New Monday Art day entry plus something green that I use

"The air was fine and I needed to go to the store-so I decided to fly!"

The word for the week on Monday Art Day is "flight".  I am not kidding but last week I had a flying dream.  I haven't had one of those for years.  It was ME sailing above the trees and when I woke up I felt so good about it.  Then I noticed that we needed to illustrate "flight".  Okay, there was my image.  Yesterday I plopped down while I was listening to Conference and just let it flow (flow as in didn't care about perfection, right?).  Then I thought I would post it today but I was worried about the whole "me thing" with flying and all that.  I didn't want the world to think I was a weirdo a la Freud.  But I Googled flying dreams a lot last night and read how they are interpreted as a great self esteem booster.  In other words you feel free and have overcome difficult odds.  Well, I felt like my subconscious knew me better than my conscious side.  I really did have some difficulties last year and had, I hoped, risen above it all-therefore the flying me.  Okay, there's my feelings about the whole image.  Take it or leave it.

Now I'm just going to talk about the benefits of using a Styrofoam meat tray for rinsing and keeping your brushes wet..  First of all you know you're doing your duty by recycling-green-, right?  I was tired of ruining my paint brush by using a cup.  The tips were always mashed and misshapen no matter how hard I tried to not let that happen.  The trays work great because you just lay the brushes in there and the tips never get bent.  Plus they're free-love that part.

 "The Christmas Eve" watercolor by Carl Larsson

Art History Moment:  I haven't done this for a few days and it's important to be consistent about the learning end of it.  Today I'm going to talk about another illustrator (tell me if this gets monotonous but I love great illustrators) and one most of you probably haven't heard of.  One of my old friends introduced me to Carl Larsson.  He was a Swedish artist that is famous for the lovely and picturesque paintings/drawings of his family.  He also did commissioned works for his country but I, and many others, I'm sure, think of his home life first when we hear his name.  Anyway, the images of his children are so candid.  You almost feel like you are living in his world whenever you see them by the way he painted from life.  I love the quaint surroundings of where he lived.  You also get to see his wife in her day to day surroundings.  I am told that you can visit his actual house in Sweden and it's been kept in tack with all the gorgeous woodwork that was his original design.  He is just wonderful and you will feel peace and joy whenever you see his work.