Alphabet Series: S - Sydney, Australia

When in the "Land Down Under" stop in Sydney to view the Opera House in the harbor and see kangaroos hopping across fields and sitting on hilltops.

Alphabet Series: R - Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

See Christ the Redeemer and celebrate Carnaval in Rio de Janeiro.

Alphabet Series: H - Haarlem, Netherlands

The Netherlands are home to windmills and fields of tulips (among other things).

Alphabet Series: G - Giza, Egypt

Some colossal ancient architecture in Egypt.

Alphabet Series: F - Florence, Italy

The Florence Cathedral (officially The Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore, unofficially Il Duomo) was begun in 1246 CE according to the designs of Arnolfo de Cambio and completed in 1436 with Filippo Brunelleschi's dome. You can read more about the drama of engineering the dome in Ross King's Brunelleschi's Dome. (I had to read it in college.)

Alphabet Series: Q - Quebec City, Canada

Quebec City is one of the oldest cities in North America and the only city with remaining walls (ramparts).

Alphabet Series: P - Paris, France

How could I do a travel series and not include Paris?

Alphabet Series: O - Oslo, Norway

Home of the Vikings and fjords. Scott has been to Oslo and visited the Viking ship museum where you can see three ships built between 820 - 900 CE.

Alphabet Series: N - Nairobi, Kenya

Just outside Nairobi, you can find African savannah animals roaming. (And sometimes you can find them stopping traffic in the city, too.)

Alphabet Series: C - Cuzco, Peru

Down to South America to go up into the mountains to Cuzco, Peru and the Inca city of Machu Picchu.

Alphabet Series: B - Bangkok, Thailand

In Bangkok, you can view a collection of wats, or temples. You can also take an elephant ride through the jungle. Elephants have been revered animals in Thailand, used in war and as beasts of burden. Unfortunately the tourist trade has wrecked havoc on the wild population of Asian elephants.

Alphabet Series: A - Agra, India

In Agra, India, you can find the Taj Mahal, a beautiful combination of Islamic, Persian, Ottoman Turkish and Indian architectural styles. And the beautiful peacock is the national bird of India.

Alphabet Series: Y - Yaounde, Cameroon

In the forest close to Yaounde, Apes Action Africa works to rescue and rehabilitate Great apes. Cameroon is also one of the only places in the world where the goliath frog, which can grow up to 12.5 inches in length and 7.2 pounds, lives.

Alphabet Series: X - Xian, China

Xian, China - home of giant pandas and the Terracotta Warriors.

I was going to start with the letter "A" and go through the alphabet in order,  decided to start painting with the letter "X." I thought it would be easier and less intimidating to jump to painting details with a black and white panda rather than the Taj Mahal and a peacock.

Alphabet Series: The next steps - painting

Back to the alphabet series...I now have about 10 weeks until Baby Weatherwax arrives, so it is time to get things going if I want the paintings to already be hanging on the wall.

I was on a roll at the end of May - I had just gotten back from a beach vacation and hubby was out of town on work, so I could spread my papers, paints, etc. out on the dining room table and not worry about cleaning things up. At that time, I was able to get the majority of the canvases painted with white paint. I wanted to white out the "positive space" of the image to give myself a blank canvas to work on and to create a layered look in the final paintings. This step went pretty quickly, but because of the paint I bought, I had to do multiple coats of white to get the coverage I wanted - on some of the papers I applied four coats.

Then my sister and her boyfriend came over for dinner -
so the dining room table got cleaned off and all of the materials were returned to my "studio" area (umm, really it is more of a room to hold my art supplies - it does have a table to "work" on but really is currently horizontal storage) and the canvases were stacked up. (Not to mention I still needed to buy papers for about five of the canvases.)

Agra, India: Taj Mahal and peacock

Rio de Janiero: Christ the Redeemer and Carnaval dancer

Xian, China: Terracotta Warriors and panda

A month later...
The canvases are still sitting stacked on my art table. Granted, I went on vacation and have had other projects to work on, but yesterday, I reclaimed the dining room table as a work space and started painting the details. After a full eight hours of painting, I finished four letters. As the paintings are completed, I will post them each in their own posts. I am still deciding the best way to include the alphabet letter / the name of the city / the name of the experience, site, etc. so if you have any ideas, let me know. Right now I am thinking about printing the city, country and applying it as a collage element.

Less than PERFECT is OK!

Wow, it has been more than a month since I last posted something! In that month, I have worked on getting the alphabet series to the next stage (more on that in my next post), but I have also done some traveling - a girls' trip to Cancun and a relaxing vacay to the mountains in Red River, New Mexico.

Other than that, time just seems to be slipping away... so here's what I have been working on:
- Staining a bookshelf white
- Choosing fabric and sewing curtains

Both of these are projects for the nursery, and they are self-imposed by my "need" to control the aesthetics of my environment. (I mean, let's be honest, the baby is not going to care what the bookshelf or the curtains in the room look like.) Both projects also turned out to be lessons in letting go of perfection.

Now I don't claim to be perfect, in fact, most of the time I feel FAR from perfect, but that doesn't seem to stop the constant striving - which can be good (in school) and stressful (in real life). So, I did what I usually do - I researched the options, researched the methods and processes and decided I could go the DIY route to achieve what I want at a price (my husband) approved. The problem is, I am not okay with things LOOKING "bad."

So with no prior experience in staining furniture, I decided, after reading tips from pros, that I could do it - turns out I can, as long as I am willing to overlook small imperfections in corners (which no one else will notice). So after multiple hot, humid mornings of painting on and wiping off white stain and a couple of incidents of stain drying too fast and needing to be sanded off, we have a white bookcase that looks great in the room and will eventually be filled with books and toys, hiding and bits that I find lacking.


Sewing curtains is nothing new for our family. We sewed half curtains for the majority of our windows when we moved into the house. (Turns out my engineer husband was much better at sewing consistent straight lines than I was.) So I went into this project somewhat dreading the need to sew multiple two-yard straight lines.

In this case, sewing is not a process I enjoy, and I was not doing it to experience something new - I was doing it because I wanted curtains that looked good in the room. The pressure was on! I have to say, I took my time, made careful measurements, spent an afternoon folding, pinning and ironing before I started any sewing. On the sewing day, I had to tap into my meditative breathing so as not to give myself a heart attack from the stress of "the straight line," but in the end, everything worked out just fine. I could point out all the flaws I saw while I was sewing and looking at the curtains from about 10 inches away, but now that they are hanging in the window, no one will see those flaws.

That is the thing - the baby won't notice and anyone else looking at the room will only see the big picture - the colors, the toys, the patterns and the fun. The imperfections are not from a lack of effort or trying, but from a lack of practice and experience. If I had not let go of the perfection, I wouldn't have a finished bookcase or a new set of curtains. I would be stalled by the FEAR of what might go wrong and never move forward with what could go right - the 85% that is GREAT would never have happened because of the 15% that could use more practice.