Lots of Veggies

     Hi everyone. I'm still away for the last few days of my Quebec adventure.  I hope everyone had a great week. As this is a mostly scheduled post, I'm guessing I'm still having a  great time, because barring any unexpected issues, I should be. 😏 Here's a couple of more photos (once again from my phone untouched so there's some crooked horizons etc.) I'm adding from our visit to Forillion National Park.

      This next photo is for David, and it isn't the best since I took it with my phone (camera photos and stories will come another time), but in Gaspe Bay there were hundreds of gannets flying around. You can at least tell these 2 birds are gannets. I could have watched them for hours. We also had some fun with a cormorant and a seal as well as 3 men fishing for mackerel. 

      As I've had time, I've made a few quick blog visits based on whatever comes up on the top of my feed. I apologize if I've missed yours, but when I'm home I'll get back to normal blogging. Obviously, enjoying our vacation comes first. 👍OK, back to the business of this scheduled post.

     I've scheduled this post because I want to share my last 2 pages for Aimelee's Anything Goes challenge at Art Journal Journey. I also wanted to send a big THANK YOU  to both Aimeslee for being a super host and also to everyone who joined in. Keep in mind you still have time to join because September isn't quite over yet.

     My two pages today are in many ways similar. This first spread used several stamps from an old company called Stamp in the Hand. Years ago they had this whole series of carved veggie and fruit stamps. I dug  out the ones I have for this spread, even though I don't believe the onion is one of their stamps.

     Contrast that to this next spread where I used a "Cover a Card" stamp by Impression Obsession, and then colored in the fruits and veggies. I added the dots and some other bits to the left hand side. I do believe the "eat your veggies" stamp on on this spread is also by Stamp in the Hand.

      On the right side of the second spread I die cut the silverware. The die is an oldie from Sizzix that I use quite a bit, and I just happened to have a sheet of paper with silverware on it, another piece that's been hanging around from my scrapbooking days. Not only was the harvest/garden book really fun to make, but I love being able to use all these "things" that have been sitting unloved for a long time. 

     That's all for me this month at Art Journal Journey. I'll be home Tuesday, but I also have a couple of scheduled posts for that day since it is the first of the new month and will be time for a new challenge at AJJ. It will also be  time for another new challenge at Try It on Tuesday. 

       I hope everyone has a great rest of your September days.

     

Some Random Views from Our Trip

      Hi everyone. I hope you're having a great week.

    While I wait for the hubby to finish his shower (we're having a lazy morning start today) I thought I'd share a few photos from our trip so far.  Today we are staying just outside of Forillon National Park  in the Gaspe Peninsula of Quebec. We'll be off to the park shortly. All today's photos come from my phone, and they are a bit limited because the photos on my camera are still on my camera (and not downloaded). None of these have been straightened out or touched up either.

      Google added my photos in reverse order, so this first photo is the view outside the doors of the cabin we are staying in for one more night.

      Here's a happy face, which makes up for our smiles since all those photos are on my camera. Here in the US we have Smokey the Bear as a park mascot, and in Canada they have Parka the Beaver.

A fun sign from where we had lunch yesterday in Perce. The bakery was fabulous. ❤❤❤❤❤

     Here's the sign from a park we visited earlier this week. This is a fossil excavation site from the Devonian, a time period known as the Age of Fish. It is from a  time pre-dinosaurs, so a lot of fish and early vertebrate history was found at this site. I worked for a university research group studying fish  during my college undergrad years, and so this place was very exciting for me.

     Here's some views from down on the beach which is where the excavations actually happen, even to this day. They had a very very exciting discovery in 2010, which I will post about another time, but they discovered the roi des poissons (king of fish).

     I love things that come out of the ground, so here's a few fossil photos from inside their museum.

Here's my husband's co-pilot as we drove north. I am sitting in the passenger seat, but Mad loves to sit with her front feet on the console.

Here's a farm view in Northern Maine (hay, even though it is just at the end of potato picking season),

and the dog water dishes at a house we stayed at.

My dinner one night was a HUGE piece of take out cake. Good thing I had a healthy late lunch. Grin.

And finally, here's a view off towards Mount Katahdin from part of our drive through northern Maine.

     So far the trip is great. We've had just a few sprinkles of rain, met some lovely people, seen some gorgeous scenery and had lots of smiles.  The dogs are exhausted by night time with all their own exploring at the end of their leash. When we can't find Pete at night, he's discovered he likes sleeping in the spare bed. I guess he missed his own big dog bed at home. Ha ha!

Have a great rest of your week. 

      

Sunday Art

     Hi everyone. I hope you're having a super weekend. We (me, the hubby and the 2 dogs) leave this afternoon on our adventure to Quebec. I am excited but also wondering  how the dogs will make out. We've taken short trips with them, but never one for so many days. And hopefully I have everything I need so they can cross the border easily, especially since August 1, coming back into the US with dogs includes a whole list of required items. 😞

      Let me start today's post with a journal page for Aimeslee's Anything Goes challenge at Art Journal Journey. It's been fun to have an anything goes challenge so I can post whatever I've  been working on or older pieces I haven't shared yet. ❤ Today's page is one I made a while back for another challenge and ran out of time to share. I'll also be joining Gillena's Sunday Smiles.

 I like how the background has a fabric feel to it. I inked the page with various ink pads and then used a stencil and white gesso over it. The woman is cut out of an old magazine page, as as her wings. I left her white except to color in her boots and her hair. I then decorated her dress with some flowers and decorated her wings with some colored Stickles glitter glue. I built her a base to stand on that was made with a watercolor crayon, some ric rac trim as well as a scrap of lace. Finally I stamped the quote. 

    I also have a tag to share for Sandie's Numbers challenge at Tag Tuesday.  Sandie requests we have at least 3 numbers on our tags. 

     I focused only on numbers on my tag, starting with the 4 stitched  numbers. I cut those out of a  dashboard tag from when I had my car in the  garage  to get a few maintenance items done.  After inking my tag background, I stitched on those numbers, and then I used a couple of stamp sets and stamped some other numbers. I didn't think my tag needed anything else, but I did add a few little colorful confetti pieces just to finish it off. 

      Let me finish off this post with a few ocean views from the other morning. I was on my way to meet some friends for a walk and took the scenic route to our meeting point.

It was definitely a day for egrets. I must have passed 20 of them on my drive.

     That's all for me today.  I  have a scheduled post at the end of the month and 2 more for the start of October (since I won't be home until October 1). If I have time I'll share some trip posts along the journey, but I'll have to see how that goes. Have a great rest of your weekend and week ahead otherwise. Au revoir!

Art Walk Part 2

 Hi everyone. Happy Friday. 

       Today I have some more photos from my art walk at Alnoba in Kensington, New Hampshire. I shared the info about it last week, so if you want to check out that post you can find it here: Art Walk Part 1.

        A couple of you asked about the artist led walk itself. It was just over 3 hours, but very leisurely. There was no rush to see everything at the center. The center is very large, and our artist guide liked to talk.  BUT, he also liked to learn, and I think everyone from our group had something to add. There were only 6 of us in the group, so everyone had a chance to be quite interactive. There was also a bathroom spot with a couple of the world's cleanest porta-potties. 😏

      The artist who led our tour was  Joseph Gray, and his media was stone. He has several pieces of art at Alnoba, but so do other artists. Since I have some faces I will be linking up to Nicole's Friday Face Off and I'm also linking up to Gillena's Friday Lunch Break.

      Let me start with a little more art by Joseph Gray, and then I'll share some other art.

This is one side of the statue up close.

And here is more of the statue including the face on the opposite side.

Gray said he made this piece because he had a Native American grandmother.

       Here is another piece by the artist. This is his circle of life, and it was right at the beginning of the tour next to the entrance to the woodland trail. 

This next series of photos are of  an interesting set of statues by Juame Plenza, an artist from Barcelona.

This was another piece of art by the same artist that we saw. It was a bit far off, but when I zoomed my camera lens I could see it better.

Here they are zoomed in.

And here is one more face by the same artist. The man in the photo is the artist Joseph Gray who led our art tour.

You might notice that this statue is actually quite thin.

I'll finish my post with a few more statues that I saw on the tour.

These white flame like  piece is made out of marble by Pablo Atchugarry, 

and next photo is this rock with a carved quote by Nelson Mandela. I know you can't really read the quote, but my eye caught the leaf shadows on  the stone, so this is my own art-grin.

     And finally this beautiful table outside of the main building on the grounds.  It is called Ice Ring and Gradient Table, and it was wonderfully warm to the touch. It is not only a table but also art made by Michele Oka Doner.

       I have more to share from this walk, so you'll have to wait for another post which won't be for a couple of weeks.

      The hubby is taking some time off next week, so he and I as well as the dogs are taking off for the week. I won't be around for Friday Face Off, Friday Lunch Break or Sunday Smiles (after this week). See you for those link ups when I'm back in 2 weeks.

Have a great weekend ahead.