Back To School... mom's turn!

So, I've mentioned here that I'm seriously trying to reawaken my artistic creativity as my emptying nest looms.  I have jumped in with both feet to an online class on creating art journals while on an 'Imaginary Trip to the Garden'.  I knew I need the accountability and visual aspect of a class, but haven't found something local, affordable and within my time constraints.  I've been eying Laure Ferlita's   online classes for the past year and drooling over her lovely watercolors, waiting for the right time to sign up for one.

I hope I haven't bit off more than I can chew, but if so... too bad for me.  I'll still grow from the work.  ;)  I need her 'Foundations' course, probably, but the timing for that one didn't work for me this spring, with both boys graduations coming up next month.  This one is just the right length...6 weeks. 

Last week we received our first assignment, to paint a wildflower, within a time limit, as if we were painting outside in a garden with time constraints.  Laure provided some photos of Violet Wood Sorrel, a lovely, fairly simple blossom. We could also provide ourselves with our own photos or local flowers, but I thought I'd stick with the offered photo.  Below are my results... I did the under drawing and painting in less than an hour and added the words later.  I have mixed feelings about the end result.. not what I wanted it to look like, but I did learn along the way.  (We are encouraged to use a travel water brush, so we'll learn to actually use this useful tool in real life on real visits to places where we want to capture the beauty)  The water brush is a tricky little thing... I hope I can stick with it and get better results.   Click on the photo to see it larger... if you dare!  Ha ha.  By the way many of my 'classmates' have been on several Imaginary Trips with teacher Laure, and are wonderful artists, it's a lovely environment, I'm so glad I'm 'going back to school'!  I've received some great suggestions on improving the page, if I get time to try those out, I'll post the results. 

Blooming Ocotillos

blooming ocotillos nj, originally uploaded by Az~Kate.

Just finished in my small moleskine nature journal. A scene from my hike last week. The blossoms should be a brighter orange red, but I couldn't get the color right.

Keeping a Travel sketchbook

I made a small travel sketch book from an old calendar to journal and sketch about our recent trip to NYC

 Here are the first pages...
1) A cartoon map doodled on the plane tracking our flight.
2)The adjoining page was used as a pallette, then to record our first sights in NYC from the taxi.
3) Elphaba from the Broadway musical, WICKED, which was fabulous!  Sketched from memory and fantasy.  We checked in to our hotel, headed to Times Square, then Broadway to find the Gershwin theater; stood in line 2+ hours and luckily got 3 amazing seats from a cancelation.  Whoop!
4) Snapped a quick shot of the Empire State Building on our taxi ride into Manhattan, sketched this from the camera screen afterward.  We spent 2 days at the ESB where we were checking out a College with our son, this was the reason for the trip.  But we turned it into a mini vacation as well. 

More pages coming soon, if anyone is interested.  :)  This is my first 'travel journal'.  The pages are smaller than 4" x 6" and were sewn on top of the calendar pages.  Rough, but it works!

pencil sketch; squirrel and wren

pencil sketch; squirrel and wren, originally uploaded by Az~Kate (still swamped, but trying!).

Finally found some quiet time to finish this sketch in my nature journal. Sorry I have not been sketching and uploading as much as I had hoped to. I believe that will be remedied soon, as we move into a less busy time of year soon. :)

Good To Know!

Click on the title (I think) and you'll be taken to a page that has some 'good to know' info for those of us who care about how our produce was grown, tend to buy organic and definitely want to avoid genetically altered foods.  :)

If that didn't work, go here; 
http://www.skrewtips.com/2008/04/13/read-the-numbers-on-your-fruit/

It looks like I'm on track to re-name my blog the 'once a month blog'.  Sorry. Life has been very very busy.

Hopefully I will have some time to post some photos of the few sketches I've been able to do this year.

I did just spend a wonderful few days in New York, NY, someplace I'd never been before.  Perhaps a post about that adventure will come forth soon as well.  But our son is starting 'tech week' (long dress rehearsals before the start of a theater performance) for the musical 'Little Shop of Horrors' and then production over the next two weeks, so don't count on anything right away.  :)

I am alive and well, though.  In case anyone was wondering.

Grace to you!

Truth

So here I am on the last day of January 2011, and as many things as I had thought and hoped to post here this month I come back to a familiar theme.  I've thought about what my goals, resolutions, and hopes for the year might be.  I've considered where I am at this point in my life, the changes I've walked through over the last few years in our family, the Church and more.  So many things I have wrestled with balancing, prioritizing, coming to terms with, and making decisions on.  I've looked inward and outward, desired to process life's puzzling circumstances fairly, honestly, humbly and in a way that will hopefully keep me from falling into my typical blind spots.  I've hungered for more creativity, art, sweetness and relational depths to grace my life, yet I find myself coming back to post on my 'watchword', my banner, my passion of passions; Truth, for the subject of my only significant post in this new month of a new year.  I'm sorry if I seem to beat this horse to death... it's like the biblical phrase, 'a fire shut up in my bones', I can never keep it down for long.  And I always seem to regret unleashing it, for someone whose heart burns for truth, I am a poor communicator and am more often misunderstood than heard. 


I came across some quotes by the scientist and philosopher, Blaise Pascal, and his words seemed so timely even though they were penned in the mid 1600s.  Jesse and I are studying Philosophy this year and here is a tad more about Pascal. 'Blaise Pascal, the precociously brilliant contemporary of Descartes, was a gifted mathematician and physicist, but it is his unfinished apologia for the Christian religion upon which his reputation now rests. "The Pensees" is a collection of philosophical fragments, notes and essays in which Pascal explores the contradictions of human nature in psychological, social, metaphysical and - above all - theological terms. Mankind emerges from Pascal's analysis as a wretched and desolate creature within an impersonal universe, but who can be transformed through faith in God's grace.' (from Amazon, of all places!)  Here are Pascal's thoughts which moved me to make my first and only lengthy blog post in January;

Truth is so obscured nowadays and lies (falsehood) so well established that unless we love the truth we shall never recognize it.—Blaise Pascal, Pensees, #739/864.

Weaklings are those who know the truth, but maintain it only as far as it is in their interest to do so, and apart from that forsake it.—Blaise Pascal, Pensees, #740/583.

LORD, may I have the ability to recognize truth and the courage to live according to truth throughout 2011, is my prayer.

And by the way, if I were to give birth to another son, I think I'd name him Blaise. 

May 2011 be all that God wants it to be for each of us.

(I do plan to do more artwork, time will tell if I can get my 'plan' into action!)  :)

Not the 'first post of the year' I'd hoped for...

blind contour and quick sketch, originally uploaded by Az~Kate.

And in addition to that title I haven't time to write anything at the moment, so I'll be back later to edit this!  Hope your year is going well so far.