someone loves me and lhasa de sela

the little bit of painting that happened today...

acrylic on paper...

i was gonna call it
Someone loves me on a windy day.
:-)

...and a beautiful song by Lhasa de Sela,

who left this world far too soon.

Wishing you all a peaceful easy Sunday night.

xox

IF - CARRY and blue hair girl

Illustration Friday: CARRY

This is the first image that popped in my mind

when i saw the word of the week on IF.

How we all go through life

carrying different weights on our shoulders.

Some by choice,

others not.

I choose to see the glass half full

but i also realize that for some people,

this choice is far more difficult.

I don't wake up in the morning

to the sound of bombs outside my home,

or sitting in a jail cell,

or lying in a hospital bed,

or depressed,

or with a hangover the size of a house. ;-)

I wake to the sounds of birds chirping

and the breeze blowing,

and a peaceful heart

so it's relatively easy for me to see the glass half full.

I remind myself now and then

that we're not all carrying the same weight in life.

Some of us are carrying huge and heavy burdens.

Here's last night's playtime. 

I didn't take many pics this time.

It basically goes from step one to done. :-)

I started out with collage

and ended up just painting over the whole thing.

Kinda defeats the purpose of collage,

doesn't it...

This is kinda what makeup on a woman looks like to me. 

No offense to those who wear it -

i still love you, honest i do.

:-)

It may not be what the world sees,

but it's what i see.

I used to wear mascara when i was a teenager.

Then i went without wearing anything for years

and a few years ago, when mom was here,

i tried on her mascara on my eye lashes...

it looked (to me) like there were spiders on my eyes,

so it immediately came off.

:-)

I can handle lip gloss now and then,

that's about it.

Women are still far too conditioned

to look beautiful all the time.

The problem with that is that

we don't all interpret beauty in the same way.

I'm linking this to Illustration Friday.

Check out some of the fabulous illustrations there...

so inspirational.

Wishing you all the kinda day you love.

xoxo

and the winner IS....

hello folks!

See all your lovely names here?

I was looking so forward to picking the winner's name,

it's not even funny.

You'd think i was giving away a friggin' car... :-)

I put all the little pieces of paper in this lovely red cup...

picked a name, and...

it's the lovely April Cole!!!

Yay!!

I would've been happy to see anyone's name here, honestly.
This is almost as exciting for me as it for you!
I am in such need of having more fun in my life. ;-)

April, expect an email from me soon (for your address)
so i can send the little Scuba girl on her way to your home.

Congrats, girl!!
I'm happy it was you. :-)

And this was last night's play time.

Dry pastels on textured paper...

A happy lime balloon,

in honor of the talented April, our lovely winner...

I had fun doing this.

Love the messy feel of pastels on my fingers.

Thank you all for playing along.

i know this won't be my last giveaway. :-)

There is some truth to the saying

that it feels better to give than to receive.

Although if anyone's in the mood to give me a car,

i'll happily accept, no problemo.

Wishing everyone a great day!

xoxo

girl in water, woman and wavy hair, the beginning...

She's scary, isn't she?

She scares me and i'm the one who drew her. :-)

I'm posting her anyway because i believe

flawed art is still better than no art. 

This little wavy haired woman was done right after the girl in the water,

and it's a work in progress.

In BIC marker and acrylic paints.

These kinds of doodles are always so meditative for me.

The quote you see on the left is one that i love

by J.R.R. Tolkien...

Not all who wander are lost

I'm reading the FIRE STARTER SESSIONS

and working on some of the worksheets.

I'll tell you a little secret about myself.

i am not a goal oriented person. 

At all.

So whenever i see someone with calendars

or a strategic 5 year plan on their wall

my heart starts to palpitate.

It just all seems far too mechanical for me.

I'm just saying.

It's just not who i am.

For those of you who can fly with 5 year plans on their walls,

more power to you!

I've never been good at setting goals for myself

and yet,

i've accomplished most of what i set out to do,

through passion

and determination

and perseverance

and courage

and work.

Oh, and love is important too.

If you don't love what you're doing

chances are good you may meet the deadline

but you'll still feel empty inside

and almost always drained at the end of the day.

I know. I've been there. It's not a good feeling.

Danielle Laporte gently asks this question in her book:

how do you want to feel?

An important question, wouldn't you say?

Once i thought about this for a while,

i realized that one of the most important values for me

is freedom.

Maybe i really am a hippie at heart. :-)

I want to feel free more than anything,

which probably explains why i've always struggled 

with the 9 to 5 job.

I've done it, for years, but i never strived there.

I was trading my freedom for financial reward,

and that just wasn't cutting it for me.

There had to be another way.

There was another way.

i just had to claim it as my own. 

:-)

When i walked on the beach last weekend,

in this one spot on the sand,

there had been a bonfire there the night before.

Out of the ashes, i saw this one piece of paper...

and these 2 words made me smile.

Wishing you all a happy Wednesday.

xoxo

EMERGE and white wings...

Well, here it is. Done.

At least i think it's done.

I sometimes have to sit with it 

for a few days before i decide.

Not sure about the title...

EMERGE keeps coming to mind.

I just looked up a definition that reads:

Sea mammals must emerge periodically to breathe.

Yeah, sounds about right these days.

My apologies for the crappy photos.

Last night's painting is basically a "paint over".

(what you see here is already painted over)

I had done a painting a few years back

and hated it.

Every time i saw the painting in my studio,

i wanted to paint over it.

So i finally did,

and this one sits with me

far more comfortably than the other one did.

a few earthy, neutral colors...

and this little being was born.

I think this is the first time i've ever painted

in such neutral colors.

At least on canvas.

Maybe i just felt totally colored out

after EMERGE

and needed to get back to basics...

back to a more pure nakedness.

xoxo

fire hair

I'm stuck in red these days. Very unusual for me. I'm usually a blues & greens kinda gal.

Maybe Santa is rubbing off on me? :-)

i did find a way to include the blues... 

not quite done yet, but i wanted to share anyway.

I'm having a lovely time in my neck of the woods, preparing for Christmas. The only thing missing now is snow. I'm one of those people who looks forward to a good snowstorm. It's unusual for us not to have snow at this time of the year, so my fingers are crossed, at least for a bit. :-)

Wishing you all a wonderful Tuesday! 

xoxo

bubbles... AEDM - day 21

ok, i  guess i must be doing the Art Every Day Month except for Weekends and the Occasional Day Here & There challenge. :-) If anything, this little exercise has connected me with some very talented creatives! So already, it's worth it.

This little drawing (in watercolor, colored pencil & white acrylic paint) was actually a f*ck up. :-)
I meant to do this cute little painting on a white background - nothing but the little girl blowing bubbles in clean, white space. I'm not even sure how i ended up adding color to the background, but i did. And before i knew it, there was way more color than what i wanted, and the cute little painting quickly became less & less of what i had envisioned in my head. Once you go overboard with something, you may as well go way overboard. So i decided to add more bubbles & artsy fartsy flowers. And there you have it.

Even if the end result isn't what we wanted or envisioned - sometimes, it's as important to learn to compromise, or be flexible - just go with the flow. Rather than rip up the page & throw it out, why not go with it & see where it takes you? The end result may not be what you wanted, but it may not be that bad either. And so what if it is bad? Maybe you're not the best judge, or maybe bad to you is good to someone else. Keep it anyway, as a little reminder that things don't always go as planned, and in the end, it's ok anyway.

the sketchbook project

Last nights' entry in the sketchbook. By the way JanJan, when you pay the $25, they send you this little sketchbook in the mail. It has something like 20 pages...

I won't be posting all of my sketchbook entries, since i have a friend in New York who will hopefully be able to leaf through the actual sketchbook once it makes it there, and I want her to be surprised.

...and of course, my favorite pencil crayons. The sketch was done with these 3 colors only.
The paper isn't the greatest quality, and if you notice the girls' forehead & hair, you can actually see the circles from the painting I had done on the other side of the page! yikes. So much for do's & don'ts...

I kinda suck at following rules, so there you go... :-)