I planned to share this week's blog while in Michigan, but my trip got canceled earlier this week. Since I already had the time off from work, I decided to keep my vacation in place and turn it into an at home art retreat for myself. I love being able to fully immerse myself in creative projects and this is the perfect week to do it. I have a bunch of embroidery projects in the works (see below) and decided to break out the art journal boxes I didn't get to in 2021. I also purchased a fancy paint by numbers kit and a clay jewelry making kit. So many options!
I'm also planning to go somewhere as a tourist on Monday or Tuesday. I'm thinking maybe the Natural History Museum or finding one of the more obscure historical homes to tour. More to come on part two of my art retreat next week. Baking is also on the agenda; it's a form of art and I haven't baked much lately. So far, I've made peanut butter cookies. I have a blueberry coffee cake to make later today and maybe a Dutch oven bread.
I enjoyed getting back into art journaling yesterday. I used the tutorial from Let's Make Art for this journal page. I plan on working my way through the tutorials and then trying the techniques on my own. I may use some of the coffee stained paper to see how it holds paint.
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| I like the colors a lot - I may do another page and maybe try some drawing over it rather than collage. |
This week's recap (Sunday, July 31 isn't included this week since it was in last week's blog):
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| August 1: running stitch |
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| August 2: back stitch (regular stitch length) |
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| August 3: back stitch (long stitch length) |
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| August 4: a lovely line of French knots |
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| August 5: fly stitch - haven't done this stitch in forever |
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| August 6: these are meant to be leaves from the new red bud tree that's maybe growing out of the stump. I'm proud of my stem stitch on curves. |
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| So many possibilities on this new side. I love it! |
WIP update: Lots of work in progress to share this week. I've started laying out the pieces for the mixed media piece I'm tentatively calling Spider Tree. Fun fact: the spider is called a Goliath birdeater because of the artist Maria Sybilla Merian, an 18th century entomologist who spent several years in Surinam painting flora and fauna in their natural habitats.The spider got the name because of the drawing she did of one eating a hummingbird. I'm even more excited to work on this piece after discovering this little nugget; I talk about Sybilla Merian when I give tours at the museum.
I also started a small piece on one of the other pieces of coffee stained paper from last week. Bernie the Bee is back! I'm going to send this to a friend of mine. Not sure what I'm going to do with the rest of the coffee paper.
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