• Explore a New City Creatively through History – Milwaukee, Wisconsin

    Schlemiel! Schlimazel! Hasenpfeffer Incorporated I’ve just returned from an easygoing week exploring the cheese, brat and BEER loving midwest state of Wisconsin! The purpose of the trip was for my son to attend his orientation program at the University of Wisconsin, Madison where he will be starting this Fall, but being the explorers that we are, we also wanted to check…

  • I’m Moving to Paris!!!

    My entire adult life I’ve wanted to live abroad. In college I sadly dismissed the opportunity as I did not want to double major in a language (present me doesn’t quite understand that choice, but as they say, education is wasted on the youth!) Throughout married life my husband and I have chatted many times about living abroad here or there…

  • 3 Secrets to a Creative Summer

    Summer is a season that represents optimism and boundless freedom. Although I’ve been out of school for several decades and work year round, I always associate this time of year with my childhood summer break from school. When school started in September it only took until about Halloween that I was already day dreaming about those precious 3 months of summer…

  • Creative Art Lesson: Use Only ONE Color

    When choosing to do an art project, we sometimes can get overwhelmed or feel the necessity to use all the “crayons” in the box- or all the colors we can, since, well, they are there! For this creative exercise, I actually challenge you to do the opposite, and only use ONE color when doing a drawing. Given I decided to draw…

  • Portland Art Party: Design a Portland Food Truck

    For my new Wanderlust Portland – A Creative Guide to the City book launch I had the best time getting together online with many of you for an art lesson/art party and coming up with an imaginative food cart celebrating Portland’s food truck scene! My favorite part was working together to brainstorm a food truck theme, and then designing it as…

  • The Psychology of Yellow

    Yellow just makes me happy! I love spotting it on my walks (a front door? a yellow center of a daisy) as well as wearing it – in a sweater, scarf, t-shirt! We only moved once during my childhood, and my parents selected the yellow bedroom to be mine before I had seen it. The room had yellow checked wallpaper. It…

  • What Summertime Means to Me

    Creative Photo Prompt: Create a photo collage of what summer means to you…. Water, beach, strong shadows, the sound you hear in the distance of fun at an amusement park, long sun burnt days and warm nights. I took these photos in Santa Monica, CA when I was there last year. They truly say summer to me. What about you?

  • Creative Wanderlust Prompt: Summer Kick Off!

    I’m here to say that it is officially the unofficial start of summer! Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve always considered early June to be summer, as it is typically when school ends and summer break begins. Those first few days of summer break are always the best- no need for an alarm, no structure to the day and…

  • Community Art Project: Hands Together in the Community

    I have recently joined the board of a wonderful local artist community called Art Bias. It is just the perfect fit for me – a chance to build the arts and support artists in my local area. At several local events the past few months, I have had the opportunity to lead a community art project with the goals of bringing…