Saturday, July 31, 2010

Lucky



We lost our cat last year after having him for 16 years; I decided to paint this memorial to him for Laure Ferlita's Artful Journaling - Explorations class. He used to love to sit in our dining room window and look out.

Thursday, July 29, 2010

Ghostwalk by Rebecca Stott

When historian Elizabeth Vogelsang is found drowned, her son Cameron Brown asks his former lover Lydia Brooke to finish Elizabeth's manuscript about Isaac Newton.  Elizabeth had been researching Newton's involvement with alchemy as well as several mysterious deaths that occurred in Cambridge during Newton's time there.  Lydia agrees to finish the manuscript and is drawn into Newton's world.  Cameron is a neuroscientist who has been targeted by animal rights activists, and this adds to the suspense of the book.  I found the book to be well written, and I enjoyed it, although some of the sections that were supposed to be Elizabeth's manuscript got a bit tedious.  Lydia was the narrator of most of the book, and she was writing it to Cameron, which was a different voice than I'm used to, but it worked.  I rate it 4 out of 5.  This is my 13th book (out of my goal of 15) for the New Author Challenge 2010.

Saturday, July 24, 2010

Buddy



Taken 7/16/10 - more retriever training. Don't worry - it isn't a live bird - it's a retriever dummy.

Buddy with Duck Decoy



Taken 6/12/10 - training with duck decoy.

Friday, July 23, 2010

Explore



I painted this for my first lesson in Laure's Artful Journaling Explorations class, using my photo below for my inspiration.


Thursday, July 22, 2010

Buddy the Water Dog



He's like a kid playing in a sprinkler, only it's a hose. I can't believe how big he's getting already - he's not quite 4 months old, and he already weights about 43 pounds. He's going to be big!

Friday, July 16, 2010

Artful Journaling Foundations - Butterfly



This was our next-to-last lesson and I chose to paint from the video provided since I loved the butterfly. I'm quite pleased with my results. I just can't say enough how much I've learned from Laure's classes and how much I've enjoyed them.

Thursday, July 15, 2010

The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien

The Things They Carried is a set of related short stories, most of them about the author's service in the Vietnam War.  Many of the same characters appeared in the stories, but each story could stand alone (although they were related enough that you wanted to read all of them).  My favorite story was On the Rainy River which told about the author receiving his draft notice and struggling with the decision of whether to report for duty or go to Canada.  Many people believe that going to Canada was the cowardly way out, but I've always believed that it took great courage to leave behind your home, family, friends, your entire way of life, knowing you could never return.  This story showed just how difficult a decision that was for young men during this time in our history.

In Spin, the author states:

"Forty-three years old, and the war occurred half a lifetime ago, and yet remembering makes it now.  And sometimes remembering will lead to a story, which makes it forever.  That's what stories are for.  Stories are for joining the past to the future.  Stories are for those late hours in the night when you can't remember how you got from where you were to where you are.  Stories are for eternity, when memory is erased, when there is nothing to remember except the story."

And in Good Form, the author explains the differences between "happening-truth" and "story-truth.

I haven't read very many books about Vietnam, but of those I've read, Tim O'Brien is my favorite author.  This is my 4th book for the Vietnam War Reading Challenge.  I rate this book 5 out of 5.

In The Image by Dara Horn

I found this book to be quite enjoyable and also quite different from most books I've read.  Sometimes it's hard to describe a book, so I'm going to resort to part of what is written on the back cover:

"In the Image follows a young New Jersey woman, Leora, through the death of a friend in high school and on to college, career, and falling in love.  Simultaneously, it traces the story of Bill Landsmann, her lost friend's grandfather, back through several generations of experience in Amsterdam, Austria, and New York's Lower East Side."

This is my 12th book for the New Author Challenge 2010.  I rate this book 4 out of 5.

Wednesday, July 07, 2010

Artful Journaling Foundations - Page Design Part II



We were to take the same elements from our previous lesson (here) and change several things. This page is horizontal; the previous one was vertical. Most of my images have no borders on this page; most of them did have borders on my previous page. This page has a border; the previous one didn't. And 3 of my images bleed off the page here; none of them did on my previous page.

Artful Journaling Foundations - Page Design Part I



Working on page design - combining at least 3 elements on a page. I have a fondness for grids, so that was how I decided to do this page. All of the elements are from photographs I've taken in Colorado over several summers.

Sunday, July 04, 2010

Artful Journaling Foundations - Peppers



For this lesson, Laure provided several photos without backgrounds. We were to choose one to paint and add our own background. I chose the peppers because I love them.

Artful Journaling Foundations - Backgrounds 2



Reference page for backgrounds.

Artful Journaling Foundations - Backgrounds 1



Reference page for backgrounds.

Artful Journaling Foundations - Wildflowers



For this assignment, we were to combine at least 2 borders with a painting of our choice. This turned into more of an illustration than a painting, but that's ok.