What Today Has Taught Me

Okay, maybe it wasn’t today that taught me this, but today I was struck by the fact that our family - our sisters, brothers, mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, aunts, uncles, cousins – blood relatives - are the most important things we have in life.  The love of family… it outlasts separation and divorce, bad choices, illness, destructive words and arguments, and even death.  The lineage passed down from one generation to the next, those connections that tie us together – strong family bonds – that’s what matters.  Love, so strong and so pure, because the Source is Emmanuel, God with us.  God, who is Love, is the source of light, and love, and life in us.  And we’re family, and we’re strong, and our love for each other will be there when there is nothing else. 

Tonight I am so thankful for my Christian family heritage.  For my grandparents, my parents, my brother, my sisters, my daughter, my aunts, uncles, cousins, my nieces, nephew, and on and on it goes.  God instituted the family as our source of support and love, and when God is the basis of a family – when His love flows through the generations, then these are the ties that bind.

Today my brother gave my mother a window frame from her home church that’s over 100 years old.  This church and the fundamental values and beliefs, the love, the heritage has stood the test of time.  My grandmother’s faithfulness to it and then my mother’s provided a firm foundation for all our (my siblings’) lives.  And no matter what comes – the foundation stands sure and strong.

To my family – I love you all and you are the true treasures of my life.  Thank you for loving me – always.

Part 1 in Culmination of Creative Chronicles

Here is part 1 of the culmination of my Creative Chronicles.  Months of creative ideas and work come together in one of the finished products - a mini art quilt, wall hanging for Christmas gifts.   I have been sewwww busy (pun intended) since October making these mini art quiltsand other projects (more to come). Sewwww much fun!  I got my very first sewing machine at a Black Friday sale, taught myself to thread it, and sew. Been a crazy, fun two months at my house! I'll be busy finishing up projects (I hope) all day tomorrow. Then finishing up gift-wrapping and cleaning house on Friday and Saturday.

 Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas

and

God Bless Us Everyone...

Just Checking in with a Quick Sketch

I did this in a new sketchbook during lunch in the rain in KFC parking lot!  You gotta do what you gotta do. Life is hectic.  I hope everyone is having a lovely Christmas season.  Busy...but lovely.

Something Different

This is part of the “Creative Chronicles”.  Creativity has just taken over and the ideas are flowing faster than I can make art.  Love it when that happens, but I would love it more if I could get it all out of my system and spend at least 12 hours a day creating art.  This is a gift to my friend’s son, who is like a nephew to me.  He is an aspiring artist – so talented.  I want him to encourage him to continue creating.  He likes graffiti type art and I thought this just looked like him.  I bought him the book “Journal Junkies” as part of this gift. 
Creating this piece was so much fun and totally intuitive!  I started with a black canvas (had been painted previously with black acrylic paint).  Then I began to add the stamped circles from stamps I’d made from various things around the house, then I began to cut fabric shapes and scraps of painted paper and just kept adding and collage and stamping until I had the composition I wanted.  I titled it “Controlled Chaos”.  Merry Christmas, Houston!

I Have SO Much Catching Up to Do!

I am way behind in blogging, because life is so much fun right now, I don’t want to miss a minute to sit down and blog about all the minutes that are making up my life right now.  Make sense? 
I have spent the past 4 days with my daughter, literally almost every minute.  I cannot think of a better way to spend these days.  She will be all grown and on her own way too soon, and she is a source of pure joy to me.  Wednesday afternoon we cleaned a bit and decorated the Christmas tree,



then completely pooped, we left the mess we made and went to bed.  Thanksgiving morning, we made pumpkin pies together and watched the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.  I was so proud of my first homemade pie crusts that I asked Grace to take pictures.




And Grace made Oreo Balls – crushed Oreos, mixed with cream cheese, rolled in balls, and then dipped in melted white chocolate chips… yum!

 
Hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving. I think mine was the best in all my 42 years.

I’ll tell you in my next post about our Black Friday shopping – a first for the two of us, and well worth rolling out of bed at 1:30AM.  Now it’s off to bed for the back to work after Thanksgiving Monday.  Uuugh… But thankful for a job I love!

Is it Really Almost Thanksgiving!?

I cannot believe almost a month has gone by since my last post.  Life gets busier all the time.  My daughter (almost 16) recently discovered basketball and loves it.  I spend what time I am not at work either running her here or there, or collapsing, or creating!  My studio is taking over my kitchen, except for this weekend when I felt a penchant toward cooking – homemade buttermilk biscuits at that, and next week it will be pumpkin pie baking day – Thanksgiving, my favorite day of the entire year.

Now back to the studio.  Following are some of the little peeks inside to see what’s been “cooking” in my kitchen…

A Rainy Cold Late October Day

Perfect Day for a Hot Steaming Cuppa

Spiced Chai, or Coffee, or a Latte, or Hot Chocolate or… what’s your favorite hot beverage for a cold, rainy day?

This is a small 4” x 6” drawing using the Pentel Pocket Brush Pen and colored pencil.

Saturday Evening Sketching Trip

Late yesterday afternoon, I took a drive - with the sole purpose of sketching.  I filled up a clean watercolor palette with colors like cobalt violet, brown madder, naples yellow, vermilion - fall colors.

I drove the backroads just drinking in the beauty of the sky, the leaves, the mountains - breathtaking!  Then I'd find a spot and pull over and sketch.  The sketch below was done before I went home to get a decent brush, a water container and the palette with fresh paints.  The Niji waterbrush used below frustrated me so bad!  I find that it clogs and I have to squeeze and squeeze and still can't get enough water out to even wet the bristles.  I used the needle to clean it out, but apparently not well enough.  I think the problem is I leave water in it all the time and rarely use it, so it clogs.  Anyway I don't like it. 

But the sketching trip is something I want to do again and again.  Terrific therapy and the perfect way to spend some time alone with my art - although some company would have been great too!

Creative Chronicles # 2

Creative chaos!! Love it.

 I started out just sketching the bottle of flowers on the right in colored pencil, then added watercolor.  I didn't like the background, so I gessoed over it, let it dry and went in with more watercolor washes. Then I added watercolor, watercolor pencils, and more colored pencils, and I think some white gouache. Oh, before I did all that, I glued the page to the page behind it for more support. 

I like the effect of the gesso, the way it makes the background look sort of mottled...an interesting texture. 

And lastly I leave you with a beautiful closeup of my supplies.

The first of my creative chronicles...

This will be the first of several posts updating you on this creative surge I'm on and I hope it continues!  In my previous post (earlier today) I told you about an expo we had at church that got my creative juices flowing freely again.  And I've felt like I'm fully and completely ALIVE ever since.  All my nerve endings feel like they're awake and alive and completely energized, taking in all the colors of fall and all the inspiration that this season brings!




The first project I tackled was a cover to my prayer journal, which is just a plain old 20-cent notebook from Wal-Mart, transformed!



as is our life - with prayer !

Work as Worship

Sunday, October 9 during Sunday School at our church we had what was termed an “Expo”. It was set up similar to a fair or as the term suggests expo. One gentleman had his drag racing hobby displayed and he demonstrated and revved up his engine, showed his trailer; one man had his gun hobby as his display. Then inside the fellowship hall, a lady discussed how she crochets baby blankets and prays for the baby before she gives the blanket to the new mother – this is her ministry. I had my art on display, my journals mostly and some of my small paintings. All of these were examples of how our hobbies and talents can be used in ministry to other people. This event lit a fire under me!!! I had become rather stale in my passion and in my art, just needed a good dose of inspiration. And this was it! Since then I have had the creative juices flowing and my engine has been revved  I will share more in subsequent posts about the results of all this inspiration. Please check back soon…

This Week's Sketches

I finally purchased the Pentel Pocket Brush pen that Roz uses in many of her sketches. And I agree that it is great!  The first colors of autumn are starting to show their display and I captured them quickly at lunch last week in watercolor and colored pencil.

A much-needed, very therapeutic Saturday of a little cleaning and a lot of sketching, reading, watching You've Got Mail for the 100,000th time... Pure Bliss... (except the cleaning - but the results are great!)

My first page of sketches is below, and then speaking of results...











The more finished sketch below may very well be my favorite sketch of my entire artistic career.  I don't know why, it just has it all to me... great lines and energy, my favorite things - cups that hold coffee or tea, and of course, books.  This sketch just feels like an accomplishment of sorts... And may I add that there is nothing, I mean NOTHING like a brand new Prismacolor colored pencil sharpened with an X-acto knife and chiseled ever so slightly at the end.  YUM!!  I had forgotten the pleasure that simple tool can bring.  The shadows in the white cup were too dark, so I used white gouache to lighten it and add highlights.  I started the line drawing with Faber-Castell PITT pens, and just went a little wild from there.  I do recommend knife sharpened colored pencils.  There is just something about the line they make.

And now I am having cinnamon coffee.  I drink mine black but I'm sure most people use cream if not cream and sugar - black and strong that's the way I like it... Just add a dash or two or three of cinnamon to the filter after you put the coffee in and then brew!  Perfect fall drink!  Happy Saturday evening everyone!

Busy End of Summer Days

One reason I haven't posted in so many days is because I'm too busy DOING to sit still long enough to blog!  I've painted my window casing bright red...took me about 2 weeks to finish it. 

These days are so very very busy.  I am rarely home and so today is a special treat.  A cloudy, cool, rainy day to stay home and be cozy.  I am looking forward to fall days.  Everything seems to calm down around this time of year.  Days are shorter and cooler and I always feel like my life kind of takes on a more relaxed pace.  I hope this fall is no different, because I could sure use a more relaxed pace.

Lately I've been on a book-buying craze (for lack of a better term).  I just can't seem to stop buying books!  Cheap, beautiful, enticing BOOKS!! 

"Books to the ceiling, books to the sky.

My piles of books are a mile high.

Oh, how I love them!

Oh, how I need them!

I'll have a long beard by the time I read them." -Arnold Lobel

This is only the tip of the iceberg!  My house is overrun with books, and all I seem to want to do is READ!!
I just finished The Help by Kathryn Stockett, and I'm currently working on a collection of sermons by John MacArthur, C. S. Lewis' The Four Loves, A. W. Tozer's The Pursuit of God, and yesterday I found Blogging for Bliss by Tara Frey for about $7 with my AC Moore coupon! 

I've also been cooking a lot of Italian food after having finished Peter Pezelli's Francesca's Kitchen.  All these are highly recommended.  I think I'll go have some homemade spaghetti now following Francesca's easy sauce recipe... But first I will leave you with a few paintings/sketches I've managed to do:

Don't forget to sip some tea or coffee on this cool, cozy, September Saturday... Enjoy!

Trees

 

God writes the Gospel not in the Bible alone, but also on trees, and in the flowers and clouds and stars. ~Martin Luther

Colored Pencil Play

I became inspired by the book The Best of Colored Pencil - I found it this week in a used bookstore. Finally - some examples of more colorful abstract work in colored pencil. If you've never seen this book, I highly recommend it. It's a showcase of work by members of the Colored Pencil Society of America (CPSA).