New Toys

I was at Michael's the other day and came across the Martha Stewart section. She has half of one side dedicated to all of her new paints, brushes, stencils, etc. I fell in love with the paint colors and had to buy a few.

Then I saw these fantastic brushes that create some cool designs. I was going to cut some of my brushes apart before I found these!

I played around when I got home in this journal I recently made in Teresa McFayden's class
Found & Bound. It was lots of fun and gave me some new (needed) inspiration!

Have you recently discovered anything new that has sparked your art?

Life

So life has returned to a routine, activities have begun as has my life as a driver. Things were clicking along and I was hoping that once I finished what I needed to do, I'd have a chance to really get back into creating.

Life had other plans in store. We just found out last week my mom has lymphoma. I am the only one who lives close. Close is 1-1.5 hr. drive each direction. My brother and sister live out of state and we have been trying to coordinate how to best care for her and manage what is to come. She begins chemo tomorrow. The live-in caregiver we hired will be with her 24hrs. as I just can't drive back and forth on the tollway every day and care for my kids, myself, my husband and have my life.

I have been finding myself in my studio once everyone is asleep, sitting on the floor wanting to do something. Paint. Draw. Cut. Paste. Doodle. Anything. Something. Time just seems to escape and my days are filled with life. Some good. Some bad. I still haven't found the best way to manage it and allow myself to truly fall into the zone I so crave when in my art room. How do you do it? How do you let it all go?

I recently made my girlfriend Marissa her own visual journal. She is an amazing artist who does beautiful things with oil paints. Her work is stunning! We both always talk about how tight we are with our artwork in wanting things to be perfect. Look real. Look a certain way. I have been telling her how much my discovery of visual journaling has helped me loosen up and allow the mistakes, the fluidity and even the mess. I have found that making my own journals has allowed me the room for error. I constantly remind the kids I teach that the beauty of making things by hand is that they are not perfect. If you want perfection, buy something that was made by a machine. I am loving the new stitches I learned from Mary Ann Moss and so want to continue to learn new ways to bind books. For now, I love the guerrilla approach!