London Day 2

As mentioned in "London Day 1", we passed out at 7:30pm on our first night. Well, we both woke up at the same time and just knew we had slept through the night and it had to be after 5am the next morning. ......     Um...no. It was only 11:30pm. Jet lag at its finest.  We watched a documentary and a movie before passing back out around 3am. Housekeeping woke us up at 10am. And we were finally out the door at noon on our 2nd day!

We took the river taxi down Thames to the London Eye. 

From here, we jumped on a Big Bus and started our tour! I want to take a moment to highly recommend the Big Bus tours! They are the way to go! We saw so much in the short time we were here. We did the same thing in Paris (you will see in the next few posts). You get to hear the history of everything you are seeing. Plus you can jump off and get on another one, so you can use it as a type of taxi service, too. 

Here are photos from the sights we saw on the Big Bus London. 

One of the things I loved about London was all the old buildings and beautiful architecture. What was so cool was the juxtaposition of those beside new, modern structures! 

We hopped off and took some photos in front of Buckingham Palace. 

We finished our tour by getting off at Piccadilly Circus. I absolutely love the hustle and bustle of this city. Harrison took me out to eat at on a rooftop downtown. I had THE BEST lava cake I have ever had there! I can't believe I didn't take a picture of it! 

~~ to be continued. 

London Day 1

It has been just a few weeks since returning from London and Paris, but it feels like a lifetime ago. We had such a whirlwind trip that I get sad with every passing day as the memories are not as clear and crisp as they were a couple of weeks ago. Thank goodness my girlfriend is coming up this weekend so we can work on our travel journals. (She just returned from Norway). I need to get these memories, stories, laughs, feelings, smells all on paper before they become too fuzzy. Luckily, someone every day has asked about my trip. So much happened that I actually tell different stories to each person that asks; always remembering something else .... and then hurrying to put that memory down in my iPhone notes before I forget.

There are so many wonderful photos that I don't want to narrow them down anymore than I already have. Therefore, I am going to break up the trip into multiple posts. I hope you enjoy!

We spent the first 2 nights in London. I flew into Manchester and we took the bullet train into London. I really loved London way more than I thought I was going to. I truly love the hustle and bustle of this beautiful city!

The first day walking around, I said to Harrison, "This looks like some Harry Potter sh$t". He looked it up on his phone and said "That's because it is!". (yes, I am a Harry Potter fan). Leadenhall Market (below) was right across from our Hotel. It served as Diagon Alley in some of the HP movies! 

When we got to London, we pretty much beelined it to The Tower of London. It was mid afternoon and I had been up for 28ish hours at this point.

side note: I needed to have slept on the plane over because that would have put me waking up when we were landing in Manchester at 8am. However, with nerves, excitement... I did not sleep... at all. In fact, it was not a good flight for me. I was so fidgety, getting claustrophobic, couldn't watch a movie in its entirety. It was not good. 

However, I was energized and feeling fine (at the moment), so off to Tower of London we go! 

Wow, oh wow! The Crown Jewels... holy smokes! Amazing!! 

This is the chapel in the Tower of London. Underneath the alter is where Anne Boleyn is buried. 

Below is the place where she was beheaded. 

The Shard

We got dinner at a pub around 6:30pm. At this point, I had been up for 31 hours. And this is the point where my equilibrium reflected the lack of sleep. Everything started spinning and Harrison said I looked like I was about to pass out. So, off to our hotel we go. We were both passed out by 7:30 on a Friday night, our first night in Europe. haha

~~ to be continued... 

Wanderlust: Weeks 1 and 2.

Hi! So, I have thoroughly been enjoying Wanderlust so far! Every week is a different teacher, lesson, technique, etc. The first week, one of the hosts Jamie, taught us about products; specifically inks. He encouraged us to find our journey through paths and maps.

I really wanted my first pages of my 2018 art journal to be very impactful and meaningful to me. My word of the year made itself very clear during the last few weeks of 2017. And that word is VOICE.

So, I took Jamie's words of "find your own journey" and created a page where the soundwaves of my voice is my journey to expressing my inner self. Also, I feel this page represents so many people in the world right now. My hope is that my voice will empower others to lift their voices high, to stand up for themselves and others, and to be a light in the world.

I started the blank pages with journaling my intentions for this spread and for the year. Then, I painted and collaged; building up the layers.

Week 2 was so much fun because it was led by an artist I have followed for some time now. Michelle Turbide helped us to find our touchstones and to paint intuitively. 

"The Path" is my mixed media piece created on a 12x12" canvas. I enjoyed this process so much; that I have another canvas halfway done, and want to do this in a journal spread. 

I hope you've enjoyed the art so far! I will be sharing my Wanderlust work every 2-3 weeks. 

I have another project in the works, as well. As soon as I get far enough into it; I will be posting those photos. 

Happy creating! 

B

Goodbye 2017, hello 2018!

Hello all! I did my #bestnine over on IG the other day and I came to realize that I had a really eventful year! My boyfriend and I bought a house. I turned 40 and jumped out of a plane at 15k' over Vegas. I had some creative breakthroughs and we adopted a 6 yr old puppymill golden retriever.

2017, overall, was a very good and positive year for me. I let go of a lot of negative energy around me and set up boundaries in the process.

With that being said, I am really looking forward to 2018. There are so many things I want to accomplish. I want to have the most creative year to date! I am going to strive to create art on a regular basis. I know life is not going to always let this happen. But, I am hoping the week (s) that go by without creating art, other weeks will find me in the studio more than once! 

I am excited to share with you, that I will be in Wanderlust's 2018 online art class! I am so blessed that my mom gifted this to me for an early Christmas present! 

One of the benefits of "early bird" sign up, is access to some additional free videos. I had so much fun participating in Kasia's dynamic paper painting lesson! These fun papers will be used in future projects! (i.e. art journal pages, collages, etc)

Above are the various papers I started with and below are the middle and final stages of dynamic painting. 

Here are some juicy close ups. 

For the Wanderlust's year long journey, I will be creating in Dylusion's 8x8 Creative Journal. 

A couple of weeks ago (before I knew I'd be part of Wanderlust), I had ordered Dina Wakley's Media Journal. 

I am going to use this journal to play in, do challenges (outside of Wanderlust) and repeat some of my fave lessons from Wanderlust. 

I filled in the inner cover and first page this week. I participated in Dina Wakley's #showusyourMEdia challenge for December, called "HAPPY". 

The right wing flips up to reveal journaling: “my happy is being in my studio listening to Miles Davis. My style is chaotic like jazz. When I’m creating, I am totally lost on the moment and everything else falls away”

Here are most of the products I used on this spread.

What is making you happy these days? Please share below, I would love to know! 

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! 

Cheers to Jeanne Oliver!

 Artsy friends, I'd like to share Jeanne Oliver's new creative network right here. With her first blog post about it here. She talks about how long the road was and the hard work it took to get there, but they made it! I am so happy for her! She is one of my favorite, most inspiring artist-role models! 

One of my favorite classes of hers is Wild Awakening. This class was such a soul-pushing, limit-busting, expression-finding workshop! If you ever have the chance to take this class; you will not be sorry! Here is the 8-piece set I am working on during this class. These are about halfway done. There are many more layers to go! 
And this class has so many different processes you learn that can all build onto each other to make a series like this, one big piece, or even art journal pages. The sky is the limit once you learn these fun techniques! 

I had never played with charcoal or soluble pastels. Seriously, this class really stretched me creatively, with new mediums and techniques! 

Layers of coffee stains, charcoal and pastels... so far. Going to add some light blue and other contrasting colors and mediums before it's all said and done! 

Well, I hope you all will leave me some love below or tell me what class you've taken over at Jeanne's!   Also, go check out her new site and get entered into a fantastic giveaway! 

xoxo

B