Updating Blog Challenge!

I have spent way too much time trying to update this Blog's look. I can't decide if it's my computer or me but it is frustrating. I need to leave it and get to the gym. ...to be continued....

The Snow Has Arrived!

Well, snow has once again fallen in Michigan. We have about 6 inches of the white stuff on the ground, wet and fluffy. It's coming down about an inch an hour at the moment. Good day to stay inside; knit, listen to an e-audio book (Solomon's Oak) and paint except for the time I am out having lunch with my teacher friends who have a snow day today. The one thing I miss about being in the classroom...waking up to snow and holding my breath waiting for the news of 'school's called off'.  This one is especially nice because it came on a Friday making a wonderful 3 day weekend.

Imaginary Visit to the Beach

At last! My art class with Laure Ferlita began today. We will taking an imaginary visit to the Beach. While I have been sketching and painting sine the end of the last class, I am glad to be back in a class situation. I am excited about learning new things from Laure and meeting new artist friends and just have fun playing with paint. 

Busy Month

Just found the blogger app for my phone. Since I haven't been here in over a month it seems I thought I would try posting from my phone. Time has just slipped away since I last posted but I've been busy and that's good.

A friend of mine lives in Colon, Michigan which is the Magic Capital of the World. She is a member of the Lions Club and every year they sell lapel pins. Apparently people collect these pins from all over the world. She asked me to design this years pin. What fun that is. This little guy is the rough draft and will change several times but I thought he was pretty cute.

More Snow

We got another winter snow storm this weekend. I was lovely. Fluffy, wet, stuck to everything! It is pretty cold this am (14F) with a WC of 7F. Should warm up to around 29 and them the melt will begin Tues. I think I don't really mind winter in MI when it's like this. Since I am such a changeling, it gives me a chance to do just that...Change what I am doing.  We have a bout 18 inches and the sun is shinning a bit. I took this picture at night. It's the gate post to my deck. Loved the way the snow just built up and up and up on things. Note the pine tree in the background

Winter Wonderland

Winter finally arrived here in west Michigan for a while. I was able to go snowshoeing a couple of days but the temps will be back up in the 40 tomorrow. The snowshoeing was spectacular! We had some pretty wet snow and it clung to the trees making them look like a fairy land. I loved the shadows in this picture. Unfortunately Bear didn't accompany me.

Internet Gremlins messing with me again

...or could it be that Elf on the Shelf? 
Came here to create a post and was 'told' by the cyber powers that my blog was no longer supported by IE how bout trying Google Chrome'.  Sneaky ads.

Can't figure out how to post these last assignments from my art class in a better layout, so this will have to do for now. It has been such a fun class. I hope Laure offers another one soon. I like here style and she is such a good instructor. Her videos are superb. You can find info on her classes through her blog Painted Thoughts.

Where has the sun gone?

Again, where has the time gone? Well, a lot of time has been spent traveling through other people's blogs and I've been busy with my Artful Journaling Classes. I did spend a considerable amount of time getting a few pictures from my hiking trip uploaded and reliving the experience. Here's the link to them if anyone is interested.

TMB-2011

I've also uploaded some of my work from my art class that can be found here Artful Journaling Class

We had some snow last week...depressing! Actually snow and winter here in MI wouldn't be too awful if we had more sunshine. In the last two weeks we have only seen the sun for a few hours at a time One day we had sun all day.

Trip to Lansing with BFFs

Back home from a busy week. Totally over scheduled myself. Was in Lansing attending three conferences back to back. Did have a great time with BFFs.  Calm calendar until we go to Las Vegas. I can focus on my art class and workouts.

New Beginnings - Art class

Beginning a new virtual art class this week with Laure Ferlita. She is such a good teacher and her video demos are wonderful. It would be fun to take a class in person with her. Maybe next fall when she takes a group to Paris. It's always fun to start something new.

Our first assignment was to create the first page of our journals by placing an image on the page leaving about 60% of the page white. The photo on the right is the reference photo that I took last spring of daffodils from my yard. I think it's a pretty good likeness. ;-)

Lost and found

Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time. Thomas Merton

This is another assignment from Laure Ferlita's class.  She is such a wonderful teacher. I hope I can take her class in person.  I found the quote on another cyber mate's blog and thought it was very fitting for me. Ironically her name is Claire also.

Indian Summer

We are experiencing a wonderful Indian Summer here in west Michigan. When I returned from my Trek in Europe the weather was pretty usual for Sept.  Rainy, dreary, just plan ugly then last Monday we hit a warm streak and it has been wonderful.  Unfortunately I can't seem to get a lot done inside. (as is demonstrated by a weeking passing since I have found time to post)

My art class is going nicely and I do see some improvement in my work. In this piece we were working on purposefully creating a border for our work. I decided to use some pieces that I found while walking the Boyz.  I think it worked out pretty well.

Reconnection

 Met with my hiking buddies yesterday. I can't believe it's already been 2 weeks since I returned home. I've been incredibly busy but can't for the life of me figure out doing what exactly! Maggie and I took a hike to Mt. Baldy yesterday but it was nothing like our training hikes nor our actually hiking but it was good to reconnect. We then met Annie and Dave for a little wine, beer, cheese and bread to share pictures. It was wonderful to 'relive' our adventure.

My art class is coming along nicely and I am really enjoying it. The is the 4th assignment. Had to do some corrections. The top picture is my first try and then with a few suggestions from Laure the bottom is the second try.

Again this is the 5 assignment and I needed to do a few revisions. Note the shadow. I made the first one opaque and shadows usually are transparent unless very dark. Also putting a light red wash over the letters helped them show up more.

Artful Journaling Class

This is the third assignment in my art class. I really enjoyed doing this one but do need to work on my shadows.  I can't believe that I have been back from Europe for two weeks today.  I really wish I was back, but can't play all the time I guess.  I am finally getting back into my routine and catching up on things.  Fall is definitely in the air around here. It has rained almost everyday since I've been home.

Artful Journaling Class

 Began a new Art Class this week.  Our first assignment was to write an affirmation and the second one was to draw a piece of watermelon from a reference photo to practice using and mixing color and creating shadows.  I really do like this class.

My Alpine Journey

BB and I just returned home from the most incredible journey traveling, hiking, eating and getting to know new friends. My trip hiking the Alps was most wonderful. I will be posting pictures along as I update my journal.

Hiking Again and etc.

Had another great weekend of hiking with a friend that will be traveling with me. Today was a superb work out day. Started the day at 6:30am with an hour and a half swim, then met a friend to walk for 45 minutes to the Big Red and commune with Lake Michigan for a few minutes (also on the hike was Tom who will be accompanying me on the TMB hike) then walked for 45 minutes with my dear friend who came home from the hospital a year ago today after a very serious life threatening  event.

Now watching The Black Swan and I'm so not impressed!!!!

Rain, Rain, Go Away!

Maggie and I hiked again today for about 4 hours with packs in North Ottawa Dunes  The weather was very pleasant but thunderstorms were predicted. As we were headed back to the trail head and the car we heard thunder. Now you know what they say about thunder, lightening and trees!  We wanted to get out of the woods as quickly as possible. About a mile from the car the rain came and it came down in buckets...we were soaked!  Lesson learned: If it's going to rain, put the 'raincoat' on the backpack. My backpack got soaked too. We are meeting Tom today for a short 2 hour hike through Saugatuck Dunes.

On line class evaluation

I couldn't fine a venu to post this evaluation for 'all' to see so it will just have to live here for now.

I’d just like to comment on an online class that I recently took with Jessica Wesolek titled ‘The Art of the Trip’. I must say that I was very disappointed in the class as Jessica failed to communicate with each student with any regularity. It was left up to us to comment on each other’s work, which is a very good technique, but the instructor should also comment on everyone’s work. ( I do speak from experience teaching several online classes for a major university in MI and am a 27 year veteran of the classroom.) The content of this class was mostly advertising her products and making collages rather than sketch book journaling by using sketches. One student recommended a video about using water color pencils that was found on you tube to answer a question asked by another student and the class was severely chastised for sharing the video as Jessica claimed that she had ‘invented’ the idea and the artist that was doing the video was a professional artist as well.

Here’s the thread of the post. I thought it was very unprofessional and childish as both artists are part of this site. 1st entry is at the end of the italics and then scroll upward.

“This video is a really good example of why it is a good idea to stick to our classroom and not treat this Group as if it were a free-form discussion Group. Actually, I invented this traveling palette idea using Sheer Heaven which is a much better surface for it, and I invented it seven years ago. It is a part of our workshop here, and the fact that we have now introduced a lesser version of the idea taught by another online teacher, and watered down through some demo somewhere, is just not productive. Understand that I know nobody meant any harm, and no apologies are necessary, but please, let's stick to the subjects at hand, and keep the other teachers out of this classroom. If this were a real world classroom, I know you would understand why I would not invite another teacher into the room to introduce a different version of what I planned to teach you - before I got to it. Thanks for understanding.

jessica

--- In attj1@yahoogroups.com, "cfriendhea" wrote: Thanks for sharing this Lorri! What a great idea! Clare

In attj1@yahoogroups.com, "(Name removed) wrote: here is a You Tube video of one way to use watercolor pencils when out and about. She starts off talking about her whole travel kit, then gets into the wc pencils about 3 minutes in. http://youtu.be/ecCahga1Kws

In attj1@yahoogroups.com, (name removed) wrote: Does anyone use watercolor pencils extensively? Anyone have a lot of experience with them? I am just beginning to play around with Caran d'Ache Supracolors and am liking them a lot. Here is my big new set of 80 next to my little sketchbook box of 14: http://bit.ly/pwRtMH If anyone has any advice or tips or pointers on how to best take advantage of/use wc pencils, in the context of a traveling sketchbook, I would be very grateful.

If you are interested in SKETCH BOOK/Watercolor journaling this is not the class for you. There are better classes out there. $70. lesson learned: Check out the class very carefully before you pay your hard earned money.
Clare Friend

Where has the time gone?

I just don't know where the time has gone since my last post. Well, actually I do.  I have been getting ready for my trip both mentally and physically! I did get away from Holland for a couple of days with my friend Kristi. We took the 'bingo bus' to Petoskey and Manistee to do a little Casino Time! Across the road from Turtle Creek Casino there were fields of beautiful sunflowers.  We took a little break after lunch and walked over and of course I had to take a picture with my new smart-phone to post on FB. Not only were the sunflowers beautiful, the sky and clouds were incredibly beautiful.