Garden Girl and the Soft Place to Land, or Quiet Season

Garden Girl and the Soft Place to Land, or Quiet Season
88/100 in 100 days creative challenge, 8/31/09
Golden Fluid Acrylic

Me, I don't feel so well. Feel like drinking orange juice and eating chicken soup, so I hope you don't mind if I just post this timely painting which I started weeks ago.

I am on painting 88 and this is day 92 of our 100 in 100 days creative challenge. Today, I am working on my magic cat painting and I think I'd like to do an artjournal of lists and dreams and goals.

Okay, everyone take it easy. Be creative. Be happy. Keep on swimming... or go curl up on a sofa with your journal. Or a good movie. Life is for the living, and sometimes it's for the retreat and recuperate.

Bold

Right before it goes down

I don't have a painting today. Oops.

But I still wanted to post, because I've been doing a lot of internal work, and frankly, I need to get my head straight before I move on to the painting that the boy is bugging me for right now. He wants a magic cat. He keeps asking me why I'm not painting. And the girl doesn't want to take a nap.

Pushy kids.

Anyway, I've got lots of plans and dreams and hopes for my future, and yet, physically, I feel very stuck in stasis. It's an interesting dilemma. To want so much and start on the journey for it all and then have it moving oh-so-slowly.

But then I read this post about mondo beyondo goals and started to think about what it meant to be bold.

I have these bold dreams, you see, but before I can achieve them, I pull back. I get timid. I ask for less than I want because I am afraid to put what I really really want out there. Afraid I ask for too much. Afraid perhaps I'm not worth it all. Come to think of it, I was like that with boys when I was young. I never let them know that I really liked them so they never knew and I never got them. "Got" being not a very good term in this context, but you know what I mean.

Back to the present day. I still have that habit to ask for only small things. To whisper my desires. To NOT be bold.

Oh geez. You know what this means, right?

I just dared myself to shout my desires. Oh crap. If anyone else ever dares me to do something I just roll my eyes and ignore, but I can't accept the fear conquering me anymore. If I'm scared I have to face it. I have to give in to the taunting of the bold me, who doesn't usually get to be incharge.

So listen. Hey! You! Universe! I'm talking to you, and I'm putting my intentions out there.

And I'm putting my biggest dream first.

To have a creative compound where I can live happily with my family, and creative people can come and stay, for retreats or workshops, where I can have a cheerily running studio and gallery on an old farm with all of it's out buildings where all the magic can happen. For everyone. I want magic for everyone.

That's my big dream. It feels almost impossible from where I am now, but maybe if I work on my smaller dreams, it won't feel so outrageous.

To finish my trilogy and make wonderful and get a great agent and a great publishing contract that begins a substantial career as a professional novelist.

To teach online creative courses and be able to do what I love to do while still staying at home with my kids.

To go to Blogher in NYC.

To make a good living with my creativity, art, words, teaching.

To make really good friends and be a part of a vibrant, supportive creative community.

To write a book on creativity and have it published.

To grow my etsy shop into a self sustaining machine.

To paint large canvases (I've been small too long).

To show in galleries and sell my art.

To develop WE into a bicoastal business with my two friends.


Okay Kelly Rae? Are you happy now? I'm going to keep going. I'm going to tackle my goals boldly. And if I can't do it all right this minute, I'll tackle the ones I can. I will work on my etsy shop. I will talk to my two friends with whom I have been developing these WE workshops for YEARS. I will work on the material for the chapter in the creative book. I will GET BACK TO MY NOVEL.

And I'm going to keep from telling myself that it is all too much. I'm not going to overwhelm myself. I'm just going to take it one step at a time. And if I have to take a break for the living of life, I'm going to do that and then I will continue to take bold steps as life unfolds.

Now you.

What is your bold you daring you to do? Declare it to the universe.

everything is made of light and shadow

everything is made of light and shadow
87/100 in 100 days creative challenge, 8/26/09
Golden Fluid Acrylic on paper, 5x8" moleskine

Can it be that it is simultaneous? This light and shadow?

I'm pretty sure it is.

There is no light without shadow, is there? It's the same Earth, whether it is night or day. The same coin, whether heads or tails.

So why are we grasping so hard to every little bit of light and pushing away the dark? Why are we afraid of the dark?

Are we convinced that light is the only good, that dark is somehow evil?

I think I'm afraid of the dark. Afraid I won't be strong enough or that it will never end or that there really are monsters roaming in the night, ready to eat me.

What if I never come out of the dark?

But I've already proven that I can withstand the dark. I've already proven that in the darkness when my eyes are closed, I see true visions.

Maybe it's the embracing of the dark that helps us not only survive, but thrive. Maybe if we accept our own darkness (grief, sadness, loss, fear, poverty, constraint, hunger, anger, dissappointment, loneliness, exhaustion, ______ insert dark here) then we won't feel the need to hang on so tightly to the inevitable dying (and rebirth) of the light.

Maybe if we don't hang on to the light so tightly, then the natural cycle of day and night can continue. And in the dark, we can do what we need to do, unafraid. And in the light, we can enjoy it and not run from the deepest shadows in fear, even as the sun is still shining brightly.

Luck, Ladybug

Luck, Ladybug
86/100 in 100 creative challenge, 8/25/09
Golden Fluid Acrylic on paper, 8x5 moleskine


Oh lovely, lovely epiphanies. When the light seems to glow with a warmer touch and the moment is the perfect moment. A time to stop and say, "Yes, this is life and it is good."

And then the moment fades. You go on. You stumble a little. The dancing has worn you out so you snap and yell. Someone says a little something that makes you doubt yourself. Your back hurts. Bedtime is drawn out. The food is less than stellar. The phone doesn't ring when you want it to or it rings when you don't. You sit up wasting your time when you could be doing something productive or at least sleeping.

Oh, life moves on after epiphany.

And what I've decided is that is okay.

We're not here to be perfect or to have perfect days or perfect lives or be the perfect mom or the perfect blogger or the perfect artist or the perfect partner or the perfect anything. Perfection is the antithesis of living.

Imperfection is vital and messy and what we learn from, and what makes the beauty more breathtaking.

So if I woke up this morning to a ladybug on my bedside table, and an epiphany about moving and music and breakthroughs and I knew in the doing of it that this was a great day, but the day slowly slid into pissiness and mama's short temper, then I'm going to say, hey, that was a complex day. A complete day. A full spectrum of a day. And when I fell asleep at night, I'm not going to obsess over where I fell down that day, but remember the lady bug, and the moments, the yeses and the nos. The life. My life.

Here's a youtube video called Moments that was brought to my attention by Jena. I swear I'd been planning this post long before she posted this video. Hm. Some more synchronicity.

and if the clouds cover the moon i will continue on my travels

and if the clouds cover the moon i will continue on my travels
85/100 in 100 creative challenge, 8/24
Golden Fluid Acrylic

The world is broken open.

It's made of music. And dancing and colors and laughter and cinnamon muffins.

It's not all the way broken open. We haven't broken through our shell yet. We haven't gotten through this hard season. No, it's not done, but the colors are showing.

The music is leaking out.

Can you hear it?

The nature of the world is for the darkness to let go of it's hold and to allow the sun to rise.

The lost are found, or they find themselves where they are, and grow there.

Irony here. I start this post and on my soothing pandora station, up pops Cat Stevens' Moon Shadow.

Just another incidence of synchronicity.

I don't think I have anything else to add to this post.

The Flowers Grow, or A Little Rain... Time... Passes

The Flowers Grow, or A Little Rain... Time... Passes

84/100 in 100 Creative Challenge, 8/23/09

Golden Fluid Acrylic on Paper, moleskine, 5x8"

Life is a challenge.

The point of living is not to avoid pain or hardship, it is to experience them, as well as joy and ease, and to come out the other side with something new, something good, something that enables you, you crazy human, to be stronger, to survive, to grow into the next phase that you have coming to you.

I actually see a lot of avoidance of pain in American society. We think more money is better because it makes our lives "easier." We think upset and sadness should be taken away with drugs. We don't want to try to do things that are too difficult, because it feels bad to us when we fail. We are afraid of fear and afraid of pain and afraid of struggle.

But, if you look at nature, struggle is intrinsic to... well... nature.

A baby bird struggles to break free of his shell.

A lion struggles to bring down that wildebeast.

A dung beetle struggles to roll that big piece of shit up that steep hill. Pardon my French.

Humankind did not get where it is by lounging on it's perfect butt beside a terraformed pool in Palm Beach.

Ju know what I'm saying?

So what am I saying and why am I saying it attached to this painting?

Well, A glimpse of a botanical print online gave me the leggy, weedy shape and lemon-greeny color, but then I took off with my hatchmarks and patterning and as I went along, the only thing I could think of was rain drops. Rain drops that never ended, raindrops that took away Summer and made you have to sit inside for months on end, raindrops that caused floods and the walls to grow damp and leaks to start and the roof to threaten cave-in.

And then I thought...

Well, the rain ends. It always does. Even biblically, you know?

The sky clears. The land is fertilized and fed. The flowers grow.

Listen.

The flowers grow.

We Argue over the Flowers, or Laugh

We Argue over the Flowers, or Laugh
83/100 in 100 Creative Challenge 8/21/09
Golden Fluid Acrylic on paper, moleskine, 5x8"

Ivy wanted blue flowers, but I didn't think they'd go with the green background. They were white at first. She cried a lot. We compromised with pink.

But you know what I've really been thinking about?

Life.

Ha ha. No small issues for me, just small kiddoes, big issues.

No, but really, I've been thinking about those things that make life enjoyable. Because it isn't always roses and moonbeams, you know what I mean?

What is it in our perpective, in our living, that allows us to be happy?

I really do think it's just relaxing into the reality of life and accepting it for what it is. If I go about with my agenda, and life doesn't fall directly in line, whether it's a kid interrupting my my blog posting, or a delay in finding a good job, I end up being dissatisfied.

So it seems the best way to be is to just live in the moment, accept what is, enjoy the day.

HOWEVER...

There are also things I want to do in my life. When I allow my life to be taken over solely by immediate concerns, I find that I end up in a stasis of physical needs and no movement to life.

I recently realized that in ten years, I will be very close to 50... and there are so many things that I wanted to have done by 50. But if I don't get on the ball NOW, I won't have them done by 50.

I need to focus on my goals. I need to remember my dreams. I need to take the daily steps to get down that path.

There is a tricky balance that needs to be found between these two things, living in the moment and working for your dreams.

Taking steps towards what you really want without harboring an agenda for what you think it's all supposed to look like.

I believe this is called nonattachment.

I believe it is the part of Buddhism I have always had trouble with... but it makes more sense now than it did when I was a kid.

Maybe by the time I'm 50 I will have it all figured out. :)

How do you balance your daily life with your deeper goals? Got it figured out? Still struggling?

Orange Butterfly in a Terrarium, or Fly

Orange Butterfly in a Terrarium, or Fly
82/100 in 100 creative challenge, 8/20/09
Golden Fluid Acrylic on paper, 5x8"

I took yesterday off. Yes. I feel good about it. I did it on purpose.

This is what they mean when they talk about making peace with your life as it is. I could easily have kicked myself in the rear all day long, thinking about how I should post, how I needed to post, how I really OUGHT to post, and then not posting. Or even if I did post, think about all the misery as I browbeat myself into submission all day.

The truth is, I've been posting double pictures, I am doing fine on my 100 in 100 days challenge, I'm even a little ahead. I don't NEED to post every day. I am not bad because I skip a post every few days. But even if I don't need to, I often keep in the back of my mind all the things I should be doing if I were great, better, best, perfect.

Enough.

Here I am, imperfect, in my imperfect life. And I'm just trying to keep on going and be productive and care for my kids and paint and (er) write (er) and you know, enjoy my life. Well, the hardest thing (aside from writing) has proved to be enjoying my life.

Maybe that's why I'm painting these kid directed paintings of flowers and animals. Because these aren't about concepts, they just are. Just what we look out and see in the garden or on a PBS show or just what we like in that minute. I'm just looking to bloom where I am planted, even if I am imperfect.

Plus, this butterfly, I like to think she's just come out of her cocoon that has been inside this cozy, small terrarium. I like to think this butterfly, she's about to take off and live her brief, brilliant life to the fullest.

Transformation, you see.

Singing and Silver Skies

Sing...Yes, Large Red Flower

80/100 in 100 Creative Challenge

Golden Fluid Acrylic on paper, Moleskine 5x8"

I'm into the flowers lately. I think the conceptual nature of Flying Girls have made me tired. I feel like I have to try so hard to make them mean something. With the flowers, I get to explore color and paint texture and composition and pleasing shapes and patterns (which I'm really digging lately) and just let it be. The meaning might come later.

For instance, I showed my uncle this painting and he said, "well! that really sings!" and I said, "yeah." And that's what it became.

This isn't really so diaristic as the Flying Girls seem sometimes, an extension of my own personal journey. I am exploring letting go of my things, listing some of these things on etsy as original art, not prints. Things that I will release for others to enjoy. It's kind of hard, especially when they are documenting my personal journey.

Brown Earth and Silver Sky Traveling

81/100 in 100 creative challenge

Golden Fluid Acrylic on Paper, Moleskine, 5x8"

Like the traveling series. These are also an exercise in letting go. I'm putting all of them up for sale as originals, even if I love them. Sometimes it is easier for me to let them go if I use metallic paint on them, because it doesn't reproduce well, and I can't sell them as prints. I don't know what that reasoning is about.

But I do like the airiness of them. I like the horizon in the distance and the feeling of movement. The peace. Like sitting in a train and watching the landscape go by. Nothing t to do but listen to your thoughts and write in your journal. I used to love long train rides. :)

One of the things I think is interesting about this painting is that it was done with the paint that was leftover on the palette from painting the Sing flower. The bright, electric red and orange and green, and cream, when blended turned into a subtle earth color. So much richer than just using a single paint color. When I had the wash of beige on the paper, I thought, now what can I turn this into? A traveling painting would work, I decided, and the contrasting color that popped into my head was silver. I know it's strange, beige and silver, but... I've seen it. In clouds, in distance. So I went with it.

Sometimes letting go of your expectations, letting go of compartamental thinking, throwing things together and seeing what comes of it, sometimes that really works out.

Sometimes it fails miserably... but isn't it better to take the chance and try the new, scary thing and have the 50/50 chance of making something great, than to always play it safe and never really reach your own potential? Because we know that we are not trying, and that gets into us, sits on us, that knowledge that we aren't going for it.

Take the chance. Try the new thing. Fail. Fail better.

A Boy's Vision

Everything is Possible, or Whale in a Bowl
78/100 in 100 creative challenge
Acrylic on paper, 5x8

Another piece commissioned by my kids. He asked for a whale in an aquarium, and I thought I'd try round instead of square. And paint makes me feel like it's more finished. He's really into aquariums, terrariums and pets right now. He's moved on a little from making movies, but he may be back. Oh the obsessions these kids have.

Anyway, he picked these colors. I never would have picked them. But once I started, I could see how they would work. G, however thought the whale blue was too dark and he yelled at me to change it,(ah those tantrumming clients) however, I held him off until the colors were all in and he could see what they looked like together. I said I would change it if he didn't like it, but in the end, we were all satisfied. These colors remind me of a boy's outfit. Brown cords and a bright shirt. Actually, I think this would make a good tshirt.

The words are mine, of course.
B is for Blocks, or build.
79/100 in 100 creative challenge
Golden Fluid Acrylic and Pitt artist pen on paper, 5x8"

This was first a sketch of a block tower G did. I was impressed with the precarious tilted balance of it. (please no one mention the unfortunatel phallic appearance. I didn't notice until later, but I still like the colors and paint treatment.) Then G demanded that I paint it and these are the colors he chose... sort of. He wanted multicolored blocks, but I went ahead and did green.

Anyway. I've been thinking about my inspiration and about my self imposed constraints, lately.

When I first thought about getting back to art, after having my kids, I thought the only/best way to do it was to integrate my daily life (mothering) with the art, allowing my kids and my day to inspire my art. When I first got back to this blog, that's what I was doing.

When I started to paint every day, I carved out the time to commit to making art, but I created a limited theme to work with. That's when I started Flying Girl... or when I took her up again. She was an image I first painted in college. I limited myself to Flying Girl so that I didn't have to come up with new inspirations every day. It allowed me to get back into a routine and to explore my craft and to expand my definitions while not making me crazy trying to figure out what to paint every day.

I'm very thankful to Flying Girl even if I don't always paint her everyday.

I've kind of gotten off of the "limiting my creativity to one theme." I think I've broken into the painting habit and no longer need such tight constraints to feel comfortable. I have gotten used to being an artist. I can now do Flying Girls or Travlings or Flowers or sketches of my day or Child Inspired drawings. It feels good to expand, but there was a time when having that freedom would have frozen me up. There were too many choices for me to go deep.

Where in your life do you think it would serve you to have fewer choices, instead of more? Where could constraints allow you to go deeper into your life, your craft, your experience?

Commissioned Works, Demanding Bosses (aka My Kids) 73-77

Fom Us To You... or Aquarium
73/100 in 100 Creative Challenge
Water Color and Pitt Artist Pen on Paper 5x8e

Sorry for the bad pictures. I ran out of light this weekend. And also had some more blips on my internet service, but it was a minor issue and soon resolved.

However I would like to share with you what I've been painting these last couple of days.
My son requested an aquarium with a shark in purple, that we could send to people in the mail. The next page was based on Ivy's insistence that I give her goldfish.

Love and Fishes, or Goldfishies
74/100 in 100 Creative Challenge
Watercolor and Pitt Artist Pen on Paper, 5x8"

I think she meant crackers, but first I painted this. I figured it would go with the Aquarium and could be a kind of greeting card. We'll see how it turns out.

The words were my own invention. Seeing as neither of them are literate yet, I could push the boundaries on this.
Bloom Where You're Planted
75/100 in 100 Challenge
Watercolor and Pen on paper, 5x8"

After she got her goldfish crackers, she was tired of all the marine life. She demanded I paint flowers. And instructed me as to which colors they should be.

Purple Flower
76/100 in 100 Creative Challenge
Golden Fluid Acrylic on Paper 5x8"

Then she wanted a purple flower. At first she was quite perturbed when I was drawing the little funny looking stamens and pistils in the center, but she got over it as soon as I added the paint. I would just like to say that the brown leaf is there because she demanded it be brown, not green, no matter how I tried to convince her it should be green like the other leaves. I was surprised to find that the brown served to ground the painting and add that little sense of frisson that happens when you combine things that aren't expected. I did go and add the brown outline to integrate the leaf into the rest of the picture, and then I put in the scallops, because, well, that's what I've been doing with my personal flower pictures lately. I'm liking the patterns.



Anemones in Pink and Green
77/100 in 100 Creative Challenge
Golden Fluid Acrylic, Watercolor, Pen and Pitt Artist Pen on Paper, 5x8"

This one is my favorite. It was started before the purple flower but finished after as I added an acrylic background to the watercolor flowers. The flowers were Ivy's request (pink) but she got really mad when I drew them all in before I painted them. She wanted me to go one by one. A micro manager, that one.

It was actually inspired by a picture in a Martha Stewart magazine. I never realized how cute those little button-like buds were.

It took me a while to figure out what I wanted to do with it, but as Id worked on the purple picture I started to get an idea about colors and patterns that would conflict with the pleasing composition of the flowers. I like it. It almost looks like crochet. Lacy.

All of these painting are in my journal. I stopped painting in my journal when I opened my etsy shop, as I wanted better paper for my pictures. But you know what? I really like this anemone one and I might just sell it as prints, anyway.

I've been trying to do more art journaling not for sale so that I could get back to what art has always been for me, but if I do something I like, I can still sell it.

Speaking of selling, I am finally starting to list my backlog of paintings. There are so many, it's one of the reasons I don't feel guilty about artjournaling. I don't "NEED" a new painting in my shop everyday. I have plenty. So if you want to check out the new prints and originals (yes, one of a kinds) then head on over.

Flying Girl Does it Anyway, or Follow Your Bliss 72/100

Flying Girl Does it Anyway, or Follow Your Bliss
72/100 in 100 Creative Challenge.
Golden Fluid Acrylic on paper, 5.5x8.5"

Sometimes things don't turn out as I planned. This painting is different than what was in my head. Sometimes what is in your head doesn't translate into the actual painting.

Sometimes you have to adjust your vision to what is. What is on that page. What supplies you have on hand. What abilities you have. What is in your life. What reality is.

How do we reconcile the dream with the reality?

In my life, I am constantly revisiting that dream, that vision. What is it that I am really focused on? Am I getting stuck on trivial particulars, when it's really a deeper desire I am looking for? Am I expecting it to look a certain way? Am I expecting it to be a certain result when it's really the process that is most important?

Have you sense that I'm not just talking about this painting?

This struggle keeps opening up larger in my life.

This following of dreams while still living and loving the moment. This large vision and small steps. This acceptance of what is.

For instance, in regard to the 100 in 100 days creative challenge... In my dreams, it looks a lot more organized than it is. I am on top of maintaining my blog and keeping up with the other challenge folks (sorry guys). I am painting amazing finished works every single day at the appointed time with good cheer and constant inspiration (haha). I never get pouty. I never drop paintings I don't like. I list to my etsy shop every day. I expand my circle. I get amazing opportunities just because I am. I write a book documenting my journey and helping people along on their own. I hold workshops. The world opens up before my waiting, paint splotched hands.

Hey, listen. Reality is, I also have to live a life while I'm painting, and sometimes that life is tough. I have to take care of my kids 24/7. I have to eat and to sleep. I have to roll with the flow of my days, good or ill. I have to deal with financial stuff and interpersonal stuff and family obligations and my own sometimes rotten moods.

I can't do all that is in my dreams. A lot of those dreams aren't very realistic. And if I could follow my dreams step by step, what would I be giving up? Do I really want to give up those things? I think that achieving your dreams also takes a good deal of work, a good deal of focus, but also a good deal of revisioning. You have to keep focusing in on that dream to make sure it comes clear.

When I think about that dream again, I try to picture what my 100 days will look like at the end.

Will it be organized like a calendar? Will every day be laid out for me to see all the good intentions? Will I be able to check of my accomplishment one to a hundred and know I hit all the marks? Will I have 100 out of 100 like I said I would? Will I get an A?

Is that really why I am doing it? I'll tell you... those numbers get me anxious. If I fail to hit 100 does that mean I fail at my challenge?

Why am I doing it? I am doing it to challenge myself. To grow as an artist. To build up a body of work. To experiment. To develop a creative routine and practice. To build community. To have something to say. To understand what I feel. To explore possibilities. To try new things. To document my journey. To calm my nerves. To live into my ambitions. To show my kids what it's like to be creative. To envision something and then to take small steps towards achieving it. To pass the time. To have some fun. To enjoy myself. To get a kick out of it.

If I think about those goals, I'm doing just fine... although those last three... I think I get so worried about painting count that I get stressed and anxious and forget about the fun part.

I am coming back around to revisioning my goal.

My largest goal, I think, is about life. It's about keeping my center and raising my kids and being true to myself.

Now... if only I could figure out the balance between reaching for my dreams not yet actualized and living a full life right here in the present.

Turning Negatives to Positives

Inspiration board, Home
71/100 in 100 Creative Challenge
mixed media art journal

This is another exercise in making art for my own benefit instead of just my etsy shop. It won't be sold, it's just for me. Just the way I used to do art.

This is actually the endpaper in my journal. When I bought it, I didn't open the book to check out the pages, but when I started it, I realized the first few pages were a little torn and rumpled.

Boo.

So I turned a negative into a positive and collaged it all. I usually leave it blank and fill it with quotes I discover over the course of the journal... but I've been keeping quotes in my organization notebook. So why not?

Another thing this inspiration board does is help me focus on creating the situation I want to create in my life. I want a new home, but not just any home. I want something that fits my needs. I've read elsewhere about how writing a letter to the universe, or some such variation on that theme helps to bring these wishes into reality.

All I can say is it can't hurt... but it can help. I think it's better to focus on the positive, on what you want to create in life than on what you don't have. When you are putting energy into negativity, nots, and absences, you get negativity, nos and loss back. In other words, the universe confirms your energy for you.

So if you put positive thoughts, gratitude and abundance out there, does that mean that the universe will confirm that energy? I could use some of all that.

So focus on the joys that are. The life that is available for me. The world I want to create. And the things I have at my disposal to take steps toward what I want to manifest.

Along those lines, today I was trying to organize my art, put them into little portfolios according to what I want to do with them. Prints, Originals and I had a pile of work I didn't want to sell because I thought they were not done or not my best work. I got out an archival box where I was going to store them, and inside, I found a whole pile of work that is etsy worthy! I had forgotten about it all.

I have SOOOO much work to put up in my shop. I guess I took an etsy hiatus, but never really stopped painting. What an archive.

This is abundance.

Sometimes it feels like a bit too much and I get overwhelmed...

But that's another topic. Focusing on fears, anxieties and overwhelm.

Maybe I should just go back to the positivity.

Butterfly/Believe, 70/100

Butterfly/Believe
70/100 in 100 Creative Challenge
Acrylic on paper, 5x8"

Here is the image that came to my mind.

Life, for me lately, has been kind of like living in a cocoon.

It's been small and constrained, rather dark, confined.... and yet within the bounds of the chrysalis, full of growth, creation and activity.

I have to say that if I thought my life would always be this confined, I would be quite miserable, but because I have faith, I truly believe that this is just a developmental stage and things will open up and take to the sky soon, I can stay where I am, busy with the work of transformation. Busy with the work of growth. Busy with the work of metamorphosis.

Of course, sometimes it is hard to remember that the darkness doesn't last forever.

Sometimes you need a little reminder. I do anyway.

Hence, my butterfly.

Hence, the whispered word.

"believe"

Three Flowers

Joy... Is... Because...
67/100 in 100 days creative Challenge
Acrylic and Pitt Artist Pen on Moleskine Paper, 5x8"

This is a little different from what I've been doing lately. I know I started it when I had extra pink paint. I just painted a whole page with it. Then later started going, without really thinking about it.

I started with the colors and flat paint and it just seemed very bland to me. Then I remembered all the hatch marks I'd been loving while doing the Wreck This Journal challenge. And the floral patterns, and it just grew from there.

In my head, I'd like to turn this into a greeting card with this on the outside and inside "You are You." with a place to fill in 10 things the sender loves about the reciever. I don't know where the idea came from, but I'm kinda liking it. Let's see if I can figure out how to do it all.
Love Is...
68/100 in 100 Days Creative Challenge
Acrylic on Moleskine paper, 5x8"

I did this one the next day. For some reason, it reminds me of dancing. Probably because I painted it during so you think you can dance.

You know, these swirls and patterns used to be the way I doodled. I would do paisleys and mandalas, eyes and flowers, grids and scallops and shells and seawaves. They covered every note book I have owned for the last, oh 20 years. To me they were just doodles, but as I've looked around the web, I've seen people selling what I would have cast off as little nothings. Very interesting.

I thought I'd try incorporating some of what came out of me in the past into my current art. I don't think that anything we have ever done is really wasted. I think the things that really matter come back into our lives when we are ready to appreciate them.
I wonder what kind of card this could make?


Home... Heart...
69/100 in 100 Creative Challenge
Acrylic and pen on Moleskine Paper

This is the last one. I don't feel like it is quite as successful as the other two. I remember I painted it by color lottery... pulling the paint bottles out of my bag and going with whatever colors I picked.

I also finished this much later. When I found these. I painted them while my computer was down and I'd forgotten I'd done them. So when I was looking for a new page to start, there were these three paintings. Woohoo!

It's like Christmas in August.

What things from your past crop up when you don't expect them. How can you turn them into something you can use for today?

Flying Girl After Many Revisionings, or I am made of dreaming

Flying Girl After Many Revisionings, or I am made of dreaming
66/100 in 100 Creative Challenge
Golden Fluid Acrylics, Pitt Artist pens on Paper, 5.5x8.5"

I have been working on this painting for quite some me. If I had finished it when I started it, it would probably be # 45 or something like that. I started out thinking of Klimt. Then I turned it pink. I added squares. I added pink and white dots. Then I turned it pink and sky blue. Then it sat around for days (weeks?) as an unfulfilled idea.

Then yesterday I looked at it and said... well this is not right.

I added gold dots ontop of the pink and white dots. I added purple dots on top of the gold. I outlined everything in purple. I outlined everything in gold. I added teal dots on top of the purple, like peacock feather eyes. I painted the pink dress purple. I painted the sky blue sky into twilight. Blech. I painted the pink and white hair purple. I painted the dress white. I painted the sky storm gray. I added the white thought ribbon. I painted some words in. I painted some blue in the dress ontop of the still wet white. I painted in some black birds flying. I outlined the thought ribbon. I painted out the words in the thought ribbon. I drew in some swirls. I drew in some raindrops. I painted out the birds. I added more swirls. I decided I liked the rough unplanned look of it. I liked the weird color combos. The empty spaces and the random additions.

I have always had a problem with pretty. I think my first urge is to always paint pretty.

And yet I am drawn to rough and slightly ugly. I am drawn to powerful, and primal. Stuff from the gut.

I have a hard time painting ugly though. It almost always feels wrong unless it is pretty. But pretty is shallow to me.

I have been working on finding the balance between pretty and from the gut.

It's very hard.

Maybe the difficulty is within myself. Maybe it's my definition of "pretty" that has made the limits. Maybe I'm showing my neurosis. As a pretty girl, I have always run from being the "pretty girl."

Where do you find your long held ideas are getting in the way of your art? How are you limiting your own creativity and holding yourself back?

Are you afraid to write that novel because someone told you it was a waste of time? That you weren't good enough? That you can't succeed? Are you afraid to push yourself with your paintings because you're "not an artist, you're just messing around"? Are you not getting up on that stage because you aren't the kind of person to be in the center of attention? Are you only painting landscapes because portraits are too hard? Are you only doing acrylics because oils are too intimidating?

Explore what you are scared of. Explore what you are afraid of having people think.

Hey, paint a picture (or write a poem or do a dance) about it.... it couldn't hurt.

Travelings Through the Rainstorm, 64 and 65

Travelings in Green and Gray
64/100 in 100 Creative Challenge
Golden Fluid Acrylic on paper, 6x9"

I like this one. I like the grays. I like the movement of the green. I was inspired by rain and the colors of a downpour.

And this painting was not solo. I painted with this one

Travelings/Rainstorm
65/100 in 100 Creative Challenge
Golden Fluid Acrylic on paper, 6x9"

This one was inspired by what I saw outside my front door in that downpour. It looks like a broad, distant landscape, but really, it's the shadow of a car outside and on the other side of the street, a house with trees behind it.

I like that it doesn't look like that.

Anyway, I"m still discombobulated, so until I get my head and the rest of things at least partly organized, I'm going to keep this short.

Two paintings today. I have another one for tomorrow. Maybe by tomorrow I'll have another yet. I have some things that need to be finished.

This is just to say that I am back on line, but am not together enough yet to really post

My cat likes to do photo shoots. I think the close up the fangs is particularly fetching.

Shout it again!

I'm back online (barring any malfunctions in the new system, and perhaps a switchover to a new modem in a few days) and it feels good.

I am totally behind. I have lots of paintings to post. I don't even know what day it is in 100 in 100 days creative challenge. I don't know how many paintings I have or what numbers they have. I am totally discombobulated. I missed the end of Wreck this Journal and still have journaling to do.

But I think I've figured out some photo things, and I think I can start out life with this new computer with an organized system for my photos. I don't know how I will save all my old photos on the other system. It's such a big project. Blah. But that is not the point.

The point is I am back. And working on getting caught up. Bear with me. I should be able to post some new paintings today.

Stay tuned.

Uh Oh Spaghettios!

Hi people. How ya doin?

I just wanted to jump in here to say that I am down for the count.

Well, my computer is.

:(


I am trying to get it all back up and running, but have no guarantees when that's going to happen.

All is well.

While I work on the tech problems, I am taking this time as a vacation from the internet.

I think maybe it's a good idea that I take a break.

I've already started writing in my journal more and doing some tarot again. I'm reading more. Remembering that I had a life before message boards.

I'm still painting, and trying to keep up with my 100 paintings in 100 days, so I hope you all are too. And I hope you keep up your everyday creating and your writing and your wrecking and your blogging and everything. There will be lots for me to do when I come back.

Can't check the blogs, now, and I'm sure my googlereader is groaning for lack of my attention. I don't want to think about all that I'm going to miss. Sigh. I'll probably be able to check my email occasionally, but not regularly.

Anyway. I could be back on as early as tomorrow, or maybe a week or so from now. Depends on all that damn technology and compatibility and how it all works out. Wish me luck.

I'll miss you.

Maybe I'll break my internet addiction, though, and be able to live a normal life... as soon as I figure out what a normal life is...