Saying Goodbye

We are saying goodbye today.  This is Lucky. Sixteen years ago I found her in the ditch across the street.  She was cold and really young.  She didn't know how to eat, so I fed her with an eye dropper. She survived and grew up. We called her Lucky because she was lucky we heard her cries and could rescue her. When her mother was killed by a car and her other sibling was found dead by a neighbor then you know she was truly lucky.

She was a good mouser in her youth. Our relationship was not always cordial especially when she would pee in the house. I would put her outside when she really didn't want to go.  She became more my husbands cat. She'd hang out on the back of his chair and then we'd call her the Parrot Cat. When friends came over for a weekend she would hide the whole time. The last year or so as she got old she wanted to sit on my lap a lot. She'd let me pet her and groom her since she didn't do a great job any more.  She had the most beautiful eyes.  Really intense blue with flecks of color. I am going to miss her. She had a great life with us.

My Inner Pink

One of things I have been doing for this years Nano is having fun.  One of the tools of Kaizen-Muse coaching is to act as if we were someone who is doing or being what we want to be. So I am acting like one of my favorite authors.  I got myself a pink wig so I look lik Laini Taylor. I am really exploring my inner pink this year .  What do you think, is it the real me? The color is even brighter than this shows.  Its been fun.  My friend Adam called me Laffy Taffy last night. He siad my hair reminded him of the pink version of the candy.

We have been having lots of fun in our group this year, I know I will miss it when the month is over.  Have a great weekend everyone.

Hey you still have an opportunity to help out with my fundraiser I am doing for the Nanorwrimo. The proceeds go to fund the Young Writers Program. Which is a very worthy cause. Just click on the button below. Any amount is helpful.

Today's sketch

I drew this sketch today. It turned out nothing like I had intended.  So I wrote about my frustrations on her clothes.  When I look at it now I think oh its not that bad its just does not look like the picture I was using at all.  When I am trying to create something I like to resemble it a little bit. I am finding this in my writing too. I have some visuals of my characters but I am having trouble bringing them to life the way I invision.

Do you have trouble bringing your visions to the life?

Drawing Again

I needed a break before writing today.  She is an idea for a character from one of my pinterest boards. She was fun to draw. I may want to paint her someday.

Being Creative in Different Ways

The latest page in my journal.  The background was made with spray inks. This time I remembered that  I couldn't paint over spray inks. So I added a paper for the face shape and used gelatos as the medium. I  used my fingers to spread the color and highlighted that with colored pencil.

My friend Janet commented the other day that she was amazed that I was still doing art while writing my 1,667 words a day. I thought I'd share how and why that is happening this year.  Well first I couldn't go without making art for a month if I tried. Its just not possible. Secondly I think both writing and art are creative endeavors and they both serve the same purpose. When I am stuck writing I find that doing some art takes the pressure off, it makes me relax so I can then go back to the writing with new eyes. I think it really helps to different kinds of creative things, it helps getting stuck in any one space. Even within the art world I do different things. Sometimes its a journal page and others a painting or a tag or postcards etc. Or I may be writing a blog post or a novel or content for my website. Its all creative and fuels me in different ways.

Tell me do you do more than one creative thing?

All Day Write In

I have been at an all day write-in today for Nanowrimo.  There was a lot of great food and conversation and boosting of word counts.  What more could you want.  It was a perfect day but I am pretty tired now. Thought I'd show my latest  journal page.  I have been doing a little art every day. Some is just a background and some I do try and make something with.

I hadn't intended to do a page on Frida. I created this wonderful background and tried doing a face. I always forget you can't do something like that over spray inks. Then I tried to fix it and the paper started to disintegrate so collage was the next step. This scrap of Salma Hayek as Frida seemed to fit the space very well, I am always amazed by the courage she had to live her life.

Sedona In My Art

This journal page was fun. After playing with the background I saw her face and shoulder and then the rest of her cam out.  I was going to just outline her shape and then paint her but I like the way the gel pen looked so I kept going. The raven in flight was a stencil I cut a few years back. I just colored it in with a brush pen.  the background colors remind me of the rocks in Sedona. I can't seem to get away from Sedona, it keeps popping up in my art.

We finally got our wood floor installed but now there are tons of little things to do before we can move everything back into the room. I do love the way it looks though. I'll show pictures soon.

This is a pic of my daughter with author Laini Taylor.  I know a lot of you know her from her novels or her Laini's Ladies line of art. I introduced Sarah to her work and she became her favorite author.  She was just thrilled to be able to meet her. I can't wait to get my copy of her new book. Sarah got me a copy and had it signed for me. I am lucky to have such an awesome daughter.

A Happy Accident

I had a happy accident in the studio last week.  On day one I cleaned off my pallette on some pages in one of my journals.  First I added orange.  The next day some green and the third day some blue. When it dried on the third day I looked at it quite surprised.

I had created what looked like a map.  How cool is that.

Then I outlined all the continents and bodies of water with a fine pitt artist pen.



















I love how I have all these little islands and rivers and lakes and some pretty interesting looking continents.  I think it would be fun to create a story to go with this world.

Speaking of stories I am a few days into Nanowrimo and things are going well. This page is a homage to that journey. I think every year I forget how hard this task really is.

Don't these colors look yummy. Its funny that I ordered similar colors in different mediums.

This page came about when I tried out my new Panapastel colors on it. I just drew shapes over all those luscious colors.  What fun. Its sort of like a cityscape with nothing particular in mind.

Have you had any surprises in your journal lately?