While watching Fran Riley's video for The Worlds Biggest Summit yesterday I saw this other video of hers. She has some amazing things in her house. Just wait till you see the bathtub.

As an exercise for some coaching I am doing I painted what my creativity looks like.  I saw it as a swirling ball of red and orange and purple, with tingly waves cascading out from a circle.  I left little swirly spots in the center to represent all those new ideas that have not come to light yet.  I made this on an 11 X 14 canvas board using Panpastels.

Here are a few more pages from my fall journal.  I had to record the snow event we had.

This is all about taking walks in the Fall. Something that I really enjoy doing,

We attended the Occupy Idaho Falls rally on Friday night. We had a good turnout, there were 150 people which may not seem like much. Other rally's I have attended only had about 30 people, so this was a lot bigger. There were speakers and then we walked along the Greenbelt to the Broadway Bridge and cheered. It was great being in solidarity with all the other groups around the country.

The Worlds Biggest Summit

Have you been  going to the Worlds Biggest Summit.  Its this amazing even put on by Goddess Leonie.  Each day there are three amazing speakers. Some are audio and some are video.  You can save them to listen to or watch later.  It goes through the month of October and you can You can access it here

I have to admit I had been saving most of them for later but the last couple of days I have been watching and listening and the information has been just fabulous. I know you will love it. Oh and I forgot to mention, its free. All you need is a little time to save it or to watch it  now. I know that you are worth investing the time in.  Enjoy it my friends.

Sunday Sketches

Here is my sketch for this Sunday.  Remember to check out Sophia's blog for more sketchers.  There is always a great collection of people posting their work. If you didn't get to see last Sundays sketch you can see it here.  Have a great Sunday everyone.

It snowed!

I still find it hard to believe the snow we had yesterday. This is my backyard at the beginning of the storm. We got 4" of very huge white fluffy stuff, it looks like December, not October. There are downed trees everywhere in town.  The leaves had not even changed or fallen yet. We lost one big branch on one of our trees but the rest survived when I got some of the snow off of them. Then we had another distaster, something fell into our chimney while we had a fire going and the house filled with smoke.  I wasn't home.  Dave had to pull the on fire logs out and put into the ash bucket and take outside. It took 2 trips. We also lost power at that time.  We have power back but the house still smells like smoke. We have all the doors and windows open and its really cold outside so I am down the basement where its warm.  I hope we'll be able to close it all open soon,  Last night the smoke really burned my eyes.  Not a fun day.

Some more pages from the graffiti journal.  I printed out a Sunday Sketch for this page.

Here I was talking about the rain, that was early in the week.

I got some Utah peaches, don't they look yummy. In my town enterprising folks drive down to Utah near the prime peach growing area and bring up peaches to sell here.  They are just picked so you can't beat that. I am making some pie with some of them. Do you want a piece?

The Impact of Steve Jobs

                 Steve Jobs 1955-2011


With the death of Steve Jobs on Wednesday there are tributes all over Twitter, Facebook and the net. Many of us feel saddened at such a great loss. There are very few people on the planet who were not affected by his life. I felt that I needed to add my thoughts to the mix.


I think that most of us know that Steve founded Apple, gave us Mac computers, iPod, iPhone, iPad. I never realized that he started Pixar too.  Where would animation be without Pixar.   The reason we have all these wonderful fonts is because Steve loved calligraphy. I am grateful for that.  For me it isn't that he did all of these things but it is more who he was as a person and the philosophy that he espoused.


So many of us artists talk about the same things, following your dreams, think out of the box.  We are all saying the same thing.  Here was a man who followed those ideas with gusto and encouraged us to do the same.


Here is the TED talk aka Steve Jobs commencement address at Stanford University.  If you have seen this before watch it again, it is that good. Then save it and watch it in those times where you doubt yourself.


Here are a few favorite quotes attributed to Steve.


Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary

"The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle."    I love this, never settle keep searching for the thing that makes your hearts sing.   

"Have the courage to follow your heart and your intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. "   I so strongly believe this that I wear a necklace that says Follow Your Heart. Its a reminder in case I forget.

“Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently — they’re not fond of rules… You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things… they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.”  


This innovator and creative visionary will be sorely missed.

Creative Whirlwind

I truly believe that I have been on a creative whirlwind.  Granted much of that is due to taking Remains of the Day and Layered Expressions, two classes by some very talented ladies. I think its more than that. I have taken other classes and often not completed all the exercises. Sometime its attitude and willingness to put in the necessary time, to let go of expectations, to finally to be able to go that extra mile. To that space where you really start feeling like an artist. I feel like I have arrived there and its a fabulous place to be.

My first pages in what I am calling my grafitti journal. I got the idea from an issue of Art Journal Magazine called My Summer Journal.  In the article the person made a journal in a class and it was all about Summer.  I thought it would be fun to do one for all the seasons. Since its Fall that is where my emphasis lies.  I always admire those pages that are simple and have handwriting on them. Kind of like graffiti.

So I took old book pages and sewed 3 pages together for each of my pages, I am not going to bind the pages until they are all done.   I sewed some things down, and glued and stapled others.  I want these pages to be ones that can been done quickly.

On this page I went through fall colored papers to start off this page. I spent just a few minutes on this one too.  I am liking this fast journaling.  You pick a few things and then you're done.   The paper in this journal is really old and yellowed and its almost like that become part of the design of each of the book.




The beginnings of my cardboard journal that I am making in Katie's class. The covers are cardboard and so are all the pages.  What fun this will be .  More on this on Friday. Can you tell I have been having a blast in this class.


CONTEST WINNERS for my 500th post giveaway were chosen by random number generator.


Poetry Girl - Artella
Anka - Zine by Samantha Kira
Andria - Artful Purpose Zine
Codyrachel's irises - Card Collection
April Cole  - Sketchbooking

Would the winners please send me their addresses so I can get their winnings to them. Thanks to all who entered.

Using Encaustic Wax

This is my set up to do encaustic wax,  I am using a melting pot and a quilting iron, I also used a heat gun. The wax took quite awhile to heat up. This was my first try at this technique.

The original painting before wax.






















and the painting after wax, the color seems so much richer now.  Oh I love working with wax.

My collage in process using the magazine pages and nevrDull.

The second phase, it is not really that blue, the color is more subtle.

This closeup is more the color. Now I need to figure out what I will do next. I think I will look at it for a few days and see what emerges.

Sunday Sketches

The official Sunday sketchers was cancelled today due to Sophia's loss of her father.  I had already done a sketch so here she is.  Have a great day.  I am off to watch the Packers, I'll be spinning some yarns so something creative will happen with all the sitting.  I have new art to show you tomorrow.