lettering practice

I took a lot of art materials with me on vacation this time because we drove and we had room in the car.  Plus I was taking Jane Davies' collage class and needed supplies.  But, once we got to the resort and I pulled all the materials out.......all I wanted to do was practice my lettering.  So I did.  These are all done on 9x12" paper in my sketchbook.

The first two swirly ones and the bottom doodled one I made using my parallel pen.  I'm still not as smooth in my strokes as I'd like to be, but I'm improving.  All the doodles and the lettering in the 'you are my happy' were done with Pitt pens and colored with Inktense watercolor pencils. A perfect project for vacation and really portable.

We had such a relaxing vacation but on returning home we've been a bit overwhelmed.  Dan found out he's been downsized - ah, stress!  We've been in Seattle, at this job, for two years and now we're back to the ranks of the unemployed and feeling a bit.....discouraged, worried, uncertain, etc.  For those of you who have also been in this position, you know what I mean - it's a ball of emotions that are hard to untangle.  So much negativity - and we are NOT negative people.  I obviously drew the 'don't worry, be happy' BEFORE we found out we were unemployed!  :)  We'll work on it though (the don't worry part).

So, my mind has been on other things other than the blog and art.  But, today I found myself itching, twitching, fantasizing about making art. So I'm going to use it to put my worries out of my head for a little while - I have some strong WIP collages from my class, my ALAW project is about ready to show the next stage, I have mail art to make, I have a rosy botanical to make for a couple of challenges - I feel better already!