Here is an image of the art postcard I am sending for a swap. I love the pre-Raphaelites and chose an image of a painting of Prosperine (Persephone) painted by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. I particularly love the myth of Persephone, Demeter, and Hades. The postcard was digitally mastered and altered using Adobe Photoshop Elements. Since Persephone is represented by symbols of Spring I chose to use a Lily for the background, the pomegranate, and the lily of the valley. The painting itself is also rich in symbolism (note the pomegranate in the painting). Because the pre-Raphaelites were inspired by works of Shakespeare, mythology, fairy tales, etc. I chose a sonnet called La Primavera that went along with Vivaldi's The Four Seasons (Concerto No. 1 in E major, Allegro) and one of my favorite pieces of music.

I have a busy weekend ahead of me with 3 days worth of Leslie Altman classes. In the meantime, I finished my first three ATC cards for a swap I am in. It was a really fun project to do. I tried a background out that was inspired by a technique from Bernie Berlin's book "The Artist Trading Card Workshop". The stamp I used for the background was a page from an illuminated manuscript over which I glued a piece of distressed paper. Finally, I impressed into a piece of air dry clay (Delight) a Wisteria seed pod which had opened. This left a small indent at the bottom into which I drilled a hole where a pearl was placed. I used copper wire (24 gauge) to create swirls and curls, keeping the pearl in place, around the clay which gave it a fairly organic look.

...the Chargers lost to the Patriots today. I think they did well considering the injuries some of the players on the team had. On the bright side, they are a young team and there is always next year! We had a beautiful day here in San Diego today. As far as the weather goes, there is no place like San Diego. Went to my ATC Club meeting on the 19th and there were 12 people in attendance. Truly creative women belong to this group. I will try and get images posted of the ATCs that were traded. Our theme for next month is ribbons. I have some ideas but haven't settled on anything as of yet. I have 8 more ATCs to make (2 different swaps) before next weekend. I am busy this upcoming week and weekend. I start my next art class (drawing and composition) on the 23rd and on the 25th, 26th, and 27th I am taking classes with Leslie Altman. If you have never seen her work, check out the images on the Stamping Details website (http://www.stampingdetails.com/).

Today we had a meeting of our Mixed Media group at Stamping Details in Poway (I'll be putting a link under my favorites). We now have 14 people in the group which is very exciting. A lot of energy and talent with this group. Today one of our members Janet demo'd collage with images and acrylic paint. She also shared some of her work that she has done and it is just beautiful. I didn't do anything during class but take notes. I am not as creative if I am under pressure to produce so I brought my stuff home and will work with it for the meeting next month. Next month we are going to do a piece from Cloth, Paper, Scissors. I am looking forward to this also. After our meeting, my friend Pam and I went to mail my B&W Skinny Book pages for a swap that I am in. I think there were 6 of us that signed up but I can't wait to get the other pages back along with mine. I have put a picture of my page on the website (both front and back). All of the artwork had to be done by us personally so I made a collage of two images of art that I had done.