weekend recap, in pictures- Art Journaling, and more!

At last, some art! My art-making goes in cycles along with my other interests, so during the last couple months while I was heavy into estate sales and Goodwill shopping, I hadn't done any art journaling. I changed that this past weekend, taking three classes at Frenzy Stamper in Scottsdale (my favorite store!) on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Kelly Kilmer was in town (yay!) and taught three really fun classes- two on Friday, and one that went over the course of both Saturday and Sunday. Selected pics from the weekend, below:

My workspace, before getting started: the only time
it would look that neat all weekend- lol!

random helicopter, hovering outside the store at dusk...

There was an art show going on along the canal just north of the store, and according to the newspaper, there was some sort of an art installation involving solar lights floating in the canal that were going to light up as it got dark... I'm guessing that's what the helicopter was monitoring. (either that, or someone fell into the canal, which does happen, sometimes, unfortunately.)

A very pretty sunset on Friday night.

right outside the front of the store: photo shoot!

Outside the store, there's a large fountain with horse statues... very picturesque, and tourists always stop there to have their photo taken. When we first saw these photo-takers, our first thought was 'wedding' but after seeing the girl's beautiful blue and purple dress, we decided 'quinceanera' was more likely. (Quinceanera is a Latin American tradition when girls turn fifteen, sort of like a debutante's coming out party.) 

a shot of the entire fountain right outside the store...
always surrounded by flowers, it is a very pretty spot!

geranium on fire...

Just kidding, not on fire... but I thought this photo turned out kinda cool. This is the un-edited photo; the fiery effect is from the sunlight shining through the petals.

Geranium in shade. (these geraniums were really pretty,
but they needed some deadheading to continue their bloom--
I wanted to get out there and do some gardening! lol!!)

here's my corner of the table during the weekend.
I had sort of 'walled' myself into my seat with all
of my stuff; it was a bit of an obstacle course! 

Page spread in progress, Sunday. The right-hand page has a wash of
white acrylic paint over the entire page to tone down the
colors, then I painted in the girl's dress and hair with watercolors.

The spreads above and below are from the book we made in class on Saturday and continued working in on Sunday. Kelly goes to a lot of trouble to always develop new class material, different techniques, and new and different book formats, and this weekend was no exception. The small book we made on Friday has all sorts of different-folding flaps and pages, and this book has a unique binding stitch. For this book, we also used watercolor and acrylic paint in new and different ways.

another page in the same journal, also with washes of watercolor
paint over the patterned paper, focal image, and decorative tape.
Different materials 'take up' or resist the paint differently,
depending on their finishes, which makes for interesting results.

This past weekend was also the Phoenix area 3-Day for the Cure walk... I saw walkers briefly in Chandler on Saturday morning before I headed to Scottsdale, and on Sunday, their route brought them right past the store-- how cool is that?!?

a couple of people getting set up for their cheering
section, to cheer on the walkers as they went past.

Another member of the same cheering section- this group was
all dressed as 'fractured fairies.' I love this fairy's floofy petticoats! 

An action shot of some of the walkers, taken as I drove past on
my way home after class. (I think this woman even has a walking
cast on her leg-- but she's still doing the 3-Day; how cool is that!) 

Seeing all the preparations, hearing all the cheering and honking as the walkers went past, and seeing the walkers themselves got me to remembering what a great experience it was to be part of this event-- now I'm sort of thinking about doing it again sometime in the next couple years.

Sunday afternoon on the patio

Ariel, stretching up to watch a butterfly that landed on the chili
ristra outside the patio- I love how she's on her tiptoes!!
I think she was being careful not to scare it away (which didn't work).

A photo of both journals-- it was too bright to get good
photos of them yesterday afternoon, but I'll take some soon
so I can post them. The little flippy book is so much fun, and
they're both really nice sizes to work in.

More photos to come, but I wanted to show you what my weekend looked like! I had a great time with Kelly, Debbie, and all my classmates. It was nice to get my hands dirty with paint and glue again after such a long time, and I'm looking forward to working in both these books. I'm also definitely looking forward to Kelly coming back again for more journaling fun in February!!