A couple more art cards

Here's two more of my art cards (both done in colored pencil). The bottom card is of a castle in France - a country I'd really like to visit. I was actually scheduled to go to France as part of a student exchange when I lived in England but missed that trip. My French teacher, Monsieur Carre, had written to his former students in France and paired them up as pen pals with his students in England. The idea was that we would write to our pen pal in France using only French to improve our grasp of the language and they in turn would write to us in English. One summer, arrangements were made for us to spend six weeks with our pen pal's family in France. That was the summer my family moved to the US. Alas, we moved a couple of months before the scheduled trip to France. So, for the moment I'm being patient with promises to myself that "one day" I'll make that long awaited trip.

The top card (mushroom) doesn't really look like a Vacation Dream Card, but it is. It's a reminder of my childhood rambles around the English countryside where I grew up. I was always fascinated by the variety of mushrooms I saw. The fact that some of them were poisonous and forbidden to touch only made them more mysterious, mythical. Sometimes I half expected a tiny sprite-like figure to emerge from underneath their colorful little canopies. Too many childhood stories? Perhaps. But it was a pleasant indulgence nonetheless. Of all of the mushrooms, the puff balls and the red and white capped were my favorite fungi. I have no idea what the proper name is for the puff ball mushrooms, but we called them puff balls because if you stepped on one, it puffed out a thick cloud of brown smoke. We always avoided letting the brown smoke drift onto us... who knew whether it might have magical properties and what the consequences might be? The red and white capped mushrooms seemed far more innocent. They were so pretty that one could only imagine pleasant stories around such a colorful little forest dweller. Ah, the innocence of childhood. Though I wouldn't wish those days back again (I quite enjoy my life as it is for the most part) I would dearly love to walk the English countryside again, exploring the forest and enjoying the quiet beauty of nature.