Time Out....

Be True...snippet of one of my exercises taught in my online class

I'm not sure where this month went but it sure did fly by fast. I looked at my blog the other day and could not believe it had been almost a month since I last posted. I had been feeling extremely guilty over neglecting my blog--something I so love to do and spend time creating posts for it, and of course reading other blogs. But, sometimes we just have to know our limits and not put additional stress on ourselves by taking on more than we can handle. It just seemed overwhelming to me to sit down and write a well thought out post in between doing all the projects I had stacked up. It's a good thing to have a lot to do though--that means things are going well! whooo hooo! My biggest obstacle is time management which I'm pretty good at, but the way I'm good at is by working almost around the clock..LOL. That gets exhausting however and I can't keep up that pace forever. I'm overdue for a vacation! Perhaps I need to go back to New Year's resolution list and check off my goal of taking a 'trip to no where'!

Okay so what exactly have I been doing this last month?
By and large, the project that I am VERY excited about and extremely proud of is my online work shop, "Artistic Journaling, Your Way" that was rolled out over at Creative Workshops on February 28th. I spent over a month creating the samples, taping the segments and editing all the videos for this fun class, that right there explains some of my abscence from blogland :)

The cool thing about Gail's website is that you can join along at any time and work at your own pace. I know myself and it's not always in the cards to take a course that goes for a limited amount of time because of my schedule, so I think that's one of the things that the students love about Creative Workshops and our online classes over there.

Right after my online class launched, I conducted my first LONG work shop (6 hours) up at Jerry's Artarama in Raleigh, March 7th which was a TON of fun :) It was great to have so much time with all of the students to really work through our pieces we created. I thought I was going to struggle to teach for 6 hours but my fears were un warranted, in fact, I probably could have done a two day work shop with the technique I taught! Hmmmm.....maybe one of these days I will submit an application to one of the big art retreats out there that do 2 day classes....it is on my resolution list as well for 2010. Something to ponder :)
(Here's some of my pieces I created during class--still need to finish details on a couple of them)
I'm loving the purple and blue combo--fun! Adding a touch of lime green with accents of white and black is really wayyy cool and contemporary!
In addition to working on Jerry's class, I also did a super cute, whimsical collage for a friend of mine to celebrate a play her children are in this month. This turned out cuter than I could imagine--lots of fun to create this piece! Some of the funky images are laser copies of my journal pages cut up and collaged over the painting!

And here I am once again back in the studio--creating and getting ready for Spring Fest in Southern Pines, NC, April 24th-I have a couple of smaller projects sandwiched in over the next couple of weeks but the out door show will be my main focus. One of these days I'll paint my house and do all those new homeowner projects that I have on my list instead of just painting my canvases..LOL. I'm not complaining though, like I said in the beginning of my blog, as overwhelming as some days are, I'm grateful to have things to do, and even more grateful that they are things I love to do. My son wants to be a photographer....so you know my artsy life is starting to rub off on the children now..LOL
Till next time, one day at a time, one project at a time, and taking a few minutes out to breathe every here and there. Hope you have a creative week and enjoy every moment of it as well!