Saturday, August 3, 2013

COMING BACK DOWN TO EARTH

Well, I meant to do a blog post the minute I got back from Dallas yesterday afternoon, but if you've ever gone off for a creative girl's getaway, you know it's sometimes difficult to come down off that cloud, and settle back into your groove. Here's the speed version of what I did while I was away:

The main event was our art journaling class with Dyan Reaveley, where we received this fabulous goody bag, and one of her super dooper pristine art journals. First thing she made us do was to wreck that gorgeous journal, both inside and out, with lots of smudges and splotches. If there's one thing she can't abide, it's women who waste our valuable class time trying to keep everything neat and perfect, so she figures it's best to get that out of the way right off the bat.


Our Crazy Fun Instructor, Dyan Reaveley


   









None of the pages above are completed projects. The are mostly just samples of techniques we learned for making backgrounds, and still need lots of journaling and doodling to finish them off and make them pop.

Sister Gus Gets Down and Dirty!
Dyan demonstrates a technique for tricking your brain into thinking it's happy.
We were at it from 9:30 am until almost 7:00 pm, with one 30 minute lunch break. Believe it or not, by the end of the day we were too tired to do any shopping there at Stamp Asylum before we left, and so hungry that we actually stopped for dinner with our hands and arms covered in paint! (I'm still not completely paint-free.) Fortunately, the owner said we could come back the next day and still get our class discount, so we dragged sister Poodie and niece Steph back there with us on Thursday, but compensated by having lunch with them at a place called The Chocolate Angel, and seeing the movie Red 2. Yesterday morning Gus and I breakfasted out together and were standing at the door of Asel Art Supply by the time they opened at 9:00, so we could do a final bit of shopping before I had to hit the road.

Guess you can see why I was a wee bit pooped last night. Now, however, it's definitely time to get down to business, for I need to finish up the projects above, get back to my Wild Summer Art class, which I am way behind in now, and on top of all that, I must get started on my double-page spread in the first round of Circle Journal swapping, since a gorgeous one showed up in our mailbox while I was gone. Could life get any better?

2 comments:

Dara Lynn said...

I live in Oklahoma and by the time I found out about this class I could only sit on the waiting list :( What a wonderful time you look like you had!!! Maybe next year! :)

Hill Country Hippie said...

Dara Lynn, I only discovered art journaling a little over a year ago. When I first visited Dyan's blog and watched some of her tutorials, I realized she had just been in Texas teaching classes, only a week or two before! So I too had to wait an entire year for her to come back again, so I could attend one of her classes.