A different creative side

I have many creative sides. Before I started taking drawing classes and to begin making illustrated journals I was a rubber stamper and card maker. I still love the work and when in need of cards I often turn to this medium. I made 10 of these calendars ( on the left) And a total for 13 of the greeting cards which I can add whatever greeting I need for any occasion. The verse on the calendar is found inside the greeting cards. These two cats on the card and calendar remind me of the two white cats that I had that were both deaf. What a joy they were and they are sorely missed now.

I have also finished over 30 Christmas cards since the first of the year also. I will scan one of them soon.
But my next multiple card project will be some paper embroidered pieces.
This has been a very creative year for me so far.

New Year New Beginnings

I had such grand plans of beginning my new moleskine journal on January 1st and even had a list of things to enter. But New Year's eve I woke during the night really ill. (No not the product of too much celebrating) The first three days are a bit of a blur and probably nothing I want to remember vividly anyway,

So I ended up "One Sick Puppy" and that became my first journal entry. It is not complete because I still want to ink it in and to add some color.

I was surprised at how enjoyable it was a new entry in a new year. It doesn't exactly show the best side of my artistic talents but not everything has to be perfect.

I will rescan when I get the color in.

Hope your new year began better than mine, All's well that ends well.

S.

Promises to Keep

I don't know if any of you are promise keepers. When I was a child Mama would tell me she wanted me to be sure to remember such and such and I would always assure her I would.

Then she would ask? "Promise?" "Oh yes, momma, I promise" This promise had the same solemness to it as a sacred oath.

I don't find that a promise carries the same weight in today's world as it did when I was a child. It is now akin to a new year's resolution. Something said, often with sincerity, but seldom kept. Life is busy and people fill their days with all sorts of activities and thoughts and the promise falls by the wayside in the flurry. Heaven forbid that you remind anyone of their "promise".

The look we get is: If I forgot,you have no right to remember, much less remind me!"



But I am finding I am not as good a promise keeper as I have thought. Oh don't get me wrong, if I promise a friend, family member or even a total stranger something I make sure it is done.

But I have come to realize that I don't do well when it comes to the promises I make to myself.



I promise I will make more time for my creative side. I promise I will get enough rest. I promise that I will not make "paper messies" with the mail that comes into the house, I promise....... But then something comes up and I forget the promises in the blink of an eye.

And it isn't until I feel I will scream, if I don't get some time to myself, or I see a stack of papers tumble to the floor from my desk, that I remember the promise.



But somehow I still think a promise is a wonderful thing. I think a big part of promise keeping is taking the time to sit down and really look at my life and decide what has priority vs what really NEEDS to be my priority in order for me to have a happy, more balanced life.

But the more times I have to pick of the pieces of a broken promise to myself, the more determined I become to say no to things lower on my priority list.

After I finished cleaning and reorganizing the art studio, it became quite apparent to me that my tiny home office in its horrible condition was going to niggle at my brain until I dealt with it.

I realize that I am so blessed to have two separate rooms. So many creative people do not have that luxury. Their artistic space has to share with the computer, bill paying and sometimes even the eating area.

So I spent the better part of this week cleaning, sorting, filing and pitching clutter in my office. During that time, I realized that cleaning is a very creative act. It can take something that is of little use because of the clutter and mess and turn it into a thing of beauty that can be used to make even more creative things. Something wonderful and unheard of has happened. Both the art studio and the office are clean at the same time!

Having said all that it brings me back to promises. First of all I am promising myself that I will take the time it takes to maintain these rooms so they can continue to be "creative" places.
And I promise in the next couple of days I will take pictures of the art room for those of you that wanted to see it. I don't expect raves of approval. But perhaps the lady that said she has too much stuff and can't even conceive how she can make it work at all, will get a little bit of help.
I know that I wish the space I have was larger and I wish I did not have times when I have to move one thing to get to another. But I am thankful for all my "toys" and wonderful tools and most of all I am so thankful for more than a 6inch square space to work on.

So, I will get the pictures up sometime this coming week.
Hoping all of you are enjoying this season, and making time to create whether is is art or cooking or decorating.
Enjoy
S.

Moving into Creativity.

Nothing succeeds like success!!
I finished the major cleaning and reorganization of my art studio last evening. I can't express the joy I felt as I took a last look around before turning off the light. Nor the excitement I felt when I went to the art studio this morning, pulled out my moleskine journal and allowed my creative spirit creep out of hiding.
It felt somewhat akin to the first day of school with brand new pencils, crayons and notebook. I have the knowledge now that making my "space" workable for me is as important as the right pencils or paints. I am sure to make some clutter as I work on something but now when I am finished the things have a place to be If I am diligent in clearing my work space after each session I will have the guarantee of always having a place to be creative.

I thought about taking some pictures of the art studio and posting here. But I realize everyone's place to work is different and there supplies vary widely and what works for me is unlikely to work for anyone else.
And then too there is the fact that what is one man's organization may make no sense to another.
My room is small, my supplies are huge. But this works for me until something better comes along.
So... Having said all that I believe the time for words will be shorter in the future and the time for pictures will hopefully be increased greatly.

Hope you all have a creative day.
S

Light at the end of the Tunnel

I have been spending an hour a day in the art studio and had gotten to a point where it seemed all I had left were bits and pieces that didn't have a "classified" home to be in. None were things I wanted to part with but still they needed to find their own "home". I think that is the most frustrating part of the whole thing.



This major reorganization started innocently enough. The art studio had been my own private place to create. But then I got the wild hair in my brain that if I put in a gate/leg table in the room so that I would be able to lift the leaf when my friend came and we could work in there together. Well the truth is the room is just too small for two people and it was hard to get anything done. I soon found that we were carrying things to the dinning room table where there was more room and the light was better. Now why I didn't think of that in the first place is beyond me!!!

So this summer my friend helped me to move the table out of the room. That was a good idea but somewhat like trying to get the bottom pickle out of a full pickle jar. ( if you can picture that in your mind!!) The whole room was thrown into havoc with things stacked all over the floor and even spilling out into other rooms. But once started there was no turning back.



Then so many of life's happenings happened and I just didn't get back to the room to set things right again. Oh I am sure I could have gotten it done sooner but just stepping into the room made me feel so overwhelmed it verged on fainting. LOL



You have to understand my room will never look terrible orderly just because there is so much there, in too small a space, but it is coming together well enough now that I hope to be able to work in there in peace and find things too. The finding should be a lot easier because I have been labeling anything that sits still long enough to have something stuck to it.

I am looking forward to having the art studio all to myself once again. As I began the hard work of sorting and putting things in order I felt it was grunge work that I dreaded, but in the last couple of days I have become to see it as a form of creative work, a gift I am giving myself. And what a joy that is!!!

What fun it will be to share with you my creations soon rather than all these words on "creative
cleaning"

Oh yes, I did do some leaf drawings one day and also some sketches of sail boats. But won't it be grand when I can spend even more time creating art because I will not be organizing the art studio?

S

Staying the Course

I am only on my third day of cleaning and organizing my art studio and I find myself wondering why it is not finished by now. There is an old saying "the devil is in the details". I don't know what the original meaning of this phrase is but it certainly seems to apply to the work in the art studio.
Now that I have the largest part of the work done I am finding it much harder to get all the bits and pieces that are left to find "homes" for themselves. It helps me to see that I have way more tools and supplies than I will ever have "finished" art work. It makes me wonder how much of it is necessary and how much was bought because of advertising.

I am having to learn what supplies have the highest priority in my work so that they can be readily accessible whereas the Christmas ribbon or the Valentine rubber stamps can be placed in a less strategic place than my colored pencils, paints and paintbrushes, etc, which I use almost every day.

As I am working in the art studio, I am thinking in the back of my mind that I need to do the same sort of thing in the bathroom cabinets, when I am done with this room. Then the light bulb comes on and I realize that if I really want to DO ART that I must give it the priority and special place that I give my paint brushes. I can be cleaning and organizing something in my house the rest of my life!!!! is that what will give me pleasure and fulfillment? Hardly.

Jessica Wosolek of Cre8it.com mentioned in her blog how she took time out of her busy schedule to draw and paint one of the leaves that fell from her shrimp plant. It made me understand that we do not FIND time to do art we choose to GIVE time for our art.
I am thinking that if I can set aside and make it a priority to clean in my art room one hour a day I can certainly do the same or more for time for doing art. After all it is MY LIFE and I can choose.

So today I am choosing to do some art. Hope you will all find a way to follow your bliss as well
S.