I'm Back Finally

 It has been quite some time since I posted last.

I started off doing cataract surgeries and my vision

was limited while healing took place.

Then the day after I had the last surgery,

I got a call from Florida that my mom was in the hospital.

The day after surgery, Mark and I were

in the air flying to Florida,

just barely ahead of a huge storm that grounded

all flights after ours at the Bangor airport.

Long story short - my mom didn't make it.

I've spent the past two weeks in Florida,

taking care of Mom, 

then planning a funeral,

then clearing out her room - emptying it of

furniture, clothes, everything she had collected

in the last eleven years of living there.

 Now that I am back home I am looking for some

motivation to art again.

I can't see well enough yet to do any detailed drawing.

I actually headed back to the eye doctor yesterday

to see if my retina had detached.

It had not, so now I just wait for continued healing.

For several years I have followed the art of 

Alisa Burke.

She uses beautiful, bright, bold colored backgrounds

which she fills with florals and designs. 

As I checked my email yesterday,

I had one from Alisa offering some of her

online classes for sale.

I may have signed up for five of them,

and she gave me an extra one for free.

 The first class I looked at was creating beautiful

water color backgrounds that can be used

to draw on, to cut into collage papers, to paint on.

There are many possibilities here. 

Alisa makes her living from teaching and arting.

It wouldn't be right for me to explain here how

I made these backgrounds from her class

but I did want to share them with you.

 I can tell you that I used some expensive watercolors

called Schmincke,

but I also used some cheapo watercolors

from the school aisle at WalMart.

You don't have to spend a lot of money to get

beautiful color unless you just want to.

 A couple of the projects used water soluble markers

to create water color.

I used Tombow markers and had a lot of fun!

 So much fun!

And I loved the colors, and texture, and drips

and runs, and all the blending.

 If you'd like to check out Alisa's artwork

or her classes,

just click this link.

It will take you straight to her website.

Alisa uses some of her backgrounds to make handmade art journals. I'm thinking that is going to be a happening thing here also.

Beautiful color. Texture. Inspiration. Now if I could just see.