"I am not this hair"

The first art journal spread I've completed in a while.  I wanted to experiment with gelli plate mono printing on deli paper, and see how it would work as collage elements - that's what I used for her hair. I also am practicing shading faces with paint. The quote is from Rumi; it says, "I am not this hair, I am not this skin. I am the soul that lives within." You have to click on the first pic to see the full spread.  I can easily see many things wrong with it, but I also see a lot right with it, and I'm happy.

I had created this background over a year ago, and I loved it so much I've been afraid to do anything else to it.  But then I took the plunge.  Here's the process:

 

Older projects

Since I don't have much of my artwork posted on my own blog, I thought I'd remedy that today!  Right now I am struggling with trying to paint faces.  I've had fairly good luck with prismacolors, but when it comes to paint - ugh!
Anyway, here are some of my pieces from the last couple of years (mostly journal pages).  The DaVinci horse is a canvas I made for a friend using clear caulking as an image transfer medium:

Wow.  It's been almost a  year since I've been here.  Last month I retired, after 28 years of teaching high school English.  Now, I can do.... what ever I want.  It's an adjustment I wasn't expecting; I had no clue what it would be like to wake up mid-morning and know that it's not a weekend, it's not time off.  It just IS.

I can delve in to my art explorations now.  One course has really caught my eye: