Hot and Steamy, but Raining

I thought I was going to go down and have to be resuscitated in the conditioning class this morning. It was cooler but very humid and the fans quit working. By the time I left there, I was soaked through and my water bottle was empty. But it started raining on the way home and so I am a very happy person right now. I just hope it continues to rain all day. I don't need a great downpour; I would be happy with a fine rain for hours and hours. As soon as I got home, I ate a handful of cherry tomatoes and am drinking my first of what I think will be several bottles of cold water.


I did find time to do some art yesterday and I have a green thumbnail to prove it. I don't think these are done yet, but I like them so far. I used some Peerless watercolors on these two pages. Peerless watercolors come on small cards and are activated when you wet them.

I also did a bit more on the previous day's pages. I did find that dabbing some gel medium over the flowers "set" the Gel Sticks and thanks to your suggestions I found that using them a bit less thickly is the way to go.

I think both of the spreads are crying out for either some journaling or a sketch or perhaps an image transfer. Who knows what will transpire between now and the time at which I think they are done.

I did a couple of pencil sketches in my favorite repurposed journal. I made this one last summer and it is my favorite one so far.

It is a nice carry along size - about 4" x 6.5".

Lillian Kennedy has a site called Weekly Art Lesson and I used her guidance to try this Adirondack Chair. I have rather a penchant for these chairs as besides loving to sit in them, the hubster builds them.

And I love pears, both to eat and to draw. I don't think I've ever seen a sketch or a painting of a pear that was wrong. Pears are very forgiving and are not geometric so are much easier to draw than a bicycle or a building, say.

I had to lighten this one quite a bit because it was being overwhelmed by a much darker pen sketch on the back side of the page.

Last evening my daughter brought her two girls and a friend of the older one for dinner and then she and I left the girls home with Poppa and walked for about 2 miles. It was in the nineties and there wasn't a breeze at all. Ugh!!! But we were both quite proud of ourselves for sticking with our plan.

I did take a very cool shower when I got home and then put an ice pack on the nape of my neck for about 20 minutes. Very refreshing. As was to be expected, after my previous sleepless night, I went to bed around 11 last night and the hubster had to wake me at 8:30 so I could grab a bite to eat before my conditioning class. Here's hoping I can get a regular night's sleep tonight.

It is a day when I get my new lesson from Vinita for the Going Green class, but I am already over my allotted 5 GB from AT&T (last month the internet portion of my bill was $140 - this cannot continue). I am already over my allotted 5 GB for this month and have 16 days to go. I think I will have to drive to Mason and have some iced tea at the Booksellers coffee shop and do my browsing/surfing there.

And how are you doing? Are you in extreme heat? How are you dealing with it? Are you making time to be creative? Or are you merely surviving? I surely hope your muse is with you and keeping that awful inner critic at bay for you while you play in your art space. I'd love to see what you are doing.

xoxo