It's taken me a lifetime to find my joy.  And I'm still not one hundred percent sure I know what it is.  However, what I found is that I do have joy in my life.  And right now, my joy is making art, whether it's a 9x12-inch painting, a small journal tag or a greeting card, I am creating!  I use mostly watercolors but I also use acrylics and I am branching out to art journaling and mixed media projects.  I am finding it tough because I'm not a natural artist and cannot envision something I would like to create, so, like many other frustrated artists, I have to rely on the kindness of others who make YouTube videos and publish books.

I have taken to making art journals, not your traditional journals, but loose pages held together with two book rings.  This makes life so much easier when creating, adding to pages, adding new pages, and moving things around as and when the moods strikes.  I have two sizes of journals and it seems that they are going to all have my signature black cover with a bright and bold design.  I love mixed media but am slow on the uptake and battle to make things work for me, so I am trying things that I learn from books (see my new arts and crafts book review pages) and videos for ideas.

My other joy is taking photographs of local wildlife and making greeting cards to sell.  Of course I also need to make a living for myself, so in the past I have done special art shows whenever I could to raise these funds.  However, the absolute joy I get from being outside and observing nature at her best, is pure and unadulterated. Dixie

Despite not having a car and having to make do with my bicycle (year round in Colorado!) for many years, I managed to get out and about and take the time to notice the fascinating "life" around me.  I even made friends with a Canada Goose I called Dixie.  She had a crippled foot and had been coming back to the same spot for years, and when I called her name, she came right to me for some food.  She began to actually eat out Dixie of my hand, and she knew that if she came right up to me, she wouldn't be picked on by the others.  Dixie on the Fence I was even allowed to stroke her back while she ate out of my other hand.  What a privilege!  Basically, I think she grew accustomed to the sound of the word "Dixie" and that it meant food.  She was my joy for a few years.  To be honest, I don't know if she was a she or a he.

A project I worked on was a series of books featuring my wildlife photographs.  I managed to publish just one volume, (copies of which I still have for sale) and planned to use these books as fundraisers to benefit wildlife and nature organizations.  The weird thing was that no one was interested, not even my local nature center who were desperate to raise funds for a planned expansion.  Backyard Snapshots is available as an eBook on Amazon.com.

Other joys in my life include my digital camera (I worked hard and saved hard for this), my website, painting and making new art projects, my book reviews (I love reading non-fiction), travel, and just being in the moment.

Please take a tour of my website.
Thank you for visiting me here.  Peace and happiness.  Adrienne
Updated October 2021


E-mail:   pettprojects@yahoo.com
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