Perfectly Imperfect

I woke up this morning to the sound of rain, perfect!
I slept well past my normal time, perfect!
This past weekend the Palm Resaca Players put on the musical "Oliver" and they were perfectly Imperfect!
I was lead to the poem, The Pond by Mary Oliver  http://www.panhala.net/Archive/The_Ponds.html   about being satisfied with imperfections.  It was perfect.
I did this little drawing in my mini journal, far from perfect, but perfect anyway.
And I tried to write out the poem in my drawing but ran out of space.
Sorry, I'm not perfect.

Learning to felt

There is a great little shop on South Padre Island, Texas called the Art Space.  https://www.facebook.com/SPIArtSpace  It's an Artist ran shop with room for members to do their work and sell their wares but the part that I really like is that they bring in all kinds of instructors and teach a huge variety of different art related classes.    Yesterday I took a class from Nancy Algrim, owner of the Black Iris in Mission, Texas and a fiber artist extraordinaire.  Here is a link to her web site. http://iristex.com/.

Nancy was incredibly generous with her time and supplies and we made three different felting projects.  First was felt beads, then we made a Nuno scarf and finally shaped the wool into a felt flower and embellished it with some beading.

Here is a link to  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuno_felting if you want to learn more about it.  I found it very interesting learning how to make the felt fabric and have it turn out so thin and drapy when traditionally felt is thick and stiff.  There is a real technique to the laying on of the fibers and the agitation to get the felt to turn out just right. I'm not sure I have mastered it but I brought a few ounces of wool roving home so I can try it again.

I loved handling the wool, it brought back so many memories for me.  Back in the 90's I had a couple spinning wheels and was making scarves on a big loom with my hand spun wool.  I loved working with mohair and angora so got my self about 50 Angora rabbits and one big, mean Angora goat.  That was all a life time ago but the fiber covering the table yesterday made me think fond memories about that time.

I love learning new crafts and the artists that teach them are so generous with their time and usually don't mind sharing their skills.  I get to dabble in so many different mediums that way and benefit from all the years of practice and often expensive education that the instructors had to endure to learn to master the craft.

What's New?

It's a new year, I'm learning a new way to draw and I have a new journal to fill. That is a great start. How about adding a new attitude and a few new responsibilities? Nothing wrong with all that, unless you still have your old forgetful mind. I think I need a new day minder. Maybe my new Ipad has an App for that. Then all I have to do is try to remember to fill it.....

Lets get back to the new journal. I bought a cute little one this time. It's only 3.5 x 5.5 inches, has an elastic strap to keep it closed and a pretty red ribbon to mark my page. It's going to be fun filling it. I can toss it in my purse and take it any where. Drop a few pens in with it and I have all the art supplies I need to fill a few minutes while waiting for an appointment or while himself shops at Harbor Tools and I wait in the truck.

Following the prompt from Cindy Angiel's drawing web page http://rainbowelephant.com/ and the line weaving community site http://lineweaving.com, I'm will be thinking of the word Inspire while filling this little book.

Inspiring others to do something creative is part of who I am and I love showing others that there is creativity in all of us. Back in another life, I taught flower arranging, wheat weaving, even bow making. Now I have a great time teaching a weekly arts and craft class in the retirement park I live in during the winter. I look forward to that class every week because I get such a kick out of showing them something new and watching the students get excited about how well things turn out. This winter I have been teaching some tangle or repeat line drawing patterns and those classes have been outstanding. It's so nice to see that I'm not the only one getting inspired to try something new.

The line weaving community, and they are all over the world, are a great inspiration to me as well. As far as I can tell this phenomena started to really catch on in the past year or two so it's really in it's growing stage. Painters like me are moving towards repeat line drawings, scrap bookers are also finding it fun. Quilters are doing tangles with their sewing machines and embroiders are designing new repeat patterns for their stitching.

It's really amazing what some little lines with a pen in a little journal can do.... inspire a whole new movement of creativity!

What inspires you to create?

News Year, New Art

It's been a wonderful tangled adventure these past few months, the months since I stumbled across that strange word, Zentangle, googled it and watched my monitor explode with hit after hit. I was intrigued, fascinated and inspired. I searched web sites, found patterns, drew patterns and designed tiles. I drew so much that my thumb went numb for days and I had to go see a chiropractor to put my neck back into place. I have now learned to relax while drawing, to take a few minutes to stretch and to really find the Zen in the tangling.

Then I stumbled across Joanne Fink's you tube video about Letters and Patterning and things took off for me again. This time with more drawing and adding tangle patterns to my drawings. I have also been trying to get better at lettering. Never in my life did I care to learn good hand writing but now I see it as an art form and it's got a whole new meaning to me. I bought Joanne's book "Zenspirations" and another one by Marci Donley and DeAnne Singh called "Hand Lettering". Both stay right beside me now as I learn lettering.

For Christmas Bernie bought me a set of Tombow watercolor art pens and I think I am finally ready to take everything I have learned these past months and put it into a new art form. Drawing, watercolor, ink, tangles and some inspiration from the flora and fauna around me and lets see where it will go!

I wonder if my acrylics are getting lonely?