I found this picture in my files.  I know it’s from my trip to TX in the spring but I don’t know what it is or where I took it.    Sunrise? Sunset?  Big old moon?  I don’t know 

I like surprises such as finding pictures I don’t remember taking.  Maybe that’s why I’m not organized.  Winnie the Pooh once said something like “The good thing about being messy is you’re always making new discoveries.”

I am messy and disorganized but I choose to look on the bright side of that.  My world is full of surprises and new discoveries.  The time I spend looking for things or fixing a mistake can be fun and challenging if I don’t get distressed over the mistakes .

I have made many discoveries in art from things I messed up.  I am impatient and don’t always wait for things to dry well.  The messes made trying to work on something that isn’t dry have resulted in some great new techniques!

Let’s all allow ourselves to make mistakes this weekend and celebrate them along with Labor Day!

I found out about this service while reading Heather’s blog.  It’s called Wordle.

You paste anything you want in their form online and it creates word clouds from your words.  You can choose the font and the colors.   The possibilities are endless!

I pasted a paragraph from an essay I wrote about my son.  They don’t offer a way to save the graphic file – only print it.  But I have a program called SnagIt that was able to capture the image for me, so now I have the file.

I’m leaving Fri morning early to fly to Sedona, AZ to see my friend, Paula.  I am so excited.  First of all because it’s been over a year since I’ve seen her.  And secondly because she lives in an art mecca.  I fully expect to come back inspired in unimaginable ways.

I have the possibility of meeting my friend, Lynn, there also.  We have tentative plans, and I hope they work out!!

I made this journal just for my trip.  It’s a composition book that I gessoed the cover of.  I painted it with acrylics then glued on the image and the words.  I can’t wait to see what I fill the pages with!

My friend, Paula, does not consider herself an artist, but she has inspired me for years now. I can be stumped on something and she will casually mention something and it will be the perfect thing I need!

I will be back the middle of next week and will share any inspiration I glean while in beautiful AZ!

David William takes objects such as balloons and artist’s tape and adds some fun and color to the urban environment.  He calls it "Street Intervention".  Don’t you love how fun the one pictured above is?

He also does some unusual collage and drawings. He uses some interesting elements that I would never think to mix.  This one is one of my favorites.

His website is full of examples of his work.  All images shown here are copyrighted by David William

It’s been so long since I did art to sell. This inspires me to get busy.   

For a long time, peace is something that I have longed for.  On my fiftieth birthday, I got a tattoo of a heart with a peace sign in it. The image on the left is a drawing I made of my tattoo.

Yesterday I heard a speaker and he said the definition of peace is "without fear". That seems really obvious now that I hear it, but I never made that connection before. 

Hearing that, it became very clear to me why peace is something I’ve longed for. My entire life has been filled with fear.  Most of it was real fear.  I haven’t always lived in safe places or with safe people.  After living in real fear, even when you get out of the environment the fear lingers because it’s such a part of your being.

I have spent years working very hard to rid myself of the fear.  At times I felt like it was going to be my constant companion forever.  But, gradually I was able to let go of a little piece here and another piece there.    The work I did involved acting courageous.  Courage doesn’t mean not being afraid.  It means being afraid but doing it anyway.   It took lots of loving people holding my hand while I stepped out into the scary unknown, time and time again.

Part of my journey out of the fear was spiritual.  I worked hard at trusting God.  Putting my trust in people had often failed, but God had never failed me, so it took some work to step out and know that net was underneath me.

And, finally, the last part of the work was to create a safe world to live in.  To quit putting myself in positions and with people that weren’t safe.  That may have been the hardest work of all.  Learning when to trust, and when not to.  Being able to set my boundaries.  And believing that I deserve to be treated with respect.

As I listened to the speaker yesterday I had a huge revelation and sat there with a huge grin on my face. I realized that I have very little fear in my life today.  I have some, but isn’t that part of normal life?  I am surrounded by love and support.  No one calls me names or threatens me.  I am spoken to on a daily basis with encouragement and affirmation.  What a miracle!

My life has been so rich lately from living near relatives again as well as having the opportunity to spend a lot of time with my kids in TX.

From my family I am learning so much about love.  I stopped trying to please and started focusing on just loving them some time ago and the results are so marvelous!

My six year old great-niece told her mom last week that when she is at my house using my art supplies that she feels my art inside her.  How beautiful is that?

When my 5 and 6 yr old grandsons were here a few weeks ago I gave each of them a journal, pens and a glue stick and taught them how to journal.  I told them about writing or drawing their emotions as well as adding ephemera from their day.

The six year old, Max, has some issues with his temper.  At times he feels anger so intensely that he acts out and gets in trouble.  This past week he became very angry about something and his mom was waiting for the explosion when he said, "Mom, I need my journal."  How beautiful!!  He wrote a while, put his journal away and remained calm the rest of the evening.  Right before my eyes I am seeing a young child learn the benefits of journaling.  This could be something that helps shape his life!

This week my two cousins (I don’t know how you figure out second cousins, twice removed and all that) came to visit.  The 17 year old, Liz, is a gifted artist and Nick, 15, is a complete geek.  So the three of us had a wonderful time talking, shopping, playing with computers and art supplies!

Being with kids and young people just ignites my fire like nothing else can.  I love how they are like sponges just craving to learn and experience new things.  It allows me to realize that I have learned some things in my life that can help others if I’m willing to share through love.  By sharing love, we remove doubt, judgment and competition that so often happen in families.

I found this wonderful article about sharpening pencils on Matthew James Taylor’s blog.  He gives details about sharpening pencils for various sketching and drawing techniques.

There are types of points to achieve certain strokes, shading, etc.  He gives information on the types of sharpeners and methods for achieving the points.

Children’s book illustrations and fairy tale art are two of my most favorite types of art.  My favorite children’s book artists are Kate Greenway and Beatrix Potter.

This post presents a large collection of rare sketches from Beatrix Potter’s collection that apparently have not been seen before.

Even in her roughest sketches you still see the softness and innocence in her work.