Stepping Out

Moving the studio to the garage has been a mixed bag for me.  It's often noisy, and it's a serious pain in the patootie to have to shut down the big door for security purposes every time I have to go into the house to retrieve something.  My books are still in the house and, after the little puddle of water I saw inside the garage door after the sprinklers ran, I think the books are going to stay indoors.  I will say that the inconvenience does keep me from over-referencing books! 

Stepping out of the house and away from the hustle and bustle with kids, cats, televisions and phones does have its perks.  I have actually begun to make headway on my art journal.  I feel a little flummoxed by the project (am I ever happy with my own work?) but have plodded along a bit with my iTunes going on the laptop.

Today I stepped a little more out of my comfort zone and signed up for an online class with artist Susan Sorrell.  An article about her appeared in a magazine I purchased about a year ago and I must admit to returning to the article and loving the photos time and time again.  Her artwork is fun, colourful and engages a lot of the skills that I've not used for a long time such as applying embroidery and beading and applying them to fabric collage.  How exciting!

In the meantime, I continue to try to do a little something every day in my new art cave.  We'll see what I can accomplish today before the rain starts.   I've got this much done - the journal stitched, the pages painted and the first few bits of paper collage started, all with the glare of the light coming in from the garage door windows.  Whoops!