A-B-C's of a new class & travel news

I love taking on line class and learn at  my own pace. This week I started a poster design class at Jessica Sprague. Our first assignment was to make a poster of the alphabet using 4 different fonts. I thought this might be a nice one to frame for my youngest grand daughters room. 
Now for the travel news. In a few days we are off on a cruise of the Mayan Coast . Our first stop is Key West, and then on to Belize City. During our stop in Belize City we will be going to see the Mayan City of Altun Ha. Next is Mahogany Bay, Honduras. There are no runes nearby to see instead we will be visiting the Botanical Gardens and having a tour of the west side of the island

Another stop on the cruise is Costa Maya, Mexico. We have booked an excursion to see Chacchoben Mayan ruin.

I am looking forward to this adventure especially after visiting the Royal Ontario Museum Mayan exhibition last month. I'm bring my Digital SLR with me to take lots of photo and have made a travel journal to keep while away.

I am trying out a journal that I made with a ring binding to see if that works better than fixed signatures. This way I'll be able to move about photo pockets and pages that work best for my days journal page. 

I hope I'll have lots of interesting photos to share when I get back.

Man of La Mancha

The Art Journal Caravan 2012 word this week was Quixotic. The first image and thought that came to my mind was Don Quixote de la Mancha. I found Don Quixote on DeivantArt drawn by Randis. I extracted him from the background and then went to work on the layout.
When I was in High School, many a year ago, taking grade 12 Spanish I was given the task of reading Don Quixote in the original and then translating chapters into English. All I can say now looking back on it, was the absolute despair I felt when starting out that there was no way I could do it. It did get done eventually and sad to think now I have lost most of that small ability in Spanish. I also saw the play  Man of la Mancha several years ago, I  was very moved by the songs and sadness. I'm sure I have the sound track somewhere around and will have to pull it out and listen to it again.

Fun Video to watch

I watched this youtube video and liked it so much I wanted to share.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpunQZ4cUyI&feature=colike

Journal Prompts

I am just finishing a 3 week workshop on Digital Journaling given by Jessica Sprague and Nancie Rowe Janitz. It's been a good experience working each day on a journal page from prompts. Here are a few of my finished pages and the prompt/word that we were given  to inspire us.
Family

Words of a song

Inherited from a parent

Introspection

Lost and Found

Escape

Music

Time

I had a lot of fun and enjoyment putting these pages together and would love some feedback.

More Journal Pages

I've been busy keeping up with the Digital Journaling Class at Jessica Sprague.
The lessons have been a good review for me in various Photoshop techniques.

The photo I used for this page was taken in the summer of 2010 by a very talented local photographer. I added our family's newest addition who was born last May.

 The word of week two of the Art Journal Caravan 2012 was Propinquity. I had to look it up to see what the meaning was! In case you don't know as well it means "nearness of relationship"

I though it would be fun to continue with the story I started about Monimia. Can you guess what her time of need was?

Digital Art Journaling

Jessica Sprague and Nancie Rowe Janitz are giving a class in Digital Art Journaling which started on Monday. Nancie has created a fantastic set of brushed that create the effect of painting. Our first day we were asked to create a journal page using a heart.

Today the word to journal was Treasure.

Word of the week from the Art Journal Caravan 2012 was Clandestine. That was a bit of a challenge! I decided to have a bit of fun with the LO and create a little story of a sweet young thing having secret meetings with a rake.

The postcard reads My Darling we must meet my heart aches for you. Do you think she meets him?

YIKES & Symbols

I have spent the last week or so catching up on finishing projects and starting on some new ones. Most of the new thing are in the digital realm. Art Journal Caravan 2012 started off by asking us to create a symbol for ourselves and make a mind map.
My symbol is a Triguetra - harmony for mind body and spirit.

And my map of where I am going over the next year turned out like this.

Ancient cartographers drew sea monsters and dragons on maps representing unknown territory adding the label "There be dragons". My Mind map is unknown territory entering into the Art Caravan Journey for 2012

I also finished some of Tues. Templates from Jessica Sprague:

And last but not least!

365 Project

I have been thinking about doing the 365 project. In case you don't know what it is....
You take a photo each day and at the end of the year you will have a record of your life. I believed it was first started in 2004, you can read about it here. You can do it digitally  with  Becky Higgins or informally on your own. There are a number of sites that sell 365 templates. I have made my own templates to be used with 8 1/2 x 11 paper and can be printed on most home printers.

As a gift to readers here on my blog  you can download my templates on this site.

Courage

Starting this post with best wishes to all for a Happy and Healthy 2012.

I spent the first day of this year finishing or at least trying to finish up old projects and mending that had been sitting in my studio for awhile.
Feeling quite virtuous and gave myself permission to play and make a layout for a monthly challenge at Deviant Scrap  on courage. I had been thinking about this word and a image kept coming to my mind of a Norman Rockwell painting of a little girl's first day of school.

Courage comes in many sizes. When I think of personal courage I remember this painting by Norman Rockwell of little Ruby Bridges starting her first day of school and breaking the segregation barrier in New Orleans 1960.

Comments are always appreciated.

New Years Eve.

Where has the time gone. I just realized that I had not posted for a month.
So to bring you up to date:
Trip to St. Augustine went well. The town had lots of things to do and see our accommodations a house built in 1793 was just fine. The slow trip ending up being a not as slow as expected. I worked on my journal each day and came home with a very full book.
This is what it looked like at the beginning of my trip.

And this is what it looked like at the end of the trip.

One of the days that we had the most laughs was on my friend Cynthia's birthday. Cynthia talked us into having our photo taken at a studio and here is the result.

What can I say except we did laugh a lot.
I've also been busy making Christmas gifts. The book below is one that I made for my daughter. It was made from a template by Heidi Swapp & Jessica Sprague.

I must say some of the instructions left a bit to be desired, but the finished album was quite a hit.
I've also completed two more Art Journal Caravan challeng layouts

This one the challenge word was Shelter.

And this one # 53 the word was Love.
My Christmas card looked like this with two of my darling Granddaughters in it.

Template Tuesday over at Jessica Sprague also got some attention from me with these layouts.

And the Heritage and Out of the Box challenges got these Layouts.

And thiat it for 2011. Wishing you all a very Healthy and Happy 2012.

Bless

This weeks Art Journal Caravan challenge #47 was the word was Bless. Thinking about the word I thought of friends that I am blessed with and found a quote by Charles Kingsley that said it all.

I am off on a holiday  to St. Augustine in a few days with some friends to help celebrate a very special birthday for one of them. We have rented a house in the historic district and plan on a "slow" trip enjoying the little things. I'm bringing my camera and a journal to record the trip. I am looking forward to warmer weather, the ocean and a little adventure.



It's a first!

As you all know I've been participating in the Art Journal Caravan for the past several months. This week one of my layouts was featured as a highlight of the week by Tangie Baxter on her home page.
I'm thrilled and smiling ear to ear.

She Dreams

Another digital page. The layout  was inspired by the photo of a women in such a beautiful dress. I thought she looked a bit distress and I imagined her distress was from  dreaming of castles in the sky and waiting for a prince to come and rescue her. Poor girl needs to get a life.

Art Journal Caravan #46 - Protect

The  challenge word this week from Art Journal Caravan was Protect.
What came to mind as soon as I started thinking about it was a women's need to protect their home and loved ones. I found the spell for protection on the Internet.

The background came from Mystic Morning, Unicorn from Naughty Girl Graphics
and the figure of the women from a P.G. Woodhouse painting.

New York City

I thought I share another day in New York which started with a street fair outside of our hotel.  We spent the morning wandering along Lexington Ave. which was closed off for the day looking at booths and buying some Christmas gifts for our family. We bought lunch from a booth grilling Italian sausages that had the most delicious smells.

We continued walking south and then west to 6th Ave. to have a look at M & J Trimming.

 This photo was a wall of ribbons in every size and colour you could ever want.

 And this one was just one of the many walls stacked with trims

My husband appreciated this.

Our next stop after a short subway ride was Central Park.

It was a lovely day and the park was filled with families out for a stroll. After  all of the walking, we gave ourselves a treat and our feet a rest with  a carriage ride.

And then fed a carrot to Pedro at the end  of our ride.
More photo to come.......