This week, I spent a lot of back-breaking time in my garden, digging out six inches worth of miserable black clay soil, moving it into raised beds, and then amending what remained with 40lb bags of organic compost and peat moss. I also laid another ten feet of pavers, which required hauling 60lb bags of sand. I pretty much ache from the tips of my ears, which are sunburned, to the tips of my toes.
I took a break yesterday morning to take a short art journaling class with a local artist. It was just a basic lesson, but it was good for me to spend two hours thinking about nothing but art journals, which I have yet to explore successfully. I seem to have a block when it comes to journaling, and this class did help me to look at it less as keeping a dairy with art around it, and more like building a gluebook with paints and pens. I may yet produce some sort of art journal-like object…
Anyway, this week was also my last chance to work in Patti’s altered book. I did one more layout, about my favorite time of year: bluebonnet season, which is occurring right now in Texas. Every grassy patch along the roads is covered in waves of blue flowers. It’s a ridiculously beautiful reward for enduring a winter that is cold enough and wet enough to make the bluebonnet seeds sprout. It’s sort of a lame tradition here that every child have at least one photo taken in a patch of bluebonnets, so a few years back, I grabbed my dog, my camera and a red bandanna, and headed around the corner to the nearest patch. After 30 minutes of pleading, commanding, offering treats, and getting covered with mud, I finally snapped a few decent pics of my dog and the beautiful bluebonnets, which I’ve used over and over again in my work since. I’m sure Patti, who lives in Michigan, will enjoy this layout, since she’s been trapped under a blanket of snow all winter.
This book goes next to Corinne, and then back to Patti, which means our little project only has one more month to go. All my work from this project is posted here.