Art Journal: What I Did This Summer

Somehow the summer has flown by and next weekend is already Labor Day!! I have been a negligent blogger and will try to catch everything up in one post via my art journal entries:

At the end of July I worked on a spread incorporating all the 12 plants/flowers associated with the months/suits in the Japanese card game Hanafuda. (If you've ever wondered how Nintendo got its start, the company originally manufactured hanafuda cards.) I drew these while attending the Inspire Your Life art retreat organized by Kim Geiser.
I took workshops in Interactive Art Journal techniques taught by Kim Rae Nugent (see sample at left) and Renewing/Redoing Your Wardrobe taught by Geri Justinger, and I taught a class on making Faux Tintype ATCs. We were in Kim Geiser's store/studio in downtown Manitowoc, Wisconsin, and you can see photos from the weekend on Flickr.

The August Sketchbook Challenge theme is "Every Day Objects" so I started this next spread with a staple gun, chicken wire, popcorn and Kleenex:

But summer is the fair & festival season in Milwaukee, and we hit the Wisconsin State Fair in early August, and the farm animals took over!

I'd been meaning to make sketches from all the photos I take of my sister's horses and chickens, and I finally did! In addition to State Fair, we also hit Summerfest and Irish Fest to see Gaelic Storm, which is probably the most festivating we've done in one year. (Sure, that's a real word.) So I leave you with my favorite Gaelic Storm song:

Where I've been lately

Life has been busy, and I haven't had as much time on-line as I have in the past. (Right now I'm choosing between blogging and washing dishes/doing laundry/updating the handout for the "Easy Pop-Up Cards" workshop I'm teaching next week. Guess which choice won! But the other tasks will be waiting for me, alas.)

My parents just visited this past week, so I spent time with them up on my sister's farm, which is about 50 miles north of me. Beyond the photo of my dad's quilt from my last post, my family generally refused to pose for me, and what photos I did take, they don't want posted in public, so you're stuck with these portraits of some of my sister's animals. I am now Farm Paparazzi! Shown above is Ginger in mid-yawn. Here she is being pretty and windswept.

The chickens are always a hoot, and by accident I made my first on-line movie since the button on my camera had slipped to video mode while it was in my pocket. It's only 24 seconds, and you can hear me saying "chick, chick, chick" in a vain attempt to get them to come towards the camera.

The little rooster was more intent on jumping up to eat the red flowers growing on the old smokehouse, but I could hear a chicken marching up behind me and turned the camera to find Henrietta, who is the head honcho among the chickens (and has the dogs and cats in awe of her as well). She was quite peeved that I had called her but had no food! So I leave you under her watchful eye.