Sea & Sky

Have you ever put an old CD in, half-remembering what it is, and then a song comes on and you're jolted from your seat to years earlier, the summer sun on your face, in a different city, and different place in your life? 

Who is that you that you go to visit? And why do we then play the song over and over again? Is it to create a stronger tether to this earlier time? 

Perhaps it's to escape. While we may be in control of our present moments, they can sometimes get away from us. Spiral out. Life becomes so complicated, you no longer have time to repeat mantras or remember all those lessons you've learned from a magical book or person. And then, suddenly, you're somewhere else, remembering the silly commercial this song played on and where you were and wow, have I come far from then. 

I love the unexpected connection that is coming from posting every night. I know I'm pushed to sit down and create, if only for an hour, just so I have something new to share. There's something about social accountability that keeps me, most of the time, in line! 

For example, Susan Jane commented that I shouldn't ink the entire flower in the painting below because it adds tension. After sitting with it for a few days, I could see her point, and decided it only needed a little bit of gold to finish off the piece. And so, I declare this painting finished. 

It's hard for me to let it be simply because I love paintings with central figures; even flowers….ah, I see how that works! Sometimes I just have to write things out to figure out why I feel a certain way! 

It is 17.5"x23" mixed media on reclaimed wood and available for purchase. I love it so much, I'll be making prints. 

And I played around with a new idea I had the other day, that is, using progress shots of paintings as backgrounds for quotes. Just a little fun to be had! And this quote really spoke to me and what I'm thinking/exploring right now. 

I leave you with some pages from my journal. I think I'm finally settling into things and getting on to exploring expression and story. Even hair and details. All three are destined for canvases (two are already half-done!). Never forget the power of paper and pencil…you can literally create worlds. 

Painting play date.

I needed some time away to give me a chance to relax and refill my well, and I'd told Shelley all I've been wanting to do lately is paint, so she said hooray and I headed over after taking care of Mom for a bit. 

I like hanging out with Shelley. She just got back from Pixie Campbell's latest painting retreat and filled me in on all the magic. Oh, how I long to go one day! As long as I can continue to pull in video clients and start attracting consulting clients (both for how to make your videos better -- and you could do well to make them better! and painting clients), I may have a chance. Possibly. If pigs fly. 

Keep an eye out your window! 

I'm slowly updating my Etsy shop -- physical collage sheets went up, and some of the older prints were re-listed. I'm hoping to post new prints soon, but to be honest, I'm no longer in any rush. I don't want to overwhelm you with all these things I'm releasing. I may still have a shifting audience, or perhaps everyone's making their way back over, but I think I need to do some thinking and journaling before I step back out. 

Anyway, Shelley is a breath of fresh air. She wears the jewelry I want to wear. Makes essential oils and balms -- she's a little apothecary (though she'd never call herself one!) in the shade of a mountain with cute pups wandering the house. She spins thread and yarn and has a beautiful collection of objects that form an alter. We met on Facebook via Pixie but probably would have met through other friends at some point. 

I'm finding there are people swirling around me connected indirectly yet tightly bound by the same ideas, same needs and wants and quests. And I feel as though the universe is pulling on those threads, ever so slowly, and asking more and more of me, stretching my abilities and yanking me from my comfort zone. 

Plus, I'm a bit wobbly when it comes to stability, drawing-wise. Just look at the three girls I was working on today…they're all different, done within the same week, worked on today, and yet I still find my hands moving in new ways. What does it all mean? Will I ever figure things out? I'd love to find a way that's steady enough for me to stretch out into illustrating stories/scenes, as Gwen has asked me to try (she's one of the people pushing me!). 

We'll see what happens. I'll be rendering a lot of video tomorrow, which serves for ample doodling time. 

​Isn't this just the best color combo? 

I framed this print of my Tiara painting and OMG am I in love with it! She now has a prominent place on my wall, a shining reminder that we all need to remember our crowns! ​

Old school cut and paste.

Spent the afternoon with a pile of color copies of journal pages, a pair of scissors, & a yummy green tea smoothie thing that ended up making me feel yucky (caffeine and I don't get along very well). ​

​When I started making collage sheets oh-so-long-ago, I didn't have a tablet, or iPad, or any way to easily create them digitally, so I started this tradition of making nice with the copy machine at my local office supply store for a bit before finding someplace calm to cut out whatever caught my eye. The process is simple: 

​Look through pages. 

Cut out patterns/images/spots that are interesting.​

Play Tetris on sheets of white paper until VOILA! ​

Collage sheets. ​

I've been so in love with my work as of late (as in, pretty colors/patterns/marks!) that I walked out with 26 copies in my hands and spent the evening trying to puzzle things out. You want a good balance between big and small elements, between general stuff and detail-y stuff, etc. Does that etc make sense? Anyway, more things that should be considered. ​

I'm a sucker for collage sheets myself, which makes creating them easy. All I have to do is ask: does this sheet look fun to play with? ​

Since I'll be playing with my own copies of these tomorrow, I think I've answered the question!​

Right now, I have a question of importance to ask you. ​

Do you like downloads (instant gratification) or physical sheets (fun in the mailbox!)? ​

Since I'm expanding my Etsy shop tomorrow/this week with more prints/paintings/little things, having physical collage sheets isn't a big deal anymore. Just let me know in comments, please? ​

(If you like downloads, the sheets have been uploaded here for your purchasing pleasure.)​

​And Gywn, sorry that there's a link there at the end; I don't want to fall back to impersonal saleswoman speak (it's exhausting anyway!). Relating my day, and makin' something for y'all was what I did. Well, that and wheeled mom around a bit. Got videos up for Digital Adventures. Watched Star Trek. Am posting from bed. 

Seeking patience.

​I started this painting 5 or so years ago; an old profile picture shows me sitting under the tree in my front yard, wearing a long cotton prairie dress, meticulously drawing. 

(I had to ask someone to come out and take the photo, which makes it a recreation of a spontaneous moment, but I love it all the same, especially the headphones hanging around my neck.)

I've never been one for great patience when painting. I like abstract work, or portraits, sure, but when it comes to taking the time to add all sorts of details, my eyes begin to cross. It all sounds like so much work, and I'm just here to have fun. 

Except I love paintings with detail! Maybe not the perfect replications of real life, but pieces where care was taken. My journal pages gain detail through being carried with me everywhere, and my habit to pull it and some markers out on days when I don't have much energy. Stuck, I can't help by keep making marks, adding one atop another, finding depth. But paintings are a bit too big to do that with!

And as I started inking this flower from the past, I realized I wanted to spend more time on it in order to make it right. Create the true vision in my head. I may have just fallen in love with big brushes and under painting, but I'm more importantly giving my work more respect from the person who matters most -- me.

Emerging.

In the last month, I've started collecting large brushes.

I mean 20, 30, and my favorite, a 40 round mural brush. Even on smaller pieces, these large brushes allow me to cover so much space, to make large looping brush strokes, add more texture, mix paint on the canvas.

(Not that I use canvases anymore. I now work on birch panels from Lowes or Blick panels.)

I am in love with working from general to detail. When I helped a friend by painting large 4'x2' panels for a puppet theater, I started by laying down wide swaths of color, general tones, working out the under painting. Then, I started adding details, progressively using smaller and smaller brushes. 

Here's what emerged from my brush today. It took a lot of procrastinating to get a brush in my hand...organizing paint, cleaning dried paint off my palette...but as the conversation flowed with Larissa, allowing me to work unconsciously, I finally got back to painting, the best love of life and fantastic distraction from hip pain. 

Layers to come. This is just a snapshot of progress, a peek in the middle. The girl is to be a pirate with shells in her hair. The other, who knows? Isn't that the fun part?

Sifting for gold.

I just wrote this elegant blog post, and then the app crashed on my phone. I toted the joys of true moblogging, which is still buggy, yet so much more than we had years ago, a decade ago, back when I programmed my own Blogger site (before they offered it all wrapped up in a neat little package).

I shall attempt to remember what I wrote. 

I haven't traveled anywhere exotic or interesting today; I'm still trying to figure out my summer plans, who's couches I'll be sleeping on, who will have me. Until then, I let my art be the fantastical different world we all yearn to see or visit, especially with the advent of Instagram.

But I sit just the same, at the end of the day, panhandling for the shiny bits, sifting through the muck for those gleaming moments. Human life is messy and complicated yet so simple and straightforward; we all are covered in muck, some more than others, waiting for the right person or people to come along and see the gold under the surface. Each day, no matter how dirty it may get, there are always those nuggets left at the bottom, a tiny fortune each of them, as they represent the bits that make the rest bearable. 

I did that with this journal page. It got away from me at some point, and instead of racing to put it on life support and try and rescue it, I allowed it to spiral out of control, to become imperfect and a mess. It folded in on itself like a collapsing star, brilliant for one moment and then gone. I watched as it happened and let it. It can be incredibly liberating!

So here are the shining bits, the gold at the bottom of the pan, the pieces I loved if a crumbling whole. I even went further, transforming a part digitally, going further, inside out, stretching that feeling of not being satisfied or in love with a spread into a new kind of joy at what I could pull out of it.

You should always look at what you create in such a way. Where are the nuggets of gold you've spent hours searching for? What parts are amazing and why? You'll find it much easier to sit with a less-than-stellar page that way. 

Works for messy days, too.  

Rest up.

My head is swirling with so many thoughts right now, I don't even know what to write. I just want to breathe, and settle. Not let the unsubscribes feel like flat out rejection of both me and what I create. Remember that it's been one day and I need more to change the world.

Today, as I loaded my mother into the car, and then packed the wheelchair in the trunk, the nurse said to my mother, "Wow. If there was someone to take care of me, I'd want it to be her."

I didn't know I'd done anything more than be empathetic and pull up past experience.

But now I am exhausted and laying in bed and wishing for some time to myself to rest up. I hit a wall and need to get back up to strength to take it all on again next week.

Creating the new economy.

I'm going kind of radical today.  

I'm sitting bedside; Mom is resting, & doing better. I'm rendering videos for clients & classes in the background, waiting for things to be shiny enough for me to continue working.  

For years, I have been inspired by Gwen Bell. As she grows, I see the chance for growth and rebirth double, triple, continue on with success. Even having a business burn down didn't stop this woman!

Sometimes, we have ideas but are too afraid to voice them. Are afraid they may fail. And that's okay. It's natural. Sometimes, we need others to take the step first so we can follow. It gives validation to our idea, shows us that the community as a whole is moving towards something greater. Bigger.  

I've been toying with the idea of a circle economy for awhile. I have bartered my way up the food chain, which has brought me where I am now, a place where I get to do what I love every day, meet amazing artists, and create the kind of content I've been dreaming of for years. I get to use cool words like clients  and business trips . I get to visit new cities, network, meet new people. Become infused with new ideas. 

Any student who contributes to the monthly 'zine gets paid. If they contribute lessons, they get compensated. It isn't much, but it's something . I want more participation, more circular teaching, and less of a direct Me --> You classes. I want Me -- > You <--> Us. Digital Adventures has turned into this (the self-study option will have student-submitted downloads and lessons!).

Here is something that has been going through my head for the past four months:  

If 80% of the members over at The Studio donated $3 a month, I could give away all my classes for free.  

This is crowdsourcing at its finest. If the crowd, those 600+ members, all got together and gave $2.25 a month in donations for an entire year, I could give away my classes. I'd have enough to pay the bills, invest in more equipment & materials, & eat. You would be supporting me directly, with the change you find in your pockets at the end of the day. Isn't that an amazing thing? And if every "like" on FB gave $.80, the same would happen -- free art, painting, art journaling, and digital classes for anyone who wanted to take them. 

Of course, this only works if the commitment is both ways. If you commit for a year, I will. I will be all over the community. I will do more videos (I currently produce 4 personal videos a WEEK, just for classes & the Creative Warriors Circle, that the public never sees). I'll produce the 'zine with your content and pay you a flat fee. 

I've seen what everyone else does, and I want to be different. Try something new. Go out on a limb. So when I reach my goal of $275 a week, I will open up all my classes, downloads, and products in the Shoppe. Come and get them. Enjoy. Pass them along. Let's try to make a new economy, where we all support others.  

All supporters of the new economy will receive my e-zine, Warrior Call, each month as a thank you for your support of the work! 

And if you need a few dollars a week, let me know. I'll come over and empty my pocket.  

Donate via Gittip here. What I receive is public. 

If you'd rather work via PayPal, use the buttons below. I will publicly post the information. 

One Time Donation

Choose your amount:

$3/ Month : $3.00 USD - monthly $5/Month : $5.00 USD - monthly