WOYWW 73: First Boardbook Project

There's nothing to see yet!
Just applied wall putty on the first pages
(this is supposed to be gesso
but I usually use wall putty-
less expensive).

I've joined Tam's free e-course,
Art, Heart and Healing
(not too late to sign up for it).
I'm starting our 2nd week's project,
which is altering a boardbook.

More than a thousand joined up
and it's fabulous to look at the work
that was done for the first week.
We did a journal page.
I didn't have much time to do mine-
did more than my usual touring of WOYWW desks
(excuses, excuses!)
but here is my first week's journal page:
Tam is amazingly generous and is
putting a lot of time and effort
for this e-course.
She taught how to make faces
and how to do layering for background
(my goodness, her favorite phrase-
it takes a loooong time!)
What I particularly liked
is she didn't edit her video
when she made mistakes,
so you could see it all works in the end.

See you as we comment
on the WOYWW posts
on Julia of Stamping Ground's
bloghop!

WOYWW 72: Flowers in the Desert

Doone asked me a question last week:

"Where did Ayeesha's flowers come from
and how did they/she survive?"
Sometimes we think there is no life in the desert,
but the desert is teeming with life,
and the flowers there are extravagantly colorful!
They are also very hardy,
they need to be, in order to survive.

Blooming Cactus

Saguaro Flower

Orange Cactus Flowers

Barrel Cactus in Bloom

Here is Ayeesha:
I don't quite know what to add,
if anything.
The words I decided to put are from
Hosea 2:
"I will lead her into the desert
and speak to her heart
There I will give her back her vineyards,
and will make the Valley of Achor
a door of hope.
There she will sing as in the days of her youth."

Haven't done much
but I am joining a free e-course from Tam
called "Art, Heart and Healing".
This week we will make a journal page.
I was watching the video last night and
will start on my page this evening.

Anyway my table is a big mess
and you'll wonder how I get anything done on it.
But I do have a big cabinet beside me
(more like a dumping ground!)

And here's my journal for today:
Today is the Feast Day of Saint Magdalene of Nagasaki.
I guess she found the "inscrutable richness" of the Word of God
because she continued to preach Christ
in spite of the persecution in Japan at that time!
She was tortured for 13 days
then burned!

On that happy note
(happy because she was able
to escape to heaven at last!)
maybe you'd like to peek
into others' work desks?
Then head over to Julia of Stamping Ground.
I guarantee you'll want to
join in on the fun!

WOYWW 71: Ayeesha in the Desert

Here's what's on my workdesk this Wednesday.
At least Ayeesha didn't wander off!
She's quite content where she is...
even if she's in a desert!

I'm reading the book,
"Celebrations of Faith" by Randy and Lisa Wilson.
On page 32, it reads,
"Sometimes God has to take us to the end of ourselves,
because the desert places
are where our songs and our fruit come forth,
and where He speaks tenderly to our hearts.
The desert can be a place of intimacy."

I don't know how I'm going to make this canvas into a desert
but I'll think of something.
Besides it's not really a desert...
it could be a desert, a scorched place, a hard place,
because you're burned out, chronically sick,
uninspired, feeling hopeless, walled in anger and unforgiveness,
despairing, etc.
We have to remember
there's always HOPE!

Isaiah 58:11 says,
"The LORD will guide you always;
He will satisfy your needs
in a sun-scorched land
and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
like a spring whose waters never fail."

Here's my journal this morning.
I guess the fruits come AFTER the desert!

If you'd like to take a sneak peak
at what other people have on their work desk,
head over to Julia of Stamping Ground.
I guarantee you'll want to
join in on the fun!

WOYWW 70 : Ayeesha and the Missing Vegetable Vendor

This is my table

this morning.

Unfortunately, the lady I drew last week
is missing.
She probably didn't like all the plans we had for her!
Seriously, I have no idea where she is.
So I had to start from scratch.
This is
Ayeesha.
I wanted to make a Filipino,
but of all the faces I drew, hers was the one with the most character.

Under my watercolors,
is a pile of drawings of all kinds of girls.
My son said they all look the same!

Anyway, here's to hoping Ayeesha
will be contented to stay in my canvas
and not go AWOL!

Here's my journal for today.
Sometimes it's difficult to pray,
but even in that, the Lord
helps us.

If you'd like to take a sneak peak
at what other people have on their work desk,
head over to Julia.
I guarantee you'll want to
join in on the fun!

Flowers, Flowers and more Flowers

If you've visited me before,
you'll have an inkling that
I love flowers

and I've been wandering around on the web
in search of different ways to make them.
Roben-Marie
shows how to make her kind of
shabby flowers on a video here.

And here we have flowers
from synthetic materials.
The Hybrid Chick
heats the fabric
to make the petals curve prettily.
Then there are these
CUTTINGS
from Rae of Notes from the Tincture Lab.
And here are flowers using
old magazine pages...
and don't we have a lot of those?
These are by Jessica Jones of
How About Orange.

What I love about these flowers
is we don't have to buy anything,
we can just rummage in our cabinets and boxes
and use all those "one day, I'll" SCRAPS!!

I am going to make some and post them here.
But today, I'm waiting for some visitors
and do not have time!

In my Studio

It's late on a Friday night

and here I am working
on some faces.

My sister Peggy
makes really pretty faces
but I'm the sort
who likes to sketch fast
and likes whatever comes out!

First I applied wall putty
on old book pages.
Then I drew and painted on them.
They are going to go on that smaller canvas.
The bigger canvas is a long story.
Hopefully I decide how to put words on it
so I can finally hang it on my wall!
This is the first time I'm joining
Jennifer of Studio JRU
for her Sneak Peak Friday.