Winter coming

The leaves are gone the skeleton shapes of trees are all thats left against a cloudy white back drop. But as night falls the colored lights appear to seemingly chase away the shadows of the past year. I am looking forward or at least trying to begin a new chapter. I am going to set some artistic goals for myself this coming year. I'm not sure what it's going to be. But I think there really is value in setting goals. I talked to one friend that set a goal of 1000 painting in a year! I can't imagine that. "Hope" has been very important to me this year. I want to surround myself with it like a warm quilt or a hug from a good friend. So it spills into my art. I have been working on several pieces to bring "Hope" into form and I am going to continue that until I get it.

I wish for everyone, that the light of Hope shines in all your dark corners.

Blessings, Peace, Love, Hugs, Joy and Namaste

Fall... its energy is rich in color and creativity. All shades of red and gold and the light is fantastic. The scent of apples and pumpkins. I love it all. It calls for bursts of creativity in celebrating change. The northwest is so beautiful in the fall!!!!
I have added new links check them out!

My not - so- lazy days of summer

I am working like a honey bee... day and night. So I am learning new ways to squeeze in creativity. Like in the morning before I leave for my day job, I gesso a couple of pages in a spiral bound map book I am preparing for a juicy road trip... I hope. I have been reading books by "Sark" that are filled with inspiring creative ideas to free your spirit. I have giant fairy wings and I am thinking of wearing them to the beach!!!! At the very least a crown of flowers and ribbon the next time I go anywhere. Life is filled with challenges but we have a choice about how we act. We don't have to live in the muck and let it be who we are. We can have way more fun than that. So next time you go out with your friends order cake with out silverware, it'll be an instant party!!!
P.S. Off the subject...does anyone love "Torchwood" and "Dr. Who" as much as I do?
Enjoy Yourself

Inspiration

Yesterdays failures are today's seeds that must be diligently planted
to be able to abundantly harvest tomorrows successes.

author unknown

U Tube

Just to let you know....There are some great art videos on U Tube. Claudine Hellmuth has some fun ones, check it out. Sonific is gone for now so I lost my music. I am working on that. Re -loaded the link to Inspire me Thursday. For some reason it was going to an odd ball page. It seems to be okay now.

Stay in the light

The process I go through with my art is amazing to me. Sometimes I start with an idea and it ends up going in a totally different direction. The piece takes on a life of it's own and I keep working with it instead of on it.
Just the sorcerer who brings the elements together until it feels "done".

The desire to share what I create is the desire to reach out to like minded artists who connect. We become a supportive community with like minded thoughts and ideas. It's positive. If you don't like what I do or what someone else does just don't go to our sites. This is my response to a negative comment that I got and to some that I saw on another site. I try to focus on the things we have in common that bond us together. What we share.
I will try to post new pictures this weekend.
Thanks

It's Edgy

For about a week I released my edgy muse. It was messy, layered, sprayed, and a little wild. It did not turn out to be a new direction. It was more like a release I think. Because I moved right into a new piece that I love and feel very at home with. But I did have fun with my edgy muse, I worked on a clipboard, a leather bag, and what ever I could find even and apron. Sometimes you just gotta let it out!!!

No Burden

I really wanted to post tonight. Sometimes you need someone to talk to. I think that it's easy to overburden your family and friends. No gory details or anything like that. But I am finding that so many people are having a hard time right now. Every story is different, financial, health, depression, loneliness, loss, fear, etc. But everyone that I talk to seems so burdened and stressed out right now. Somewhere we learned that if we tell someone our story we become less burdened. It's as if we are letting it go as we tell our story. I think venting is healthy to a degree, I certainly do it. But as we are all putting our dramas out there I think somehow we are adding to the overall sadness. So I have decided to try something new. I am going to compliment people more, smile more, and respond to them with loving kindness instead of telling them my sad story. When I am kind, giving, and compassionate to others it lightens every one's heart.
Maybe it will transform some of my stress too. Really ...how hard is it to show kindness, send some mail art to a friend. I guess it comes down to just letting go of my own ego issues long enough to remember to be a better friend. Thanks for listening!

Phase ?

When we talk about teens going through changes we often say that they are going through a "phase". When you talk about electricity some thing not working is "out of phase" It's the new question are you working from "out of the box" or in? I think we are trying to find our "spot". It's a way of identifying our selves. I feel like this really happens with art. I don't want to put myself in a category that limits me.
For a while now I have felt a quiet call in the background of my mind. Its like something a little out of focus. I have decided to explore it and allow myself to experience it. We're talking art of course. I am calling it my Edgy Muse. It's a bit wild and if I had to put it in to a catagory I would say Street art. I will put some pictures up as soon as I can. It might be a phase, part of the transformations of my path. But I think we shouldn't be afraid to explore art.
Namaste
Gretchen

Paris

Do it on paper

Starving artist mentality is highly overrated.

I think that working creatively is really working from the inside out. Some of us do that much easier when we have a "cause". I thought that I was a poet many years ago. Poetry just flowed out of me page after page fueled by lost love, lost job, yearnings, and a desire to put emotions down on paper.It was really more akin to journaling all I needed to do was add visual elements and I would have had it! Wild Abandon visual journaling! I needed a few more years of "becoming" before I could pull it altogether {and with the help of Juliana Coles}. Not that I'm done or anything. "I think the journey is the destination" If you have not tried visual journaling try it. Like dance like no one is looking...just do it on paper.

A page from one of my journals. I was out taking pictures of graffiti. Tricky to do from the freeway.

Journal

Its Sunday night I added a new picture of a collage.Only half of it showed it self. There are actually four guys. I will half to learn about resizing in Photobucket.
You would think that by this age I would be more together. But really we keep learning about who we are. On the positive side I think its really a key element to staying young, that no matter how old we are we need to set aside the kind of fear that keeps you from your dreams.
Gretchen

Mutual Admiration Society

I added a link...Free rice.. you can play a game, feed people, and improve your vocab!

I have been working on background pages in my journals. Just playing with water colors and some drawing. I like using watercolors from the tubes and no water you get some bright colors. Then I ink the edges of the pages and add some rubber stamping. Just building the page up with interesting elements.

Then there is my wild abandon journaling that starts with a blank canvas and goes in all kinds of directions that I couldn't begin to explain. The process of bringing feelings and emotions into form and onto a page is part alchemy and part mystery for sure. Sometimes the result is art but mostly it's peeling the onion of the soul.
Gretchen

Gypsy Woman

I feel very lucky that Stampington published this piece in one of there Gallery issues. I think that I have every issue of Somerset Studio magazine. I found a kindred spirit when that magazine started. A place where I actually fit. Once again I am feeling that way with blogging. I had no idea that there were so many wonderful extensions of creative energy captured into amazing forms. I am committed to updating links or the Pony express of the electronic air waves.

Thank you to all the blogs that have inspired me! To all the artists' out there taking risks for for all of us. This is my first posting. I couldn't have done it without you. I am really a novice but its fun figuring it all out.

I am a collage/mixed-media artist and Wild Abandon journaler. My new inspiration is to take pictures of my art while its in the process of becoming. Then use those pictures in my journals and to create another piece of art.

Spring is finally on its way to the Northwest and I for one am really happy to see the colors blooming out.They are so vivid against the remaining starkness of winter