Spooky and some artwork

I grew up in a house that was haunted. I've had some pretty spooky weird things happen around me all my life. And I always love a good ghost story.

So when I saw this quote hanging at a friends house a few weeks ago I commented on how much I loved it. Well she made one for me...this is hand done on parchment paper and I just love it. Thank you so much Bobbi.



And in the spirit of Halloween this little (not really so little his body was as big around as my husbands thumb nail) guy is decorating the corner of our garage door. I was going to try and get my hand up to show scale but just could not get myself to do it....he or she is kind of pretty. A nice Halloween orange color.





Tonight we are going to tour one of the old hotel building's here in town. It's supposed to be haunted so I can hardly wait to get inside. Happy Halloween everyone.

And the artwork. This is a little 5x7 painting I did for my BFF Cindy for her birthday this year. She owns a mustang mare that is colored much like this so I tried to capture Reba's spirit.

My First Journal class

Yesterday I taught my first art journal class.

I was pretty nervous. I had three signed up, BK is a retired high school art teacher and well known in this area for her amazing watercolor paintings, BR is the current high school art teacher and also well known in this area for her wonderful cute colorful art work (her blog is listed at the top of my favorite blog spots, and DN who is a fiber artist and she had just taken a class a while back on bookmaking and had some really nice journal type books she had made...

But they were all wonderful made me feel very comfortable and we had a really really good time.

I totally forgot to take photos of their journals, I'm hoping to catch them in the coming weeks to try and get some pictures of what they did. They all did awesome work.

I must have done a fairly good job as they are all interested in taking some more classes on art journaling and doll making.

Below is what I did as demo's. They are not completely finished yet but well on their way.

Front cover:


Inside page:


Other side:


another page:


I still have 3 pages to get started and complete before the journal is filled.

I had so much fun doing this and they all seemed to be having fun also.

Thanks ladies it was a great experience.

Mama

Sunday night I had a dream about Mama.

We (Mama, my best friend Debi from high school and I) were sitting in a small closet surrounded by boxes of my moms things and we were trying to decide what to do with them.

Last night my sister called to tell me they had moved Mama into a nursing home on Sunday. Mama has been in assisted living for some years now. She has Alzheimer’s.

Was she trying to contact me, trying to tell me something?

The last 3 times I have been over to see her my mom does not know who I am. She doesn’t know who any of us are any longer.




Mama and I never really got a long very well.

We loved each other but never could get along for any length of time.

My mother was never a very happy person, she suffered from manic/depression, she was suicidal during most of my adult life. She was a great manipulator with my sister and brother. Maybe that’s why we never got along so well, I never gave in to her manipulations. She could make everyone’s life a living hell and she did that a lot of the time.

But she could also be a wonderful listener, very loving and fun. She was a nurse and worked in nursing homes for a lot of her career. She was wonderful with the older people. They all loved her. She loved to dance, she loved music and she loved going out.

I miss talking to Mama.

I miss the person that she was.

I am who I am because of her, good and bad.

I am thankful for that.

I hope that this disease has helped her find some peace, some happiness?

Where does the time go?

How does time slip by so quickly? And still nothing seems to get done.

I did finally get a painting done. I really need to lock myself in the studio and get more done.

This is a spread in my journal. It was practice for the artwork I had in mind. You can't tell from the photo but the stars were made with a pearlized paint and really seem to shine in real life.



And here is the artwork I completed this weekend. I really like the way it turned out.