Wish Big

Make a Wish.... (Source)

What is it that you wish for today?   Is it a fresh new notebook with the perfect weight of paper for writing and drawing?  A clean house? A new pair of happy shoes for spring? World Peace?  To win the lottery?  To get into the university of your choice?  To go to graduate school?  To have the stamina to finish said graduate school?    The courage to start something new?  The strength to just make it through today?

When was the last time you wrote down your wishes and made them known? Known to yourself and to the Universe?    I just wrote down mine this morning and was surprised.  I was not surprised by something new showing up, but surprised by the consistency.  These are some of the same wishes that showed up the last time I did this in December.  The difference is that I am actually currently living some of these wishes right now.  Now I am trying to figure out how to give longevity to them.

Make a list of 20 wishes.  Just write them down as quickly as they come to mind.  You never know what maybe hiding inside your head and heart.  Just writing them down may help make them real to you and in turn make them capable  of happening by giving you the courage you to go after them. 

One thing that came up again in my wish list was strength.  There were actually two different kinds of strength that came up and I am going to work on those this week; Physical strength and mental strength.  This week I am going to take the time to cultivate those wishes.

Here a few of my wishes.

1.       I wish to be strong and fit.

2.       I wish to have a stronger and healthier dialogue in my head; for my interpretation filters to be positive and hear things in a more true sense.

3.       I wish to play daily.

4.       I wish for financial security and to have no money fears.

5.       I wish to create for several hours every day.

6.       I wish to keep practicing and for my creative work to become a lifelong habit.

7.       I wish to wish bigger, freer, braver  wishes.

I think it is important to wish big for others too, to throw our wishes out into the world like dandelion fluff. I have wishes for others near and dear to me too, and while I won't name name's, I wish them to feel more joy, to realize how special they are to me and to the world, and to have the strength to continue on their path. 

What are you wishing for today?  I am wishing you a you know it with every fiber of your being that anything/everything is possible.  Peace Out! 

Weekly Delights

I kept a small list of the ordinary and extraordinary things that delighted me throughout the week. 

• My new easel that I bought on Monday. I love having it...it is a nice reminder to paint and a nice way to display what I am working on.
• Finding this website on Tuesday-I want to do each project-I LOVE THIS!! http://52projects.com/2009/10/21/project-6/
• Butters sitting in the light and allowing me to take her picture.
• Having Chicken Pot Pie for dinner (I made and froze it back in December)




I like to cut a small smiley face or heart in the top of the pie for whimsy


• My Mother coming to visit.
• Vila telling me about an artist she found in Ecuador.  He creates his paintings from leaves.  You know how leaves have spiny skeletons?  Imagine peeling off the outer layer to reveal that skeleton and using it as a wing for a hummingbird or the glass for a window.  I cannot wait for her to show me this art!
• Finding The Selby and losing myself for a few moments to beautiful photography and quirky movies.  My favorite movie was about Rockaway Taco.
• These were (some of) my favorite pictures:
•  http://www.theselby.com/6_17_10_GeraldDeCock/       http://theselby.com/7_2_10_PamelaLoveJordanSullivan/ 

• 

  Look at all those books..very messy and creative at the same time.  (Source:  The Selby)

Wall Collage  (Source:  The Selby)

 

• These gorgeous paper dolls that I stumbled upon on Etsy. http://www.etsy.com/storque/how-to/how-tuesday-paper-dolls-12363/?ref=fp_blog_title  

  

  Paper Dolls  (Source:  Carla Sonheim)

  
•  This quote too on Carla's Tutorial....I believe I was meant to find it.      

"What did you do as a child that made the hours pass like minutes? Here is the key to your earthly pursuits.” — Carl Jung

• This Web Site and traveling Craft Fair http://www.renegadehandmade.com/ http://www.renegadecraft.com/brooklyn

• Watching this video from My Get your Paint on Class.  I was moved and soothed at the same time.   

• My brother sharing this link.  It made me all bouncy and bubbly and I played it over and over again. 

What delighted you this week?  Care to share?

Week 4 of Get Your Paint On

Week 4 of get your paint on was all about Composition.  This week's lesson intimidated me more than the past 3 weeks.  I got nervous because in other areas of my  life I choose symmetry over asymmetry.  If there were two candlesticks and a bunch of flowers I would put the candle sticks on either side of the flowers rather than put the candlesticks side by side.I ended up with symmetry in this painting too and I am hoping for a lot of feedback from my classmates on how I could have made this painting more  interesting.

The subject matter came to me while I was in Michael's picking up more white paint.  After last week's paint mixing exercises I ran out of white.  I was walking through the aisles and came upon this beautiful display of birds and butterflies and beautiful soft pastel colors.  It was kind of like my artist date (I am reading Julia Cameron's book Walking in This World right now) and I was thoroughly enjoying the colors and ideas and just the infusion of spring everywhere.  Oddly enough though my idea was not really spring inspired and I was struck by the idea for paper lanterns somewhere between the wedding favors and scrap book paper aisles. 

I knew the painting would be at dusk/early evening but I was not too sure after that.  Then I had the idea to paint a green door in the background and paper lanterns strung in the foreground.  When I started sketching, a tree filled with lanterns came out instead. 

 

I did play it safe with this painting too and would like to learn to take more risks.  I let some of the paint drip for the grass and did have fun playing with that, but I still played that safe by using more water than paint to keep it more translucent.  Again, intentional and not happenstance.  I also had an idea for all kinds of creatures to be gathered under the tree.  Particularly I saw an owl in the tree, and a teddy bear and a baby elephant under the tree.  I sketched out the baby elephant and even drew one on the canvas but erased it and decided to leave the painting as is. 

I think the lesson for me was twofold this week. 1) Don't feel like you always have to produce something and turn it in on time.  In other words, be ok with taking risks that may mean not even having anything to turn in, or turning in something that looks real wonky that I am unhappy with. Take the risk when you have an idea.  2)  Go back to painting on paper.  I feel more open to taking risks on paper.  The canvas feels more permanent and also takes up more space and costs more money.  I like painting on the canvas because it does not warp and I feel like an artists painting on the canvas, but I see the value in the paper when it comes to taking more risks with my ideas.

Our assignment was to choose one or two principals of composition and use those in our work this week.  I honestly had no idea what they would be before hand though.  Did anyone else in class know what principals they would use before they started painting? 

The principals of composition that are found in this weeks painting are:

• Elements varied in space and size:  Trees have varying limbs and branches and the left and right side of the tree are not completely symmetrical.
• Warm or Cool Colors:  There are warm colors found in the lanterns and fireflies but because the intention is that the scene is at dusk I used primarily cool colors to give the impression of evening.

Week 4-Final

Fun Stuff

I am having I-Phone envy these days seeing all of these gorgeous photos people are posting using new applications like Hipstamatic with all these cool film and flash types.  Heck I am so out of the loop I may have used all the wrong jargon here too.  I feel like I did back in the day when I was a little girl and everyone had the Kodak instant camera and I had a 110. I wanted that instamatic kind of fun, not the kind that you had to save up for in order to take your film to the drugstore and send off for developing.  Of course I do have a point and shoot digital camera now and that is instamatic fun in its own way but I am still having toy/camera/phone envy because I don't have the cool digital camera and the lenses and filters to play with much less an I-Phone.

In fact don’t even have a cell phone right now.  What?  Yep, I have not had a cell phone since I turned in my blackberry at the end of November.  And the truth is that I am ok without one. Kind of...except for the cool camera part.

Since I don’t have the I-Phone to play with I have found another fun tool to play with that is FREE.  Based on the number of hours I have played on here today I will say it is best that I don’t have any other tools or toys to distract me at this time.  In case you have not heard of Big Huge Labs go check it out....when you have a few hours to spare.  Hope you have fun too!

I used our dog Butters as the subject for all of my play time in Big Huge Labs.

Here she is in Vintage Black and White using Photo booth:

Here she is in a very colorful Pop Art piece:

And lastly Butters can be found rocking The Motivational Poster. 

Gifts

For the second day in a row I feel heavy and sluggish.  I have tried to work on my writing and feel empty and intimidated as I stare at the lines in my journal.  I know I need to work on my painting but don't feel the motivation.  I finally pick-up the paint brush and fill in some detail work on a tree and my hand goes numb and tingly.  There are also hundreds of projects to be done in the house but I find myself going from room to room pondering and puttering but not really getting anything done. 

Since I am not currently generating an income or caring for small children (I add this because someone asked me this recently when I said I was not working) I feel this added pressure to account for my days.  Here lately I have felt it even more so and have begun listing my daily activities in my journal.  I use that as a reality check of how I spend my days.  It keeps me accountable to.........myself.  The funny thing is no one is asking me to explain how my time is being spent.  It is me fearing that "they" will ask though and that I will come up short.  That I will have to stand on a platform and some light will shine in my face while I am put on the spot to account for my time. Does spending three hours reading meal plans and recipes count, or how about the hours I used to look-up every photograph I could find of whale sharks for a painting I was working on?  Never mind that I abandoned the whale shark and painted jellyfish instead. 

I am really trying to learn to make peace with myself and with my choices and stop worrying so much what others think. Or what I think they think.  Every day is a new opportunity to learn and to grow. Perhaps that is the lesson I will take from these sluggish days; to stop judging myself so hard, to realize that some days I am just going to go through the motions and some days I am going to create new motion, and to remember that regardless of which type of day it is, that every day is a gift.

Yes, I just wrote that.....a....Gift.

You have the thoughtful just what I needed gift, the wow I don't deserve this gift, the what the fuck gift, and the meant to be funny but how did I get stuck with this gag gift.  The gag gift really is different from the WTF gift too.  The gag gift was meant to be funny, but not so of the WTF gift. You will however laugh (later of course) when you think of  re-gifting the WTF gift as a gag gift to a sibling or friend.

What do you do when you feel sluggish or unproductive?  Do you feel guilty, go with the flow, or turn on some happy music and jump up and down? 

Photo:  Source

Today Was Good

Today was good

in the way that stretching and twisting

and pushing and pulling can be.

In the way that you know will hurt later

but feels so good now

moving in a new way.

Today was good

In the way that catching

glimpses of spring-green chickweed,

shoots of hosta of the deepest purple,

and the movement that of an unexpected  spider camouflaged in the mulch can be.

Today was good

In the way that thoughts

of all the flowers and vegetables and bushes and plants

that had come before

out of this ground

can be.

Today was not sad.

It was a remembrance and celebration of the earth,

My little square of it

as I have claimed for these past 6 years.

Today was good

in the way that I wondered and hoped

that the new owners would fall in love with this hodge podge of life.

Today was good

In how I fell back in love

with all of it,

all the while wondering what will they fall in love with.

Will it be the feathery ferns that will appear out front under the shade of the trees, unfurling as the days grow warmer and summer rains soak the ground?

Or the peonies pushing through the ground and the mystery of hundreds of ants crawling over their green stalks that dazzle their eyes.

Maybe it will be the simplicity of purple buds bursting open and unleashing bright red leaves from the Japanese maple.

I hope they welcome the Snow on The Mountain that came from my grandmother

and the purple verbena that I have babied into returning each year.

I hope they too will grow

tomatoes

and pumpkins

and herbs of all kinds

and that they enjoy the earth that has been tended to

and cared for

with layers of love.

Today was good.

Here comes the Sun...

After three whirl-wind days infused with sunshine and spring like temperatures in which I cleaned and organized, and cooked, and painted and generally went about life in a sing-song fashion, I find myself slow, quiet, and feeling partly cloudy. 

I woke up this morning to bright sunshine and had my coffee early while writing about a strange dream I had last night.  Then Alan and I made breakfast while acting silly, (my favorite ingredient for cooking) ate, and chatted for a while.  Later I started looking into how to invest my 401K (insert: read too much about annuities and if I would ever be able to retire here) and all of a sudden I realized it was no longer morning, no longer sunny, and I no longer felt like taking on the world much less getting out of my pajamas. 

Since I could not have sunshine streaming through my windows, I figured I would turn to some of my favorite blogs for inspiration and a little sunshine through someone else's eyes.

• Look at this bright and cheery artwork found on Brene Brown's Blog.
• I love this handmade book that Shona Cole has created.  It is a mixture of her photography, poetry and collages.  She has so many beautiful DIY projects that she shares on here as well.
• Going to give this creativity mix from 99% a whirl later on today..not sure if it works yet or but I love hearing new music.  I like to listen to music when I paint and play in my office.
• Oh I love this...I found it in my favorites but cannot remember the original source.  It shows the sunsets and sunrises for your city/area everyday.  It is a wonderful reminder that the days are becoming filled with more light by just a few minutes every day.

Wishing you much light today no matter what the weather is like outside.