happy saturday wanderlusters! we’re having mild summer days in LA. windows open wide. neighborhood sounds filtering inside. i’m sowing seeds of idleness. i smell bbq. a small plane just flew over. my neighbor is playing in the blow up pool with her grandbaby
and…reading the jo nesbo book i started in stockholm THIS one. it’s v.v. long, but holding my attention. i wouldn’t call it riveting. but it’s pleasant in the mornings & evenings to be engrossed in a book while sitting outside. it just is.
okay well here are some more travel journal pages from sweden.
i’ll just be here. drifting down the lazy river of summerness.
where are you going? where’ve you been? what’s happening?
send me a smoke signal.
OMGoodness. The map. Everything. The map.
What a beautiful journal!
Working away like a busy little beaver at my desk here at the mouse house in LA. Retiring 18 days from now. 18! Doing my best to be cheerful and productive, and parts of it have been swell. But resting, sleeping, moseying, lollygagging, all call my name.
Folks ask what I’m gonna do with all that free time. Once I finish my amble, ramble, saunter, stroll and sleep, I’m going to do EVERYTHING! Except work 8-5.
MAM your journals have been a respite from some long and stressful days.
Thank a zillion.
Hi Mary Ann
Have you ever thought of selling some of your work? Today’s post I am lovin the village that you painted. Many times I see your work and think I wish I could buy that. Just sayin… karen artistically challenged( though every school year I had great hope with the beautiful box of Prang water colors mom bought for me).
Hello!
I just turned the last pages of “A Constellation of Vital Phenomena,” and I want everyone to know that it was amazing. Not a light read; it takes place from 1994-2004, between the two Chechen wars. But it’s still riveting, in the way that “All the Light We Cannot See” was. So, there’s that.
I’m also writing a stack of get well and condolence cards. I painted a stag for a very sick uncle, and a bird for an aunt who’s ailing. The art, the creation, is a balm for sadness. But I could certainly use a laugh-out-loud podcast or something.
Thank god for paint.
Cortney
Do u know Olle Eksell, Swedish designer. Cool images…b
I’m in Dallas, TX now visiting my dear family of friends who used to live right next door to me. Got here last Tuesday and leaving tomorrow. Painted with the kids: 13 & 6. The 13-year-old wants a peacock theme in her room, so I painted a peacock feather. I’ll put it on my blog later this week, as well as the kids’ paintings. I’ve been having a great vacation with them sans husband (Dave). He’s picking me up at the Philadelpia airport tomorrow evening. xoxo
From Dublin, California (San Francisco area): This book is an absolute masterpiece, MAM! It truly is a feast of beauty and variety, too. I love every page and I see many things I could do, too. As for what I’m doing: preparing for an event I dreamed up and am hosting this Saturday called THE GREAT RETREAT. It’s in conjunction with National Relaxation Day-August 15th. Asking people to take time out and unplug for minutes hours, whatever they can. No cost. They can retreat alone or with others, at home or away. My plan for me that day is to honor all the teachers I have taken art classes with or have been inspired by (that includes you!) and write a lovely poem for them. I even started my first blog so that people can leave comments there and also will host a celebration conference call on the 19th for folks to gather together and share experiences. A friend is even promoting it in Norway! I hope retreating goes viral! MAM, thank you for the inspiration you have given to me, all this time. Your way of traveling and sharing does all of us so much good. Sandy
Smoke signals from Mexico….too hot to go out!
Staying in my house today playing in my sketchbook and watercolors. I`ve been watching the videos from Sketchbookery class again, and doing all the exercises…because my membership expires next friday! 🙁
LOVEEEEEE your travel journal!!! And the mirror is amazing!!!!
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR SHARING, YOU ARE SUCH AN INSPIRATION MARY ANN!!!
Oh, I love all these pages! I’m pretty sure your mystery flower is pink scaevola (aka fan flower) – love that sketch, and the kronor (!!), your glasses, sketches of the things you bought, the fold out pages…and I enjoyed traveling with you as this summer I’ve been reading Nordic books! Wondering where you will travel next. 🙂
Don’t want any extra smoke here in NorCal, although Rocky fire is getting contained, when the wind blows the wrong way the smoke is bad. Thanks for posting your lovely pages. Love to see where you have been and what you have drawn. Always an inspiration!
Aloha, Kate
I love every bit of it, MAM! Rock on!
Smoke signal from London. Sounds like everybody is doing fun and exciting things. Well, I’m not ….. Stayed home all day today, enjoyed the sunshine in the garden and did some journaling. Didn’t have a head for people today, so enjoyed solitude as hubby was in his man cave doing man things. Reading everybody’s comments though made me think that may be I should have gone out ….. too late. Maybe it was meant to be a me day.
Smoke signal from Ohio. I am originally from Copenhagen Denmark, so loving you Swedish journal even more that the others (if that’s possible), as it reminds me of home.
I love traveling vicariously through your journals, Mary Ann. Thanks for sharing your adventures with us. I love how you document even the smallest things like your keys…makes the memories come alive.
Mary Ann,
Love your travel journal as per usual! They are always a feast for the eyes and soul. You can see in them how very much you love the details and eye candy of travel… just the simplest things and they are so beautiful.
I have a question for you. Now that you are doing so much sketching, how do you fit that into your travel journals? Do you make them in a way that allows you to sketch right into the journal or are you sketching on loose sheets and then attaching them later, etc.? Can you elaborate for me please?
thanks,
Susan
How I love your journal, Mary Ann! Wish I could hold it in my hands and feel the textures too. One of my favorite things. Thank you so much for sharing it. As for what I am doing, yesterday and today getting hay in for my daughter’s and my horse for winter. Due to a NW drought there won’t be a third cutting of hay this year, so must get hay before everyone is out. My pond is drying up, and I am literally praying for rain. I am actually giving a pan of fresh water to the “wild” mallard ducks. Some are too young to fly yet, and I feel badly that they are drinking mud. I also like to squirt the young ones with the hose, and like kids everywhere they thoroughly enjoy it and stand facing me trying to drink the cool fresh water. So cute, and they make me laugh. Also on the agenda today, is to give my horse a bath. She is covered in grime and fly spray. I hope to get some art in today, but weekends are generally not conducive to that. Too many unexpected disruptions. I am reading a nonfiction book called “The Girl With Seven Names” about a girl who escaped North Korea. (Can’t remember the author without getting up to look and I don’t wanna get up). Sad and fascinating. Have a beautiful and creative day!
Hi Mary Ann,
I’m hosting a sisters craft day at our home so waiting for everyone to arrive with all their papers, craft supplies, and wine! Thanks for sharing your Stockholm travel memories.
WE tromped around a local art fair for a couple of hours and saw some pretty cool art, amazing what one can do with metals, glass, old engine parts and of course paint, times like these wish I was a gazillionaire . Saw these awesome metal cactus that dang if they don’t look real, super fun…so much inspiration..also came across a couple of artists selling leather bound journals, they are so elegant and beautiful, seriously they are truly works of art, but I’d never be able to do the things I do to my own journals…I can see me hanging on to one of those for something super special but not sure anything would ever make it between those lovely,bright pages… but give me an ROD, or a journal inspired by FTB or one of my own rag tag creations…and I’m ready to let the paint and ink and collage fly every which way…
Have an awesome day Mary Ann,
dripping in Florida.
Hi,too hot for smoke signals….105……so sitting in A/C and enjoying the travel journal…..so lovely.
Missy from the bayou
Scaevola aemula or “femtunga” (five tongues) is the name of that pretty little flower.
Love your pages, trying not to “copy” in my own journal =).
Señales de humo desde Valencia, España!
I am preparing my summer hollydays. I will go to Granada, spend some days visiting again La Alhambra , walking down the sun trough this beautiful village. I love this city… I love go to Los Diamantes and take some fried fresh fish with a very cold beer…in the third file…..waiting the shouting waiter with my dish ….I love the hot and sunny summer days !
I’m liking the Stockholm journal. Nifty cover and drawings. I, too, enjoy reading outside while watching my woodchuck “Chuckie” nibble on weeds – my little weed eater. By the way, I was touched by your Erin Perry tribute. Lovely.
From a hot Stockholm a newly born grandmother is thinking of you. I miss the west coast but is needed here another day. On the train tomorrow. I’m sketching in between baking and cooking and helping out. Drawing faces in my facebook (journal only for faces)
Summer smoke signal from steamy hot Kansas City: Butterfly Festival at Powell Gardens; birthday for 97-year-old mother; making garden totems, beginning with an ‘earth/wind/fire/water’ one; Friday night with friends; picking cucumbers and wishing that the squirrels/chipmunks/rabbits wouldn’t vandalize the tomatoes; kitty wrangling… 🙂
Smoke signal from Ikast, Denmark – I have been to The Faroes for 12 days and I had a blast – visiting family but also traveling to small villages on some of the islands. Just seeing the green gras, black rocks, high cliffs and small houses in many colors with turf roofs was sugar for my eyes! Mary Ann, you have inspired me to take pictures in another way, if a rooftop looks interesting and different I took a picture and not just of the whole house or if a door looks old and rustic, I just took a picture of the door. I have so many interesting pictures in my “stash” and I love it :). Thanks for the inspiration! These last 10 days of my summer holiday I have been here in Denmark. My husband and I have been taking small travels to interesting towns here in Denmark and Germany as well as having good times with great friends. And now the summer holiday is over I´m going to be working on my summer travel journal and that I look forward to! 🙂
Smoke signal from Cape Town in South Africa… We just got back from Venice and Ljubljana in Slovenia. Met up with online art friends in Ljubljana… The days were crazy warm ( near 40 degrees Celsius) but we had wonderful experiences together – serendipity lead us to a bookbinder’s studio, a letterpress studio using old techniques and beautiful vintage equipment and a violin maker’s studio! We sketched together during our sightseeing days and in the summer evenings we did collage and felting. My husband and I also visited Venice for 5 days – we stayed near the Rialto bridge in an airBnB apartment and mused through all the little streets … couldn’t get enough of the gorgeous European look to everything. I made 5 journals before we went and managed to keep up with my journal throughout our adventure… A true love letter to my future self as you once said :D. I must tell you a huge thank you for your inspiring ‘Ticket to Venice’ … we found quite a lot of the paper shops you mentioned and had a feast!! <3
I see you got to put your perspective practice into practice. Buildings are always a challenge even when they’re not receding. I took a trip to downtown LA last week. Trying to figure out where I want to explore tomorrow. Pretty fortunate to have such a dilemma.
Fabulous! Love it.
Just came home from a local bazzar, a food festival of sorts with lots of Polish ethnic food of perogie and potato pancakes! It’s what summer is! Looking at your gorgeous journal pages, thinking of my next jewelry piece. That’s where I’m at. Summertime happiness!