Wednesday, June 20, 2012

orange fantasy land and silhouette woman

good morning peeps!
(or whatever time it is in your corner of the world...) 


A fun little painting session last night...


I hardly ever watch tv,
so painting at night is easy peasy.


i had fun with this one.
At this stage, it reminded me of Dr. Seuss's imaginary worlds.

I visited the blog of Tara Leaver yesterday,
(for the record - i love her and i love her work. Check her out, kay?)
and something she wrote inspired me to do this.

She's taking a pen and ink class,
and in one of the exercises,
she "took a line for a walk".

I suspect that means making one, continuous line,
without lifting the pen (or in this case, marker).
I ended up lifting at one point, but generally,
i took my line for a walk. ;-)


Added a few dots and a few wisps with black micron pen,
and there you have it.


It was fun to do.
That's what i love about semi abstract stuff.
There's no pressure to make it look like anything.


Not sure about the wisps, but they're there to stay. ;-)


It was still early when i finished the orange fantasy land,
so i thought i'd do a quick watercolor 
with my watercolor crayon
using this silhouette from a magazine as inspiration.


I used my small postcard size watercolor paper
so this was really quick... this only took about 10 or 15 minutes to do.


As i always do with most of my artwork,
i turn the page around,
to see what it looks like from a different perspective.


This levitating kinda freaked me out,
so i put the paints away and went to read. 
;-)

I want to say something about habit.
The wonderful Tracey Fletcher King is no doubt
far more qualified to teach us about the creative habit,
but here's my 2 cents worth.

I take a meditative walk every morning and sometimes again in the evening.
This one habit was formed by telling myself i would go
for a 15 minute walk. That's all. 15 minutes.
Eventually, it became 20 minutes,
and then 30 minutes.

I look forward to my morning walk now
and if i miss it for one reason or another
i feel less grounded. Less connected.

The important thing is consistency,
whether you want to develop a habit

of walking

or meditating

or painting

or writing

or (fill in the blank)...

We often go too big at first when it comes to habit.

We've all seen those people who join the gym in January
with the intention of becoming Mr. fucking Universe in a year,
but by March, they're back to sitting on the couch
cuddling a bag of chips the size of a house.

Habit is about baby steps.
For me, it's about doing it alone,
and doing it consistently,
at about the same time every day.

So for those of you out there who read art blogs
and yearn to create something,
but still haven't "found the time" yet...
try doing it for small intervals of time at first.

Like 15 minutes.

Take out a pen and paper
and draw.
That's it.
It doesn't need to be a whole broadway production.
Just a pen or pencil and paper.
And then the following day,
do the same.

Your awesomeness may surprise you. 
:-)

12 comments:

  1. Gorgeous artwork Pauline... and beautiful blog... love the watercolor postcard... awesome!! and wonderful words on taking baby steps into creating a consistent habit... I have just begun my morning walks again and must admit I am loving them... so glad I found your fabulous blog... thanks to an interview you had with Jenny...

    Hugs
    Jenny x

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  2. Great to meet you, Pauline! (via Creative Every Day)

    I love that orange sunshine and walking the line with you.

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  3. Hi Pauline,
    I love to visit your blog. I always learn something that helps me with my art and then you always give me something to think about as well. I believe in celebrating the baby steps in creating a habit. It is those first steps that lead us into great things.

    I love the girl who is levitating. Now, I am off to turn all of my pictures on their side and see what I can discover. Have a great day.

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  4. Well, this is the third time today that I have come upon daily habit building message. I just have so many habit I wish to build, I have a hard time committing to just one and I tend to do things in trios. So I am thinking of starting small with just 10 minutes for each thing.
    10 minutes of morning pages (I know it's supoosed to be 30 but oh well)
    10 minutes of guitar/singing practice
    10 minutes of exercise (yoga/walking)
    Starting. Right. Now.

    Btw, Love the Line Walk art piece and the Levitating Lady!!

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  5. I am new to your blog but enjoying it already. Love the orange fantasy, and the lesson in baby steps. Going to take a look at Tara's blog too in a mo.

    thank you so much for taking time to comment on mine yesterday.

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  6. Thanks for visiting me! I just made a new post and I linked to you thanks to your "Habit is about baby steps reminder" !

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  7. I love your orange fantasy land! Such whimsy! :)
    Baby steps are good. I've never been a great fan of habit, though--LOL! ;)

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  8. yummy colors and fluid lines. nice. i really like the idea of the levitating woman. she works both ways..lol

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  9. I want to walk in your orange fantasy land!! Gorgeous! I agree - baby steps are so important!

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  10. Thanks for the mention. :) I didn't explain but yes it means not lifting your pen off the page. I LOVE your seaweed! {That's what it looks like to me.} And I really like the wispy bits.

    My teacher says exactly the same thing about consistency. I have somehow managed to do Tai Chi almost every day for over a year now, which is most unlike me, but it's just a few minutes a day and it must be doing something as I continue to do it. Very good point about doing 'just' fifteen minutes.

    Also I love your levitating girl; are you going to put some colour in?

    xoxo

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  11. Hello Pauline, such encouragement and inspiration... THANK YOU!!
    This is a beautiful painting, the colors are so warm. :]

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  12. Thanks for the shout out... creative habit is so personal and individual isn't it and I love that the more people talk about their creative habits then it gets conversations happening and people will get in and give it a go and do their own thing if you know what I mean... there isn't anything mysterious about it, just have to get in and have a freaking go... maybe not making much sense here, but you will forgive me for commenting while hopped to the eyeballs on cold medication!!! Better than drunk blogging I suppose which has never turned out well for me let me tell you...xx

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