Princess Bubbles Creates

I can't help myself, I am absolutely fascinated by the rust and paint.  The color is fantastic.  I would love to print these images fairly large and then do some stitching into them.

I use my Nikon 105mm approximately 80-90% of the time.  I am so glad that I spent the money on that lens.  It is worth every penny to me.  The color in this photo is amazing to me.  I need to figure out how to do a slide show of my photos and post it here.  I may need to enlist the help of a friend to figure out how to do a slide show.   Mary Lynn I am talking to you.

Too bad I can't stay retired.  I spent my morning at an art workshop with Sandra Spagnuolo.  It was fun as usual.  I can't show the piece as I had to leave it at Sandra's to dry.  We went out for lunch and then off to McLean's Auto Wreckers.  Oh my gosh that place is the best.  All the junk, rust and pealing paint are a feast for the eyes.  I know I will have to go back again and again.

Today was the last day of teaching my youngest son.  He is now a home school graduate and I am a retired home school teacher.  I have many mixed feelings about this.  I have definitely gone through a mourning period.  I will sincerely miss spending my mornings with my sons.  They are terrific young men and I love them very much.  They are some of my favorite people in this whole world.  They are intelligent and witty.  They know how to carry on interesting conversations.  I think I will take the summer off and enjoy some time creating.  I guess I will still have to do some part time bookkeeping to keep in my art supplies.  Hopefully, in the fall I will find a way to make money with my art.  I will keep dreaming and pursuing those dreams.  Dreams do come true.

Last month at the Royal City Calligraphy Guild I learned how to paint a flower starting with three dots.  It was super simple.  I decided to try this on fabric with Inktense pencils.  It worked great.  I think I will use this experiment for my bead journal project this month. 

Friends and art make for a really good day.  I spent a delightful morning with my friends at Sandra Spagnuolo's workshop.  We experimented with gelatin prints.  The two prints pictured above are some of the prints I made today.  Unfortunately, bringing home a gelatin plate on a hot day is not really the best idea.  While we were eating our lunch my gelatin melted.  Unpleasantly it melted all over the prints that I made.  What a mess!  Then to top it off my golden retriever decided to get cuddly with me.  Normally I enjoy her snuggles but today she had just walked in dog poop.  She actually climbed into my lap with dog poop on her feet.  Yikes!! Had I not had such a wonderful morning with my friends making art I think I would have lost it at this point.  But because of the magic of creating, friends and sunshine I remained calm, cool and collected.  Life is good. 

This block still needs a lot of work.  I am hoping that by posting it I will get my act in gear to get it finished.  I have nine blocks started for this quilt.  Each one represents a fruit of the spirit.  Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.  I have been working on this quilt for at least six years!  Isn't that awful?  But some of that time was collecting fruit themed fabric.  Actually, it might even be longer than six years.  Whatever.  I will get this finished, I will, I will.