I've been creating a series of December/Holiday tutorial videos over on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube! The tutorial posted for December 21, 2020, the Bethlehem Star Card, needed a template to simplify the project. The file below if free for your personal use. It will easily fit on the front of a 5x7 inch card. 

Please right-click on the image to download it. Please click on a link above to your favorite social media site to see a step-by-step video of the project. 

Happy Holidays!

Concept Art for 'Tis The Season

Have you ever noticed that the less time you have, the more inspired you are or is that just me?

Every year, when the temperatures begin to drop, the leaves begin to change, and the decorations start to show up and I find myself ridiculously inspired—I cannot wait to get into the studio to start creating. I have all kinds of art ideas dancing in my head!

Except...the hours in which to create are usual nowhere to be found.

With all the extra activities going on in November and December, finding or making time to create can get tricky. I find myself up at some absurd hour in the morning or burning too much midnight oil in the hopes of getting something finished in time to use it for this year's holiday season. Sound familiar?

And every year as I scramble to get together an idea for a card to send to family and friends, I vow this is the last time I'm going to do this. Instead, I set a goal that I'll create a piece of holiday art every month so I won't be scrambling in December. Inevitably, or so it seems, as the year steams into the last few months of the year I realize that once again, I've not followed through on my plan and I'm scrambling to come up with some holiday art.

However...this year is going to be very different! Because you and I are going to be making holiday art ALL YEAR LONG! 

Introducing 'Tis The Season, An Online Holiday Class!

Here's the super cool thing about this class—the lessons will come out once a month for the year and there are three different class options that allow you to choose what works best with you. You'll also have a minimum of a year with the materials and depending on the class option, up to two years! If you're traveling when the lesson drops, don't worry. It will be there waiting on you when you're reading to start creating.

In addition, these classes are all about the studio and taking our time. There will be an art element as well as a lettering element to each class. The classes will be posted on the first Wednesday of each month and there's even a bonus class available! There will also be email reminders to let you know when the next lesson is available and to help keep you on track.

Come this time next year, you'll have a year's worth of artwork to choose from for your holiday card and gifts! Sound like a plan? Then come sign up!

You can get the details here. 

I look forward to creating with you all year long!

I wish for each of you the season's very best delights!

I hope your hearts are full, your eyes aglow with joy and you're surrounded by love. 

Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah!

Painted in 2011

I hope each of you find yourself with family, friends and love ones for the holidays, no matter what or how you celebrate.

I also wish for you some downtime so that you might savor the season's special moments without stress or worry.

I pray for safety for our troops and first responders scattered about the world, keeping us secure, and for their families as they celebrate alone. 

A tree? For me!?!

It's so shiny!

There's something on my head. It tickles.

Wonder if I can reach the shiny ball swinging down there, hmmmm....

I'm invisible and the humans can't see me!

Puncture marks on watercolor paper, copper foil and a custom card

Come and join me on Saturday, December 12th, from nine until noon, as we catch a little "Wave Action" in our sketchbooks!

I don't know about you, but I'm ready to take a break from all the decorating and shopping and head over to the beach.

The class will be held at Keeton's in Bradenton and you can find more info here.  We'll be working from photos and with regular watercolor brushes rather than waterbrushes.

Waves seem like a challenge until you break them down into shapes. Adding the foam and white spray at towards the end of the page are what makes the whole sketch sing!

I hope you can make it!

From my "Pineapple Journal" I made myself with Canson watercolor paper.

This is still on the table, but it's just in time to wish you the very best of the season however you make celebrate.

It has been a fun year, made more so by each of you. While we may not have all met in person, you each are near and dear to me and I sometimes wonder where I'd be without you.

Lucky for me, I don't have to know the answer to that.

Wishing you and yours plenty of merry, sparkly and bright!

Back in 2011, I did a "Christmas In July" eClass in the hopes that I'd be ready for the holidays before December 23rd…it didn't work. All I can say is that I had my cards ready!

I've decided to share how I painted a cat face for my Christmas card from that class as a thank you to the many wonderful artists that have passed through ImaginaryTrips.com as well as for those of you who may wonder about the class set up and what's included in a trip.

Below is the video demonstration and pdf handout from the class. Obviously, we don't have a private class blog to post our work to, but I think this gives you an idea of what the classes are like.

This could be used any time you wanted to paint a cat face (rather than just during the holidays) and there are ideas at the end of the video on how to make this even more Christmasy.

I hope you will find time during this crazy-busy time of year to add or keep some art in your life. I know for me, art helps to ground me when things get absolutely nutty.

Please enjoy and let me know what you think!

Merry Christmas!

The assignment can be found here. 

Raw Ideas Scribbled in my Junk Journal

I like to change out the blog header during the holidays and this year is no different. For whatever reason, I seem to have snowmen on the brain and that's where I started looking for ideas for this year's header.

I grabbed my junk journal* with black pen** and started sketching lots of faces, hats and scarves in an attempt to capture what I could see in my head. This last page shows where I switched to pencil as I felt I was getting close to what I wanted.
*A Junk Journal in a journal of inexpensive paper that doesn't hold up to washes or even heavy marker work. The reason for this is so that I can play in complete safety and explore ideas without worrying that I'm going to "ruin" good paper.

**I use pen so that I can just put ideas down and not get caught up in refining the sketch too early. This is a brainstorming session. The refining will come later.
As I looked at the long scarf, I realized it wasn't a long hat I was looking for but a scarf!

Refined Sketch, Junk Journal

You can't tell from looking at the sketch, but there was lots of erasing and redrawing until I came up with what I was looking for.

Rather than work out my color scheme in the junk journal, I scanned the page and worked it out on a page I printed off. This allows me more flexibility if I ever decide to use this particular sketch again.

I then redrew the sketch on a piece of watercolor paper and got busy with my brush…and totally forgot to take photos! Oops!

Lefty the Snowman

I had a near disaster at the very beginning of the painting process: I used a salt that did not absorb the color I used in the background! I've never had this to happen in all the years I've used salt. Instead of robbing color, the pigment settled in around the granules creating dark spots.

Righty the Snowman

Since I really didn't want to start over, I decided to add snow with acrylic paint at the very end of the process. All of the "snow" collecting on the hats and floating around is from a white acrylic Sharpie® Poster Paint marker. Sadly, I don't believe this marker is made any longer.
The heart represents the love we're all entwined in and the tangles we often experience during the holidays (well, really it's all year long, but it seems to amplify during the holidays).

Since I came up with a number of ideas on the other brainstorming pages in my junk journal, I'm hoping to create more than one header this year. We'll see if I can scrape together the time!
I strongly encourage folks in the ImaginaryTrip.com classes to get a junk journal because they're awesome for playing, exploring new ideas and on occasion, failing without having it show up in a regular journal. When we have no fear of failing, we are far more likely to play.

Using a pen keeps us from getting mired down in the need to "make it perfect" when we're exploring ideas.
With the new header up, I can now say my holidays have officially started!

How about you? What starts your holidays?

Christmas Clean Up Watercolor and Copic Marker 5.5 x 5.5 inches Pineapple Journal

Welcome 2013!! What took you so long!?! I am so glad to see the last of 2012. Did I mention GLAD?

A long time ago, when I first started the blog, I promised myself it would have a positive vibe, never be negative. If it was ever negative, it had to be funny. (I did not realize what a tall order I had set for myself.)

Hopefully this is gonna be a funny post cause, well, because. You'll figure it out.

I cannot possibly tell you in a few words how glad I am to see the last of 2012. I typically spend the last month of the year thinking through accomplishments, missed goals and getting a picture of where I want to go in the new year.

Did. Not. Happen.

I have purposely not dwelled on the year because well...let's just be frank for a minute and say, "it sucked."

From the first month to the last, it was one of the worst years I've had in a long, Long, LONG time. Blech.

My word of the year for 2011 was Revel. And oh, let me tell you, I reveled. In something you would hate to get on the bottom of your shoe!

When I chose Revel, I thought of reveling in happiness, creativity, and success. The joke, it seems, was on me.

Okay. Done. Year OVER.

Do you get all gooey with excitement at the end of the year and the beginning of a—fresh, unstained, pristine, sparkly, bright—new year?

No, me either.

Kidding.

Yeah, I do. Call me foolish, but I find myself flush with the possibilities and opportunities that the new year holds. All manner of things that have never been.

I also recognize a tempering of my hope. Maybe a bit of caution that has not been there as it was in prior years. Perhaps because I am dragging some unfinished business (like a truly nasty cold) into the new year.

The cold will resolve itself...eventually. The other unfinished business? Not so easy.

I find myself moving forward with more thought as to where I'm going and what I want to accomplish. And while it may seem excruciatingly slow to you, I ask for your patience.

Classes and trips will all be posted soon and all manner of good things will happen.

But this time, as much as I can, I want to make sure I am going where I need to go, want to go and to accomplish what I want and need to accomplish.

And hopefully, by the end of this year, I'll be looking back thinking, "well done."

What are your plans for the new year? Any new art projects or ideas going on?

Let It Snow! Watercolor in Pineapple Sketchbook

For those of you in much colder, snowier climates, please disregard this post and go about your blog reading elsewhere......because it's in the 80's. As in temperature. Outside.

Yes, this is Florida.

But it's the 22nd. Of December! Come on—it could at least be cooler!

We're not in any danger of getting snow. Or cooler temperatures. Well, not until the day after Christmas.

Then it's suppose to cool off to the 70's.

It makes it a little difficult to get into the spirit of things.....like snowmen.....when it's 85º out.

I suppose this is a blessing I'm not yet seeing.



BTW, do you see the second face in the image above?!