Inspired by My Beach Walks

Hi everyone. Happy Friday.  I'm here today with some end of the week art.

My first piece of art today is something new for this month's Inspired By challenge at Art Journal Journey.

It began when I was inspired by a piece of seaweed I saw on the sand at the beach.

I then took that inspiration and carved it into a stamp. 

Yes, if this looks familiar I showed you this just a few weeks ago on March 7. I suppose this could also work for second on second.

I then stamped some of the seaweed with green acrylic paint on some watercolor paper.

 I used watercolors to create the background. It felt very much like the ocean to me, so I used a combination of of stamping directly on the page as well as stamping and fussy cutting on some white paper. I ended up with this ocean scene which I am linking up to AJJ's Inspired By theme.

On one of my recent beach walks there was a lot of seaweed up on the beach, and some of them  caught my eye.

You might see some more stamps inspired from a few of these seaweed views. Smile.

Since today is also April 2, I am showing you some art from 2015 for Second on the Second . Be sure to stop by Bleubeard and Elizabeth's blog  where we show our second looks on this day.

Since Easter is coming up this weekend, let me show you a tag I made back in 2015 with a spring and Easter theme. 

I really like the bird on the bow at the top. I was busy that spring being inspired by tag making.

Here's the whole post: A Little More Bunny Hop. 

Interesting that this post in 2015 was originally published on April 2. So 6 years later, here you get to see it again.

Have a great start to your weekend, and a very Happy Easter also if you celebrate. If you celebrate Passover, I hope you had/have a nice Seder celebration.  And no matter whether you celebrate any holiday or not, have a great weekend.

  And as always, thanks for visiting.

What Are You Inspired By?

 Happy first day of April everyone.

Since it is a new month, it's time for a new challenge at Art Journal Journey. 

Before I write about that, I want to say THANK YOU to Sheila for being such a fantastic host last month. Single flowers was a really fun challenge.  It was a little trickier at first than I expected also. It's so easy to want to use lots of flowers. 

 Also thanks to all of you who joined in also.

This month Eileen, from The Artful Crafter's blog, was supposed to be our host. She picked Inspired By as her theme. I know she was excited and working on some art for this challenge before her heart surgery because she left some hints in a T Day post about being ready for an April art commitment. 

Unfortunately, as many of you probably know, Eileen didn't make it through the surgery and recovery process. It's still a really sad thing, so we admins at Art Journal Journey decided to honor her by keeping her theme this month.  Chris, also known as Pearshapedcrafting and I, Erika, also known as BioArtGal will both be hosting this month.

I am sure Eileen's creative spirit will be a part of your art this month. Share your inspired art with us. You may be inspired by someone or something from your life. You may be inspired by your dreams. Whatever inspires you, we'd love you to share your art journaling with us. 

I wanted my first page to be inspired by Eileen and to have something of her in it. I know she had been doing a lot of layering in her art  so I did some of that. And she was often posting a photo of her glass of wine when she participated in T day. Even though I am not very good at drawing wine glasses, I made a big one in gold to raise a toast to Eileen.

My page began with a watercolor wash. Then I used matte medium to attach some TH printed tissue paper. I colored the flowers and leaves for some detail. Then with a stencil and some molding paste I added some dimension to the page.  The words are from a very very old set from Autumn Leaves ( do you remember them?) that I colored in with gel pens and markers. 

The page was still unfinished, so I used watercolors to over the dried modeling paste. That made the page a bit too bright, so I finished my background by sponging on some white gesso. Finally I added the wine glass.

I hope you will join us this month with your own inspirations. I look forward to seeing your creations. 

One More Big Flower

 Hi everyone.

It's the last day of the month. Wow. I love how March did start off as winter and now, spring ( at least here in New Hampshire that is).  Hurrah for spring.

It is also the last day with Sheila (Orange Esmeralda) as our host at Art Journal Journey.

I want to say a big THANK YOU to you Sheila for being such a wonderful and gracious host.

I have one last flower to share today, another giant drawn in my journal and colored with markers and a white pen. The background was painted with watercolors and I stamped the quote.

When I photographed it with my phone, I got the grain of the paper showing and these diagonal ridges appeared. I actually like them and wish they were really showing on the page. I guess you get to enjoy the trick of light even if it is just an illusion.

It was a great month of beautiful flowers to welcome in spring.

Thanks for visiting.

Hello Spring

 

Hi everyone. 

I can't believe the last 2 weeks have flown by already, and it is once again time for a new challenge at  Try It On Tuesday.

For the next 2 weeks our challenge is Hello Spring. We are looking for spring themed art of any kind, and that can include Easter. 

I have made a journal page for inspiration. My background is inked, stamped and gessoed, as well as using some printed tissue paper and some crayoned in grass. I die cut the bunny and the Easter eggs. The eggs were colored with Faber-Castell markers, and the bunny had some paint and pen details added. I also gave the bunny a fuzzy tail. Unfortunately the shadow created when I photographed the tail makes it look burnt, which it is really not, so please ignore the brownish area around the cottontail. 

I added the flower so my page would also work for Sheila's single flower challenge at Art Journal Journey. The flower is stamped by the stem is created freehand with a paint pen.

That challenge runs through tomorrow (March 31).

I finally added this TH found relatives. I am glad he came out with a new set because it is nice to see some new faces. I think these ladies are waiting for the Easter Bunny to arrive, but the older girl looks like she is a little skeptical of whether there is an Easter Bunny or not.

Don't forget to check out all the inspiration and ideas on the Try It On Tuesday homepage. The design team has made some beautiful pieces to inspire your creativity. We're looking forward to seeing your spring inspired art.

Thanks for visiting. 

T Stands for the March Wrap Up

 Hi everyone. It's once again time for T. 

I thought since we are just about at the end of the month I would share a few assorted things that may not go together, but all happened this month.

I finished painting my living room this past weekend. Going up on the ladder was scary, but I did it. I don't really like heights so I must admit I was sweating bullets (as the saying goes) while up high on the ladder. 

Now that the snow in my back yard is gone (hurrah for what feels like a small miracle), I noticed the first of the crocuses popping up. 

I made 3 loafs of bread this past month.

Below is some sourdough challah that had a slightly too long second rising. My fault, I went for a ride with the hubby and we ended up being out longer than planned. But it still tasted like challah is supposed to taste, and you can see where I braided it, so I'd call it a success.

On St. Patrick's Day I made soda bread. Being inspired by an old episode of the British Baking Show, I added browned onions. black pepper and Swiss cheese. It was a tasty combo.

And I made my favorite old time New England bread, anadama. This loaf is non-sourdough but with added cornmeal and molasses.

Within the last week the local ice cream stand opened up, and I had ice cream for dinner on Saturday.

And I took a few beach walks (one of the few places not muddy now). My daughter also came home for a short overnight visit too.

We also had take out a couple of times. I had been craving Mexican food, so one Saturday in March the hubby and I called in for salads and brought them home to eat.

I took this photo before I added my guacamole. And this is also my T day drink photo. We had a bottle of strawberry margarita mix so Dave and I each had a glass with our salads.

Don't forget to stop by  Bleubeard and Elizabeth's blog  where we share our drink related posts on Tuesdays.

And the best info of all, is that March is ending in a more spring like manner.  You just never know with March is it will be winter or spring. 

That's all for me. Thanks for visiting, and I hope you have a great T day.

 

Signs That Winter is Over

 Hi everyone. 

I hope I don't jinx the spring like weather/temperatures we've been having here in the northeast with my title today. Our temperatures are going to cool off just a bit and go back into more "normal" March weather, but hopefully that doesn't mean any more snow.

My husband and I have been taking drives the past few Sundays to check out the ice on the local lakes. We've had enough nice weather that we've wanted to see how much the ice is breaking up. We often end up at my mother-in-laws home in our journey. She is living in Maine for the winter with my sister-in-law, so her place is empty, but she likes an update on the spring melt.

The photo above was taken 2 weeks ago. There was a tree that had fallen during one of our late winter wind storms and blocked her driveway, and there was still quite a bit of snow/ice in the woods. We moved the tree as it broke into many pieces when it landed. 

By last Sunday my husband could drive his truck all the way down to the house. 

My mother-in-law's home is on a small lake. Two weeks ago this was the view in front of her home.

Last week there was more open water.

We've had a warm past week so I wonder how much more open water there will be next time we check it out.

Both dogs went in for a swim, but it was too cold for Pete ,and he only stayed in for a minute. Maddie didn't seem to mind it at all.

Besides stopping by my mother-in-laws, I also wanted to check out the local rail trail to see how that would be for walking.

We walked a short distance along the trail. There were a few dry parts, a few still snow covered parts, and lots of mud. Maddie was particulary attracted to the muddy parts. 

I think in a couple of weeks, as long as we don't get any more snow, it shouldn't be too bad.  At least I hope so.

That's what's happening here in my little spot on the globe.

Hope you had or are having a great weekend.

And thanks for visiting too.

The Last Pages of a Journal

 Hi everyone. Happy weekend.

I had a lot of fun making my secret garden journal, and I thought I would share the last 2 pages from it today.  I am linking up to Art Journal Journey and this month's single flower challenge, hosted by the lovely Sheila. Both of my pages have a single flowers on them, and so today you get a double show.

One thing that ties these pages together is the white daisy like flower on them. I filled the centers of both with some tiny plastic beads. They also have some vintage photos of children. 

As you can see, both of these pages are  made on water colored. backgrounds. I added various elements to both pages, including the flowers. 

I like the water colored background on the second page better than the heart one. This second one reminds me more of tie dye, and I like darker spots for contrast.  I did get a bit of table cleaning on the top page as I used up some of the bits on my work table. Overall, I like how both of these pages came out.

Keeping my post short today. I have the last bit of living room painting to finish. For this part I need to work off a ladder. Since I needed to climb the ladder to do today's wall, I waited for the weekend because I want someone  around. Just in case.  The thoughts of doing it home alone, should an accident happen, are a bit scary.  I'm not looking forward to the ladder, but I am looking forward to saying my painting project is done. 

Enjoy your weekend.

Good Day Sunshine

Hi everyone. 

I can't believe we're in the last several days of March already. Time is flying.

I want to share another page for Sheila's single flower challenge at Art Journal Journey. I am having a lot of fun with this challenge, and it is fun trying to figure out ways to use just one flower. 

The lady on my page today has gone for too long of a bike ride as her flower is wilting.  She doesn't look very sad about it though. I think she met someone special while out on her ride, and she is watching that person out of the corner of her eyes. To add some mystery, we can only guess who they are.  Perhaps she got her flower from this mysterious friend.

I'm also going to link  this page up to Mia's Craftlandia challenge which has a spring theme.

I created  a watercolor background, and I also used a stamped bicycle, a hand drawn flower, a stamped and fussy cut bunny, some washi tape, a TH phrase sticker, a die cut branch, and some metallic paper trim and a sun.  The happy lady is cut from a tag in an old FLOW magazine. I did color her and made her hair yellow to help the yellow in the background pop a bit more.

This next photo is another page from my Secret Garden journal. 

Here's the opposite page from the same journal. This page doesn't work for a single flower at AJJ, but it is still bright and happy. Seeing there's no flowers blooming in my garden yet, I will enjoy them on a journal page. 

I have one more piece of art to share today. How about some yellow sunshine?

The latest challenge at Tag Tuesday is hosted by the lovely Michele and she has picked mostly monochrome as her theme. 

My tag's background was inked and stamped with some sunflower yellow. Then I used a darker yellow to stamp the flower bucket. I added some yellow washi tape, inked this lovely  little lady with some more sunflower ink,  and finished it off with some yellow paint dots. The girl needed something to sit on so I added the gold (although it looks black in the photo) printed washi tape. I thought about adding a bow to this tag, but it never worked quite the way I wanted it to so I left it off. 

And unless the weather forecast changes overnight, we're supposed to get some rain today. Some art sunshine (and play too) will make up for the gloom. 

Have a great start to your weekend!

 

More Spring Weather

 Hi everyone. 

Our temperatures have been wonderful for late March this week. Hurrah for that. (Although cooler wet weather is coming from the sounds of it.) Last weekend we had a couple of gorgeous days to start the  spring season, and I dragged the hubby to the beach Saturday as he (as well as I) needed some exercise. After our beach walk, we took a drive up Mount Agamenticus. In most places this would be called a small hill, but here we call it a mountain. It is just under 700 feet (about 213 meters)  high. 

Mount Agamenticus is in York, Maine, about 10 miles inland from the beach.  There is a short (under 2 mile/ 3.2 km) but steep hiking trail or a road you can drive up. As it is still a bit muddy in the woods, we drove up. At the top of the mountain there are lots of pretty views and also some historical placards with information about the area.

I hadn't been up here since the 1980's when I came up for a fall migratory bird kettle.  A kettle is when many  raptors flock up and circle on the air currents, and the top of Mount Agamenticus makes this a great place for one to form. That kettle was a memorable experience, and I should really check it out again this fall.

There were not any kettles on Saturday though. In fact, I don't think there were really any birds of any kind.

The views were nice though.

The white cloud looking area just to the left of center in the photo below is the snow capped Mount Washington,  the tallest mountain in the northeast. I wrote about it here last fall in case you are interested: Mount Washington. Mount Washington is about a 120 mile (193 km) drive from this spot, shorter as the crow flies. I am guessing our visibility was at least 75 (120 km) or maybe even a little more miles on the day we visited.. 

This next view faces off in the direction where I live.  I live in the general area where those little mountains (or what some of you may call hills) are located.

All the blue just below the horizon in this photo above is the Atlantic Ocean. I believe we are looking up towards Kennebunkport, Maine. 

There were a few people around, and I was happy to say I didn't see anyone without a mask. And everyone kept distances too. It was a nice place to walk around.

I also discovered that the mountain was once used for skiing, and the remains of an old ski lift are still there. 

I also learned this was a sacred site for the local Native Americans.

I'm enjoying getting out and seeing some local places. Although this doesn't quite make up for not traveling or visiting indoor places like museums, it is great to discover and rediscover outdoor places in my area. Plus I am enjoying the nice weather and getting some exercise too. I know some of you might be or are  in lock down and can't visit places because of Covid. I hope you enjoy this little bit of armchair scenery. I know I am enjoying vicarious travels by seeing what people are posting from their areas online, even if none of us are going very far.

Thanks for stopping by to visit. Hope your week is going well.

Another Big Flower

 

Hi everyone. Happy Wednesday. 

I'm back today to share another single flower for Sheila's challenge at Art Journal Journey.  There's still some days left this month to join if you haven't already.

For my page today I drew the giant flower. I was inspired by all the  rubber stamp flowers that have non-plant details. To make my flower a little different, I drew in some lines, wrote some letters and then used some Technique Tuesday word stamps (very old and very used so they hardly stick to the plastic sheet any longer) to finish it off. 

I used a pink paint pen as well as a white pen to finish off the center of the flower. 

I brushed some pink watercolor paint to color in the background, and then I splattered a little bit of white paint, just to give the page a bit of texture and grunge. You might have to look carefully to find the white splatter, but you can definitely see it better on the right side. Then I added the lady. She came from a sheet of lady tags in an old issue of FLOW magazine, but as you can tell, I cut her out of the tag.

Our spring weather is continuing, although today is supposed to be a bit cooler and cloudy. I'm off for my allergy shots and then hopefully getting in a walk. Thanks for visiting. I hope your week is going well!