On vacation, my youngest reminded me to be in the moment.  She had grabbed one of my pencils and began drawing in the sand.  The best sand is damp sand however it’s damp because it is near the water.  The ocean has a habit of sending waves of water on the beach.  Kind of the attraction – the water and waves.

As my daughter drew pictures in the wet sand I realized how I need to be in the moment.  She was drawing quickly because a wave would soon be washing all of it away.  She made her drawings, refined them when time, and enjoyed the process of making them.  No pretense about it lasting forever, or for 5 minutes for that matter.

She drew something and then the wave smoothed it away.  What did she do?  Drew another.  It was like a self erasing Etch-A-Sketch.  Sometimes the waves caught her in the middle of a drawing.  She just started another.  She enjoyed each drawing she made and then let it go.  That moment had passed and she was into the next moment.

Vacations are restorative- even it is a virtual vacation!  There’s still plenty of time to join in and win the giveaway! All the details are here.

I’m on my virtual vacation, lounging by the ocean in the summer sun.  I needed a vacation, so I took one!  I couldn’t get away to the beach, being in a land locked state so I decided I could at least take one virtually!  All my friends, new and old, are welcome to join me on this relaxing adventure.

How can you join me?  By linking up your vacation blog posts, ocean and beach inspired art, anything that makes you feel like you have taken a virtual vacation!  This way we can all vacation together!  You can use posts from previous vacations to relive the memories or you can make new ones – it is up to you.

I have a virtual vacation creativity pack to give away at the end of the vacation to one of my fellow “travelers” who link up and share their virtual vacations.   I’ll be “returning” from vacation on Friday, June 15th.  After I unpack, I’ll be randomly drawing for the giveaway on Saturday, June 16th!  I hope you’ll join me!  This is open to everyone (newbies, veterans,  my friends at  Paint Party Friday, Creative Every Day,   Art Journal Every Day,   Inspire Me Monday , Summer of Color, and well, EVERYONE!).   I will happily ship internationally.

You must have tasty treats on vacation- namely ICE CREAM!  Kristin over at Twinkle Twinkle is hosting The Summer of Color 2 Ice Cream Inspirations.  Her photo of a scrumptious rainbow sherbert kicks off the inspiration.  You can read all about her event here.  This is the art journal page I made inspired by her colors.  I used Donna Downey’s poppy stamp to start my and then the paint took over!