to collect things from our trip and try to arrange them on a page in my journal.  It was very challenging because the sizes of the "things" did not always work out well with the designs on my page.

Time with family is so important!  Our lives get so busy that we can forget to spend time with those we love!

Pages from one of my journals

I took this page out of one of the many journals I make as an example for my students.  I want to figure out a neat way to put them in a new journal...one that is for me.  That will be something I can work on this summer break.  Only 10 more days with my students and then I am out for most of the summer.  I will be teaching 2 summer art classes again this summer. 

Playing around with watercolor spray.  I started putting different shapes down on my paper and spraying around them.  This was the start of of my shapes.  Then I just started having fun drawing lines using a marker.  Once the shapes were drawn I used colored pencil to shade and blend colors.

Art Journal for my trip to ITALY

 I have dreamed of going to Italy since I was very young.  I am in the process of making an art journal to take with me.  These are a few of the pages.

On the inside cover I have the places we will see on the "Grand Tour of Italy."  WE start in Milan and then head for Venice.  I created tabs for each of the locations throughout my art journal. 

I decided to make my art journal with an accordion fold.  As I add items, from the different cities, the book will expand.

I used watercolor paper for most of the pages.  This allowed me to easily add water color, write, draw and stamps to each page.

Another example of what the tab page looks like.  I still have a lot to do to get the book ready before Nov. 2011 but at least I have the basic prep done on each page.

I decide to carry out a theme for my pages with the water color spray. This helped unify the look of the art journal.  I used all kinds of objects to help create the positive and negative areas on the pages. 

After putting my art journal/book together I decided that I needed to add another signature of pages to the Rome section of my book.  I will be going to Rome for 5 days in Nov. 2011 and then back again next year during spring break. Now that I have 2 sections for Rome I will have enough space for pictures, drawings, writing and things I pick up along the way during both visits to this city.  I added pockets to the final signature of the art journal so I would have a place to hold things I don't want to glue down.  I am loving this process of creating my own journal! 

     

New adventure

Time to step out on faith and get started!  

This "blog" is the beginning of sharing my photography, art journals and the making of art.