Travel....

The last month has been very busy, but not necessarily with creative things. We have done a bit of traveling, and I have used car time to do a bit of sketching along the way.

We first went on a three-day road trip to the Grand Canyon, where neither my husband nor I had ever been. Here are a few of my travel sketches. They are not 'great art, ' but they will do what they are intended: help me to remember what I have seen, and the feelings I captured there. The last sketch, of the canyon itself, is the sketch I am least 'happy' with. I sat sketching it en plain aire, in 100 degree heat, with people all around me, interrupting me constantly. I have discovered I don't enjoy that at all!  I think I need to be in a quieter (and cooler) place to sketch or paint from life. When I look at the sketch, I feel hot and irritated.

One of the things I love to do is to have my pages stamped at National parks. I also have pages with photos, postcards, and things I collected along the way.

We also have been on a second road trip. These two pages are from one looooong day, as we traveled by car across the entire width, west to east, of both Colorado and Kansas, to see my father-in-law for Father's Day and his 97th birthday. (Not a typo; he is 97!) I sketched a bit as we went across the 800 miles. While in the Colorado mountains it was mostly still dark and I hadn't had enough caffeine, so I missed sketching the most scenic and familiar part of the trip. By the time we left Denver and were out on the plains, the scenery doesn't change much. But I was fascinated by the roadside signs in the wheat fields! It was very hot (again above 100 degrees) and windy like only the Kansas plains can be windy. I have done, and am working on, a few more pages dedicated to that trip, so I may share them soon. I try to at least plan the pages as I travel, and complete them as soon as I can after the trip, if I can't sketch as we are traveling.

Other creative work has been on hold while we've been road-tripping, having company, and doing some house and yard work. I do have a small loom warped, but the month ahead looks much like the past one, so I will just try to steal some moments to design and plan for the time when I will have the time to weave again.