"Monday FUNday" - Everything AND the Kitchen Sink

Call on your inner 'super-hero'

Like Dorothy in her sparkly red shoes in Oz, you already have the power within you to make big things happen....and find your own joy. 

Seeing this jet-pack reminded me of the 'joy of fun' - and then sharing that fun with others. Joy is one thing that is never lessened by sharing. 

Storm Chasers vs. Storm Dodgers - planning your plein air trip

How to dodge thunderstorms you might ask? Is there something brewing on the other side of the state? Maybe not a big deal if you live in Texas, but when your state is as teeny as Connecticut, you might have only an hour or two and you are in the path of 'the big one'...or not. Many a rainfall that has soaked the western end of our state & toppled trees, blows out to sea before it even reaches our southeastern corner.  But say, you want to get in an hour or two of plein air painting, or a weekend bicycle ride, what are the odds that you're going to get wet...or worse (struck by lightning)?  My hubby, (aka Motoring 

Secretary at Roxanne Steed Fine Art) has this little radar app always at the ready!  I've requested that he share this with us! After loading up the bicycles on Saturday to go back to the "Airline Trail" in Colchester, CT; it started raining at our house in Mystic. But Colchester is toward the middle of the state, how was it there? So out comes the radar app, and he figures it's likely we'll be able to get in a bike ride. It rains almost the whole way there, but sure enough, we are fine on our ride - once we got there it was dry! About an hour and a half out though, he checks the radar on his phone even though the skies currently look fine. At this point he recommends that we turn around, another line of showers was headed our way.  Sure enough, we just got back to the car with our bikes, and it starts to sprinkle!

Here's the app so that you can put it to good use on your iphone, too.  Always err on the safe side though. Common sense wins out every time. If there's thunder and lightening, stay put indoors until it clears. 

Radarscope app: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/radarscope/id288419283?mt=8 

Give yourself permission to PLAY!

For my creative friends - when was the last time you 'played' with crayons? Remember the joy you felt as a little kid, getting those beautiful sticks of color out of their box?

Here's another fun one from my Summer Sketchbook series- 

"Tomato Summer"  (above) 

The crayons act as a resist, sort of like batik.  Take a white or yellow crayon, make circles, waves, whatever squiggle you happen to currently favor, and go for it!  Then, with a light watercolor wash, go over the crayon doodles you've jut made.  Voila, layer one.  Heck, if you're finding this a bit of fun, make several pages, try out several colors and patterns.  Once it has dried, decide what you want to put on top of this.  I've been staring at these great tomatoes that hubby has brought in from the garden. We've got them on a blue patterned plate, so I figured this would be interesting on this patterned first layer.  I draw in pencil at first on this one, then come in on top of that with permanent marker. I think the ones I had handy were Marvy-Extra Fine Permanent Mark It and also an Ultra Fine Sharpie. On the bottom of the plate I used a Tombow ink fine tip marker- they are water-soluble & acid free art markers. Touch the bottom line with a damp water color brush to spread the ink like a very soft shadow. I originally had the title written with the Marvy pen, but I didn't think it was dark or bold enough, so I went over it with the Tombow pen, and a damp water color brush - that gave it a bit more "oomph"!   

So go ahead, call on your inner-super-hero,

give yourself permission to have some fun.

Remember how much fun a simple box of crayons 

were, and try something new and different 

just for you!