A Trip to the Pacific, and What I've Been Working On

Don't get too used to a posting a day...this is my first 5 days off in a row since I moved to the Northwest over 2 years ago.
Sally, Katie, and I hiked the Ozette trail on a boardwalk through rainy woods (Giagantic Slugs!) to the very edge of the continent.

It was dripping the whole way out--a pleasant Northwest hiking day, but when we hit the beach, the wind, driving rain, tossing waves, and gray clouds in the west made the lunch break a short one before we headed back into the forest.
















Sally checking out the view while consuming a rather soggy crab cake on olive bread. Katie gets her face washed compliments of Mother Nature...and looks about sixteen, instead of her normal sixty-something.
Lots of looping, multi-level women conversations about Everything in the World. Friends are a Great Gift!

On the way home, along the Strait of Juan de Fuco, Katie took us to a special beach--much calmer than the coast, where we found a treasure trove of round rocks, although Sally specialized in the heart-shaped ones.

Being artists, we collected LOTS that we could not live without. More yard art for me.











Two more art projects that I've been working on:
a collage/drawing/painting, inspired by my brother, David's method of working, but my own colors and naked lady drawings. It also sparked by glowing layers of colors in flowers that Katie brought from her garden last summer.
For this one, it's really difficult to tell when it's finished.


Another in the smaller Sentinal series, with some kind of conductors for hair. Working in series is a very good exercise for me, especially, who has difficulty on focusing on one thing at a time. There is the opportunity to play with many aspects of the same idea. Shall I make a 9-foot tall version?

And Finally, for those of you who took my last online Doll Making as a Transformative Process, here is the picture of my Mind Map that I promised. For the rest of your information, it's a visual representation of a mental process. for making decisions, setting priorities, figuring out what to do next or in what order. Put the question or yourself in the center and work intuitively with color, symbols, placement, to write/draw options and issues in relation to each other. I used this tool after my move to figure out my life/work/passion priorities. You may need a magnifying glass to read it.



That's all for now. Tomorrow is the last day of my vacation, and I'm getting a massage, going to Life Drawing, and trying to get all my projects to a point where I can finish them in the evenings when I come home from work--a challenge a lot of us share.