Good Friday and a Snow Storm

I started a new art journal today. I have always drawn my pictures in my journal and then either pulled them out and painted/colored them, or copy them and embelish the copy. This new journal is more of a true art journal. I opened it up, dumped a bunch of blue paint on the pages and began. I didn't use a pencil at all, just started painting. I have a bouquet of tulips on my table right now that I was using as inspiration, but I think my painting looks more like poppies. Either way, it was fun to just dive in first thing with paint. Sometimes a new approach works out so well. I'm going to try to do my art both ways for a bit and see if I what I produce varies depending on which way I go. The flower inspiration was from Suziblu's prompt for the week. I've never done her prompts either. I guess I'm just in a mood to try something new this week.

I sent out my first art entry of my life this week. It is for a poster contest held by the Breast Cancer 3 Day. The contest is only open to 3 day participants. Anyways, I worked on my entry for over a month, asked a few people for critiques, worked on an artist's bio, signed my rights away in a waiver and posed while my hubby took my head shot. I FedExed the package on Wednesday and was almost in tears letting it go. I'm not sure what came over me. I made the art specifically to submit, but still freaked out sending it off. I guess I've never worried about someone "judging" my art before and now I know people will be for the contest. Anyways, I was and still am perplexed to my emotional response. I guess I'm just weird.

We're getting another snow storm today. Can you believe it. They're saying 5"+ for my area! I love snow but even I am getting tired of this. I want to see the tulips out in the yard, not in a vase. I want to go dig and tend to my roses. I want to take a walk not bundled in many layers. I want to lay in the hammock with a good book. OK, enough whining. I hope everyone has a wonderful Easter weekend.

Good news and a snow day to boot!

A wonderful piano technician helped me yesterday. She squeezed me in with the hopes that the piano would be useable for my afternoon lessons. What a difference experience with this caring lady. She looked the piano over and went to work. She got the whole thing tuned (which the other guy said was impossible) and had some very viable ideas for restorating the piano. It wont be inexpensive, but I'd much rather invest in my dear piano than invest in buying a new one. She'll be back later this week to fix the string I broke and give me some numbers to look at. I'll probably have to let her take it to her shop for the summer, but I dont teach then anyways so it wont hurt my income at that time. I'm so very happy and relieved to know that she can be saved. With the investment, she'll be good to go for another 3-4 generations after me. It makes me furious that that man came into my home and said all those horrible lies. I will be writing a letter to the company who sent him my way. I need to write instead of calling to complain because I'd just start yelling and not get my point across as professionally as I can in a letter.

Today we had a big snow storm come through. Everything shut down including the community college so my polymer clay class was cancelled. I dug out my supplies and put together the 2 books pictured here. I made the covers out of double layer clay with some of the top layer peeled away to reveal some texture I had added to the bottom. I used Pearlx and acrylic paint to make the stampings I added pop out. I cut out some cardstock and tried to sew together the pages. I'm not sure they'll stand up, but they look good tonight. I glued in a tie to keep the journal closed and then glued a black piece of cardstock into the inner covers to cover where I had glued all the strings on. The books are approx. 3" x 4.5". I need to investigate how to hold the pages in better if I'm going to attempt this again.

The snow picture is from about 7 this morning. I had just finished up my morning walk and the world was so beautiful with the snow clinging to everything. I ran in grabbed the camera and then stood in the middle of the road to take this picture.

Thank you to everyone who left such nice posts to try and cheer me up. You all added hope when I really didn't think there was any. I'm so thankful things are going to work out with this new ladies help. What a difference between the 2. I wish I had never called the first man, but he is from the "elite" shop in Toledo so I thought I was going to get the best-definetly didn't expect to get screwed. Live and learn. You can bet every student I deal with from now on will be educated on who not to call for help.

One of my younger piano students got a rock tumbler and this is one of the first rocks she finished. She wants to give it to one of her school teachers so her mom asked if I could make it into a pendant. I used 22g sterling square wire. I like how it turned out. I cant wait to see how the student likes it.

I need to do some errands this morning. I'm hoping the crouds and traffic arent to bad on a Thursday morning. I'm such a "people person"-nah, I'm not even close. I'd be happy if I could avoid everyone and just exist in my own little art-filled world. That certainly isnt going to happen this close to Christmas. At least I'm able to try to do this on a weekday and not Saturday morning when everyone is out.

Its cold here this morning. At the end of our walk it was 10 degrees. Theres still a dusting of snow and patches of ice, but it was a beautiful walk. My walking buddy and I laughed most of our 4 mile route. Its always good to start the day in that manner. We're supposed to get 1-2" of snow tonight. I should probably look for better boots when I'm out today. The ones I wore today are only shoes really with a bit of fur trim to make them a bit warmer, but they're to short for much more snow. Maybe I'll make that my goal-To find nice boots today or at least narrow it down better. Have a wonderful day.