Monday Mutterings: The Artist's Date Book

I’ve had this book sitting on my desk for a long time. I bought it when I was still not moving around so much and unable to sit long enough to be in my studio. I thought that maybe it would help me to find ways to be creative while I was still pretty immobilized. But most of the exercises required more activeness than I was capable.

I picked it up today and thumbed through it again and thought maybe it was time to try again. I love the premise. I love the “Artist’s Way” and have worked through it at least once completely and did bits and pieces several other times when I needed to kick-start myself, renew inspiration, or fight the ever present inner critic. I don’t always do the morning pages now, but will go back to the routine when I am stuck or needing to work out something.

But I always had a challenge with the artist’s dates portion. Not because I don’t like to go places alone, but because I couldn’t come up with many ideas on my own, especially ones that didn’t cost much or that I didn’t do anyway on a regular basis…like browsing a book store, internet looking for inspiration, flipping through art book with paintings of the masters, all those kinds of things are always a part of the fabric of my life.

So when I found this book, I thought that it would help. I can tell you right now that some of the suggestions will be challenging to me, some will just not be something I want to do. For those I will use the idea as a spring board to tailor it to me.

So today I will start. The suggestion is to go to a park. Being Labor Day and very hot and my back not allowing me to walk much still I have decided to wait until dark, go outside and sit on my patio and just be…and to photograph the moon. If I can with my camera. I love the moon.

I will post pictures and the little journaling part over on my Art Everyday Blog.

Believing the Truth and not the myth

Week 1 day 2 memory verse from "Faithfully Fit"

Ancient Paths

Heavy Load

I have been working through a book called "Faithfully Fit" This is an entry in my visual journal for the first day's scripture verse. Sorry to blurr the writing but it is a bit too personal for the whole world to read...

Come up to Breathe and Listening

Did two pages today. Sometimes one gets into the groove and doesn't want to come back to reality, but stay in the creative zone. Using images torn from mags for quick collages are so instant gratification!

What Now God

It has been a whil since I posted anything, actually since I have done much in the way of creating art. I have been dealing with severe back pain due to 3 ruptured discs for over a year now. Much of last winter I was pretty much flat on my back and spent most of Jan-March going daily to physical therapy for treatment. During this past year sitting was all but impossible due to pain, so the art studio has collected dust and even my art journals remained closed. I am slowly getting better now and can sit at my drafting table for up to an hour, sometimes even more so I am slowly getting back to creating. This is the first spread in my journal in over a year. I am anxious to get back to the studio, so many ideas and inspirations came while laying in bed or on the couch with nothing else to occupy my mind. I have almost filled my "idea" book that I carry around to jot down ideas as they spring to my mind...many times in the most unusual places...

Checking in

I haven’t posted for a while. I have been so busy this spring! Oh my studio is a mess. I haven’t created art for months. Spring rains flooded my basement studio and I had to move everything over to the middles. Now we are going to create a gutter and add a sump pump so that this yearly occurrence doesn’t happen again. Finally after all these years of sucking up water off the floor, out of the carpets, this year it was just too unmanageable and mom agreed to doing something constructive about it. To be fair, years ago, only the worst springs would bring water, and only seepage at that. But the last 2 or 3 years have been enough to make one crazy.

Because of the dampness, and mold during this time I can’t be in the studio during this time…and this year it is driving me crazy. I have also been so busy with life that I haven’t been able to do much more than a few sketches and journal entries. But life is good. I am working on the final requirements for my life purpose coaching certification. I love coaching so much. It is like I have come home and found what I am good at, really good at, finally. Not that I haven’t been good at other things in my life, I have. But there is something wonderful about walking the pathway with women as they navigate toward finding what their life calling is. It is an amazing thing to see the shift of understanding in their eyes as they realize that God loves them enough to not only call them to do what they have harbored in their hearts and only dreamed of doing, but that He is the originator of that dream and wants to collaborate in living out that dream.

I wish I had something to scan and show today, but I don’t. I have been keeping lists, jotting down ideas for works, and nose deep in books and hip deep in the web looking at other artists works for inspiration. And inspired I am…now itching to get back and unpack my studio.