Color me June!

Out and about earlier in the week, I discovered color all over the place!

Breakfast beneath a hand-painted umbrella is a great way to start the day.

Across from a park, this wall of glass changed colors, depending on where you were standing. How cool is that?

Along the roadside, these lovely little flowers bloomed in abundance!

Happy Friday!

I created the little diddy using Carrie Bradshaw's quote a week or two ago and needed somewhere to put it so it wouldn't get messed up. After all, it was just some paper, ink and ribbon stuck together with some rubber cement. So, I glued it in my sketch diary and left it laying on my desk.

As the week went by, I added the moon face. It was something I'd found on the web and saved and I liked the color of the man in the moon ... he had a tinge of blue, like the ribbon. So, I cut him out and glued him down. Then, the doodling started.

I must confess I was inspired by some drawings I'd seen a couple of years ago by an artist named Pfeiffer ... her first name escapes me.  She did these charming paintings of female figures, dressed in colorful fashions engaged in fun and funny activities.  I modeled my drawing on her characters and colored her with my Crayola colored pencils.  I like her and might just try that inspiration again!

So, here is my offering to the creativity gods for this week, although it's not the only thing I did. I also created a Powerpoint slide show and sent it to my relatives for the upcoming family reunion in North Carolina that I cannot attend this year. I've taken umpteen photos of them in past years and wanted to share, so since I can't be there in person, I'll be there in spirit and with my photographs! Now, isn't that creative?

Enjoy your weekend! Make something fun!

Ode To Danita Art

I bought a necklace a couple of months ago from Danita Art on etsy ... and have since become a big fan.

Friday morning, in a quiet moment, I was looking through the artwork posted on her facebook page and found myself inspired. I used to love to draw girls when I was a girl myself, so I gave it a go and here's what happened.

I took exactly one drawing class in college and have dabbled from time to time over the years. I'm not particularly talented, but I find I'm interested in drawing again, so who knows where this might lead. Wherever it goes, it sure is fun!

Carrie Bradshaw quote, my way ...

I'm in a mood today ...

All my creative energy has been directed to my students for the past month. But, today, I doodled.

One of my favorite blogs, The Gathering Nest wrote in her Tuesday entry, "I can't believe where the time goes, I haven't posted for over a week, bad girl!!!! I am finding it hard to get any fun stuff done, but I am sure that I am not alone."

Nope. You're not alone. I haven't been writing much during March and April. Been too busy with environmental awareness in the schools and in the community. I have such an Earth Day hangover! Where I live, things have just been growing and blooming like crazy! I take my camera almost everywhere and I've captured some shots I like ...

I don't know what these flowers are called. They were a gift from a gardener friend last year and they're blooming all over my yard. If you notice the dark spot in the center of the flower ... (look carefully) ... it's a bee. They're really quite spectacular and I actually sent a printed version of the photo to my gardener friend thanking him for giving me these wonderful blooms!

So, I was fooling around with the focus of my camera and the flowers versus the wine bottles and I shot a "happy accident" ...

... my dog, Buddy, reflected in the glass, soaking up the rays and sniffing the wind.  :o)

And, let me not forget the tabebuia. The unusually long and cold winter we experienced seems to have had a remarkable effect on anything that blooms, especially these! For the past few weeks, they have colored the landscape and garnered much attention. They are simply spectacular!

Mother Nature's creativity has clearly run amok, but OH! What a joy it is for all the rest of us! Happy Spring!

Inspiration!

The mail carrier arrived bearing a package for me ...

It was my copy of "Book of Inspiration" by Jo Packham and Jenny Doh! It happened that at just the moment the mail carrier arrived, I was sorting through art entries for our children's annual art competition that we do in celebration of Earth Day, so nothing would do but that I stop what I was doing and share my delight at receiving this package! I can hardly wait til I get home so I can unwrap it and pour over its pages.

Thanks, Jenny Doh for getting it to me so quick!

Dear reader, if you haven't visited crescendoh, you don't know what you're missing! It's one of my "regular reads" and always a source of inspiration to me! I'm pretty sure it would be inspiring for you, too!