Merry Christmas and Happy However You Celebrate to My Blog Friends!

My Dad took us up Kolob Canyon and I was able to take some cool photos. (Note to self: Add more photographic trips in order to take artistic and fun photos to my New Year's Resolution list.)

    I know that it has been a very long time between blog entries, and I am sorry for that. Many changes have taken place in my life that has taken me away from updating my blog. There really should be no excuses for slacking on keeping my Blog Friends updated. I will add keeping my blog updated more often to my New Year's Resolution list.

    Now, back to what I have been doing. I believe that many of you know that I have gotten back with my Mom and Dad, and in doing such has helped me tremendously. We went down to S. Utah to visit them twice, once to see them after their long summer travels and another time was for Thanksgiving. Both times were fantastic.

    My parents took us to Zion Lodge for Thanksgiving dinner and even though my lovely Mom tried to add some weight on me with all her fantastic baking, I lost weight. In fact, between working and watching what I eat, I have lost three pant sizes. Yeah!!!!!!!!!! Still have more to go, but I will get to the size I wish to be and shall be, (not going to add it to my resolution list because it may sabotage my path to a smaller me;-)

    I know that this blog entry is short and I promise that I will be better at adding more in the future, plus more often. My wish for you all is that your Holidays are happy and filled with love. That your future in the new year is bright and filled with all that you and your families need.

With love, Rhonda (aka: The Philosopher Artist)

Now go create and be happy!

I Have Been a Busy Girl!!!

Hi to all my blog friends,
I know that it has been a long time between posts, but a lot has been going on this summer.

First, we did manage to redo the trailer, not completely, but the floor, wall and the decor is really nice. There is just a few more decorations I want to do. They will have to wait. We got to go camping a couple of times and will be going the weekend after Labor Day.

Second, I am getting healthier by the day! In fact, I got a job outside of my home and it pays money;-) not much, but that is not the reason I took the job. I am a Classroom Instructor (teacher's aid) at our local charter school. My son went there last year and he really wanted me to be a substitute, but the instructor job came up and I went for it. They hired me before I got home to read my email. My son was so excited he did a little happy dance. I work about 34 hours a week and I drive there by myself. Many of you who have been following my blog know what a major deal all this is. The only sad part is, now I do not have much time for art. I will save my Sundays for art and perhaps Saturday, too.
I worked on my Partnership Artist Art Journal today and that was fun. Need to let it dry before sending it off to my partner in AZ.

Finally, the best part of the summer is getting back with my father and my mom after nearly 15 years of not speaking to them. It is a long soap opera story. Long story made short; I just thought that my dad did not want to have anything to do with me after marrying my mom (step-mom, she is now my adopted mom). I got to see them for a bit and hug my dad and mom, plus we talk every weekend (they are a retired traveling couple). Just that little bit of time with him (them) helped my health a great deal.

So, you see it has been a busy summer. Now fall is coming and then winter, but there is always time for love and art. 

Now go create beauty! 
     
(Top photo is of Mt. Timpanogos one of the highest peaks in Utah, over 13,000 ft above sea level. The campground is around 8 to 9000 ft. a very beautiful place to be. One of my favorite spots in Utah. I love Aspen Trees. In fact, I have several in our yard.
Bottom photo is of a blooming Iris in my backyard up against the fence. We had a cold spring that lasted into June and my tulips never really bloomed much.;-( maybe next year.)

My Trailer & Happy May Day!

Happy May Day!
I am still working on my vintage trailer(it actually belongs to my hubby) and not doing much in the way of art. Perhaps working on my trailer is part of my art, because it is taking some imagination to figure out how to fix the problems and to update the decor. Yes?, No?, Maybe? Anyway, here are some photos showing some of the damage that can be done if you do not pay attention to water.
I have fixed the wall and will be adding white bead board over the walls, the outer walls. Hubby fixed the floor and we will put down some kind of tile. He has also fixed up the peeling paper off of the ceiling and will be priming that and the bathroom today. I am sewing covers for all of the cushions and making curtains. We also have to fix the potty because someone got into the trailer during the winter while the trailer was in storage and burnt a sanitary napkin and tossed it into the toilet and burned the bowl. It did not cause any holes but an ugly black burn mark with bubbles. In order to fix it we have to use a two  part epoxy filler and a two part epoxy paint, which is a lot of work, but unless we find a new used (yuk!) toilet we have to do the work.
There is a bit of work to do on this 35 year old trailer but have you seen the prices of the new ones? Yikes! Besides that they just do not have any history or style, just blah, blah, blah, same ole stuff.
Well, today I am going to work on the cushions, since it is still storming outside. I hope to have them done soon. I will post some updated photos when we get done.
Once it is done I am going camping! Even if it snows;-)

Now you all have a happy and creative day!

Where Have I Been?

It has been a long, long time since I last added a new post to my blog, my bad! Well, here goes my excuse as to why it has been too long. First, I got really sick, second, I got really busy and finally, I got really lazy. There that sums it up, now onto more important details.
I did do a few pages for my AJS class and some artist journal pages in my partnership journal, but other than that I have not done too much in the form of art. The obstacle in the way of my art, is that I have been dreaming of Spring and Summer, which means camping. Now that I am feeling better and have medication to control my panic attacks I want to go camping, but my trailer needs some work.
I also got the notion that I would like to spend a month in the mountains working on a book. Alone or semi-alone in the mountains away from the safety net of my home where there are neighbors to come to my rescue if I have a panic attack, which I have not had to do in three years. I want to be free to drive to different places and not be afraid. I want to be back to my ole self again.
My hubby and I fetched the trailer a couple of times from the place we store it at and began working on making it pretty. It was a dirty mess and had a bit a dry rot, but mostly the decor is tired looking. We have been working on it as often as the weather will allow, which in Utah is not very much and because our garage is up a steep driveway we have to work in the street. It will probably take us another few weeks to get it done. As long as it is done by the first of June I will be happy.
And that my friends is what I have been up to. Stay tuned for photos.

Now go create some magic!

The Rest of the Story: January 2010 Art Journal

I have at last finished my January 2010 Art Journal. Yes, I know it is now February and the journal should have been done by the last day of January. I tried real hard to keep up with it, but life and other art projects got in the way. Okay, I take on too much and at the time it seems like I can get it all done, and yet somethings get pushed to the side and done later or perhaps never done. At least this project got done and it was a lot of fun doing it.
Some of the pages or prompts are not done in order and some of Milliande's prompts I did not do. My journal only contained sixteen pages, therefore I picked the prompts that fit or that I liked. It was fun watching her videos which you can see on YouTube. She is an amazing women and very talented!

Anyway, here are the rest of the pages I did in this journal. I hope you like them and that some bit inspires you to create. Have a fun and very creative day!

This is he back cover. Date finished: 2/8/10 [only eight days late;-)]

January 2010 Art Journal Project

I have ventured into yet another project. Milliande of Milliande Art Community for Women has started an art journal project in which we, those that wish to join in on the fun, will do a daily entry (with prompts) into our art journal for January. It is to start the year off with art. You can read more about it here and watch Milliande's fun videos of her doing her pages. It has been a challenge, but a exciting one to say the least. I am a day or two behind but that is okay, because there are to be no worries in this project. Anyway, here are photos of the pages I have done so far.

First and Second day: I made the Journal, which is a Teesha Moore 16 page journal  made out of a 22"x30" piece of watercolor paper. It is a fun and easy way to make a journal. After I got the journal together I pre-painted all the pages using  artist's acrylics in blue, red, green and some black to make the pages different shades of purple. Once the paint was dry I created the cover. There is a whole bunch of stuff going on in this layout, stamps, ink, embossing powder, collage, stickers....and so on.

Third day:  We were to add a large circle to our layout. I took photos with my cell phone camera while I was outside having coffee and reading. The photo on this page is of the sun and printed with my new Polaroid Pogo printer. I added a bit of white on the first few days work over the dark purple. The star is cut from a Christmas card and has glitter on it but the scanner does not pick up that very well.

Fourth day: This is a layout using a Pogo print of my cup of coffee. The challenge for that day was to add a checkerboard pattern to the layout. I cut a square from a styrofoam meat tray and then used silver metallic paint on the stamp. The stamp was used around the edges of the fourth, fifth and sixth day pages as well.

Fifth day: The assignment was to add a piece of old calendar or journal page. I just made a new journal page and wrote a bit about my day then I did some collage work on the page. 
Sixth day: Draw a tree was the task of the day. I drew three winter trees using pastel pencils. It took me a couple of days to finish this page because I wanted to find a quote from Thoreau's Walden. I just knew there would be a good quote in one of his chapters based in the winter. Here is the kicker. I did not just want to read the chapters, I wanted to read them while I sat outside. I live in Utah, Northern Utah where the high for those days that I sat outside was only 29 degrees. On one of the days there was a slight breeze, very slight but enough to make that 29 degrees feel a lot colder and because we live on the bench of a mountain there is still snow in our yard. At least the sun was not blocked by clouds like it usually is. Despite the cold though, I did manage to find my quote: Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads. I wrote the quote on a piece of plastic, added a bit of gold beads and then used my heating tool to shrink the plastic a little. The page also has some vanilla inked 'snowflakes' with clear embossing done on them. The snowflake stamp was made out of a cork from a wine bottle (thank you, Gretchen;-).

Seventh day: Add a smile to your page. Well, I added three cute little smiles to my page. The photos are of my youngest son and my two grandsons and their funny little smiles;-)

Eighth day: Journal about our word or phrase for the year. I want to be creative every day, not just in art but in my writing as well. Thus far I have been doing very well at creating art and writing daily. Of course, it is only day twelve of the new year, but they say it only takes a few weeks to create a habit. If I continue at this rate my Create Daily creed will be a habit. Not just an "Ah, do I have to do it again!?" type habit, but a habit that I enjoy and I do enjoy it.

Well, that is all the days I have scanned into the computer. There will be more soon, I promise! For now, I wish that you all have a word or a phrase that will carry you through this year and perhaps beyond and that it is a joy.

Now go create something!

Happy New Year!

I hope your first day of the new year is going great and that the year 2010 is a very creative and fun filled year. The above photo is for one of my Creative Lettering assignments done in metallic pens, which do not show up well when scanning.

This is the time of year when many people reflect on the previous year and make resolutions for the new year. My main goal (I prefer the word goal to resolution, not sure why, just do;-) this year is to get back behind the wheel of a car, in our case a Tahoe, and drive to various places to create. I stopped driving a few years ago because of my illness, but that is getting under control, which will make it easier for me to drive. I will start with short trips and then work my way up. That way my anxiety does not have a chance to flare up. If I watch what I eat, keeping soy and certain wheat products then my shaky problem does not occur too much. Baby steps!

Other goals are to continue to be creative in my art and writing and I would like to get up each morning and get ready as if I was going out of the house to work, only I travel to my art/office studio to work (play;-). Another activity I need to get better at is doing my job for the doctor. At least once or twice a week should be enough to get his stuff done.

For now that is all the goals I am going to make. As time goes on this year I may or may not add more, but I will let you all know if I come up with more.

Now go be creative and have a load of fun doing it!