Inspired by The NY Times (last February!)

Art Journal

Mixed Media

I am very excited about the fun, new coloring book I have, but I decided that I need to just put it out of sight occasionally so I can get more of my own creativity going.  I started the day by putting away some of the materials on my work space so I could start something new.  I am always ripping things out of magazines and newspapers that I find interesting and want to....save for future use.  I suppose it would be great if I used what I tear out right away, but it rarely happens that way.  Today's art is inspired from a February 2015 article in The NY Times on Cuban coffee shops in the FL Keys. I liked the photos and I enjoy reading anything about Cuba since I lived there back in the '50's.

I also enjoy painting faces of African American women as I think they are very interesting. I put these two ideas together and started....

Kind of scary looking, I know.  You should have seen it when it was just a pencil sketch...I absolutely thought there was no hope and wondered what I was going to cover it up with!

So I hadn't collaged any of the coffee article to the page yet and was wondering how it was going to all come together and that's when I decided that the cafe was going to be the bodice of the girl.  

She's kind of scary looking at this point, but there was still something about her that I liked so I forged ahead....

This is how she currently looks.  Still playing with her face, but if I stopped now, I would still be happy with her.

The left page, I just glued the article that inspired me to begin with.

That's it for today.  You just have to start somewhere!  I found a "home" for the newspaper articles that interested me...what better place than my journal.