Hope...

February's No Excuses Journaling

 I'm settling in to what are my favorite pages to do in my journal for "No Excuses Journaling".  Of course, the first one is the "collage" page...and it may not be finished as I sometimes keep adding to my pages...or it might be.  March is knocking...

(p.s. if Marge Duff is looking, I had to make a copy of her pretty pink house valentine to put in here.)

And this is the "daily" journal page, showing the color (you feel) for the day, a line or so about the day, and the weather of the day.  Three little things to note, even if you don't have time to do much else.

A page to do for the month showing "colors" of the month, "words" of the month, and a small "collage" of the month.

And a "Writing" page.  Using a watercolor splash background, I lettered one of my Mom's favorite Valentine cookie recipes (given to her from my cousin, Joanne).

This page is called your "peeks".  A tiny pen&ink and watercolor painting for each week of the month.

Peggy brought in some lovely lemons from her son's in California and they were pretty enough to paint and I wanted to remember them.  Next, I love chickens and so found a photograph of these in a magazine and used them for my watercolor.  This past third week, had to paint our neighborhood squirrel cuddling up in my front tree after he was done munching on the bird's suet.

And this page, done on the other side of the watercolor paper is watercolor swatches of the colors of the month, with lettering of words, definitions, phrases meaningful for that month.

A Grid page.  A square a day to fill in with some small design or word for the month.

A fun journal!

Collage

Tomorrow is my collage class and I am almost finished with my winter piece.  Just a few more teeny details to add.  And this time, I took a picture of it in a different light so you can see it's definitely a snowy white landscape.  

As I said before, my inspiration came from a photograph that a relative in Germany  had sent.  I loved it and asked her permission to use it as my model.

and again at The Center...

 Arriving at The Center last week for Poetry Class...

the beauty of winter...

was breathtaking...

The Log Cabins, all snuggled in...

and it was Poetry Class day.  The view from the Forest View Room was so pretty.  We could hardly stop watching the birds flitting through the snowy trees...

 a little group of deer went dashing through but they went so fast that I didn't have time to grab my camera...

Then when I got back home, I was looking out the front window and, to me, my snow-covered bushes looked like reindeer.  He's even eating something off of the branch...see his tongue?

even the way the snow continued, looked like two or three of them in a row...

and here's his head.  See his eye?

What do you think?

Is my imagination running away with me?
Woo...hoo...

The Center in Winter

During class, last week, we enjoyed looking out at the winter beauty of The Center.

The enormous icicles...

the breathtaking landscape...

and the beautiful woods...

Germany...

Using this photograph, from my very sweet relative in Germany, for reference...

I began my winter collage.

Henri's day...

 Blizzard-y yesterday and Henri loved it!  Mark was out a thousand times with him and he just wanted to keep burying the ball in the piles of snow.

It was a winter wonderland...

I love snow pictures!

But even with his long legs...

he was having troubles in the backyard, so Mark took him for a walk with his boots on.  A challenge, putting Henri's boots on.  First I put the leash on, then open the garage door, and then put the boots on, because by then he is very excited about going for a walk that he "almost" forgets he has them on!

Continuing on with last week's class of winter...

 Thinking snow.  Well...and we got it!

 Bernie

Nancy

 Lora Lee

Sandy

 Carolyn

Cynthia

Teri

 

MaryAnn

and Cynthia's beautiful finished grid piece.