Happy Fourth of July

A happy fourth of July to all my American readers and a happy Saturday to everyone else. I guess the fourth is always for celebrations so I have one too. This is my 788th post for this blog and I had posted under the name at tripod before that so it has been a long time under one name and format. The times they are a changing.

I have been working with a coach and finding the process eye opening and life changing. One of the things I have discovered is that my purpose has always been creativity. I just tend to explore it in many ways. One day on a call I said oh I am the Creativity Queen and thought what a great name for a blog, So after some thought I decided to step up to that name and create a new blog and see where that takes me.

So I hope you will come visit me at my new site

Some art while I was away

Even though I was at a conference I did manage a little work in my journal. This one had the spray painted background already done.




















I played with some collage elements over some spray painting.




















This pen and ink was fun to do just doodle my way through a lecture.




















I tried another castle/princess drawing in pencil. These are more fun to do in color.




















I drew in the notebook that I took for writing too.




















Another face I drew in that notebook.

Sarah is here for a short visit to renew her license and go to the dentist and all that jazz. Its great to be able to see her again so soon.

Stenciling Some Journal Covers

It just occurred to me that I am almost done with a journal and I still have not done anything with the covers so today I went outside and grabbed the spray paint.




















Inside the cover must have something on it to. Now everyone will know this is my journal




















Here is the inside back cover. I tried overlaying a stencil and adding paint again. It seems to give more depth that way. I don't know if I will tire of this stenciling with spray paint. The possibilities are really endless.




















The back cover uses one of my favorite papers as a stencil. I like using this paper with lots of different colors. I may add something else to this one later

Early in the morning I will be headed to Salt Lake City for the UU General Assembly Conference. I won't be blogging for a week. See you then.

Little castles

Sharon over at All Norah's Art has been doing these paintings with this tall houses or castle. I thought I would try one. I think she is painting the entire piece. I took a little different tact at it. I had the entire background spray painted. I made my houses with collage papers and some stamping and paint on top. My lady's face was done with Shiva paintsticks and the rest Golden fluid acrylics. It seems I always resort to using painsticks when the face I paint is not turning out.

One of these days I will remember that if you do the same thing the same way you get the same results. I think its time I watched Paulette and Sharon's videos on painting faces again. Maybe it will click this time.

Have a wonderful Fathers Day!

Wreck this Journal Week 3

I took the journal to Hamilton last weekend. My friends Amy and Debbie helped wreck part of it. My daughter came to visit with roommate Brenna and boyfriend Kyle. They managed to add their contributions too!

Play Day

Its the first day this week I have had a chance to be in in the studio so I did play at lots of things.






















First I cut this Buddha stencil. There was a mistake but I tried it anyways. Then paint got under the stencil but it was already in my journal so I am stuck with it but that's ok.

I did more spray painting, some success but more that didn't turn out some days it is frustrating.



















Then I tackled lesson 5 or 6 I can't remember which, in my layer love class. Several of the lessons were pretty much the same thing so I won't be doing them all. Some of you know I really don't like pink so I am skipping that one for sure. We were to pick colors or a picture we like or a combination of the two and do a background with it as inspiration. I love this picture of this glass bowl. I have been planning on using it in a journal page but haven't so far.


















And here is my background. I may try next time to use less colors but I like it. I didn't add the drips because they are ok but I don't want them in every painting.

I also did some more wrecking of the journal but that is for tomorrows post.

I found out that Golden has this great guide on paint mixing. I didn't know such a thing existed so I printed it out right away. If you use these paints or need help mixing colors this might be helpful to you too. Here in the link http://www.goldenpaints.com/artist/mixguide.php

Guest Posting

My very first guest post has been published. Check out Meet your Muse, its a blog on creativity by writer Jennie Nash. It was a real thrill to be asked to do this. I hope you pop on over and see what I wrote about. Then look at some of her previous posts as there are some real gems there.

Returning from Hamilton

I had a great time at The Fiber Festival I went to. Sarah came to visit so that was the best part.
















Brenna, Sarah and Kyle willing post for me. It was so great to see all of the kids.




















Here is a picture that Sarah drew in my sketchbook. A profile drawing of Kyle.














Of course I had to get a few new goodies while I was there. This necklace was being sold by a women selling all her old jewelry. Its a birds nest and the eggs are freshwater pearls. It seemed to fit me well.




















This is a skein of merino/bamboo/nylon sock yarn. A friend was knitting with it and I really liked the way all the color was playing out in the sock as she knit it. It has many shades of green.




















I also bought this pair of fingerless mits. They were the right color and they were really inexpensive. I have always wanted a pair of these, so now I don't need to make them myself.

There is a wonderful article at Creativity Portal. Its called Aging techniques, Mixed Media and collage by Tatiana Kuzyk. There are several pages to look at but it covers a lot of ground and uses all sorts of mediums. If you have never been to Creativity Portal it is wonderful. Its full of projects and articles to inspire and get you going creatively.

The Kestrel House

A few years ago we put up this bird house for a kestrel. We haven't seen any activity until this year. We decided to check it out this year.















Here Dave is unhooking the roof so we can look in.

















Inside we find the male sitting on the nest. We sure hope there are some eggs underneath him. Its kind of exciting like we are the proud parents waiting for the babies to be born. This story will continue....

Wreck This Journal week 2

Its now week 2 for Wreck This Journal and I had a blast destroying it this time. I look like hell in the video but oh well. I guess my makeup artist didn't show before we began filming. I hope you enjoy the fun.



I will be heading out this afternoon to the Big Sky Fiber Fest in Hamilton Montana. Have a great weekend everybody.

If Today Was Your Last Day

I saw this on Kim's site the Queen of Arts and just loved it so I had to share it with all of you. I so loved it, I downloaded it and it will soon be on my ipod. Enjoy!

I love this

I saw this video on Patti Digh's blog and I love it. I am the woman dancing and singing with this group called Naturally 7. Not really me but I would be. In fact I have been known to sing to the music over the P.A. at Michaels and other stores. Life is too short not to have wonderful moments like this.



Choose to sing and dance when the moment strikes. It is so fun.

SP Wednesday

I know 3 posts today but I will be gone for the weekend so this will make up for not posting then.















My self portrait looks a little misty today.

















My order from Dick Blick arrived, yippee. After seeing an article in Cloth Paper Scissors using gouache watercolors I wanted to try them. I bought a set of 24 and they are really nice. I love the intense colors.




















I tried out my new gouache paints last night and I really like them. This bird is the result.















This is a pick of 2 collages that I did a little while ago. That is enough for today.

They are so cute

As promised the Yellowstone pictures continued.

















This is the resident Great Horned Owl that hangs out near park headquarters in Mammoth Hot Springs. It had a nest and babies this year.












And now for my daughter the Badger pictures.















They were so cute playing in and around their den. When they went back into the den it was butt first. They entertained us for some time.











Be sure to click on these for a closer look.













Another cute one, I can't seem to stop showing these cute badger babies.













There is some fantastic scenery in Yellowstone too.














I spent some time just relaxing and enjoying the beauty of the area.














We made our way home south through the park and then through Teton National Park. I love it here I love to just sit in front of these mountains and just be. Sometimes its hard to believe there are such beautiful places in the world. I am so blessed to be living close to them.














This is Jackson Lake. Someday soon I'd love to take my kayak out on this lake.













This is Mount Moran. I love to sit in front of her and just enjoy the beauty and really feel the energy of this special place. Its wonderful to journal or draw in this setting.

Crow Saves the Day

For all you crow and raven lovers here is a short film by a very creative mom. I found her on Gary Reef's ning site Art for the Heart. lpatencio is her YouTube channel name. Check her out. Also Gary's site is full of wonderful things, a real support for artists.

More pics from Yellowstone

The second time I went to Yellowstone this year I took hundreds of pictures so its taking some time to go over them all and find the good ones. Here is a first look at some of htem.





















This little bluebird entertained us while we waited for Old faithful to erupt.
















Here she is erupting. When she got to her height all I got was steam so the pictures were not great.














Big horned sheep on the hillsides


















Another Momma and lamb. The lambs were so cute to watch.

















I loved seeing this fox's tale, isn't the size of it amazing.





















The fox eventually crossed the road right in front of us.
















This wolf we watched for a long time. He was looking for a place to cross the road. He eventually found it but we watched him for a long time






















This wolf was on the hillside at an Elk carcass. With think this is 302M the alpha male of the Blacktail pack. He is a favorite of mine. 302M is the Casanova of the Yellowstone wolves. He started out as Alpha of the Druid pack and then let his brother have the duties. He was more interested in visiting the ladies of several other packs. He is quite a character and I love hearing his story and all his adventures as they unfold.


















I loved this reflection picture I was able to take.
















A pelican just sitting on the water and then....















I was snapping away when the pelican decided to take flight. It was pretty great to get these shots.














I think the water looks so amazing. And no that is not all the pictures, baby badgers in my next post.

Wreck This Journal

I am part of the group The Next Chapter Book Blogging Group and we have just started with the book Wreck This Journal. If you want to take part you can sign up here The wonderful Jamie Ridler is leading the group again. Its going to be a fun read for this summer why don't you join us too! Some of us are doing vlogs to start so here is my short video.























Here we have my finished page. I added some color and some journaling to the page. I think its going to be a lot of fun doing the book with this group.

The babies are growing up

Over the past couple weeks we went back to see the Great Horned Owl babies.















Here they are still in the nest. there were actually 3 Owls in there but I never got a picture of them all. Its really hard to get a picture with all the twigs in the
way.




















Here they are a few weks later. Now they are out of the nest.




















The feathers are still growing as you can see the little tufts at the top of their heads are really small.


















They were really fun to watch them grow up. I imagine that the next time we go we won't find them at all.