Amazing Organization

I don't have the time to blog today but didn't want to leave you empty handed. Check out this woman craft room, and remember its only part 1. The organization is amazing in itself, but when I look at all her supplies I wonder how long it took to accumulate such a stash. I want to go play at her house.

Animal Dreams and The Wicked Tinkers

Last year I was working with Carla Sonheim's book Drawing Lab. I had gone to the zoo and had made some animal sketches. I was using a small sketchbook I had bought from Diana Trout, which I had bought  to try out the stonehenge watercolor paper but ended up just doing drawing in it. That seemed a waste so thinking about that and then being anxious to work with my watercolors I went and added some wc to the images.

This camel was just sitting and panting in the sun, I felt lucky to capture the image as sometimes they are not so accommodating.

The giraffe was so cute... We don't have giraffe's in our zoo so I must have drawn this from a book or memory I can't remember.

I have a thing for zebras,  and actually most black and white animals. I love the black and white stripes but decided to make a purple zebra instead. I like his expression, it makes me wonder what he is thinking.

Men in Kilts

I am off for the weekend, in the morning we head south for The Utah Scottish Festival and Highland Games. I need to see some men in kilts and listen to some great Scottish Music.  One of my favorite groups, The Wicked Tinkers will be playing.  I love those guys, they play tribal Scottish music and they are so much fun.  Here is a video of them on the Craig Peterson show.



and yes I will remember my camera this time.

Little Squares of Color

I signed up to take Alisa Burke's class Watercolor Bliss.  I would love to find a way to incorporate watercolor into my journal pages that is more satisfying and Alisa does beautiful work so it seemed a perfect combination.  So far I am loving the class.

So I dragged out this baby.  Most of these paints are 14 years old at least.  I got it when I took my first watercolor class in 1997. I have used up some of the colors but there is still a lot of paint available. I had no idea what brand of paint these were or their color names.  I ended up digging through old files to find out what brand of WC these were. Turns out these were Winsor-Newton paints and I now I know the color names too.

We are into week one and our assignments are to get familiar with our supplies. So I have been doing some samples of all the water media I have and there is lots of it. I have 4 sets of pencils, derwent and caran d'ache watercolor pencils and inktense and graphitint pencils.  So I have been making these pages with samples of each color.

They took awhile but they are really fun to do. I like looking at all the colors and their names too. I also made sheets for the Neocolor II watercolor crayons and the all the watercolor paints I have.

Don't you just love all the color names, like shiraz and prussian blue and carmine and vermillion and more.  I can't begin to tell you how much fun I had in making all these little squares of color.  I was almost disappointed when I ran out of materials. It will be really nice to have these pages as reference for future work.

Tell me do you make little charts like these for your supplies?

Vision Boards for Clarity

I talked about doing morning pages yesterday and how they help me get back on track to the things I want to do in life. Another tool I often use are vision boards. I really have been called to do a new one but kept putting it off. First I told myself I had no magazines and then no time. In fact most of the images for my vision board I pulled off the internet so having no magazines is just one more excuse you tell yourself. As to the time thing, I just through that out the window and just did it.

 For me Vision boards help me to focus more on what I want to bring into my life. This board has things I want like shoes and clothes but also travel locations and projects like my books and coaching course and even flowers for my garden.  You can have a single vision or a broader one like the one I did. Do you have a project that seems stalled and needs a new life.  Try doing a vision board for it.  You may find that it is just the thing you need to get focused on it again.

Blogging as a Spiritual Practice

I started doing Morning Pages again.  You know the three pages of writing daily talked about by Julia Cameron in the book The Artists Way. They have been a constant companion in my life.  Sometimes I end up doing them for a couple years and then I stop.  Not sure why I stop, because I see them as a powerful tool, they also help me set things in order and accomplish more of what I want.  I am not sure if the downtime from them is part of the process or not.  I just know in times of flux or when I just feel something is off morning pages bring me back to my true self.

During today's morning page writing, I started thinking about blog posts I might want to write. Often I go through a period where I have some great subjects and I may write several posts in the same day and just schedule them to appear on different days. Its an efficient way to blog but not usually how I end up doing it.  Often its a daily thing I think oh what shall I blog about and something comes to mind and I just go with it.  Or it will be about the art I did that morning or the day before. The more I pondered on this I came up with this posts title.

Blogging is like a daily spiritual practice. If its something you do daily or almost daily I think that qualifies, and then its something that takes you inside yourself. You may show art or photographs or events in your life.  It always follows some kind of introspection. You think about events and how the people who read your post will like them.  Even when showing a journal page you may go inside yourself and explain just what you were thinking at the time. Or you will pick a subject and just write how it makes you feel or has changed your world.

Sometimes blogging can feel like a chore too. Like it is one more thing on your list of to do's. Now if you think of it as a spiritual practice it takes on a whole different flavor doesn't it.  Its more like your gift to the world, a little piece of yourself.

Sunday Sketches

My Sunday sketch for today was started yesterday but finished this afternoon.  Lots of writing on it once more. I love doing these graphite drawings and then adding the journaling.   To see what other sketchers are doing, go the lovely Sophia'a blog located here

Frustration and some yarn

I have been trying to get my newsletter out but alas the computer gods are not smiling on me. First I had   formatting problems so I gave it up for another day. Now today the program keep crashing when I try to edit it. It looks like the newsletter won't be out till next week now. Grrr.

Remember I showed the carding machine I was using. Well its gone back to it home in Utah but while it was here I carded 160 batts.  This is what my kitchen table looks like.

I just love looking at all the colors. These are all wool batts rolled into balls. Some of them are natural shades and the rest of them I dyed myself.

I also blended some silks and mohair with some of the wool.  I can't wait to make some of the purples into some gorgeous yarn.

These are some of the silk blended batts, don't the colors just look luscious.

and here are some of the yarns I have spun so far.

Books and Prompts

My sister sent me a copy of this.  Lucky me, its the best new book out there in the Mixed Media category. There were a lot of new things to try and I was not disappointed. I hate when books having nothing new in them. I mean why write a book about it if all the information is right on someones blog.

I am also waiting for this to arrive.   Misty is one of the only big names I have taken a class with and I love her work so I am excited to get her book.



Over at The Queen of Creativity Castle 

I have changed the bi-weekly Creative Challenge I rave been running. I am now doing a weekly prompt for Art Journaling. If you are a journaler who likes to work with prompts you might want to check it out here. Sometimes I like using prompts and other times I look at a prompt and then do something totally different so they can be used in many ways.

My page is a background from the other day.  The color seems a little washed out, its more vibrant than this.  I used Faber-Castell big brush markers and some gel pens to draw the houses. Its all about a neighborhood where you can find friends. Would you like to come to my house and play?