Early in June I started an art journal, which has been a great place to do short little art projects. Some
are inspirational, others are an experiment in materials to see how different ones turn out. Using Mod Podge
I have tried many materials to go over images.....The first was a teabag, cut up & dried out after the tea was made....it had a brownish tint to it from the tea. See photo below

Later, I tried another journal page with an industrial paper towel, as shown below

Haven't posted much in June. Summer has been such a challenge this year for our family. Grief from my
stepfather's passing. Helping my mother through her illness and grief. Work had to be halted twice, once to
catch up a large workload, the other for my husband to recuperate from surgery, a large cyst removed from
his index finger. I turn to art, even in between these things. The creative faucet never really shuts off. It can
only be forced into a trickle when your days need attention in other ways. Just keeping up with daily work
often is tiring so that art can't be created.

I tried my first mixed media canvas and I am pleased with the results. I have been experimenting with
different materials to see how they turn out..

It was fun to do although it took more time and careful thought and placing of elements than other projects
I have done. I am working on a second canvas and will post that one later.

I learned about a process to do crackle medium that is amazingly easy to do. In experimenting with different
paints as bases and top coats, it led to a solution for a panel to replace the glass in our old kitchen cupboard. I bought foam core, which you can purchase inexpensively in the school section of about any
discount store, in my case, Walmart. I cut the foam core to the dimensions of the glass panels. Using acrylic paint, I did a black base coat, with only a little bit of water to help it brush on smoothly. Let it dry. Then
brushed Elmer's Glue on top of that and waiting 20 minutes or so to let it dry to a tacky state. Then painted
a greenish patina acrylic paint over that. This is what the cupboard doors looked like after I installed them.
The second picture is a close up so you can see the crackle effect better.

Loaded just a few of our nature photos from the last few days. Babies have flown the nest it seems.....I
caught the photo of Mama Quail looking for her babies. As I stepped out the back door I saw at least a
dozen little babies run up the hill. I snapped the photo just before she figured out which way they went.

Back to sketching..................(with summer just beginning my focus
has been more on nature!)
As a beginning artist, I have had trouble "seeing". That is, drawing
what is actually in front of me and not a preconception of what I
THINK it looks like. Once you have practiced enough, you'll have
taught yourself better how to "see. Another thing that I did early on
is practice solely on one part of the body.......eyes, nose, mouth, ears - since I wanted to be a portrait artist. Practicing is SO important! I haven't had much problem with that discipline....(more
a problem of time devoted to it and instead having to work all the
time) but, it's exciting, invigorating to see yourself progress. Even if
you work full time, it is still important to give even small amounts
of time to your art.

I did create this blog to be about both sketching AND music AND
miscellaneous things in life (like the nature photos I got caught up
in!) I like to listen to music when I sketch.....even outdoors with
a music player or phone. I also love to sing and get together often
with friends so that we can learn songs, teach each other things
and learn harmonies. For a long time, I thought that you had to
harmonize in a certain way....such as an alto or a tenor part like
you see on sheet music. But a good friend pointed out that if you
just listen and FEEL the music, you'll see where the harmony is....
there is no set way to do it. Sometimes the harmony is below the
melody part and sometimes it is above. Listen to some of your
favorite songs and see if you can hear where the different harmonies are. Try to match the singer's voice doing the harmony.
(It's not easy, there's often several!)YouTube is a great source to
use to do this, since you can listen to certain parts over again. It is
a great tool for learning a song you might want to sing, perhaps
for karaoke. After you've listened to the song several times, do a
search for that song and type karaoke after the song title or artist's
name. Many songs you like will have the karaoke version on YouTube so you can see what you sound like singing along with
a guide vocal. Soon you'll be doing this often to learn your favorite
songs!

Hummingbird babies are flying now. Only one stays in the nest. It has been fun to watch them and get photographs....almost sad to
see them fly away!

We have been watching Mama Hummingbird since her eggs hatched. We have taken a long time trying to
catch her image (through the window, while we are indoors) being careful that we don't scare her. She
feeds very frequently and while she was gone have been able to take photos of the two babies. They are growing so much you can see their little heads above the nest. They have very long beaks!

Mama sitting in the nest, in back of her babies