In my former life as a middle school French teacher, I had colleagues in the math department who, to hear the kids talking, tortured their students with the phrase "Show your work!" In my days, we never had this demand. We got credit for giving the right answer, and didn't even have calculators to find it! "Show your work" comes to mind this week. Making the art is not always the challenge, but sharing it is another matter. Technology doesn't frighten me. I would just rather do something else than sit at the computer or look at my socials. I just wanted to clarify this with you, reader(s). I k ..read more

Last week I had the pleasure of attending the Weil Lecture on American Citizenship at UNC-Chapel Hill. This year Judy Woodruff, veteran journalist and news anchor with PBS News Hour, gave the lecture: America at a Crossroads. How do we heal our polarized country? Her speech definitely had an impact on my art journal, which filled up with reds and blues as I used torn pieces of a travel brochure left over from a recent trip to Memphis. (I was not trying to react to her depiction of our red/blue country.) I pulled her headshot out of the program, previously destined for the recycling bin. It's ..read more

In last Wednesday's post, I omitted the picture of a piece I had completed for the Certified Zentangle Teacher master class. The class, "Undersea Pearl Garden" by Theresa Marshall, featured a new-to-me pattern, Infinity and lots of layers of shading. The background, a tan Zendala tile, invites us to use every tool in our box to shade, deepen and highlight. (This is true for all "mid tint" papers, be they gray, sage, tan, or any other "in between" color.)  Thursday night, Lar and I went to see the Wim Wenders film, "Perfect Days". I mention it here because it truly influenced my thought ..read more

 Springcleaningdetoxwellnesssparetreat You read that right. But here it is again, with s  p  a  c  i  n  g: Spring cleaning detox wellness spa retreat.That's what I'm calling this week of my time on earth, after feeling the need to prune, let go, shed, cleanse, rest. Think of it as pushing the reset button. So far, it's been working wonders with my soul and sense of freedom and receptivity. And when I feel free to receive, I feel free to create. Whether it's making special pancakes for breakfast, or taking a leisurely stroll to admire nature, or just looking ..read more

If anyone is still clicking on this, thank you for your patience! I see that my last post was over a month ago. That may be a personal record, and not a personal best! What happened? Lots of art, followed by 2 weeks of nothing much while we went to visit family for a week. In fact, at one point before that, I was so busy creating things that I didn't want to take creative time to blog. But, I know that this place is one of inspiration and motivation for me. It's good to be back. This post will definitely be a messy one, but you have to make a mess to put things in order, don't you? I will spar ..read more

You can never go home again.* Or can you? This week I went home, in a manner of speaking, to my Zentangle creative roots, my artistic family, from which I've ventured out into collage, art journaling, botanical drawing and miscellaneous other stuff. Maybe I've never really left the Zentangle practice, only broadened my interpretation of it. But this week I did an "ensemble" piece in my art journal. (I learned this concept from Zentangle. It may be used in other art forms, too. Feel free to fill me in on those.) I began with my larger sheet of paper, and drew my "string", another Zentangle conc ..read more

Happy 2024! May it be no worse than our previous few years, and lots better! Now that I make junk journals and junk journal collage elements, I made my own planners. Please note the plural. Not planner, but planners! I already had 2 monthly planners from charities that I liked, and had written some early January appointments in them. But I soon found out that the entries I had made didn't match. By then, I had ordered another planner (more on that later), and started making 2 more. Five planners is not what you want. You can only imagine the confusion it creates!!!! I was plannered up, and rea ..read more

On December 16, I finished my 30-day project: an oracle deck with 30 cards, one a day for a month. I had the idea after seeing an oracle deck by Mosca in a back issue of Art Journaling. Her deck featured self-portraits on every card with a significant word from her journey. I love making art that reminds me of where I'm headed, what I want with a word or phrase. (See "Notes to Self" and the 100-Day Project for examples.) I found so much joy in making these every day. I prepped the cards a week at a time and used a different medium every week. Every day, I began by appreciating the background ..read more

Hmm. That title just came out of my hat from nowhere. But I'm stickin' with it, as I have with a lot of life this week. The to-do lists usually show up with my morning coffee, after meditation. I like it when they do, and I see them as a tiny road map for the day's destinations that allows me to admire the passing scenery rather than constantly looking at the map. However, some days, life happens, and the to-do lists never make it out of my pen. Usually, it just means I need to put out fires: care for my still ailing husband and beat-up cat, try to keep things reasonably sanitary and orderly ..read more

'Tis the season of coughs, colds, flu and worse here in North Carolina. My beloved Lar has had some bug which led him not once but twice to an urgent care facility. (This is the guy who never goes to the doctor.) We self-quarantined, slept in separate rooms, wore masks to no avail. The bug somehow found me. Thankfully, my recent flurry of vaccinations has protected me to a degree. My body--and the cats!--know that something's up, and I am down, trying to assure a minimum of orderliness and hygiene to get us all over this bump in the road.  In the midst of it all, I've been enjoying my or ..read more