I thought I should say something about my artwork slideshow. The artbooks were done in classes with Lisa Renner and Leslie Altmann. They are wonderful teachers, organized, and their classes were so much fun. With Lisa Renner, I actually learned about and used encaustic wax. The canvas piece was a class with Leslie Altmann. The jewelry were made by me and the purple crystal bracelet is one that I am selling. The pastel drawing of Adam was my master's project for my art class. We were to choose a piece from a master and reproduce it with dry media (the reason for the pastels). I chose Michelangelo's the Creation of Adam from the Sistine Chapel. The charcoal drawing of the female nude was the first piece I had in an exhibit which was by invitation only. The drawing of Beethoven was done in an art class from a bust. The drawings of the apples were also done in my art class and were an exercise of how light affects and object. It took me a few weeks to do the one of Adam as well as the female nude. I am a wee bit of a perfectionist when it comes to my artwork. My art teacher had to finally say "enough" when I was working on the pieces because I kept picking at them.

I took a class recently with Sherrill Kahn. Most of the projects we worked on that day were from her book Creative Embellishments. It was a fun but fast paced day. One of the things we did was to create a pipe cleaner bracelet. The only part of this particular project that I accomplished in class was just wrapping the pipe cleaner with yarn. I held the yarn in place using a little glue that dries clear. Once I got home, I decided to decorate my bracelet with wire and beads. I really like the way it turned out and just love the play of the turquoise from the yarn against the copper of the wire.

I loaded beads on the wire as I did the wrapping and made little coils using both round nose and flat nose pliers. I have uploaded an image of the bracelet but I think it is too dark. I have purchased a new camera and will try out some different photos and try posting one that shows more detail. Do check back to see the new images.

This is my first attempt using wool roving to needle felt. This piece is a purse which we could make with or without the flap. I chose one with a flap. There are three different layers of roving which I did with a variety of colors. Once we had needle felted the purse on the form, we wrapped it in a leg from a pair of panty hose tieing the one end (or both) securely. The whole piece was put in a washing machine then dried. After being dried, we removed the nylon and then started to pull the bag away from the form and voila. We have a purse. I started beading the embellishments onto the purse. The closure is a piece of colored gourd which I drilled holes in and then beaded embellishments on them using Swarovski pearls and three beads as a picot.

I use Irish Gaelic sayings for the titles of my passages. I am very Irish with most of my relatives hailing from County Cork, Ireland. I have had a fascinating journey finding out about my family through my genealogy research. During my research, I found that one of my relatives came over on the Mayflower and there was at least one who fought in the American Revolution. We do know that my grandfather (mother's side) was present at the Hindenburg disaster in NJ. My other grandfather had relatives that rode with Teddy Roosevelt (Rough Riders) up San Juan hill and another that flew with Jimmy Doolittle. In the far distant past, I also had relatives that helped William the Conqueror. While my family fought with William the Conqueror my husband's family fought on the other side. I am always saying (with pride, of course) that I come from a long line of revolutionaries while my husband says that means that my family "was kicked out of every decent country in the world".

The holidays are quickly approaching and I am happy to say that we had all our shopping done before December 1. We are going to spend Christmas day at home and then go to see the movie Alien vs. Predator II as per my son's request. Then we will be having ham for dinner a long with all the wonderful fixings. My husband and son especially enjoy pumpkin pie.

This weekend I am going to my friend's house to make cookies (round 2) then we are going off to deliver these treats. My son got his class ring today and it is very nice although he seemed more interested in the box that it came in. Reminds me of when he was small and would open a box with a toy....often times, he preferred playing with the box.

Well it is time I was off to sleep since tomorrow is a busy day for us. I will be posting more of my artwork so drop by again real soon.

This is my first post to this blog and I am still learning so bear with me. I live in Poway, California which is north of San Diego and east of Rancho Bernardo. Rancho Bernardo made the news as one of the areas hit hardest by the recent wildfires. The fire was about a mile and a half down the road from us so we received a reverse 911 call at 6:00am Monday morning following the outbreak. Our house was okay and we were permitted to return home Wednesday afternoon.

We love living in San Diego. We can be to the beach or the mountains in about 1/2 an hour. The desert takes a little longer but there is nothing more beautiful than the desert in bloom during the spring. Right now we have huge waves off the coast as there is an approaching storm. Waves have been 15 feet to 19 feet at their highest. Today it was in the mid-70's although at night it gets down as cold as 37 degrees. We actually had ice on the windows of our car! I know you folks who live in areas where there is snow will laugh at our having "cold" weather but it is all a matter of perspective and it is cold to us.

I am married and have a son who attends Rancho Bernardo High School. He is a member of The Royal Regiment marching band who won the Grand Championship at Arcadia for the 8th year in a row on November 17, 2007. He plays the bass clarinet. Right now he is preparing to graduate from high school so he has finally decided on his course of study in college (Oceanography). He hopes to attend UC Davis for the undergrad part of his studies and then attend UC San Diego for an advanced degree in Oceanography (he wants to go to Scripps Institute).

I am working on beefing up my art portfolio as I wish to apply to a Masters of Fine Arts program. They only take 11 students a year so they told me that my portfolio has to be very strong.

I have been a docent at the Maritime Museum and the San Diego Museum of Art. I had to stop being a docent as I went back to school and my son decided to do Independent Study at home. I have ridden on several tall ships including the Lynx (1812 Privateer), the Lady Washington (the Interceptor from Pirates of the Carribean), the Californian, and the Medea. I was in a tall ship race, aboard the Lynx, from Long Beach to San Diego. It was so much fun! We had to stand watch and my shift was from 8:00pm to 12:00am. We all had to help with raising the sails and coiling the ropes on board the ship. I even got to stir the boat which was difficult as we were just recovering from a really bad storm and the ocean was choppy.

I love dressing up in period costume and took up English Country Dancing (remember the line dancing in Pride and Prejudice?). I had to stop the English Country Dancing because I had knee surgery but I am thinking of starting up again. I love period costumes and took a History of Costuming/Fashion course over the summer. In some movies, unfortunately, I now recognize the costumes for the period as being incorrect.