Looking Back; Sailing in the San Juans

Bob at the helm

Last night I looked back way further than 2016, all the way to 1999, into my sailing journals from when Bob and I cruised the San Juan Islands in our little Cascade 29 sailboat, Cardaea. This is Bob at the helm on our first cruise. This is from my journal:

Seals popped up their heads to gaze at us curiously. At 7 pm, we slipped between Blakely Rock and Restoration Point on Bainbridge Island and wound our way through crab pot bouys, following a family of geese. We set anchor at the head of Blakely Harbor.

That evening, we fished a wine bottle out of the water with a message in it. The message, decorated with child drawn hearts, said,

Whoever finds this note, I will love.

A boy of about 5 on the boat anchored next to us watched with pretended indifference as we read the note.

As dark fell and the full moon peeked briefly through the clouds, we looked across the sound into Elliot Bay. Seattle was a fairy tale city, with a necklace of golden lights along the water front.

Ah, those were the days! Bob died in 2005, and I'll never have a sailing partner like him!

Awaken Joy; Intuitive Painting

When do we close the doors on parts of ourselves? Sometimes it just takes a chance word from someone we respect.

Many years ago, I drew a little person—an elf?--into a still life in art class. He just seemed to want to be there, so I drew him in. The teacher asked me why, and when I answered, “he wanted to be there”, she said, “You mean YOU wanted him there.” I don't know why, but a door closed for me then. It seemed that allowing something to emerge from my subconscious onto the paper wasn't allowed, and I've felt...limited in my artwork since then.

I want to open that door back up, but how?

So, I bought a book: Intuitive Painting Workshop, by Alena Hennessy.

Today I tried out the first "lesson" in Alena's book.

I thought I'd make a Christmas card design. Alena suggests using hand made or interesting papers for the background. I made my own background papers. That's as far as I got, but it was enough! I'm back in my studio having fun! When the papers are dry, I'll do the next step.

I tried both regular copy paper, and 90# watercolor paper
 
 





  



Recipe for Crinkle Paper Background: 

• Wet paper all over on one side
• Crinkle it up into a ball
• Drop paint on in here and there, until you have as much color as you want. Remember, the inside of the ball will be uncolored unless you take extra care to drop color deep into the crevasses.

card made with crinkle paper background

• Carefully lay the paper out flat to dry