Showing posts with label doing art. Show all posts
Showing posts with label doing art. Show all posts

Thursday, 7 October 2010

Cool breeze, creativity blooming

I walked outside this morning to find....

A cool breeze!  A real, honest-to-goodness, cool breeze!  Really cool!  Like maybe 20-25 degrees cooler than a week or so ago!  For the first time in months!

And with the cool weather comes....


Long walks - around my neighborhood, in the park, at the beach

Big pots of creamy homemade soup for supper

Home-baked bread

Lazy afternoons outside with a good book and a cup of tea

Feeling good when I put on a soft hoodie

...and creativity!  Time to pull out the scrapbooks and art supplies and paints!


Thursday, 23 September 2010

Practical Magic -- the Book

A few months ago, I accepted a challenge to create a work of art around the book or movie, Practical Magic.  I chose the book (haven't seen the movie) and here is my entry....a collage, representing some of the critical elements of the book.  I used Photoshop, Olioboard and a few other tools to create this digital image...

Now I can't wait to see everyone else's!  Thanks for the challenge!

If you click on the image, it will render slightly larger. Please leave me links when you post yours! :-)




Tuesday, 14 September 2010

I think it's a scrapbook kind of night

A sample layout from one of my FAVORITE scrapbook stores! 
Times to Remember , in Hershey PA
Last week, the flu really wiped me out.  I looked at my scrapbook table a couple of times, but my head was too foggy to make critical choices about color and design and which pictures should be featured.  But I am feeling MUCH better now, and it's time to play!

I can almost feel the paper in my hands.  I have a couple of packages of new stickers I'm itching to open and play with.  And then there are the wedding pictures I haven't even started scrapping yet.  And the camping trip, and the Mother's Day breakfast and the "My Faith" scrapbook I've been meaning to start ever since I skimmed through Courtney Walsh's book about it at a crop. I love the idea of putting things like faith or dreams or other "intangibles" into scrapbooks -- it helps me clarify my own feelings better than words alone ever do.

And then there's the "Behind the Camera" book I wanted to start with the stickers I got a few months ago, and the Pets scrapbook and the pages in my Journey Book I need to update and the pictures from the Rockies....

Yup, I'm sooooo ready to cut and paste and arrange, and pull out my newest Creating Keepsakes layout idea books for inspiration, and try something new for my journaling....

It's a good night to clear out some of those leftovers in the fridge and freezer, so cooking won't cut into my scrapping time, too. After all, I was meaning to clean out anyhow, and that was on my FlyLady list a week or so ago, and so I really should....

Yeah, it's a scrapbook kind of night.  Anyone with me?  Send me a link to the layouts you do tonight, and I'll post mine.

Thursday, 2 September 2010

The power of art

I went to Borders yesterday, armed with coupons...I had a 33% off one item, $5.00 in Borders Bucks and a 10% off personal shopping day coupon.  Within 3 minutes of entering the store, I knew exactly what all those discounts were going towards.  It wasn't planned.  But as I walked towards the back of the store, past the sale rack, there at eye level was the book The Artistic Mother by Shona Cole.

Nope, not on sale.  And the price tag of $24.99 for a softcover book almost stopped me.  Then I looked inside.  It is filled with reasons why, as moms and creative people, art is so essential.  And why it's so hard to find the time and the energy to do it.  It has sections on creating space, on creating time, on allowing ourselves to put our art as a priority, even if the laundry isn't all done, or the carpets need to be vacuumed.

And it has 12 weekly assignments.  And projects.  And I knew I had to have the book!  Because I have been neglecting my art.

My keys on the table
My perfectly toasted JalapeƱo bagel 
I was so inspired, especially after my realization a few days ago that I was NOT taking any photos, that I jumped into assignment one today, and brought my camera with me to breakfast at Panera.  And I looked at the details around me...

I looked at the light and the shadows, and the way they played off the leaves and illuminated the sidewalk...And I paid attention to the curve of the bench, and the writing on it I had never noticed before.  And the way the water danced in the fountain, and the proud way the palm trees stood against the blue September sky.  I even looked again at the Alfred Angelo bridal store that just a few short months ago was so important to me as I prepared for my wedding....


...and I knew that the placement of that book, on that shelf, at that moment, was not a mistake or random event.  It's time to make art again.

Wednesday, 18 August 2010

Oh wow! I grew up to be a writer, an artist and a coder! How cool is that??!

Image from http://drawn.ca/

I can remember being a little girl, thinking about all the things I might want to be when I grew up. A dancer, a doctor, a pilot, a writer, an architect, a set designer...there were soooo many things I wanted to do.

And then there was the short list my parents gave me of acceptable choices:
  • Doctor
  • Lawyer
  • Engineer
Meanwhile, I filled books with my stories and poems, spent hours and hours drawing pictures (mostly of horses or horse-related things!), and then once I had access to computers at school, playing around with code.

I applied to college with a double major of theatre and architecture. My parents immediately changed that plan, and it became premed. Then when it became clear that organic chemistry and I were never going to get along well, I was allowed to switch to English and psychology, as preparation for law school.

One year of law school at age 21 was a disaster...I was the youngest in the class by several years, and my heart was far from in it. It was an epic fail in so many way. Then there was more university time, and a couple of grad degrees. In Political Science, of all things. And still, through it all, I wrote and drew and painted. I bought a computer and played around with changing things, coding and learning how it worked.

One day, I got a job as a feature writer on a small town newspaper. And I loved it! And I wrote and took photos. And I entered some graphics in a small town fair art show and I won! And I bought my third or fourth computer.

Then there was a writing job for an online catalog site. And there,  I got to learn all about Search Engine Optimization (SEO - the stuff that goes on behind the scenes in a website.) I learned how to write and edit HTML. And because it was a small company, I also got to select images for our pages and articles, and work with Photoshop, too.

A few years later, I got another job where all of those same things were needed, but for a big company...

And so it goes...

Now, my days are spent online, writing articles and posts and other content, creating and fixing the HTML code behind our company's pages, and at home, doing my art.

And yet it was not until yesterday, as I was riding in the car, on the way home from dinner with my husband that it occurred to me that I have grown up to do all the things I loved to do as a child! I make my living by writing and coding and doing art!

Now I ask you...for someone who took so many other paths, and who was directed away from all she loved sooooo many times, how absolutely awesome is that???!

Thanks, G-d. Thanks, Universe. You got me exactly where I was meant to be :-)

Tuesday, 22 December 2009

Some quotes on love and art

ON LOVE:

For those of us who had to go through a few toads before finding our prince....

Lucky is the man who is the first love of a woman,
but luckier is the woman who is the last love of a man.
~ Unknown ~


We cannot really love anybody with whom we never laugh.
~ Agnes Repplier ~

ON ART:

All art requires courage.
~Anne Tucker ~

When my daughter was about seven years old, she asked me one day what I did at work. I told her I worked at the college - that my job was to teach people how to draw. She stared at me, incredulous, and said, "You mean they forget?"
~ Howard Ikemoto ~

Art disturbs, science reassures.
~ Georges Braque ~, Le Jour et la nuit

Tuesday, 16 June 2009

Time for art and for opening to new possibilities


I have the next five days off from work. It's been years since I've had that much time to myself. Wow!

I was supposed to spend tomorrow at the beach with my friend, but she is sick. So I have a new plan. I will work on the art project that is taking up a portion of my bedroom floor, and a significant amount of my mind. I will enjoy my space, and welcome any visitors who happen by. I will spend some time getting to know someone better. I will read and write and treat myself to breakfast out at least once. I will go for walks on the beach. I will care for myself.

Such a gift!!! Five whole days! I am blessed.