CALL OF THE WILD

I ended up overlapping two on-line classes during the holiday season this year, not getting very far in either one. One was Christy Tomlinson's 13 Artsy Ornaments class, and the project below is my riff on the one taught by Jeanne Oliver. Jeanne had found an image of a little Victorian looking girl with antlers tied onto her head, and painted something similar onto a birch branch slice. I had ordered some of those birch plaques from Christy's website, however they ran out before they got my order filled, so I had to improvise.

Lately, when I have been painting little girls like these, they have started talking to me. This one told me that she is the bane of her mother's existence. She said her mama was a very stern and proper woman, who insisted that she learn all the rules of etiquette and practice the piano every day, when all she really wanted to do was run off to play in the woods with her brothers. I could tell by the lift of her dimpled chin that she had quite the stubborn streak in her, and I'm sure her poor mother despaired of her ever becoming a fashionable young lady.

The other class I was taking at this same time was Junelle Jacobsen's Art of Holiday Goodness class. The first class I ever took from Junelle was The Art of Wild Abandonment, which spawned not only a whole series of Wild Art classes, but also a wonderful group of Wild Art gal pals, and the Wild Art Circle Journal project that I have been participating in. So, the fact that I was doing projects in both classes at once just might have had something to do with these words that somehow popped onto the page, before I realized what was happening.

Sometimes a girl just has to follow that call.

IT'S GETTIN' REAL!

Well, the wedding invitations have gone out for the first of our two engaged kiddos, and I'm really loving how they turned out.

This is just the upper portion, without the details.

They were designed by my niece Megan and her hubby Ben, who are both into graphic design, and this was their wedding gift to Lex and Nate. They did a fantastic job of evoking the 1920's theme of their wedding, did they not?

The flipside of the invitation, which directs you to their website.

Within a couple of days of mailing them out, Lex was seeing action on their event website (RSVPs, favorite dance song selections, gift registry, etc.), and she shot me a note saying "This all got very real all of a sudden. I am so excited I can hardly sit still!"

Is there anything more wonderful than seeing one's children this happy?

BEGINNING THE YEAR WITH AN ART RESOLUTION

Remember my Simple Abundance journal?  I just love the cover I painted on it -- one of my favorite projects ever, and it puts a huge grin on my face every time I see it.

In fact, the few projects that I've done inside the journal are some of my favorites as well, but therein lies the problem -- how few there actually are.

 

You see, I let myself get caught up in the reading of Sarah Ban Breathnach's little daily essays, yet again, and ended up moving it out to my dining porch nest where I watch the sun come up each day. Once it left the art table, well, that was pretty much it.

The other problem was that I never got around to preparing it properly for life as a journal -- the somewhat tedious process of alternately gessoing a few pages together, for added strength, then cutting a few pages out, to reduce bulk -- which caused the bulky front section to begin pulling away from the spine.

Sooooo, now that I've spent the entire last year re-reading it, cover to cover, I think it's time to "resolve" this matter, don't you?  Therefore, my New Year's resolution is to move this baby back to the art table, and get it ready for some serious art play!

MARVELOUS MAMAS

I just realized I forgot to show you something! Remember when I told you about going to see my baby take part in the annual Merry Tuba Christmas festivities on the steps of the Texas State Capitol building in nearby Austin? Well, that was great fun as always, but not what I wanted to show you.

You can't tell from this photo, but they had 189 tubas participating this year!

No, what I really wanted to show you was these guys, who probably had more fun that anyone else there.

Now, how smart is a mama who thinks to toss a big piece of cardboard in the car, for when the kids lose interest in staring at the rear ends of a horde of tall adults?
 

ANOTHER WINTER "TO-DO"