No matter whether at home...

...or on the road, there is always something interesting to see.

Being in the city means my point of view has changed a great deal.  There is new art to view (outer space, perhaps?),

Detail of Amy Pozenekoff acrylic

and my nose gets a lift with the range of non-orchard scents.

 There is as much vibrant colour as one could wish for, and you know I'm a colour pig, right?

There is a host of new things on view, some of which I'd even know how to use.

 Even the sidewalks are decorated,

 and the graphics are amazing wherever I look,

 to say nothing of the potential for coffee.

And above all, there is a cuddly little fellow to hold.

Could life in the city get any better?  I don't think so!

I'm on a . . .

. . . Grandma hiatus right now, and will be back with you in a couple of weeks.  May your pre-Christmas time be a joy!

I'm on a roll...

... or maybe I'm just rolling over.  This purge has me alternating between howls of laughter, amazement and pure unadulterated stunnery (is there such a word?).

I've been working like a fiend to cut papers down to a size small enough to fit into a file folder.  I now have more than a yard of folders, crammed full of colour lusciousness.

 

Apparently, I'm still not done;  I keep finding more and this stack of heavy texture is a case in point.

Years of teaching means that I've a huge stash of material to go through.  At the risk of you thinking I'm absolutely crackers (and truthfully, at this point how could you not?), I have to show you what I found this week - a box crammed full with bags of painted mats, conveniently chopped into odd shapes and sizes.

Obviously, at some point, I decided I had waaaaaay too many painted matboards (done for background demos in workshops) and chopped them just for fun.  I say that because I've no idea now what the end game was, and my mind is whirling with 'what the hecks?'.

At any rate, I have to show you some close-ups of the mouth-watering colour!

  
I hope you can give me some suggestions in your comments below because there must be near 1000 pieces here, and the colour is so good it would be a shame to throw them away.  If I had a wood panel big enough (yup, they're all gone now), I'd be doing something wild and wonderful, but I'm hoping you've got a ton of ideas for me instead.

To end this post on a truly joyous note (apart from the colour, of course) I'd like you to meet our eagerly-awaited first-born grandchild who arrived this week. 

Linkin Nathan Christensen, born Nov. 6/17  6 lbs. 13 oz...welcome home!

May your week have been filled with as much joy and laughter as has ours. 

I'm a great sneak...

when it comes to studio time.  And in spite of all the purging to downsize, I have very craftily (artfully?) managed to get in some play time with friends.

Five of us gathered one morning, and in no time at all turned the studio into delicious Tag City Mayhem.

Gay, Linda, Carol, Dena with her head cut off

With access to years of supplies gathered for teaching mixed media, there was no shortage of fodder, and with a bucket (lower left) of inspiring tags garnered from online friends, no shortage of inspiration either.

Dena, head reattached, Gay and Carol

Carol was a tag-making machine, and I suspect she took home the most...wowza, can that woman create at lightning speed?!

Aren't these delicious?

Dena is enamoured to the max with text/words/verse/script, and I believe that all of her tags incorporated verbiage in some way.

I was all over that NOW tag!

Gay's words for the day were to the effect of 'Oh, WOW!, as she found an array of gears, organics, and other embellishments to add to her pieces.

Linda, an extraordinary quilter, transferred her design skills into some gorgeous tags for her family members.

I must say that because I was, once again, nattering waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much, I accomplished little in the way of completed tags.  The one on the left is the way I feel in the midst of all of this decontamination, the centre is what I hope to achieve, and the right one is what I'll need in copious quantity to celebrate at the end it all.  (Well, actually, the one on the right is for John, who's a red wine drinker, but the former makes a better story.)

However, I was inspired to do some quick tags through the rest of the week as I plundered my way through the gargantuous stash on the way to downsizing glory!  I think this one is VERY apt.

And I truly think that all this hard work will...

I hope that you've had as much fun with your week as I had during that morning.  Tell me about it in the comments below, please - I'd love to hear!