Moving right along...

Guess what? I have the flu! And, this is gonna sound weird, but I've lived in fear of this day, freaked up of catching the dreaded H1N1. And now that I have it (so the doctor *thinks*), I have to say I am very happy.

Say WHAT?????

Yep, you heard me. I'm happy cuz this is one light case of sick, people. Doc told me I should fare lightly, due to all of my immuno-therapy. Of course, I can still get pneumonia, and if there is a chance in hell of me doing that, I will. Maybe not. I will be running to the hospital if that happens, but as of now, I don't even have a runny nose. I've had the aches, the shivs, a manageable fever, the runs, nausea (no upchucking, thank you!), and no appetite until after about the first 24 hours, then I needed to eat and didn't care if it was shoe leather which is what it tasted like. It was rice. I ate one bowl and it liked to wear me out.

So anyway, there's very little respiratory interaction with this, except for coughing up stuff. Yep, I was worried I already had pre-pneumonia, but Doc said that's common during the virus. It's afterward to worry. I'm upping my intake of green and peppermint teas, just to be helpful. Anyway, been managing by sleeping a few hours, then up for like 4 hours, then another nap, rinse, repeat. It's a pretty good life when I can forget about the aches and when I remember I'm *out sick* and therefore not responsible for crap. Hehe.

Anyhoo...back to art. Yeah, I need to get back to uploading stuff so that I can get caught up. How about I share with you my 9x11 mixed media collage that I did for a page in my Paper Traders yahoo group 2010 calendar?

I went with one of my layered collage-and-paint backgrounds and my *signature* paper-piece entarsia, if you will. I used little square-punched papers on the watercolor canvas board, giving the sky that waffle texture. The clouds have stamped images underneath that have bled up and in the full-sized image it is a very interesting effect. Click on the image to look at it in more detail.

I kept my design pretty simple, as it was my first attempt at a large mixed media piece. I resisted the urge to draw or stamp vegetation or add any people, etc. I read where someone thought my stuff was too busy, so hey, the eyes can easily rest on this. Winkwink And do you see that the paper is some ancient Foof-A-La? It's all coordinated. I took no chances! hehe

In other news, I'm currently working on Traci Bautista-inspired stamped and painted background papers that I will adhere calendar grids on for a calendar swap in my Collage Unleased yahoo group. I'm having glorious fun with them, too. No expectations, no pressure, just one big lab experiement. Nothing goes to waste. So far I like all the ones I've done but if I end up with any I don't, I'll just keep to cut up for backgrounds on atc's or post cards and start another page. The hardest part is having to stop and clean off my stamps. Hate that. It would be so much more fun if I didn't have to do that, but oh well.

I've also made progress on my Kelly Rae Whispers journal cover. The papers are collaged on and I'm struggling with the portrait. Ugh. I could just trace one out of her book, but I'm not gonna give up yet. I can draw a perfectly good shabby petit doll, so I may just do that. Who says it has to look like Kelly Rae drew it, right? Nobody did, but I've just been trying to and it's not me. So, hopefully, I'll have that under my belt in the next few days and can move on to catching up in my Bind It All class and then catch up in my Artist Journals and Sketchbooks class. Sigh. I'm tired out from just listing it all. It's fun, though.

Oh, and no, I have not mentioned the assignment I'm having so much trouble with... ;-)