Phew! What a scorcher!

Well, I've just returned from two whole weeks in sunny Spain where it was HOT HOT HOT! I'm such a typical Brit - I spend all my time in England moaning about the weather, and then the minute I go somewhere warmer I'm too hot ha ha!! Seriously though, the temp was up to 42 degrees some days. When we landed back in England it was just 10 degrees - that was 32 degrees colder than where I was the day before!

Can you spot me in the pic above? I found a nice quiet little spot in our villa perfect for a bit of journaling. sketching and doodling :-)

Now just a few holiday pics, but I'll try not to bore you with too many. Loved the sculptures:

Loved the beautiful plants and flowers:

Loved to go beastie hunting. We don't get anything like this in England! What is this? Is it a goodie or a baddie? We didn't much like the look of the spike on its rear end .... looks like it could do a bit of damage with that ....

I though this was a locust but maybe it's a cricket ... not sure ....:

One of the highlights of the holiday for our children was this tropical storm which blew in one day just as were finishing breakfast. One minute we were sitting in the sunshine chatting and eating, and the next we were up to our ankles in water. It blew over as quickly as it arrived though :-) It sure beats the steady drizzle we get in the UK!

While we were in Spain I took the opportunity to visit my lovely bloggy friend Sue who has a papercrafts shop called Art y Facts, in Javea. It's always lovely to meet bloggy friends in real life. One day I managed to sneak away from my family, leaving them on the beach, while I went for a play in Sue's shop! I also got to see her art journals and her 2010 365 calendar project for real. Here we are .... I'm giggling because I had to set the timer on my camera and then race round for the photo!

Here's a journal page I came up with whilst playing in Sue's shop. The paints dry so fast in those temperatures! You can see the page Sue did here.

And just to prove I did do some journaling whilst I was away, here are my pages written on:

One of the things I took with me to keep myself occupied was 'Drawing Lab for Mixed Media Artists' by Carla Sondheim. This book is fun! If you haven't seen it, or if you tell yourself that you can't draw, go check it out.

Here's one of my attempts at blind contour drawing... that means you have to copy a photo but you aren't allowed to look at what you are drawing. Amazingly this one still came out looking quite like a giraffe! (I added the backgound after).

One of the first exercises in the book, is to get into bed and draw cats. Loads of them. I did this while lying on a sunbed instead, I hope that's not cheating.

And finally, here's my attempt at a Picasso-style dog:

Hmmm. I think I still have a way to go but I'll keep on trying.

Hope to catch up with you all soon but right now I have got a stack of sandy laundry waiting for me, plus the ironing, the cleaning and the shopping....

This rest of this week is going to be goodish / baddish (to coin one of my children's espressions). Goodish because the summer holidays are over and the children go back to school YAY! Baddish because I'm a school teacher so I have to go back to school too.

Bye for now.