Open your eyes

Can you hear the little bird telling her: "Open your eyes. Live your life. The time is now." That's what I hear so loudly that I didn't think I need to put the actual words on the canvas.

I love texture... Can you tell?

I wish I took more photos. She went through a lot of changes. My husband liked the white/red combination... so did I, but it felt unfinished so I continued. Fun!

The weather this weekend was phenomenal! The sun was shining more brightly than in the middle of summer. It was perfect for long, slow walks, grilling, bike rides... so good.

- available on etsy -
Happy Monday!

Sketching

I can never be bored if I have a pencil and some paper around. I learned that from Hana.

When she was a tiny little girl she would draw for hours and hours and hours and never get tired of it.

Many times I took a book from the library about drawing and wanted to learn how to do it better, but could never make myself follow the rules and really think about it. One day maybe, because I really admire people that make magic with just a pencil and paper... Until then, I'll just keep sketching and having fun with it. Happy Thursday! xo

Norah wants to play...

When Norah wants to play - I play along. She said: deconstruct a foam brush, pour several puddles of paint and in 15 minutes paint (slap) a face. And I did.

Fun!

This was my reaction to the prompt in Mystele's class yesterday:

It's interesting how unhappy I was with it last night.... I was sad that I have so little time for art and that I can't work on her more, saw only the bad things etc. etc. Things are different today... now, for some reason I don't see the imperfections as a bad thing.  I just like this page. Weird. "Gut art" is good for the soul.

Sweet Voice

No texture on this one...... for once I enjoyed the texture of the canvas, so I left it to show through.

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Happy Saturday!

I love my weekends! Usually I start them very early (like 5 a.m.). This morning I painted this little one in my journal.
I don't know why... she just decided to live on the page.

Then I had returned to bed to relax some more, made a fresh juice from apples, oranges, carrots, beets, celery, ginger and red cabbage (YUM); had a nice talk with my Mom, and then decided to snap pictures of all the flowers I can see in our yard. I love that it is middle of October, leaves are changing colors, and yet - there is an abundance of colorful flowers around. This is what I saw:

It's not even noon! Saturdays are just the best... Hope you're having a great day too. xo

Heart tones

Listen to the tones of your heart...

I don't have any words today. Just the painting.

Have a happy day! Let go...

Friends

I paint faces, birds, butterflies... but never combined like this. This is "pulled art ". It was in the background. So much fun to paint this way!

Another face...

Friday afternoon

This lady took my sadness away.

I like this crop more than the whole image, the proportions are totally off.

Just as I thought, holding a brush did miracles for my mood. After painting this I was completely ready to enjoy the weekend.

This week

What a week.... It started with a big black limo slamming my car while I was on the red light. The car will need a new bumper, I will need a new neck. Not really, I'm feeling much better now than I did on Monday. Then I heard sad news from across the ocean... which made me think about our mortality even more. And this morning I was stuck in a traffic jam on the freeway, barely moving, with a yellow light on my dashboard screaming "you will be out of gas now"...

The good part of the week was that I managed to surprise the one that always surprises me (my darling husband) with tickets to a performance of his favorite musician. That was an amazing evening! I had a pleasure of enjoying the music, the look on my husband's face and the excitement of our daughter (as this was the first time she saw a live performance of such talented musicians). That was definitely the highlight of the week!

Other than that.... I LOVE MYSTELE'S CLASS and am sad to say that I had very little time to enjoy it. I chose one of my red rosin paper journals to use as a 'gut art' journal. I played a little bit with the cover, added some red tape and transparent tape all over the cover. I remembered that I did that on my journals in high school and wanted to have that same feel on this one. It doesn't show on the photo, but it's interesting.

It says "Embrace the Passion". Embracing the passion of a gentleman with flowers is easy.

It's the other passions that are hard to embrace. I have been constantly struggling with the fact that I have to live the life I have spending most of my time doing things I don't care for (work). This week it hit me especially hard because there was just almost no time for art. And yes, I am grateful that I have a job and all of that, but also resentful that I can't do what I really want to and dream about. How do you embrace the passion if you can't find it in most of your day?
Anyway.... Back to what I did manage to do. I did two assignments for the class and was so happy with what I learned (or realized). Exploring... that's the main thing, and being open to whatever shows up.

For the second page I had a painfully small amount of time, so it's not finished. But I did manage to 'paint-sketch' what I wanted.

It's all good.... Today is Friday. I expect to paint all afternoon and I'm sure that I'll feel better after I do. And then maybe I'll come back and delete the all "poor me" parts of this post.

Have a happy weekend! xo

Trouble with color

It's not what you are that's holding you back,

it's who you think you're not.

I'm so frustrated with my ability to present this painting correctly... The above image is scanned (which usually works really well); the bellow one is a photo. Both are wrong. My painting definitely has warm tones, as the scan shows, but not as much crazy color. On the other hand - I used a lovely gold-toned color... not metallic gold, more like a gold shimmer (in the hair and on the face) and it doesn't show at all.

I guess the best I can do is to invite you all to come and visit me and see it in person.... Wouldn't that be fun?

Follow your heart

Do you have a bird in your heart?

Birds, butterflies, wings of all sorts.... transformation, flying, growing.... I guess those things are on my mind.

A piece of distressed wood, with an opening just in the right place, some paint and inks, two glass birds and a thick layer of beeswax...
that's what I've been playing with for the last two days.

Is it possible that Saturday is almost over? Why can't weekends last longer?

I hope you're having a good one.

xo

Playing with paint

This is what happens when I'm too tired to really think about what I'm painting:

I pick up pieces of cardboard, paper, several colors, 2 brushes and dirty water...

I turn on the TV in the next room and watch reruns of NCIS (which I never watched before and don't understand my current fascination with it)...

And I paint.... The tv keeps me from thinking, planing, judging...

Suddenly these characters emerge and I feel totally happy and relaxed.

You should try it. Maybe NCIS is not your thing (wasn't mine either before this week), but something that will quiet the side of the brain that wants to control what we do. I really enjoy it!

Happy October! xo