Countdown to Italy

I just handed in my final paper for American History to 1815. I had to write an essay about an aspect of David McCullough's book 1776. That was a really good book, a page turner, even. My husband read it and found it very interesting. Here is a quote from the book that I love:

 "It was an army of men accustomed to hard work, hard work being the common lot. They were familiar with adversity and making do in a harsh climate. Resourceful, handy with tools, they could drive a yoke of oxen or "hove up" a stump or tie a proper knot as readily as butcher a hog or mend a pair of shoes. They knew from experience, most of them, the hardships and setbacks of life. Preparing for the worst was second nature. Rare was the man who had never seen someone die."

So that's it for another quarter. I now have nothing major to think about except our trip to Italy. We leave in 38 more days!!!!!!!! On Sunday we came across a doomed Borders Bookstore and purchased two guidebooks and a map of Florence @ 30% off . We are going to pick up our online Italian lessons again. I figure if we can ask for a glass of red wine we are OK.

As for art, I haven't touched any in quite a couple of weeks. I have some sheets of paper prepared for the next art journal. I used water color paper and did various water color washes on each page as a base. I can already see it isn't for me. It looks nice but you can't go over it with any kind of liquid as it smears the color. As they say, there are no mistakes, so I will just push on. I have been messing around with some photographs I took myself to avoid that copy right thing. I have pondered the question of what I have learned from making an art journal, and I still don't have much to articulate. I loosely put pages together based on theme, not date, but then I was pleased to find that they somehow went together aesthetically as well. That might just be serendipity. I learned that when stamping out words with rubber stamps, no matter how hard I try to concentrate, eventually I will space out to the point that I will stamp a letter sideways or upside down. Working in little chunks like that suits me. This is all I got right now.

 

Here is a picture of a stump that I see on my walk along the old rail bed in town. I took the heart shape in the middle and grayed it out in Photoshop. Someday I am going to paint that part of the stump pink.