And, because I can’t just see the positive in anything (ha!), I’m also a little disappointed in myself because somewhere in the middle of the project, I lost steam and ended up rushing through the book near the end. I don’t think it helped that this project spanned two months over the holidays, but it was a really good exercise for me and I’m glad I participated. And as if luck would have it, the postmark deadline was moved to today, rather than last Saturday, so I had a little more time to work on it.

I uploaded my favorite pages to my flickr account:

Despite being disappointed with a bunch of the work I did in this book, I’m especially pleased with a good amount of the work. I gave myself permission to play, to doodle, to be silly and childlike. I scanned my favorite pages, which are in the flickr set here. I particularly love the happy accident that is the first picture in the above slideshow. She’s a little pink girl, who I found in a random watercolor scribble. She reminds me so much of my niece, Devin, in her Christmas photo from 2003, when she was almost a year old:

Just for context: Devin just turned 8, is in 2nd grade, is an awesome artist, is about to make her first communion and has brown eyes now…

My other favorites in the slideshow are:

- the papertowel I used to clean some brushes (I save everything), which ended up looking like a mountain range. I collaged it onto the page  over some book page scraps.

- the little running doggie. I want to practice more of the watercolor scribbling — I’ve been doing that a lot on my own, but my class a few months ago with Carla Sonheim really “enabled” me.

So, that’s my story for today. Happy January, folks!

My arthouse co-op profile is here.

More info on The Sketchbook Project.

It’s Wednesday afternoon, just a couple of days before Christmas, and all is quiet at Poudre Studio Artists & Gallery at Poudre River Arts Center. Only one other artist is working in her studio and the gallery has had a few visitors, giving me plenty of time to work. I’m doing two pieces for our February show, “Interiors.” One is an ode to the Barbie Townhouse I never had and the other is an ode to all of the shorehouses I’ve stayed in during my visits to the Jersey shore.They are coming along really well and I’m getting pretty excited about them. This photo is a part of the shorehouse shrine and I call it “beer on the half shell”.

The show was inspired by the book Mixed Media Dollhouses by Tally Oliveau and Julie Molina.

When I was a child, I always loved making things for my dolls; I had a dollhouse in progress when my friend Eliza showed me the book. We all talked about it here at the center and naturally, we organized a show!

There is still time to enter your work in “Interiors”, if you have a mind to. You do not need to be a Colorado resident in order to join in the fun. You may have already-completed pieces that fit the theme and that are dying for a new audience.

I used a collage I had done last year as a “We’ve Moved!” mailing when Tim and I bought our house. I submitted the collage for the “Home” issue of Somerset Studio and also sent along the postcard so they could see what I had done. They emailed and wanted an article! That was pretty neat and I’m very excited. Here’s a link if you want to buy it online. Enjoy!

I worked on these junk mail envelope book pages. I plan to embellish them and then stitch them into a wee book, using a running stitch.

I will post the results when….uh, when I finish. I still have a number of unfinished projects (my shrine from Kathy Cano Murillo’s class at AU, my melange book and tag books started at MHBA, not to mention assorted canvases and random shrines that are only at the gesso or basecoat stage).

Oh, and back to Andrea…She’s also got an online store, if you’re interested in checking her out, but can’t get to Bisbee.