Perfectly lazy happy day!

What a terrific day it was, January 1st, 2009.  I "planned" to take it easy, meaning I would not look at and/or obsess about my list; I would instead relax and allow the day to develop.  Translation: do whatever I wanted to do. 

Oddly enough, once the day was done, I found I had accomplished some things that were on the list after all.

 

Such as the Pizza Box.  Why, you might ask, did I paint a pizza box?  Well, the boxes are being used to promote upcoming classes at Chesterfield Arts and each teacher was asked to furnish one.  I am teaching a ten week painting/drawing/mixed media class to 3rd-5th graders.  The class will introduce a variety of different media and I wanted the pizza box to serve as a quasi-illustration.   I created my layers with collage, acrylic, pencil, marker, ink,  soft and oil pastel.  

And here is a picture of gift wrapping for one of my artsy friends.  I used paper "blotters" that were taped to my table while I was making paste painted papers.  They are always a mess (but still kind of cool) and I hate to throw them away.  I save them in a big bin, along with all my paint stained paper towels, deli wrap and other various scraps.  As you can see, they make excellent gift wrap. 

I even had time to read today!  Currently, I am reading a great book, The Sharper Your Knife, The Less You Cry by Kathleen Flinn.  It's a memoir of her experience going to cooking school at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris.  There are so many parts of the book to which I can relate, although I have certainly never been to cooking school.  But she also left a corporate career to pursue her passion, which of course is what I did.  Plus I love to cook and enjoy food so much it is fun to read her recipes.  I got this book at the library and already know I need to buy my own copy because I don't want to give it back. 

I also worked on my sketchbook today.  The one I am doing for The Sketchbook Project.  It is due by 2/15, so I need to get going and I did several pages today.  I am feeling a little shy about them cause they are *really* raw in a way that harkens back to some classes I took when I lived in California.  It was actually hard for me to go there, that being the raw, loose place.  But I think it is a good exercise and I am going to fight my inclination to tear the pages out because they are not perfect.  I will show pics shortly, I promise.