Sunday, May 29, 2011

Follow Your Bliss

Joseph Conrad had a philosophy: "Follow Your Bliss". 

That is the direction that I am keeping in mind as I re-define my paradigm (which I do on a regular basis).  I really got buried under building my business and realized that I had lost my joy in the business. 

I was hesitant to hire other people in my business to do anything...afraid that I wouldn't have enough business to pay them, afraid that they wouldn't do the job as well as I would like it done, afraid that it would all be too much responsibility.

Fear Was Holding Me Back

I was acting so much from fear, that I forgot that I actually used to enjoy the work.  Then in my time away from work, my energy was so clouded and so blocked that I just sat and stared and didn't get much of anything created, art or business ideas or blog writings or anything that needed my creative self.  I could only wonder what had happened to my blossoming business and how the heck I was going to pay my bills next month.  My joy was slipping, my hope was turning into despair.

So the past year, and especially these past 6 months, has been about evaluating where my business is, where my financial life is, and where my focus is.  I have found that while some of it is not where I want it to be, much of it was just poorly defined.  How can I possibly know if these things are in accordance with what I want if I haven't even clearly defined what I want?

That's a million dollar question, huh.

Now I am working on clearly defining what I want to be doing, how I want to be doing it, and for what results I am working.  And how to incorporate into what I'm doing the things that I LOVE to do...and how to delegate out the things that I really don't love to do.  By focusing my time and energy, and LOVE, I send out positive and loving energy.  Positive energy and love itself, can manifest our dreams and goals and desires.  The passion behind all of that energy is strong enough to move mountains.

Isn't that what Follow Your Bliss means?? 

For me, Follow Your Bliss means finding the paths that allow me to do those things about which I feel passionate.  If all other things being equal, and what you focus on is what you manifest, the smart thing to do is focus on what you really do want.  You feel most passionate about what you love doing.  You feel most passionate for what brings you bliss.

Follow Your Bliss, and you will feel joy and passion, and you will send out positive vibrations, clearly and loudly letting the Universe know what you intentions really have.  Makes it a lot easier for the Universe to move the energies around to manifest those intentions, make sense?

Joseph Conrad spent a lot of time studying the mind and the subconscious and how it all works.  How do you sum up the best of it all?

Follow Your Bliss.
  

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Do You Take Time to Reflect on Gratitude?

Reflections on Gratitude
We can find inspiration and fodder for our art anywhere.  Sometimes the inspiration is as surprising as the creation itself.  But keeping our heads and hearts and spirits in the right place is as important as the art we create.  If we aren't open to receive the inspiration, it might fly right on by without us even noticing!
How Do You Get Prepared?
If you have ever known any Texans, you'll understand when I say that I spend time fixin' to get ready...haha!  Getting ready to art is like stetching before you exercise.  You gotta get the ol' noodle focused in the creative source, instead of the other million things you could be doing with this time and space.
A great way to get your head in the right place, and to make sure that your mindset is in the right place to receive inspiration, is to feel thankful for what you have in this moment.  Be thankful for what has already come into your life.  By reflecting back out a grateful attitude, you show that you would appreciate more good stuff...like inspiration.
I always feel happier about giving to someone who is grateful for what I can give them, don’t you?  Even if my motivation was not to be given thanks, it still helps.
My aim is to be grateful all day long, every day.
At the end of every day, my hubby and I have a regular bedtime ritual with our four kids.  We read a story first.  Then we used to take turns starting bedtime prayers, and after a while, the kids were stuck saying the same thing every night.  It started to turn into just a forced routine.  So we re-arranged the routine.
Our new ritual is Thank-You-For’s
Each one of us says what we are thankful for and then calls on the next person to say his or her thank-you-for.  It can be anything from cartoons to a particular toy to a person to a new customer to the lovely weather.  (With kids, you never know what they are going to come up with!).
I certainly have evenings on occasion when I think that I have nothing new for which to be grateful.  Then I look around the bed and see the little faces of my kids with their eyes squeezed shut while they are feeling reverent and know that I have everything for which to be thankful!
The most amazing effect is that we all sleep better for having closed the day on a cumulative thankful note!
EXPRESS Your Gratitude
No matter what the circumstances seem to be each day, we can always find something for which to be grateful.  The more genuinely grateful we feel, and the more gratitude we express, the more stuff for which to be thankful enters our paradigm. 
So, tonight when you quiet down, or tomorrow morning when you are reflecting on your day ahead, or right before you start your art-ing time, try taking a few moments to ponder what in your life is good, and for what you can be thankful. 
By reflecting a grateful spirit, you open yourself to all of the other wonderful energies the Universe can send your way.

Friday, May 20, 2011

Another Fun Online Class

About the same time I started the 21 Secrets Class, I also started Christy Tomlinson's class, the She Art Workshop. 

What a fun class filled with tons of great ideas, not only for the girls themselves, but for background techniques and products and so on.

Drop by and take a look at Christy's site (and her really great store Scarlet Lime).

The best part of this class has been that my 6-year old daughter really has gotten into it!  She has even gotten ahead of me in the videos!  Watching all of these techniques has really helped her understand what kinds of things she can do with art, and she has now moved from little girl stick figure-type drawings, and away from painting a sheet of paper so much that it turns into one muddy color, into an art piece that has a focus and a stopping point :)

Check this out:


And here's the first one that I created :) 




More Really Cool Stuff from Craigslist

From the FREE section on craigslist...two of those plastic bins you carry at the grocery store when you don't need a whole buggy...two of those bins filled with books!!

I was kind of hoping for old books in not-so-good shape so that I can use them for mixed media projects.  It turns out the whole pile of books that I might pick out for myself to actually read!  And most of them books that I haven't read yet.

One of my faves is a book on calligraphy styles, with written history on each style, as well as detailed pictures of how to draw each letter.  Wow, how cool is that??

Along with the calligraphy book, we got books on investing, spiritual and mental motivation, animals, poetry books, quote books, picture books about faraway lands, photography, law, and a couple of fiction books.  Quite the treasure trove!

You just never know what someone is going to throw out on the porch with a Come and Get It sign.  Keep your eyes open, you never know from where opportunity and inspiration will come!

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Fly for the Sake of Flying

I finished up the weekend with the completion of my newest art journal creation: Fly for the Sake of Flying.  I suppose it's sort of a tribute to the Jonathon Livingston Seagull living inside my heart. 

The page is the result of the class on 21 Secrets, Improvisation Station.  Funny, I thought it would somehow be a class on acting, which I was NOT at all thinking I was into...heehee, and I couldn't figure out what acting had to with art journaling!

Not About Acting at All

Turns out, it wasn't an acting class at all, go figure...it was a superbly fun workshop on free-ing yourself from those shackles that keep your imagination all locked up.  I sat around pondering the class and the first two videos and exercises for like a week and a half.  We started with introducing ourselves to the class, and then we re-did our introduction in a less traditional way.  The re-introduction was more metaphorical, getting away from old titles and inside-the-box definitions.

The Metaphorical Challenge

I guess the challenge I had was getting my brain out of the picture and using my heart to define myself.  Whew!  Definitely felt like a real effort for me.  I didn't know I was going to have trouble free-ing myself from old shackles so that I could just play.  And the challenge wasn't so metaphorical for me, it was reeeaaal.

Here's what I created during the workshop...and I ended up loving it way more than I imagined!  I guess the point for me here is once again, just keep going and see what happens.  Don't give up halfway through :)



Sunday, May 15, 2011

Sunday Morning Kind of Love

I love Sunday mornings...I mean, I really really love Sunday mornings! 

We don't get in any hurry for anything, and the kids somehow seem to know that's the way a Sunday goes.  This morning, I snuggled on the couch with the three little ones, curled up in a blanky watching Pingu.  Fasha (Far-ger? Oh, Dad) brought me yummy foffee, some people call it coffee...and we snugged with the babies while watching what could have been a scene from our home in the Pingu family.  (Our family life compares to so many cartoons!).

As the Day Blossoms

As the sunshine brightens up our little corner of the world, we start poking around our day.  This mid-morning has been filled with the laughter of the kids playing fort in the back room with the moving boxes from our move almost a year ago.  Fasha and I are art-ing in the kitchen, we just sort of move around each other as we ponder our next move, adding paint here and there, picking up and setting stuff down...we both have several projects going on at a time.  And we throw comments and ideas out to each other as we create. 

We end up choosing playlists on either the ipods or on Pandora radio to fit our mood.  Sunday mornings are for Nina Simone or Herb Alpert or Benny Goodman.  Now that it's closer to lunch-time, we've moved on to They Might Be Giants and The Barenaked Ladies...great art-ing music.

Another Perfect Saturday

We have a saying in our house, Another Perfect Saturday. 

We have a tradition in our family of grilling out and listening to da Blues on Saturday evening.  Dry hot air, and a summer Saturday nite, drinking a beer while grilling out chicken fajitas and corn and peppers on the wood fire, listening to Muddy Waters and John T. Hooker and the like...that's a magical evening!  We started our Saturday nites like that, and for a long time we had the count of how many consecutive Perfect Saturdays we'd had. 

Another Perfect Saturday became the measure by which all of our days are measured...and this day, Sunday, is Another Perfect Saturday.

Saturday, May 14, 2011

More 21 Secret Fun

Another really fun workshop with a really satisfying technique is Urban Layer Cake hosted by Tammy Garcia.  You can take a look at what she's got going on here.

It's All About the Process

The process itself is totally zen.  I mostly don't even care what comes out at the end cuz I end up losing myself in the process!  My 12-year old son has done a number of these with me, he loves how messy it gets and loves the way it makes great backgrounds for his monster drawings :)


Here's a peek at what my playing has created...This one is a blank thus far, background just waiting for more love!




This one has a little thought that was stuck in my head...maybe tied in with how the heck to get my blog going, what the heck to name it...what the heck was happening for me with the feelings of new beginnings now that I am approaching the day that marks the start of my fourth decade, Whee!!


And this one, the circle...ahhhhhhh...my fave!  I saw a pic on the class forum that another gal had done with this technique in a circle pattern and fell right away in love!  It is waaaaaaayyyyy better for me in the circle...guess I'm a circle gal and not as much a rectangle gal :)

Friday, May 13, 2011

21 Secrets

I have been enjoying the AWESOME online art journaling class, 21 Secrets hosted by Dirty Footprints Studio.

Go Visit 21 Secrets

If you haven't checked out the class, or the Dirty Footprints Studio site, be sure to stop over and take a peek.  You can click on the button in the sidebar, or here's a link for you. 

The class is a terrific and really fun mix of 21 different workshops from 21 different artists.  When I signed up for the class, I had no idea of what I was getting myself into...21 different workshops is really a lot to absorb!!  Not in a bad way, mind you, but still a bit overwhelming at first.  Especially when I hadn't taken an online class like this before.

To My Surprise

As I was perusing the intros from the various artists/teachers, I got really excited about some classes, and a bit less excited about others.  The funny thing is, now that I have been enjoying the workshops for a while, the classes that I didn't think I was going to care about so much have become some of my very favorites!!

For example, Child's Play Workshop with Alma Stoller.  It took me a bit to get around to visiting this yummy class.  I started watching the videos in the middle of working on another project.  But as I started paying attention, WOWSERS!!  What a fun class full of messy and fun and creative and absolutely free-ing (did I just make that word up?) techniques and playtime!!  In fact, I stayed with that workshop back and forth between videos for two weeks, and all four of my kids and even my hubby got involved throughout the whole process :)  Of course, it took over my whole kitchen, art shelves, desk, and every place I could stack some papers while they were drying, heehee.

Examples of the Art

Here's a little peek at some of the A-W-E-some arts I made during that workshop...








Where to Start??

It seems that the hardest part about starting a new blog is, well, starting.  What do you write first?  Does the rest of the blog all need to come from the first amazing post?  What if the first post doesn't fit in with all of the other posts?  And on and on and on...

But almost every day I find myself thinking, "I should post on my blog about this!"  I knew it was time to just get started.

I pondered my newest blog for quite some time, knowing what kinds of things I would scribble about without sorting out what I would actually title the blog.  I had a tough time getting it going cuz I just couldn't settle on the name. 

Fancy Colored Goo

And finally, Fancy Colored Goo was born.  Happy Birthday!!

Family Doodlers

In our house, no doodle is safe!

My six-year old daughter drew a little snail, inspired by Gary from SpongeBob Square Pants. 

Enter stage right: Older brother.

Here is the resulting, and now collaborative, doodle :)

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Free on craigslist

I love watching the "Free" list on craigslist.  I find all kinds of good stuff in that section, you'd be surprised cuz it's not all crapola...

My latest awesome find was listed as "Free large coffee table".  No pic, no email addy, just the anonymous email back thru craigslist.

So I dropped an email over and crossed my fingers.  I got a response, they hadn't given it away yet, they gave me directions, and I sent my hubby out.  He's so good at just running whenever I hand him a scrap paper with random directions :)

The coffee table is large.  It barely fit in the back of the mini-van!  It has two drawers and is really solid.  It's pretty scuffed up, which is actually better for the eventual whatever-we-end-up-doing with it. 

I'll keep you posted on the progress of our awesome find.

Awesome Stuff

I love watching the "Free" list on craigslist.  I find all kinds of good stuff in that section, you'd be surprised cuz it's not all crapola...

My latest awesome find was listed as "Free large coffee table".  No pic, no email addy, just the anonymous email back thru craigslist.

So I dropped an email over and crossed my fingers.  I got a response, they hadn't given it away yet, they gave me directions, and I sent my hubby out.  He's so good at just running whenever I hand him a scrap paper with random directions :)


The coffee table is large.  It barely fit in the back of the mini-van!  It has two drawers and is really solid.  It's pretty scuffed up, which is actually better for the eventual whatever-we-end-up-doing with it.  I'll keep you posted on the progress of our awesome find.