Well here's something you don't see every day

I was just reviewing our pictures from when we were in Cape May over Memorial Day Weekend. We did the Dolphin/Whale trip out on the Atlantic Ocean. I was looking over the pictures to see if anything would inspire me for a painting and I found this photo of a dolphin pod we took pictures and upon further inspection, I noticed a dolphin baby!!!

So here it is, if you look carefully, you see the little one next to a large dolphin. I would say momma, but apparently raising a dolphin baby is a family thing...so it could be auntie or a sister.

Finished Jackie's Giraffe

My daughter has a pastel giraffe that I painted for her, hanging in her room. Her friend Jackie loves giraffes and wanted one was well, so for Jackie's birthday, I painted this giraffe for her.

It's a watercolor and this giraffe looks more like a girl compared to the linebacker I did for my daughter.

Dream Boogie

In additional to Kelly Rae's Flying Lessons class, I am taking SARK's Summer Session of Dream Boogie. It's pretty good. There's some thought provoking creativity going on. It's very interactive and there's a lot of positive energy. I love SARK's books and I am equally loving the class! Helps me with finding my goals. I recommend both classes.

Happy Father's Day

I did this little collage for my husband for Father's Day. I was playing with some ideas from the collage exercises in the book "Taking Flight: Inspiration and Techniques to give your Creative Spirit Wings." While my husband was making my work table a few weeks ago, I asked him to cut me out this heart shape. I didn't know what I was going to put on it until I thought of the e e cummings Poem "I carry your heart" which I first heard in the movie "In Her Shoes" read by Cameron Diaz. It almost made me cry when she read it on the screen and it's how I feel about my husband.

I did this with some things that I had, a clipping from Hoofbeats magazine since he drives trotters/pacers...I put a little photo of a teapot and a coffee cup for all those times we like to just sit together and just have that "cup of." I put a little "X O" that I clipped out of a magazine for hugs and kisses. I also used a piece of tissue paper with birds and nests and birdhouse all over it because birds are something we enjoy plus the symbolism of birds in Native American culture has a meaning for us. You can't see all of it but it's there...the heart was cut out from those paper doilie hearts...I had painted the doilie pink and was pressing it on the work to see if I could get the imprint in pink.

I had to get my daughter to pose her hands for me so I could see how they would look. I was going to use the big doilie heart but it didn't look right, so I cut it down and made it a little heart which worked much better.

I added some touches with ink and pastel. And I wrote the "I carry your heart with me" with a buff colored pastel stick. To hold the pastel down, I sprayed it with matte UV fixative. Not happy about the matte, but I could always respray with a glossy one. I fastened eyelet screws and wire to the back for hanging.

I gave it to my husband this morning and of course he loves it.

Four Wheeling on the Beach

It's been a tough week. I had a medical scare that required immediate testing, results came back ok. It's amazing how exhausted you can be from fear.

To end the week, John took me four wheeling on the beach in our Jeepie, as he calls it. We have a gold Liberty that turned out to be tougher than I gave it credit for... I walked on the sand for the first time since I shattered the ankle. I didn't do too bad, needed a little assistance from my hubby. Found some nice shells that weren't crushed by the SUVS.

It's mid June and still chilly, I can't wait until it's warmer.

Yesterday In Philadelphia

We were in Philadelphia yesterday. John and I are members of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, aka The Art Museum to locals. The Late Renoir show is hanging and for those of you Impressionists fans, I urge you to pay the museum a visit. Its a wonderful show.

John and I were laughing hysterically over a painting of Matisse that was included in the show...Matisse paid Renoir a few visits, Renoir told Matisse he was a bad painter! He commented on how Matisse could get the color black to work in a painting, so he guessed he could be a painter, but that his paintings were terrible. I never knew that. A lot of people were cracking up. We were also laughing at the audio version of "Claude Renoir as Clown." Poor Claude was made to dress up in this clown outfit. He didn't want to wear the tights and drove his parents nuts. They were bribing him, threatening him, it was just funny to hear about parents in the early 1900's having having the same struggles. John was saying, what could they threaten the kids with back then? They couldn't take away their cell phones!

The photo above is actually the back of the museum, most people think of Rocky running up the steps, but this is what the back of the museum looks like. The front overlooks Ben Franklin Parkway, the back overlooks the Schuylkill River (pronouned SKU-kill). I grew up in Philly, so I spent a lot of time at the art museum. It's a wonderful place to spend the day.

Some experimentation

I've been working on some collage techniques that I found in Kelly Rae Roberts book "Taking Flight: Inspiration and Techniques to Give Your Creative Spirit Wings."

Sometimes an artist needs to experiment with new techniques, experimentation leads to new discoveries and inspiration. I'm mostly a pastel/pencil/pen and watercolor/gouache gal. Mixed media and collage didn't hold an interest for me until I started reading a few books and saw Kelly Rae's whimsical styles...I decided to try some stuff out in my Art House Coop Sketchbook.

The Art House Coop sketchbook needs to be filled up by December....last year's sketchbook project found me struggling with the thin light weight paper, watercolor washes killed the paper...ahhh, this year, one side is my standard sketch...the other side, I am experimenting with the mixed media techniques....should make for an interesting sketchbook, LOL....

Here's my Wizard of Oz Mailbox in the tree from the Higher Grounds Coffee Shop in Cape May...that mailbox in the tree still cracks me up. I paired it up with the psychedelic pink and purple experiment. What can I say, I like pink and purple. My sketchbook theme is Happy Thoughts, pink is a happy color!