Original Artwork

I have been lucky over the years to have made some wonderful friends through this blog whom I share my personal life and creative life with.   Since I've been on Instagram I've also made some wonderful friends that I've mostly been sharing my creative life with.  I do have a private IG account that I can share family pictures on, but I have a separate public account that I just use for my more artistic endeavors.  There is some overlap on these two accounts depending on who has requested to follow and some of those followers on the private account are people that I've made friendships with through the challenges that I have participated in.  Sounds confusing but it isn't really.

One such person is my new friend Nanette in The Netherlands.  I previously shared the Christmas card that Nanette sent me and now I'll share the story of how that came to be.  We have both participated in the 25 Doors of Christmas Challenge in the past and also Inktober.  This year I did the Inktober challenge using Zentangles while Nanette did the challenge prompts provided by Alexandra Sillos McVean.  Nanette is an art teacher in an elementary school and she is a gifted watercolorist.  Most of the prompts for the ASM Inktober challenge involved a woodland animal and an object.   The painting Nanette did of the owl & hanging lights prompt prompted me to ask her if she sold her work.  She answered no, but told me that when she was done with her series and scanning it, she would send it to me.  Of course, I was thrilled and ever so more thrilled when the package arrived filled to the brim with little treasures from her homeland and other things that she had made.  I was so touched by this, not just because of her kindness and generosity but because my father's side of the family comes from The Netherlands and I've always been interested in the customs and traditions.  Our Van Doren family has been here in the US for more than 200 years and a lot of the Dutch traditions were lost through the generations so I just loved this and enjoyed every little bit of it. (Dutch tea, caramels, and original stroopwafel were a very nice treat.  I totall enjoyed that and the Irish chocolates that Sabrina sent me.)

I treated myself to some other original art.  This dimensional painting comes from Josie Lewis as part of her dragon petals creations.  She mixes acrylics with acrylic medium and applies it to the canvas with a spatula - like frosting a cake.  This is a 4 x 4 canvas and it's more green IRL.  This is how the computer can change or enhance colors.  I like the picture on the computer more, but the original is still beautiful and it will be an addition to our condo.  

This next one is from Dar James.  It is another small piece - 5 x 5 on cradled wood.  These colors are more true to life (I photographed both pieces in the same light and in the same place). 

And I have to share the gorgeous bag that my blogging friend Lauren made.  If you check out her blog and go back a bit you can see more examples of her gift-packaging skills.   She happens to live nearby so she did a drop-off just before Christmas.  I usually send my elf (HWNSNBP) to her which he did.

And there was a little culinary treat that I ordered for myself for HWNSNBP to give me for Christmas.  

This oversized clear ornament held three French macarons from Simply Sweets by Lauren.  The macarons were delicious.