hello on thursday

Oh my, this week seems to be rushing by with various doctor's appointments, new classes, sick children and sundry mundane events.  But luckily, most of these (except the sick kids, of course) are good and much welcome.

Today we had to go into town for a parent teacher conference, so my husband and I were able to grab lunch at our favorite coffee shop.

Since we are both working at home now, we have committed to one lunch outing per week and it's been wonderful.  Having these mini-dates in the middle of a work day really helps us connect with each other and focus on our relationship.  Great coffee an absolute bonus.

I have also been working my way through an online class on art journaling.  This has been a lot of fun, especially as the nine-year old has joined me in the studio to help.  It has been such a welcome source of one-on-one time as we gesso, dab, paint, scrape and glue.  The class is on layering and texture for journaling backgrounds, and of course it is sparking all kinds of ideas on techniques to create depth in my pieces.  Here are a couple of pages in progress; I will post the final results when I have them

The ridges on this page are created by closing the journal on wet gesso and opening it again, then letting it dry.  On top of that are several layers of inktense and acrylic paint, plus glued paper. I'm a little surprised at the color of the blue paint in this picture, which in real life looks a lot more vibrant.  I used Golden's Cerulean Blue Deep liquid acrylics.

This page started with gesso designs and then several layers of paint and gesso applied on it to create a layered and distressed look.

I can't wait to see how these will turn out.  The process of mucking around with paint together with a child is just too much fun.  To be continued!