Yippee, It's That Time!

YIPPEE!!!

It's time to sign up for Art Unraveled 2008! In fact, it's past time. I mailed my envie, decorated a bit for Linda's and Chuck's entertainment as they open the envelopes, last Friday. Many people on the AU Yahoo group report having had little post office dramas trying to get a hand date stamp on their envie. Some post offices even extorted extra postage out of people in order to have them sate stamped and one poor gal had to fill out a big form!

I was lucky. I walked into the post office in Youngtown, AZ, which just happens to be the closest one to my house though not the one that services our zipcode (we don't live in Youngtown), waited for one man to get his stuff taken care of and then my envie was happily hand stamped by a smiling lady who then showed it to me for my approval!

I only get to go for two days because we have MINIs in the Mountains to attend and we leave Wednesday morning to drive up there. It's my favorite trip of the year. Major conflict! I really want to be at AU taking classes. Thank goodness Alma Stoller and Beryl Taylor didn't offer classes I especially wanted to take. Bev Brazelton isn't teaching anywhere this year so she won't be there to make me wish I was in her class instead of crying because I'm so happy to be driving through Colorado on Thursday afternoon! (I love Bev!) I'm big fans of Alma's and Beryl's too. I hope I get my choice of classes for the two days I can attend. I very much want to take an art quilting class with Jane Lafazio. She 'advertised' her class with a post to the Yahoo group though, so I'm sure it will be full. I just have to hope that having got my envie in the mail on the right day and using my one volunteer credit from last year to help me with early registration (you get one early or preferred registration per class you sign up to be a helper for the year before).will get me in there! I also signed up for classes on both evenings, including a watercolor journal class by Jane. i love journaling and since taking Bev's class last year, I absolutely am a fan of watercolor journaling.

Bev turned me on to using the watercolor crayons that I've had for at least four years and there's no holding me back now! I have zero confidence in my ability to paint in watercolor, but tons of confidence in my ability to do little sketches with these crayons. Hey, it's just crayons, right?!?? I always scan them before I add the water though. I have this fear that I'll like it better as a crayon sketch than as a watercolor. So far, that hasn't been true, but I often like them both ways, so at least i've preserved the original sketch by scanning it.

I've also signed up for a mosaic class that I think will be SOOOOO cool and a book structure class. I like to take a book structure class every year to keep adding to my arsenal of structures I've mastered.

So now that I've sent in my registration, I can hardly wait to find out if I got all the classes I wanted! Pretty soon, I'll be itching for August to be here so it will be time to go to AU. I'll see all my particular friends, I hope. Angie and Fran, the oh-so-talented &rew, my pal Patricia who seems to be in all the same classes I am no matter where we take them, and the whole Chicago crew, as well as Debbie Bick from Frenzy Stamper in Scottsdale and the Creative Quest gals from here in Glendale.