Laurie - I mean, Helga (darn you look just like Laurie Anderson in your selfie! I like her, too. Sat in the front row at a small performance in Georgia several years back. Couldn't get enough of her talent!)

Thanks for showing us the inspiration for your selfie and I just love what you did with the photo of the inspiration. I like YOURS better. What fun.

Thanks, too, for telling me (off blog) about the September workshop where we - you and I and others if they want to sign up - will use Procreate software on iPads to use photos to create something we can then paint in whatever medium we want and vice versa. I am quite excited to get some lessons since I just bought that program a few days ago. Paint & Pixels

Today I was inspired to start a color study art journal that I would have created had I been selected to receive a fellowship with a 1-week retreat at a art resort in Minnesota. So, I was a little disappointed that I didn't get selected; but, they sent me a really nice letter that didn't sound like one they sent to everyone who was not selected. Anyway, I said in my application that I wanted to study the colors of June in Minnesota during my week long retreat. There is nothings stopping me, I figured today, from doing that here in the city. So, I grabbed the book I purchased for the retreat. It is a 9" x 6" Crescent with non-bleeding paper. Crescent sketchbook  Here is how I set it up for this purpose:

Lettering is not my area of expertise. I just felt a need to give the journal a bit of a narrative introduction. Below is the first double-page study of a cluster of seeds from a tree. I pulled it from a tree 2 years ago because I loved the purple red color and wonderful tan gradient in the seeds. I made a color study of all the colors in the cluster then used them to make shapes in different colors (right side page). After that, I used the colors in an abstract painting (left side) where I tried to express my feelings about the colors more than the seed cluster. I worked with the book turned on its side rather than vertical the way it is open in the photo below.

I have a wonderful Japanese paintbrush with squirrel hair. So I took up some paint and rolled it on the paper in a horizontal line rather than a regular brush stroke.

Gotta go. Meeting friends for dinner.

-Eileen