It has been a busy week. I have worked on crafty cloth wrapped baskets and sketched at the Missouri Botanical Gardens. (There was a guild meeting, book club and great lunches as well). What I haven't done is work on the dye monoprints that I started two weeks ago. I got side-tracked by a family funeral and then started the Color Theory class. I am too easily distracted by outside events. I often wonder how some people just seem to throw together so much work and it always looks great! It takes me forever to research my idea and try out my techniques before I finally get down to business. Maybe I'm too cautious. This week I will try to work on my color exercises and get back to monoprinting. I saw some beautiful colors at the garden's Climatron.

I am anxious to try and imitate some of those beautiful greens and reds together.

The Garden web site is: mobot.org

I am taking an online class with artist Judy Perez. judyperez.blogspot.com

It is a Color Theory class and I am learning a lot even though we just started. I think I've always taken color for granted and used it very intuitively. I don't think there is anything wrong with this, but I am starting to see where I could make better choices when I mix dyes. I think I have been very naive about how to make different colors. If you are an art teacher and your kids color wheels always look off, it's not them, it's the paint. I spent years wondering why we could never make a decent purple or green. Then tempera came out in magenta and turquoise! What a difference. Our color wheels started looking more like the "posters". (I forgot to say that there was a time when tempera paints only came in very basic colors, so this really dates me). I am looking forward to testing some of my new information on cloth. I am very fortunate in my life to be able to do this right now. If you are reading this, try playing with color mixing. It is very relaxing.

I am a reluctant blogger, but because of recent changes that are happening in and around me I thought this would be a good way to have another creative venue to work some things out. Even though I have said this before, I am almost 100% certain that this summer will be the last formal art class/course that I teach and after 35 years I leave with a lot of mixed emotions. Physically, this is the best thing I could do. So, I just have to get over myself. The up side is I have no excuses for not being a full time artist and that is really what this blog is all about. I will be posting this long awaited journey. Because I can't help myself, I'm sure I will have things for Art Educators from time to time, but it will primarily be a chance to solve problems instead of giving them, ask my own questions and make my own mistakes and most important continue to learn. The raven will continue to climb the ladder instead of flying off the deep end, not yet any way!