playin' with paints with Pezza

hi all!

WOW what a weekend!  YES it took til wednesday to recover!  the retreat was fantastic!  and my visit with Cat and Ann was fantastic-er!  Cat got here thursday and pezza ADORED her - it was the first time they had met in person but i have been friends with cat since pez was tiny.  So apparently i am correct in my suspicion that people outside of the US have a totally distorted view of us.  First thing she asks is if i am "packing heat" - i about fell over it was so funny.  she also thought we could buy guns at the drugstore and can get a free gun for opening a bank account - thank you michael moore.  she did become QUITE excited when i told her we do own guns though - she had never seen or held one before...more on that topic in a minute...

we spent friday putting together class kits and such and then hit the road.  i think we laughed the entire way - it is mind boggling how identical our minds work.  the journey was smooth until we were 6 minutes from the hotel and then my GPS just went off the grid.  it was showing me driving where there were no roads, telling me to turn where i couldn't, at one point it showed the car levitating with an arrow underneath pointing backwards...WTF?!?!?!?!?  we finally got the directions pulled back up on our phones and found the hotel.  we went right into dinner where colleen had fun games and prizes prepared and then we did our pinterest show and tell - the hit - ann's cupcake vodka jello shots.  i don't drink so i didn't have any BUT cat sure did and boy did she get funny!

saturday i taught classes all day - a two part mixed media workshop and a beginning colored pencil class.  all of my students were fantastic and i was so impressed by them!  we had lots of fun and i am hoping they all took alot of info away with them that they can put to use at home.  Dinner and more fun on saturday night with all of the Outlawz girls.  THEN we got to sunday.....let me just stop here for a moment and tell y'all cat is CRAZY!

but first i wanted to show y'all the two pieces Pezza and I made this morning - this is the first mixed media project my class did.  This one is mine:

 and here is Pezza's:

I let her choose her colors and such - i just teach how to use the mediums.

 We started with Luminarte Primary Elements and Gel Medium and smeared it on using our pallette knives.

I cut out the mushrooms on my Cricut and then i punched the book page strip from the page of one of the fabulous old music books my step-dad gave me.  We painted them using Luminarte Twinkling H20s.

Finally, we mixed some more Primary Elements with Bead Gel Medium - I used mine for the dots on my mushroom but Pezza wanted hers on the edge of her book page border.  a few glittered skittles and pezabling finished off the look.


I wanted to put a phrase on mine but wasn't sure what until i read my friend Dyan Reaveley's blog his morning - i am a member of a fantastic facebook group called Art Journaling for Women and Dyan issued us a challenge.  we were to make a page stating "I am an artist."  so today Dyan posted them ALL on her blog and posted some very wise words about being an artist and the phrase that struck me was that if art feeds your soul then you are an artist.  i like that!

i will save the story of sunday for next time but here are a couple kitten pics for you - Taffy was back in the vet's all afternoon monday - xrays and even an ultrasound of her little teeny tummy.  fluid in her lungs but NO FIP which is fatal so that was good news.  she is back on antibiotics and fighting like a trooper.
here are the girls - Skittle and little Taffy - you can see her eyes half closed.  she sleeps alot right now.

and here is little Twizzler standing guard over his sisters :)