2013 in review..

click on picture to enlarge

 

this is my art badge created for a facebook challenge by April Cole
http://aprilmariecole.blogspot.ca/
in 2013 I posted 227 times
I started actually blogging in 2006, April 27
almost 7 years of blogging hard to believe
this year has had its ups and downs
had some health scares
but they all worked out
I turned 60 and wished I was still 30 so much to still do
I created some good art
I created some bad art
I took a few courses
made a great art friend who lives in the same city
lost some weight
gained some weight
kept up my swimming 5 days a week even when I didn't want to go
watched the shopper go after a great job and get it
saw the boyfriend get a new job and be happy
watched the hubby try to adjust to retirement life
went on some great trips with some great friends
cooked more than I ever have before and enjoyed it
went to a great wedding
have some great neighbours who have become new friends
enjoyed everyone blogs
found some new blogs to follow
expanded and grew as an artist
gave a canvas to a family member and didn't worry to much if it was good enough
decided not to have a word for the year
decided to be more in the moment
learn how to say no when I need to
not to stress and think I have to blog when I have nothing to say
take more pictures
to be braver
to take a live model art class
to make a list of my favourite 100 songs ever and
load them to my ipod from ITunes
take some trips with the hubster
enjoy each other more
to be softer less hard line

so that's it things I have done in 2013 and some things I want to do in 2014



Happy Boxing day

 

Been fooling around with my art journal

the shopper and the boyfriend are off on their trip enjoying the mild temperatures

in Palm Springs

 

it was quite mild here because it was raining, and then tonight will

freeze and it will be hell here people, I wont be lounging around

the pool with my bare feet getting a tan like the shopper

 

I got some new 4 wheel luggage for Christmas, but

no plane ticket, what's that about.  I wanted the luggage

because I am getting older and its easier to push, the

hubby cant understand my reasoning, but bless his heart

he got it anyway.

 

I love Patrica Cornwell, the daughter and the

boyfriend know that and got me her latest

Dust

and of course many more items, way to much stuff I was spoiled for sure

well today the tree went down

the house was cleaned up

and you would not know Christmas had been here

the tree has been up since the first week of December

way long enough

ok gonna go and have a chocolate, its still Christmas until

all chocolates are gone

 

lee

Merry Christmas

A peek

 

a update on the circle journal

this is the fool finished page, I like the

sample below a little better, but I have

to get the journal in the mail and off to Australia,

so no more fooling around with it.

 



Zero hours

 

So its almost zero hours, are your ready?

If I don't have enough for everyone that's to bad, that's my motto.

Christmas is suppose to be about being together, family time,

not about commercialism.  But hey a little bit doesn't hurt.

We are having Christmas dinner on Christmas eve

first time ever, the shopper and the boyfriend

are going on a little trip for 10 days, and

leaving on Christmas day, which by the

way if you fly on Christmas day is cheaper.

So on Christmas morning it wont be all that

rushing around opening presents, and trying

to get the turkey ready.

Are you having Turkey or what do you have?

an Updated life

 

 

It was the hubby's birthday yesterday, and created

this last night, I told him there is a slight

resemblance.

Ok remember yesterday I told you about the Documented life

and how I was going to use a cheap planner.  Well

this morning after a little tiff the hubster's, that man

needs a life outside of this house. I decided a little retail
therapy was needed, and didn't I just go to the bookstore, and loh and behold
what did I spy but a weekly planner (moleskine)

  Before I saw the price tag, I thought ok if its 15.00 I will buy it, but when I saw the

25.00 dollar price tag, I just about choked me.  I mean

its not made of gold.  But the size, and the way

it feels in your hand, and the soft cover.  After the
drooling had stopped, it was still in my hand
and I knew somebody in the universe wanted me to have it. So
it made its way to its new home with me.

  I have already

done the pages with washi tape , and am going

to put on the tabs tonight.  Meanwhile

I have to finish the circle journal, because next

stop for it is Australia, and the way our

mail system works, I could swim with it, there faster.

Okay back tomorrow.

Lee

 



A documented Life

 

My scanner doesn't scan some colors well,

one of them is the face, in real life it looks fine.

 

tonight I am off to a journal class, at a new scrapbook

store, am looking forward to it, if the page turns

out in my journal I will show it tomorrow.

Have you heard of the a documented life, done

in a planner go here and read about and join up

sounds like fun

 

http://www.robenmarie.com/blog/2013/12/14/the-documented-life-project.html

I joined up, you can use any kind of weekly planner, they are using a

moleskine, but I am just using a cheap old weekly planner

lee

 

Survey says.....

 

 

a little Christmas survey for you

 

do you put your Christmas tree in front of a window ?

do you use tinsel?

do you have a real or fake tree?

does your tree have a color scheme?

does anyone help you decorate it?

do you wait till new years or after to take the tree down 

we have a fake tree with lights already attached

no tinsel in this house

yes in front of the window

no colour scheme, its a grab bag of colors,

yes my daughter helps me set up the tree and decorate, the hubby does not do trees
I take the tree down on boxing day December 26, I have had
enough Christmas by then

ok see you tomorrow

lee
 



life is good

 

well as you can see there are no pictures of my Midori Travellers Journal.

The hubsters leather coat was to thin

I have some vinyl and I am going to try that

lots of precise measuring

numbers are not my thing

I like to fly by the seat of my pants

that's why my stuff doesn't turn out.

Will have to get the hubsters help with the measuring.

today is like spring out,

global warming at its best

one day so cold you cant stick out a toe

the next day, you could almost wear capris

going to finish the circle journal project today

the shopper is coming for dinner

the boyfriend is working

life is good

see you Monday

lee

 



Splotchy.....

 

If you saw her in my art journal book, she looks good

here she looks splotchy....

well today I have been out since 9:00 am, running around

looking for leather, I am making a midori travellers journal.

Could not find any leather, so am cutting out the

hubsters old brown leather coat, (I did ask him).

going to work on that today, and see how it goes. Maybe pictures on Sunday, or maybe not, depending on how it turns out......

top 10 things I like to do

Well its finally Friday

so I thought I would tell you 10 things that I really like to do

 

go to the movies

drink diet coke

read trashy books

listen to audio books in my car

lay around in my pjs on cold snowy days

have a nice hot tub after swimming

eat French fries with diet coke from McDonalds

go to the bookstore and read the magazines and not buy them (lol)

go out for lunch ,dinner  or breakfast as long as I don't have to cook

make these lists because I don't have anything to say

 

lee



14 days until Christmas

 

since my pool is closed till further notice, I am

adrift in the morning....so today hubby and

I are off to Costco for the chocolate and cookies 

Christmas run.  Its still snowing out, I think

we have more snow than the North Pole, plus

the cold weather to boot. 

14 daze until Christmas are you ready 

Art Date

 

 

 

the leaves on this wreath were made from a cheap art pad

they were cut out individually they I painted on them

then overlapped them and glued them.  I was thinking of

adding some Christmas balls.

 

Today my art friend Gail came over, and we worked in our

Circle Journals, she happens also to be in the group.  I must

say I didn't do to much but paint over not once but twice, the page

I then had to let it dry, and Gail and I went thru my stash, I gave her

some, some went in the garbage, some back to the stash.

All in all a productive day cleaning out my stash, not much

on the art front by me, but Gail worked pretty good on hers.

 

lee

Fools and Divinities

Yesterday I told you about the Circle Journal Exchange I am in,

this is the Divinity page that I made, I just noticed, I need

to add some more white around the sun.  This page is opposite

a page done by a fellow artist and hers was the moon.  So It

was a no brainer to do the sun

Went to go swimming today and the pool is closed.  It has been

so cold here that the pipes froze and made all kinds of

mess all over the facility and they are not sure when it

will reopen. Leftovers tonight and working on finishing my

page on fools.

 

 

 



Just a little trial run....

click on picture to enlarge

 

I don't know if I told you or not, that I am in a

circle journal exchange.  The journals are amazing

as well as the artists, a little intimidating.  So the latest

journal is so beautiful, and her theme is Fools and/or divinities.

So instead of mucking up her journal I decided to try

a dry run in my journal and this is what I came up with this is fools.

I learned a few things I am not going to do.  First I am

going to use stamps for the words, 2nd instead of

cutting the elephants out of painted paper, I am going

to draw them and paint them, the jesters will be a

little different and I might not use such in your face

colors, thou that is my style.  When I get the

original page done I will show you how

it turns out. I also did divinities, which I will show you on Monday
I had no trouble with that one

 

 

 

Ornaments

 

every year I make something for Christmas

wreaths, cards, something.  This year I

made a few ornaments, here is a random

sampling of some of them.  The red heart

I felted, or tried to, it looks as much like as

a heart as it is going to.  One is made of

painted papers, and a scrap of painted

fabric, with the stamp of joy

 

one is made from book pages, and a scrap

of painted paper, and joy is white out

 

So today I am making a few more ornaments

with stamps, I have a whole boat load of

stamps I got from a yard sale and

decided to try them on a ornament.

 

The shopper just phoned and asked if I

wanted to go and get some lunch, so I am off

talk you soon

 
 

lee

Hoot Hoot it's Friday

 I love owls, I love drawing them my way,

I love using black pen, and white out on them,

and a little brown marker.  Its good practice to

draw everything you can think of , don't just draw it

once draw it so many times you can see it in your sleep,

once you have got it done, you wont forget it.

Lee's bit of wisdom for Friday (lol)

Have a great one,

 

lee

santa baby

 

have you noticed more and more people are not sending Christmas cards

when you can email your wishes and its gets there in a minute\

 

phone booths are just about gone, just about everyone in

this world has a cell phone, there used to be phone booths on every corner

 

you don't even have to go out of your house to buy

Christmas presents anymore, you can order them on line, and be

delivered right to your house

 

pretty soon, technology wont even need us , except for

one tiny thing to pay for everything we b ought

Postcards on the move.....

This is one of the postcards I sent out for Ihannas swap,

you know I only got one person from Sweden, that said

she received  a postcard.  I have received 10 and let

everyone who had a email or blog that I received their postcard

and a thank you.  You at least like to know that it got to the destination

Today temperatures were really cold, after swimming, and freezing off

my butt, I met a friend at the movies to see the 2 nd movie

in the series  Catching Fire...loved it, great movie

Now i am making some Christmas ornaments, or finishing them off I started them awhile ago and of course left them sitting around in the studio, pictures tomorrow.
While I gotta clean up the mess from dinner, hope you all had a great day

lee

Some Art and some chit chat

 

 

love having Christmas art, made these two, putting them on dollar store easels

blizzard today, snowing like crazy and windy

shovelled  the driveway and walks 4 times today with the hubby

had chicken wings for dinner, so good and not healthy

put up the Christmas tree last night with the shopper

wrapped all the presents today

all ready for Christmas bring it on.....

A little of this and some of that and some crap thrown in

I was getting tired of drawing normal things so here is my version of a reindeer,

sewed with fabric,

well I took the Coptic stich course and made an postcard booklet

 

 

 

 

used painted paper inside

I went with my art friend Gail, we didn't sit together because when we got in the seats were just about all taken, I sat beside the "girl who could".  Her area was all organized and she was ready to go.

The class was 5 hours long, both Gail and I thought with time like that  we should have been

just about ready to reproduce the bible.  But boy were we wrong, the instructor did it

right, she had us make 2 practice books with scrap paper, we shared with our partners.

I of course got the "girl who could" and of course she figured it out in a second.  Meanwhile

I plodded along at my own pace. Then we started in on our own postcard books.  The "girl who could of course didn't do a postcard book, she did some other fancy dancy thing, and was racing along, she had just about finished when I was still trying to figure out the ruler (lol).  Anyway the instructor comes along and looks at her book, and tells her that she has done it all wrong, and she

has make another book, I just about burst out, but managed to contain myself.  Anyway we just

finished up at about the 4 .5 hour mark.

Since then I have tried 2 times to make a practice book, lets just say I need another class.  But

I am going to keep trying.

 

lee



happy american thanksgiving

 

double click to inlarge image

 

well even though I am Canadian , we are neighbours with

the United States, like cousins.  So happy thanksgiving to you.

I want to not only thank you but all the other people who are

not Americans for continuing to read my blog, I am truly

appreciative.

Its all in the face....

 

 

its a good thing she likes bows so much because not much going for her in the looks department

went to my bookbinding class on Sunday, made a book

don't know if I can make another one, but gonna try tonight

see how it turns out

what have you been up to

She is a bad..........

 

awhile ago I made an angel booklet

 I have showed some here on my blog

now here are some more

I mostly used the gelli plate on the

background and tried to let the

design show thru the clothes, and used some

stamps for the words. I found the head in some magazine, and made it a collage

Today I am off to a course to learn the Coptic stich

in bookbinding.  We will see how that comes out.

 

lee

 



Thinking of christmas cards.

 

working on my Christmas card designs, this one is in the

running to be the card, what do you think?

I have not added the text yet, as this is still in the works.

today its all about working on some quick sketches

for other Christmas cards.  I only make a few of these

cards, I am always worried they are not good enough (lol).

 

 



Link Friday

 

this is a picture of my aunt, my mother and my brother, it, I made

a copy of it, and colored it, and distressed it with sandpaper,

I loved the way it turned out, one of my early try's doing art.

Here are some great links from my favorite artist

Alisha Burke



                                                      http://vimeo.com/79850270 make pattern with an eraser


                                                        http://vimeo.com/79411595  gelli plate printing

                                                       http://vimeo.com/79070572 plastic bag printing

flower power

this is an old piece of art , well really not that old a few months

and I forget who gave me the idea about using shapes,

and this is what came out of it.  I love drawing flowers,

as you can tell, you can do cool things with flowers.

For some reason I thought today was Friday and had

a whole new post ready, well I am saving that one for tomorrow.

I have been working the last two days in a canson mix media

sketchbook, and its crap, it says it takes wet media, and it

doesn't the fibers all come out of the paper.  I got so mad

I shot them off a email.  These books are not cheap

people, and they should do what they say.  The Strathmore

multi media does what it says, I told the people at Canson that.

I have not heard back, stay tuned.

 

lee

 

 



style

 

 

I think I have a style of drawing and painting, I call it my style.

The girl above is not in my style, I don't want to be a one trick pony

I would love to be able to draw a more interesting face,

a more realistic face, so I practice, I try to practice faces

at least twice a week, to improve on my faces.  But I am

not going to give up my style, because thats who I am as an artist

 

lee

tales from the pool

 

CLICK ON PICTURE TO ENLARGE

 

This is a journal page I made in July of this year.  If you read this blog a lot, or are just starting to  you should know that I swim everyday of the week in the morning at a pool.  While swimming I have lots of time to think.  I think about blog posts, challenges, art, daily troubles, Its my time for just me,

   Now since I go everyday except the weekends, you get to know the

people who also go everyday.  I talk to some, you know hi how are, the weather.  But

some you just imagine, and I have names for all of them.  The newlyweds, they must

80 are more, but so sweet, they hold hands, are so loving, its sweet to watch.  The pervert,

he wears a speedo, and watches or should I say stares at all the women, and in the

speedo lets say its doesn't hide much.  The Europeans (men) who come and

use the hot tub, the sauna, and sit and talk all day in chairs by the pool.  They treat it like a spa.

There are many more, and I am sure that since I have names for them in my mind, they must have names for me.  I can of a few, The single girl (because i dont wear my wedding rings swimming)

the loner, because I don't talk much, and probably a few I don't want to know

 

I love my pool, windows on all sides, Olympic size, and a gym in the basement, and only 30 dollars a month, cant beat that.  Private places like the ymca are way to expensive.  Today there was only 3 of us in the pool and I was one of the 3.

 

This is a picture of the pool, it was built in 1967

lee

retro monday

well we survived the weekend weather and all

had a Costco run and of course had to spend some money on un needed items

Costco just does that to people

wrapped all my sisters gifts to mail

worked on an art journal page

and watched some episodes of Elementary that I missed

lee



doodle sunday

this is what I do when watching TV at night

I make patterns

not just flowers, birds, or anything that strikes my fancy

last night I decided to see how I liked just filling

in the background, I used a watercolor maker for this

I like it, but now I want to see what if looks

like with color.

stay tuned

 

lee

 

Welcome to canada

outside of my front window

you cant tell but its snowing like crazy today

today its all about staying warm

wrapping some Christmas presents that have to go in the mail

a little shopping

some time in front of the fireplace

what's up with you today

Favourite tutorials

found some great video/tutorials

for your viewing pleasure
happy thursday

enjoy

http://www.robenmarie.com/blog/2013/11/12/stamped-fabric-pouch-tutorial.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhn4sBJBpEA making acrylic skins for your art journal

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwJLVWdmy3M glue gun stencils I am going to try this one

http://homegrownhospitality.typepad.com/homegrown_hospitality/2013/11/tuesday-tutorials-tag-tree.html  I love her art

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2od-vCJrM8#t=522  art journal page

the beauty of black and white

the beauty of Photoshop , when I originally did this drawing I had it painted, and the background was completely  different but today I was playing around in Photoshop elements, made it black and white and put it on one of my backgrounds I had painted, and you have a whole different look



art ideas.....

today it was above zero (bathing suit weather almost)

went to the dentist broke my back tooth eating a soft cookie, was someone trying to tell me something

taking a copic stich bookbinding course next week

had a art date last Friday   Art friend Gail

working on my tag for the circle journal exchange so I can get it finished and sent on

its eat leftovers from the fridge night, I just cleaned the fridge out today

back to swimming tomorrow, knee is much better after resting it

the Dr. says its a bakers cyst, but it goes away by itself

lunch with the neighbour tomorrow

isn't my life exciting, I know how do I contain myself with all this excitement



Bad Hair daze

 

Just wanted to show you what you can achieve with stencils

I sprayed the background with spray inks

I used  a just a note stencil

the flower stencil

and the girl outline stencil

I used black to outline the flower

and markers to colour the flowers

I used a stamp with text on it for the girl

and my sewing machine to do her hair,

and outline her body

I had a lot of fun with this one 

sailing....

another postcard that I made for Ihannas postcard swap

this one was also a spray painted background.  I

like using them, they make the whole drawing quick and easy

 

lee



Spray painted backgrounds

 

Another postcard which I created for the postcard exchange

at Ihannas

some were sent to Sweden, Switzerland, Puerto Rico,

USA,

 

this postcard has a spray painted background, and watercolour

paints, and whiteout, whiteout is my favourite tool.

Do you have a favourite art tool you use?

Playing it safe never

 

I joined Ihannas postcard exchange   http://www.ihanna.nu/blog/2013/11/beyond-1000-handmade-postcards/#more-11611 and this is one

of the postcards that I made for the exchange

I like it, but some might think why would she send that.

sometimes a girl doesn't like to play it safe

lee

The elf is at work

 

 

today I think its suppose to warm up to zero

maybe a no socks day (lol)

lately I have been making tacos with ground chicken excellent

as you can guess that's what on the menu for tonight

am working on making Christmas ornaments

I used to be a great crafter of Christmas stuff

but not so much lately, but I do try to get one project a season done

 

lee