An Artist's Quest for "Soul" in a Chaotic World—by InnerSpirit

This is my InnerSpirit blog page...a page of reflection...inquiry...
and artistic questions about myself, my life, and the world around me. A place for my own personal contemplation of my emotions, my actions, my art, my spiritual journey and how they all intertwine and influence each other. I hope that you check it out, think a little about your life and the many creative things that you might be engaged in...how do those fit into your life and impact the various aspects of your own life? Let's reflect together!

Showing posts with label doodles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label doodles. Show all posts

Friday, April 22, 2011

High Tech Easter Egg Dying: No Colored Fingers!

Creative Fingerpainting
I was thinking today about coloring Easter eggs with my daughter in "Days Gone By". I was reminiscing a bit and thinking how I missed doing that, but in the course of my memories I also remembered the mess that those eggs caused. In our house, "the house of an artist", of course...the plain old solid colored eggs, or even two toned eggs "just did not fly"!  We ended up using our hands and fingers to dip and dye in many angles with overlapping stripes and then using our fingers to put dots on the eggs, etc. The sky was the limits to our creativity. We always ended up with "dyed fingers" in the process of creating such beautifully colored eggs!


An Easter Egg Fix Without The Mess
Wanting to foster my fixation with Easter eggs today, I went online to see if anyone else had posted any eggs that they had made with their family and in my google search I came upon a wonderful little electronic Easter Egg Maker. Oh Yes, I had found my "egg dealer" to get my "Egg Fix" and I submerged myself in this new endeavor! I set off playing with several variations and even sent a few off as little Easter cards to some family members and friends via the email option that the website gave. These little personalize eggs were put in a cute little basket and then sent out to the people you selected to share them with. What a cool idea!

I've included a few of my little egg creations that I made here, just to show off. I should be ALL SET if I ever become a grandma. These designs seem more refined than the ones that my daughter and I created, but it did allow me to have a little fun today and to go down memory lane. My daughter is 20 now, she is in college and she lives in Chicago. She has her own apartment now and when I talked to her last, her and her roommate were making Easter Eggs together. I hope she thought of me when she was doing them with her friend Amy, much like I thought of our sweet, cherished memories today when I was creating my eggs.

Did you do Easter Eggs with anyone this year? Do you have a great Easter Egg making memory that you are willing to share? I would love to hear of others that miss this process...AND if you aren't able to do the old fashioned "dying" way try this online version and let me know how it went for you.

Much Love and Blessings,
D.

Monday, November 1, 2010

AEDM 2010...Day One

Well... I have jumped into this Create Art Every Day Month again this year. If you remember, at least for those that were reading my blog last year, that was year one for me. This is year two. Yes, I had that much fun! Leah Piken Kolidas at Blue Tree Art Gallery does a great job of rounding up a bunch of "crazy artist" types, like me, to participate in a month long ritual of creating art every day each November. She has been doing this for 8 years now she reveals on her website. Great idea Leah!

I was super scared of the deadline of having to create art every day, take photos and/or uploading it to my blog and then actually blogging about the art and the experience. I stressed myself out last year thinking that I had to compete with all those other great artists out there that were also challenging themselves this month. I clicked on their posts and saw all the great art that others were posting and blogging about and I felt inadequate, or at the very least, incapable of keeping up with all the time consuming tasks of posting and blogging everyday even if I WAS able to get some art in. Last year I was unemployed during this event and I STILL had problems with time. NOW, I have been successfully employed as a full-time Hospice social worker...and I am STILL in school...this leads to even less time this year. You might be affirming to yourself at this moment, that yes...she IS a "crazy artist type"!

My Strategy This Year
I am being a little less anal this year (can I say that on my blog? Well, it is my blog...and I guess I could say worse things right?). I am just going to do a bit of creative work each day, maybe it will be 15 minutes on a painting every day for a week, or maybe it will be a doodle, or maybe it will be a creative thought I had about something I could do in the future etc. I am not going to have a preconceived plan and an agenda of deadlines looming before me. I have too many of those already in my life with work and grad school. This is supposed to be fun, so here I go. I might post each day, I might post every few days, or if I feel like it, I might only post at the end of the week. Like I said, I am going with the flow as it hits me. Much more laid back this year...at least that is the plan. We will see where it gets me.

Day One Doodles
I found this website that allows you to make really cool snowflake designs and I played around in the early hours of the morning...actually for me it was a continuation of the night before when I was still up doing homework until 1:00 p.m., but then decided I needed to play and loosen up a little bit before  undertaking this challenge. I wanted to set the theme of "play" for myself. I had a good time and I got some cool designs with it. Don't worry, I am not wishing that winter will arrive by exploring snowflake creation, I just was having some fun and relaxing. That is the plan for this month's creativity.

I would love to hear about your experiences with this, drop in and leave a comment and say hello. Even a vote of confidence and support would be nice. Do you ever take time to just play? Do you doodle or does all of your artwork have to be something "serious" and "well executed"? Do you have a hard time loosing up when you work? I do, and that is why I am going this route this month.

I will try and say hello to the other AEDM participants at some point during this "crazy artist" month and see what other "crazies" are out there!

Blessings and love,
D.