This Week

Just wanted to post a few pics of the Scripture doodles I've been doing in my prayer journal along with the Whispers of Hope group:

 

This is exactly what I wanted to be doing before I got side tracked playing with zentangle, so I'm really enjoying watching the journal fill up with prayer and Scripture doodles

And a quick page from my Draw Your Awesome Year journal as well...

Almost done with the 'lessons', so I'll pick up with Joanne's Draw Your Awesome Life once I'm all caught up.

 

Hope everyone is having a great weekend--until next time...

xoxo

 



 

Currently

I haven't been feeling 100% this week. Not sure if I've gotten a little bug or a cold coming on, but I've been grumpy and lethargic and not exactly great company (hubby's happy he gets to escape every day for work! Haha!) Hopefully getting out on the water this morning to go rowing will help put a little spark back in my butt--I could also use a good beach walk if the weather would give us a break...fingers crossed!

At least I've taken advantage of this 'down time' to work some more on Joanne's 'Draw Your Awesome Year' classes--so much fun! And I finally finished a few of the lessons in my journal:

Learning how to create vignettes and dress them up with lettering, cool layouts and borders

Also having fun playing with my Tombows, Aquamarkers, and Inktense pencils

Hope to move on the Illustrated Words and Dimensions lessons later today, but first--breakfast, water, happy!  

 

Have a great day! And, until next time...

xoxo

How Do You Know Where You Belong?

Sharing over at Melissa's today: Come on Over!

Scattered Life Collective

current time: 5:51am

on the menu: Patti's Pierogies in Fall River if the roads are clear enough!

out the window: a heaping TON of SNOW!! I'll be shoveling before anybody goes anywhere!!

reading: just finished week two of our ten weeks of devotional prayer with Beth Moore's Whispers of Hope with some friends over at Enthusiastically Dawn, and thought I'd share a few pics of the prayer journal I'm working on for this book:

 

Each day's page follows Beth's P.R.A.I.S.E formula and then, space permitting, I doodle a little verse:

 

listening:


Watching: The Walking Dead is finally back!!! I never thought I'd watch this show but I'm utterly hooked on the characters and story--it's so crazy good!



Good Things:

• Snow!
  
• love how it stuck to the wipers--haha!
  
  
  
• the moon is beautiful this morning!
  
  
  
• Pea's belly trail
• this dog and his pillow love:
  
• rowing, in spite of icy waters--sounds like you're pulling through a slushie. Sadly we had to pull another boat out yesterday needing repairs, so the club's down to one for a while...
• get my grannie glasses today--is that a good thing?? If I can art without blurriness then it is, I guess. Still don't like getting old. Meh.

around and about:
ifequip.com
a new garden
Better Than Fiction: 16 Mind Blowing Landscapes On Planet Earth!
and, haha--matching monsters!

Thanks for stopping by--have a great week! Until next time...

xoxo

 



Artful Friday

What I have to share this morning isn't really Paint Party Friday material but I wanted to do a quick post of what I've been doing creatively this week. I'm still hard at work trying to catch up with Joanne Sharpe's Draw Your Awesome Year course--so much fun to doodle and experiment...loving watching my book come along!

I believe Joanne chose a Strathmore Mixed Media Journal to illustrate the classes, but I had a brand new Canson Mixed Media Journal in my stash of art toys and decided to use that rather than spend more money on more toys...It never ends!! It's worked out beautifully so far--here's the pages I've worked on this week:

 

Of course that book list will grow throughout the year, along with more goals and projects...
Sharpie and Inktense

I know we don't travel much--it's hard with three dogs and five birds to leave behind, but we do have a couple things on the calendar which I've penciled in and will illustrate later on...This will be fun to fill up!
Drawn in Sharpie, colored with Tombows

A page for quotes and notes and dreams...

More playing with my Towbows--love the brilliant color!

 

Birthdays, anniversaries, special happenings...

 

I have lots of coloring to do yet!

 

Clearly not finished--but Joanne gives tips on creating pretty little art journal vignettes that I can't wait to play with!

 

Click above if you'd like more info on this great class and more at

Whimspirations with Joanne Sharpe!

Scattered Life Collective

current time: 7:26am

on the menu: Mushroom Barley Soup for lunch, Cod with a Cucumber/Radish Salad for dinner

out the window: Lots of snow and ice

reading: (still) George RR Martin's A Dance with Dragons--I'm so afraid to get to the end!! I don't want to have to wait for Winds of Winter!! And totally have an all time favorite fiction moment: Dany flying away from the fighting pits riding Drogon--my heart just soared away with her!! Aaahhh!!

listening:



Watching: Downton Abbey--oh please let Edith find Michael!!



Good Things

• Rowing. I didn't think we'd actually go out yesterday morning at 14 degrees and a windchill of 2, but we did! Seals were EVERYWHERE! It was so amazing. Back out later this morning--at least it should be in the twenties :)
• A trip to Braintree to get my eyes checked--yeah, gettin' the progressive bifocals so I can see to work on my arts
• Lunch at Hingham Beer Works sitting right next to Hingham Shipyard--so beautiful
  
• Walking out on Long Pond. I never walked out on an iced over pond--kinda scary but so cool!
  
• Ezekiel bread-and Market Basket has it!
• Market Basket

Around and About
20 of the Most Unbelievably Beautiful Places on Earth just.wow...
And this: Artist Spends Up to 8 Hours on Beautiful Sand Paintings That Will Be Swept Away by the Wind

All right--the hubster's up and wants on to play. Have a fantastic Sunday, whether you're watching Downton, the Dead, or Beatlemania tonight--gonna be a fight for the remote!!

Until next time...

xoxo

RJD & PPF!

Woo Hoo!! We made it to Friday! Gonna start this post off linking up with my girl, Dawn's, Random Journal Day--a monthly link up of all things 'Journally'! So I'm sharing my new prayer journal that I picked up to begin (also thanks to Dawn)  Beth Moores's Whispers of Hope: 10 Weeks of Devotional Prayer. There's room to write in the actual book but I wanted to go a little more arty with this, so snapped up just an inexpensive Daler-Rowney sketchbook at the local neighborhood Walmart (my home away from home...) See--nothing fancy schmancy, just this:

 

And then each day, I'm doing a little grid work to coincide with Beth's P.R.A.I.S.E. formula, and when the mood strikes, a little Scripture doodle art as well:

 

I thought I might also share my Draw Your Awesome Year journal (an online course offered by the fabulous Joanne Sharpe) since it's both journal related and painting related (for Paint Party Friday! Woot Woot!!) I still need to finish my January grid:

 

 

And just finished inking in February's heart grid yesterday--each heart represents a day and will get filled in with highlights from my super exciting life:

 

 

And I finally finished my lighthouse yesterday as well--the border was getting to be a little busy, I just hope it isn't too much:

 

 

 

So that's the week's offerings. Back to painting rocks next week--and I need to get to the beach to find more rocks!! Have a fantastic weekend, thanks for stopping by! Until next time...

xoxo

   

 

 

Hidden Falls-A Book Review

Posting over at Melissa's and Dawn's Musings today

Giving In Gracefully...Sort Of...

It's been coming for a while now, as much as I didn't want to admit it. It's gotten harder and harder to focus (there's that word again...) on anything up close. And when I'm arting, it's all up close. I love super intricate itty bitty detail work and I typically sit all hunched over, my nose practically on top of whatever I'm working on--well, almost that close. But, lately...it blurs. Bad. Lines split, I can't get it to come together--frustrating. Then. Mr. Optical Man Hubby caught me. Trying to read the directions on the back of a package of noodles one night for dinner. He laughed. The audacity. The nerve!! Tilting my head back, holding the package farther away, squinting...really??

"You need bifocals." Smirk.

Evil eyes flash in his direction...albeit blurred evil eyes...Oh the humanity!!

So off we went Saturday to find me some new eyes. I wanted something funky and cool. Yeah...you know you're getting old when readers are your new cool...*sigh* First stop at CVS only found $15 Foster Grants (you do know I'm a giant cheap wad, right?) Pass. Big Lots--that was the place!! So much to choose from! I couldn't decide on just one, so I got two--one a little stronger than the other, justified by a.) the price--one pair was $3, the other $5--sweet! And b.) I work at different table heights, requiring different magnification levels (at least in my head--and we all know I live in my own little world in my sweet head) I paint at the kitchen table, but do most of my lettering and drawing tucked under the coffee table in the living room. So, one pair is with my drawing stash and I popped the other pair in my paint brush cup (which also helped nicely with my bible study this morning--these things are all kinds of handy!!) Wanna see??

It's all about the temple love--shazah!!

It's a little weird adjusting to how big they make everything look when writing and drawing. And forget about trying to watch TV at the same time--super crazy blurry. Next step--a new eye exam and progressives....It just never ends...

Until next time...

xoxo

Focusing

Immediately after declaring my One Word for 2014 to be Focus, I found a link to join up for a Month of Letters. Mail Art!! The challenge is to send one piece of mail every day through the month of February. I've already signed up to participate in National Letter Writing Month in April again--and I had second thoughts about that, so why I would jump at another month of mail madness RIGHT when I decided I needed to FOCUS more this year is clearly the enemy trying to distract me from that goal. I do love snail mail and making mail art and sending that love out into the world, but that is certainly not what I need to be doing at this moment in time. I have paintings to work on, just started a prayer art journal I want to delve into, and I really don't need the distraction of another frivolous, not to mention expensive with the increase of postage, mail challenge. So, I am reneging on the Month of Letters and stopping to reflect more on just what I need to focus on, what it is that God would have me do (*virtual smacking of a ruler on my knuckles--bad me!*)

 

To focus our minds on the human nature leads to death,

but to focus our minds on the Spirit leads to life and peace.

~Romans 8:6

 

No one ever said this was gonna be easy...

 

Until next time...

xoxo

A Scattered Life Collective

I've been wanting to do a 'currently' post lately and since these Scattered Life Collective posts were some of my favorites from the old blog, I definitely want to continue them here and link up with Cynthia over at Spirit Uncaged. And away we go!

current time: 7:12am

on the menu: Butternut Squash Soup with Chicken--mmm good!

out the window: Melting snow and puddles on the patio

reading: Starting Whispers of Hope by Beth Moore this morning with my friend Dawn over at Beneath the Surface: Breath of Faith. So excited for this 10 weeks of devotional prayer study--just what the doctor ordered!

listening: Speak Life by TobyMac



watching: Under the Gunn--I'm hoping that now that the mentors have their designers the show will take off. I love Tim and all three of the mentors, the show has great potential but the first two episodes were slow and almost painful...Let's have some designer drama!!




 
good things: 

• New beginnings-with this blog, co-posting with my friend Melissa's blog, reflecting on a new direction-and FOCUS!
• Seagulls and snow--still my favorite combination!
• My first acceptance to do a review of some sketchbooks (coming soon over at Melissa's!)
• A company that really, really appreciates my hubby
• Fun surprising friends with mail love
• A freezer full of homemade soup--I feel all cozy just thinking about it!
• Family Bowling Night tonight! Let the craziness commence!

Around and About

I retweet Ann Voskamp's blog posts quite often but this one last week spoke straight to the very core of my soul...

I wish I had more to share for Around and About but I was rather unprepared and hope to pay better attention for next week! Thanks for stopping by! Have a great weekend and until next time--xoxo

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