One of the assignments for week three of The Walk was about creating art piece around your guide on your journey.
As I mentioned in my previous art, when I did this a while ago, what came to me was a little kid who gave me a box that represented the light within myself and told me that when I let it shine inside myself, it would guide me.
So I decided to draw me sitting down and then the girl sitting next to me, on a rock, and handing me the box with the light coming out of it.
then I added my journaling on the light rays a micron 0.005 pen.
On the bottom, it says “thank you for helping me.” and the journaling is all the things I choose for myself even if they are hard, uncomfortable, etc.
This is one of those pages I will come back again and again. It’s good to remember that I have choice and what it means to make these choices every day.
Remember This is a project for 2014. You can read more about it here.
Today’s quote is:
“Very often a change of self is needed more than a change of scene.” ~Arthur Christopher Benson
I remember as a little girl, I kept thinking how I would come over to America and get a fresh start. I wouldn’t be the weird girl anymore, I would fit in. I would belong. As if all the things that made me weird would magically disappear.
Alas, not so.
I took a class a few years ago and one of the quotes they say there is: Who’s always around when you’re complaining?
Let me give you a hint: you.
So I’ve learned that you can’t run away from who you are. Who you are is who you are and it follows you around wherever you go. Hence if you want something to go differently, what you want is a change of self.
(there are exceptions of course.)
I think of this often when I am unhappy with how things are and daydream that if only I had so and so, life would be so much better. If only I lived in this place or had that job or had this body, blah blah.
A shift in perspective, a change of self, can go such a long way in these situations.
I do this with my clients often. What’s the perspective you’re holding and are other ones possible.
And, like most things we tell others, I need to hear it myself often, too.
When choosing to walk in the direction of joy, the first step that jumps out at me is to celebrate. Celebrate small things, all things, regularly. I want to listen for things to celebrate. The sweet, good, wonderful things that are happening to each of us every day that we just gloss over. I want to listen for them, make sure to notice them and then celebrate!
The lettering I used here comes from this pin.
The image is a cupcake.
Listen with Intent is a project for 2014. You can read more about it here.
This week’s inspiration also comes from this pin. I started drawing this while I was on the plane and so it’s a bit wobbly but so be it.
I drew this page and then colored it using Faber Castell qrt pencils and some watercolor pencils and peerless watercolors. Then I went over it with my pitt pen to make it darker. I colored the background with watercolor pencils.
prompt says: today i know that i am hungry for
I wrote about how i am hungry for knowing what i makes me come alive.
Today I Know is a project for 2014. You can read more about it here.
Today’s quote is:
“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
I like that this is not as much about the present moment as it is about being you. I like the idea of thinking about what lies within me. And also what lies within the people I love. It makes me curious about what lies within each of us. I wish we talked about that more.
When we’re kids this question comes up all the time. What do you want to be? What do you like to do? What makes you happy? But as we get older, it’s as if these questions are no longer relevant.
Maybe we just assume that the career/path we picked must be the one we wanted. Or maybe others assume that. Either way, I don’t see this question come up in conversations. I can’t remember the last time anyone asked me any of these. Nor can I remember asking an adult myself.
So maybe this is a good time as any. I’ll start and maybe you can share, too.
- I don’t know what I want to be anymore. I am a bit confused and lost.
- I feel inspired by art more than anything else at the moment but I am not sure I have any deep desire to be an artist for a living. However I know I don’t want to stop doing art or learning art.
- I also love learning in general. I’ve been on duolingo a lot with David for Spanish and also practicing my Italian. I love it and feel excited when I do it.
- I love reading and listening to books. They make me happy.
- Teaching my kids, explaining something i know, seeing someone else “get it” makes me happy.
- Nature makes me happy.
- Volunteering makes me happy
- What lies within me is a deep desire to make people’s lives better, to be of use, and to fully come into my own.
And there we go. This is my short list as of this moment. I wish we regularly asked people around us:
What lies within you?
After completely skipping February, for March, I decided to draw a fashion figure every day for my Monthly Drawing Projects. I discovered this awesome blog called paper fashion and fell completely in love. I then obsessively pinned and drew all month. I ended up with thirty women.
For the last set, I started using actual watercolor paper. I like these so much more.
None of these are original to me. All of the figures come from artists in this pinterest board.
I will now post every single one so you can see them larger. Feel free to skip since it’s 30 of them.
There we are. I was very tempted to continue with this for April, too, but I think I will take a break and I have an idea for April, so we’ll see how that goes. I will most likely do another month of these figures later this year.
You can read more about my monthly projects in 2014 here.
And today’s quote:
The best way out is always through. -Robert Frost
Robert Frost has always been one of my favorite poets. I’ve written his Nothing Gold Can Stay on many diaries in my childhood. When I saw this it spoke to me and I started thinking about where I am in my life, how I feel, what I would like “out” of and what “through” might mean for those situations.
I am not sure I know the answer.
I think the point of this quote is that there are no shortcuts, no work arounds. You have to do the hard work it takes to move out of a situation that’s not working. And when you do, that’s when the reward comes. None of us come out the same on the other side. We’ve grown, learned, conquered and made it through.
I don’t even think through has to mean hard. It just means we didn’t take a shortcut. Or that’s what I am making it mean. (what do you think?)
And looking at my situation(s) with that lens, I am trying to put together what through would mean. How do I find my way out? What would out even look like?
I don’t know the answers but sometimes the first step starts with more questions.
So today’s quote is:
You must be the change you want to see in the world. – Mahatma Gandhi
In 2003, when I had my Teach For America training, on the very last night they had a celebration and they blasted Man in the Mirror by Michael Jackson. Which is one of my favorites of his. I remember going back to my dorm room that night and calling Jake and telling him that this work was so important and worthwhile that I didn’t know why more people wouldn’t want to do it.
I learned the answer to that over the next year but that’s another conversation for another time.
I’ve been thinking about what this means for where I am today in my life and what I want. I am a firm believer that the only person we can fundamentally change is ourselves. And that if we want others to do/behave/feel differently, we have to start with ourselves. This is the same as role modeling for your children. It’s easy to tell them no to lie but much harder to never lie ourselves.
If we want to see a kind world, we can start by being kinder ourselves. If we want to see more people helping others, we can help others ourselves. This applies to everything I can think of.
Which makes me think, well what do I want?
I want to be kind. I want others to be kind. Open, accepting. I want to be present and I want all of us to be more present. I think our attention span is not what it was. I think it’s easy to work/surf 24/7 now and I want to be present. I want to be with others who are present. I want to take care of nature because it gives me so much peace to be in nature. I want to eat well and move away from processed food. I want all of us to eat more naturally. I want us to be willing to be vulnerable with each other and work together. I want everyone to shine their own light. Step into who they are and embrace that wholeheartedly.
And it needs to start with me.
And you. What do you want?
Week seven’s Life Book assignment was by the amazing Jane Davenport and it was to pick three of your positive qualities and create a pop-up.
The first thing I did was to pick my three qualities and draw three girls that symbolized them. I used the amazing Willow Tree statues as my examples and drew one girl reading, one girl holding a heart, and one girl with a bird. I first did rough sketches with pencil leaving a half of an inch in the bottom to fold over:
then I went over each of them with a micron 0.005 pen.
I then used watercolors to color my girls:
The next thing I did was to use the same paper in the same size (4×6 in this case) and create three flaps. I then painted the flaps and adhered them to my blank page:
here they are open:
Now it was time to make my page. I took all the 3×4 and 4×6 cards from the Record It! line from My Mind’s Eye and pulled out a bunch of them that spoke to me at that moment. I layered them all over my page without thinking too hard about it. I regularly reminded myself not to think too hard. Here’s what I had by that point:
I then took them all off and covered the page with Mod Podge and adhered them all down. At this point, I moved stuff around mostly because I couldn’t remember where I had originally put them. I also cut some of the cards. For example, I cut out the love circle and the words out of some of the cards and the see through white heart, etc. I added a few bits and pieces of washi tape and layer one was done. The next task was to cut out the flaps I’d adhered. I used an exacto knife to find the seams and cut them. It wasn’t super-easy but it also wasn’t super-hard. At this point, it looked like this:
Here’s a side view so you can see the flaps:
The next thing I did was to glue my girls inside the flaps. At this point, I realized I hadn’t thought this through really well and I needed the bottoms of the girls to be longer, so I adhered some more paper to them and painted it black. I journaled all over the background of each flap on why this quality was important to me. Then I added some paint to the cover page and I was pretty much done. Here is a look with the girls in there:
and a look at each girl popped up. Authentic, holding the bird:
Curious, holding the book:
Kind, holding a heart:
and here’s a look with the journaling when the girl is laying down:
And a final look at the page closed.
And that’s it. The girls aren’t popping up as smoothly as I’d like but I still loved this assignment. It challenged me and I was able to sketch, watercolor, acrylic paint, and collage all in one page!
Remember This is a project for 2014. You can read more about it here.
Ok so today’s quote is:
Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t, you are right. -Henry Ford
I forget the truth of this all too often. I am one of those people who often lives in the land of negativity. I worry, I fret, I assume things will not work out.
But, interestingly, this doesn’t seem to stop me from going full steam after things I want. One of my personal mottos is “yes I can.” Over the course of my life, I’ve had people tell me I can’t do things or that certain things are not possible and I’ve proven people wrong enough times to know that no one else gets to tell me what I can or cannot do.
Except for me.
And therein lies the problem.
When I am feeling low about myself or in a valley instead of peak, it’s tougher to remember that the power is within me. What makes something possible is my personal belief in it. My ability to believe it to be possible. And when I am feeling rotten, I don’t believe in myself at all. I think I can’t do anything. And so I end up being right, of course.
To me, the most important part of this quote is to remember it during those tougher times in life. When we’re feeling up and happy, we feel optimistic and believe in our ability to move forward, do things, make change. But when we’re down, we don’t think we can do anything to change it. Which then means we don’t do anything. Which, of course results in no change. So, when we’re struggling the most, our own thoughts get in the way of our ability to get out of the dumps.
Talk about a chicken and egg issue.
This made me think quite a bit about what I can do differently. How can I use the power of thoughts to my advantage during the tougher times. One idea I had was to write down a list of things I think I can’t do. Brainstorm as much as I can and then take them even one level deeper and write why I can’t do them. What’s in the way? What’s wrong with me? On and on until all of it is out of my system. And then to take a step back and try the opposite. What if I could do these things? If I thought I could, where would I start? What would be the first thing I would want to do/need to?
This way I allow the whole “wallowing” bit to get out of my system and then I move into a space of possibility. I am not saying I can do it, but I am asking what I would do first if I could do it. I am sort of tricking my negativity mindset here by short-circuiting it.
Not sure if it will work, but I am willing to try.
For those of you who believe in the power of thought, too, what do you do to help yourself when you are down on yourself and think you can’t do anything?
For April, I wanted to set a light intention. Something that would remind me to seek the light and look for the joy when listening. I think it’s easier for me to look for the substance, the depth, the “what’s wrong” then it is to be with lightness. I am not sure why. But this month, I want to listen with the intent of finding the joy. Listening with joy and for joy.
The lettering is somewhere in my pinterest board but I couldn’t find it for the life of me. And the image is of blowing bubbles, which gives me joy to do and to watch.
Listen with Intent is a project for 2014. You can read more about it here.
This week’s inspiration also comes from the Craft-A-Doodle book. Again from the artist Pamela Keravuori whose projects are amazing.
I drew this page and then colored it using Faber Castell qrt pencils and some peerless watercolors. Then I used some other water color pencils and I used some pastels. Some neocolor 2s as well. Then Stabilo All to trace it all once more. I colored the background with the gelatos.
prompt says: today i know that i have made it through
I wrote about how i made it through all my goals and dreams and it’s time to make new ones.
Today I Know is a project for 2014. You can read more about it here.
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projects for twenty twenty-four
projects for twenty twenty-three
projects for twenty twenty-two
projects for twenty twenty-one
projects for twenty nineteen
projects for twenty eighteen
projects from twenty seventeen
monthly projects from previous years
some of my previous projects
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