The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things,

but their inward significance.
~Aristotle

Anger always comes from frustrated expectations

~Elliott Larson

“I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone,

because I am the person I know best.”
~Frida Kahlo

Tonight I played on scribbler, doodling self portraits...its so much fun.
A nice way to start the week after such a BUSY weekend...
teaching, kid's stuff, a motorcycle show, cleaning house, and of course
drawing caricatures at another fun birthday party
(Happy First Birthday Natasha!)
with a family group picture thrown in for good measure...:)

"There is a vitality, a life-force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time this expression is unique. If you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost. The world will not have it! It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open..."

~Martha Graham

Tonight was the start of my creative journaling class at the Paint Spot. I am basing the first part of the class on a lot of the techniques found in Corey Moortgat's FABULOUS book "The Art of Personal Imagery" (definitely one of my faves).

I used Martha Graham's wonderful quote as the theme for the page tonight because I especially love "It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open..."

THAT is exactly what creative journaling has done for me. By painting, writing and drawing in my journals for the past 27 years, I have developed a level of trust and a way of keeping "that channel" open. There are always mental hurdles to jump (and always will be), especially when approaching anything new in art; new mediums, new styles or new techniques. Having somewhere to go where I feel the freedom to do, write, paint or draw anything and not worry about the end result is one of the best tools in my life.

Everyone in the class did a wonderful page...totally different from each other, yet using the same elements. (I will hopefully show some of them here eventually). Just like the demo that I did during the class was completely different from my pre-class sample . The best part of the night was saying "seeing you next week!". Most of the time I do one day or shorter workshops but this is a six week class and I can't wait to see the development of individual styles through the weeks.

I love to have music in my classes and this was who we listened to while we painted tonight...

Today I was drawing at MacEwan College, south campus, (where I actually attended- a mere 25 years ago) for a special "Get yourself Framed!" fun day. The Student council had provided 4 x 6" IKEA frames for the students to decorate and they could get their caricature drawn for free. What a wonderful idea for another blizzardy cold day!
Here are just some of the great faces I drew today...

and my fave of the day...a true Canadian Tim Horton's coffee addict...

Life is like an ever-shifting kaleidoscope

— a slight change, and all patterns alter.

~Sharon Salzberg

Today I was invited to teach an in-service for division 2 teachers held at Rideau Elementary School. I created the small journal (above) as one sample of some techniques I would demonstrate. As always it was a lot of fun!

I would like to say thank you to the teachers at the school for allowing us to take over their staff room and of course, a special thank you to Shama for organizing it all.

When deciding on the theme for my book, I chose the word Altered, or rather it chose me. I just love that word so much because it refuses to place judgement on whether the change that has happened is good or bad...it just is.

We are all faced with changes in our lives constantly, some big and some small. Sometimes we really can't tell how those changes will truly impact us until much later (and maybe from a different perspective).

"May be"
... There is a Taoist story of an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years. One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit. "Such bad luck," they said sympathetically. "May be," the farmer replied. The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. "How wonderful," the neighbors exclaimed. "May be," replied the old man. The following day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. The neighbors again came to offer their sympathy on his misfortune. "May be," answered the farmer. The day after, military officials came to the village to draft young men into the army. Seeing that the son's leg was broken, they passed him by. The neighbors congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out. "May be" said the farmer.

You can discover more about a person in an hour of play

than in a year of conversation.
~Plato (427 BC - 347 BC)

I was "duty mom" at my daughter Piper's preschool this morning.
Its a "parent co-operative" and my "job" is to take photos.
These are 9 of the 175 I took this morning...
the rest of the photos were of the kids.
OK, well... most of them were.
See...here's Piper working on her numbers...
a LOT of numbers!...
I just LOVE her sense of design.
Even though she spoke them in chronological order she drew them with a courageous and obvious disregard for visual order.
I'm envious. It took me 40 years to stop worrying about things like that.

A "full on" fabulous weekend of ...tobogganing, wine and great conversation with a wonderful, old friend, 3 drawing gigs, poker and other assorted games with friends, lots of left over pizza, a great birthday party at the
Edmonton Art Gallery, and
WARMER weather....
finally.

A journal page I did,
(scanned and desaturated in Photo Shop)
inspired by the brilliant Misty Mawn)...

Group pictures from 2 of the 3 gigs I drew at this weekend.
Happy Birthday Girls!
Thanks for inviting me to your parties!...

Thanks Ry for all your help this weekend with scanning, and BTW who's teaching you how to play poker so well?

This first week of January 2009 has been very full...of de-cluttering, de-livering, de-toxing, and de-cision making.

• De-cluttering 5 garbage bags of clothes and toys and miscellaneous things to goodwill, (as well as a handful of old habits, ideas and thoughts that no longer serve me anymore)
  
• De-livering 75o Birth Issues magazines
• De-toxing financially and physically
• De-cision making for new goals, patterns and directions
  

The biggest decision that I have made this year (so far) was to go here and I'm VERY excited.

Our imagination is the only limit to what we can hope to have in the future.
~Charles F. Kettering (1876 - 1958)

No trumpets sound when the important decisions of our life are made.
Destiny is made known silently.
~Agnes de Mille (1909 - 1993)

Some journaling for the start of a new year...

...and some of the last of my caricatures from 2008...

Nothing in the world is permanent, and we're foolish when we ask anything to last, but surely we're still more foolish not to take delight in it while we have it. If change is of the essence of existence one would have thought it only sensible to make it the premise of our philosophy.

~W. Somerset Maugham (1874 - 1965), The Razor's Edge, 1943