Running on Full

Home from Journalfest; the best one so far and that's saying a lot. Everything was amazing; beautiful weather every day, stars at night (I saw a shooting star for the first time in months), magical, beautiful, wonderful, loving human beings sharing, laughing, being kind to each other.

I took 2 classes with Juliana Coles. Here she is dressed as a witch. She makes an awfully pretty witch I think and her classes were amazing. I've taken 4 classes from her now and she is very good at what she does. (which is take you to a higher level)

My room overlooked a green meadow and off in the distance was the water and the distant mountains.

Here is one of those amazing smiles I was telling you about. Warm, open, incredibly nourishing to experience.

Andrew Dyrdahl looking like, well, Andrew Dyrdahl. He's teaching at Artfest next March and his classes look like fun.

This is a spread I did in Juliana's class the second day. It represents my "house" and as you can see it has lots of guest rooms for my friends. I wish we could all live together in some exotic locale (with all our art supplies and a big studio of course!). We would just make art all day and eat strawberries and ice cream.

This is Graciella, my newest Sculpey doll. She can't be shown in full because she gets to be in somebody's book in a year or so. She's real proud of herself.

Patricia Baldwin Seggebruch sent me this beautiful kit of encaustic materials to try out in my studio and I can't wait to give it a whirl. I can see just by looking that the color cakes are extraordinarily heavily pigmented and inviting. I'm having a few friends over on November 20-21st for a 2 day class and we'll all try out the new supplies then. I'll report back on how I like them.

We have room for 1 more student (imagine a class with only 4 students in all!) - to be held right here in my studio and covering everything I know about encaustic. (November 20-21st). If you want to be that 4th student please email me for details at judywise@canby.com. All the information is here at this link. Once I accept the student I will update here and maybe I'll be having another class here in my studio in January.

That's all I have for you at this moment, guys. I have a zillion photos to go through and a week's worth of catching up to do before I head off to another retreat so I'll visit back when I can and when I do I'll show you my pages from Orly Avenieri's wonderful class. (yay! I got to meet another one of my heros.) I am happier and more full of life than I have been all year. I hope this is a good time for you as well. xo