Busy Monday

It’s been one of those days where there’s so many ideas buzzing around in my head and just too many other distractions going on to really focus on them.

Hopefully I will have a chance to work on some of these tomorrow.

Sonoma – Combined Media – 8 X 10

“Color is the keyboard, the eyes are the harmonies, the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand that plays, touching one key or the another, to cause vibrations in the soul.” – Kandinsky

New Blog Theme

Now that I have been blogging for 8 months I decided to look for a new theme for my site, and I found one that has three columns instead of two.

As I work on updating my blog I may be switching the header images from time to time as a way to showcase my art work, and I hope to finish the rest of the revisions over the next couple of weeks.

Have a great weekend! Any comments will be welcome.

Shiny Baubles

Today, I played around with some of my favorite gemstones and created a necklace. The necklace is made  with jade, citrine, blue lace agate combined with rich golden freshwater pearls, swarovski crystal beads, copper spacers and a copper closure.

Some lore of the gemstones used in the making of this necklace

Citrine is useful for balancing and aligning the chakras and increase prosperity.

Copper is said to be an excellent conductor of energy and healing.

Blue lace agate is a gentle, calming stone that promotes tranquility.

Jade is considered a stone of good fortune and divine blessing.

Pearls attune the wearer to the ebb and flow of life, and promote faith, charity, integrity and truth.

Tranquility – Necklace length: 16″

Crows In The Belfry

Crows everywhere this morning! A group of crows descended on our oak tree this morning, squawking and making such a ruckus they woke me up.

As I peaked out our kitchen window I saw two squirrels making a run for it over our neighbors rooftop. I didn’t see anything else out of the ordinary, so I went back to bed.

Later I met a friend for coffee and we spent some time catching up on whats going on.

“Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.” – Anais Nin

“We are all travelers in the wilderness of this world, and the best that we find in our travels is an honest friend.”

–Robert Louis Stevenson

In the Studio

Spent the morning working on a painting and I’m almost finished! Hallelujah!

Later I played around with a couple of new ideas I wanted to try.  As with all things, especially related to art, there are no guarantees.

After a couple of hours I finally had one painting which kind of worked for me. I’m not sure how I feel about it, but I had fun creating it

“Change is the constant, the signal for rebirth, the egg of the Phoenix.” – Christina Baldwin

“It’s best to have failure happen early in life. It wakes up the Phoenix Bird in you so you can rise from the ashes.” – Anne Baxter

Creative Play

Creative playtime is often one of the most important activities we can engage in as artists. I believe taking the time to play with new ideas, new mediums and color palettes, keeps us in touch with our creative child. After all, our child just wants to have some fun. Taking risks and experimenting is key to our growth and makes us feel alive, and rejuvenated.

We all know that it’s fun to create and make things, and yet we tend to go straight from the idea to the finished painting, without giving ourselves some precious creative goofing around time in the studio.

You know what I mean, maybe your a water-colorist or oil painter, and those pastels you bought way back when, has never been opened . The time for trying something new is now, for later seems to never come.

Go ahead, give yourself permission to goof around with something you have always wanted to try, but never did.

Just Breathe, let go, and flow!

 

 

Edge Dwellers

A couple of years ago while we were flying back from visiting my dad in the Midwest, we were enjoying our flight and took some wonderful aerial shots with our camera.

While sitting in my  window seat watching the landscape below change and shift, cities became tiny islands of humanity in the midst of large expanses of land. The roads appeared as a multitude of tiny web like strands crisscrossing across the land like a giant spider web.

It reminds us that no matter how evolved and technological we become, each of us are only ever a few paces away from the edges of the wild forest and the living storied land.

I wondered what stories would this land  be telling about humanity if the earth could speak, and what would our ancient ancestors make of our world. What kind of stories, art, songs and myths would they create about us.

Edge Dwellers – Combined Media – 5 X 7 inches

Myth Makers

“Myth must be kept alive. The people who can keep it alive are the artists of one kind or another. The function of the artist is the mythologization of the environment and the world”. – Joseph Campbell

“The job of the storyteller is to speak the truth. But what we feel most deeply can’t be spoken in words alone. At this level, only images connect. And here, story becomes symbol; symbol is myth. And myth is truth.”  – Alan Garner

Computer Glitch

It has been an interesting weekend. I’ve been without a computer since Thursday, so I haven’t posted for awhile.

My hubby was able to repair it over the weekend and I am one happy camper to have my computer up and running again. The down time gave me a chance to clean my computer desk which really needed it, and I found a couple of watercolor tubes that have been missing for awhile.

This weekend I found two Mayan masks at a local thrift shop while we were thrifting on Saturday. I was hoping to find a jaguar statue, but there were none to be found. For the Maya the jaguar was a powerful symbol of authority, as well as an integral part of their religion and mythology.

The Maya revered jaguars and often gave their Gods jaguar attributes. They believed the jaguar had the ability to cross between worlds and for them daytime and nighttime represented two worlds. The daytime was associated with the living and the mother earth, and the nighttime was associated with the spirit world and the ancestors.

It has also been said that shamans regard the jaguar as a spirit companion or guardian which protects the shaman from evil spirits while they move between the earth and spirit realm.

As with so many other cultures, the Maya have a vast and rich history of folklore and mythology.

The Guardian – Combined Medium – 8 X 10 inches

“Into the House of the Tapir no one goes. Woven into its walls,
nightblack and amber motifs become anaconda gliding along a
branch of water, jaguar loping across the savannah. The shaman
waits at the entrance, in a dream or trance.” – The House of the Tapir – Jan Conn

Wednesday Musings

I hit the wall! I’ve been working on an abstract painting for a few days and have been feeling more frustrated with each passing day. Arghhh!

Today, I was having great fun splashing paint, and collaging elements onto the canvas, until I stepped back to gauge how it was going. It was one of those moments when you know your stuck in the middle, staring at a half-finished canvas and self doubt begins to creep in.

The flashing neon warning signs were there. Either this is not working or I’ve reached the outer boundaries of my comfort zone. Now the question is which is it?

I could push on or just gesso and start over. Tomorrow is another day and I will decide whether to work on it or not.