Almost a Month....since Last I posted.

It has been almost a month since I have last posted anything here.  Creatively I continue to flit from art process to art process.  My encaustic painting has for the moment, fallen by the way side, in favor of mixed media collage.  I have been making cards, working in my various journals, doodling around collages and just plain playing with the art process in small doses.

I love to work small on card stock, begining with  a loose watercolor, or cutting up and old watercolor that never really worked.  

Then looking for images that seem to fit the background, adding them and then doodling around them in pen, ink and rubber stamps.

One thing leads to another and I play with them until I am satisfied.  Then I glue them onto a blank card form and walla....art with a purpose, a card to send someone or a small collage to be framed.

Occasionally I fold up one of my watercolor rejects and collage on them as well.

They take on a life of their own, becoming whatever they turn into.

Then I doodle around them as well.  What a wonderful soothing past time

for someone with energy to burn creatively, without worry about product.

I spend many an evening in the studio, chatting with my husband, on the phone or visiting with friends while I do this.  Serious art, NO, but fun, soothing and Happy Making. YES.

Sometimes I stop before I go to far, letting these small card collages be sweet simple 

statements, that can be sent to friends or maybe sold on my etsy shop.

Other times they become enigmatic visual storylines, that please me just for the sake of being.

Or they are just ways to reconfigure images that live in my expanding image bank....

in my journals awaiting more work to be done on them.  So this is what I have been up to this month, as well as being a bit addicted to my facebook mandala page where I have been posting mandala images almost every other day.  

All of this work is simply self soothing, life enhancing, art making, that takes the edges of off my day, and fills me with joy.  

Happy Artmaking to All!

Imagination is the true Magic Carpet....

As we open to the energy of spring, it is important to remember to use its energy to open to the imaginal realm as we create our visions for our lives.   We create it whether we want to or not, know it or not, believe it on not, so why not create consciously.  This is a thought that comes to me again and again as I step into the greening of the spring.

As I travel through my day, I have found myself imagining the green of the earth, the grasses that are sprouting all around my house and my life, growing up into my body and invigorating me with their life force.  Health, vitality, new growth streaming into my body, teaching me how to be in my life with newness and a sense of possibility.

Pay attention to what is right in front of you, take the time, even if its 30 seconds, to cherish the moments of your day, simple, complex, frustrating, and the  challenging as well as the sweet and tangible ones.
These are my spring thoughts, my prayers for balance and a renewed physical engagement with life.

Build a structure of belief whether you believe it or not, let consistency be the ritual that transforms the day and the world into one that fits my dreams.   Send these thoughts on wings of dreamy reverie, put the postage stamp of approval on them, open, hope, suspend judgement.

Honor the imagination.  As Einstein said "Imagination is more important than knowledge"

Because our imagination is like a magic carpet that can take us away, and fill us with hope, and reframe the present so unlike a bitter pill, life is much easier to swallow.

So as the landscape of this season unfolds in my creativity and my dreams and my fantasies, I offer these images and thoughts for bringing spring into your life .

                                               Happy Spring Dream Time to all...