…catching up spring!

I looked at the calendar today and couldn't believe that it was already MID APRIL!!! Not, just April, MID April!  Seems like after a vacation everything speeds up for catch up!

A PEEK INTO MY TRAVEL JOURNALS...

Just returned from a sunny sandy vacation on the Florida gulf coast at Anna Maria Island.  It's my favorite place in the world, a bit of the tropics right in our own backyard.  It sure is a change of pace from sunless, gray and chilly upstate New York!

Driving around the island one day, it was a thrill to see an Easter flag that i designed years ago when i was licensing my artwork.  This house looked pretty fancy, so I was too chicken to go to the door and offer to sign the flag, LOL! I know, i should have.

It was a perfect trip. I came for the sun and sand and was there to paint!  Determined to bring limited art supplies, i made a promise to myself to create 1-2 pieces of art each of the 10 days we were there.  Armed with my journals, watercolor palette and a few brushes it was simple enough, and i did create 20+ journal pages on this trip.

 ...I like to bring a few journals, because i usually have more than one painted page going at once.

 This is my perfect vacation…eat, paint, beach, paint, sleep, REPEAT!  My bliss is morning coffee on the sunny deck with my paints and pages, filling the journals and absorbing the warmth and color around me.

 I love to paint.  There was no real plan to paint anything in particular, i just went with my colorful palette to just paint.  Watercolor doodles as a warm up got the paints and color flowing.

 …these pages can have journaling at another time...

 …brush to paper by the sea…….bliss...

 Capturing things around me with pen and watercolor...

...

 …the word "bliss" was speaking to me...

 …Adding words and journaling takes me back to the moments of tranquility while painting.  The journal pages feel exactly like the moment when it was painted.  Different from a travel photograph, when you paint or draw in a travel journal, you are putting yourself in a moment in time with pen or paints.  You are capturing the feelings of where you are, with your artwork which is drawn from a deeper place.  As you go back to the pages later, the artwork brings you back to those moments.  Maybe because your whole heart and soul goes into your art?

 …go to your bliss!!...

 …these pages hold words that take me back to moments.  Keeping a travel journal is a wonderful way to step back in time and relive a certain bliss and care free moments ...

 ...My heart and soul truly is alive and shines so bright at the sea…….

…until next year...