Christmas already

the day before Christmas
all in a scurry
still trying to breathe
and find quiet moments 
to take in the glory

a celebration is near
i will be of good cheer
look after myself
and those who are near me

so tired i feel
yet grateful each day
for the strength from within
and the faith which keeps me going

MERRY CHRISTMAS my friends
may your days also be blessed
with strength, courage and joy
plus the spirit of the season

"I salute you. I am your friend, and my love for you goes deep.  There is nothing I can give you which you have not. But there is much, very much, that, while I cannot give it, you can take. No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in it today. Take heaven! No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this present little instant.

Take peace! The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet within our reach, is joy. There is radiance and glory in darkness, could we but see.  And to see, we have only to look. I beseech you to look!

Life is so generous a giver. But we, judging its gifts by their covering, cast them away as ugly or heavy or hard. Remove the covering, and you will find beneath it a living splendor, woven of love by wisdom, with power. Welcome it, grasp it, and you touch the angel's hand that brings it to you.

Everything we call a trial, a sorrow or a duty, believe me, that angel's hand is there. The gift is there and the wonder of an overshadowing presence. Your joys, too, be not content with them as joys. They, too, conceal diviner gifts.

Life is so full of meaning and purpose, so full of beauty beneath its covering, that you will find earth but cloaks your heaven. Courage then to claim it; that is all! But courage you have, and the knowledge that we are pilgrims together, wending through unknown country home."
                                                                Fra Giovanni, 1513
 

autumn ramblings 11

this is a post i wrote weeks ago. since then much has changed. there has been very little time to create. someday i will get back to it with a renewed energy. for now i will share this.

 rolling through these days trying to get some sense of Christmas approaching ~ feeling discomfort at times.

and so I continue to create.

to this stage in time there was very little creating with this piece. I had acquired the original very dark pastel creation probably from my daughter. I believe she got it many years ago from a visiting pastel artist at her school. I had found it rolled up in the basement in a piece of craft paper. hastily one evening as I was preparing for a visitor I hung it on a wall in one of my basement creative spaces. then I realized how dark the piece was, how very abstract. not really what I wanted hanging on my walls. besides, there were so many possibilities. and so I began. the above pictured is with a number of layers of white chalk added.

another evening I chose to grab a piece of charcoal and sketch this face. the portrait was created using a reference from Misty Mawn's Open Studio class. I find my art being greatly influenced by her teachings even after eleven months. truly I have not had nearly as much time in this past year to be creating as what I had hoped. but the lessons will remain with me. and a great dream I have would be to one day participate in Misty's class in Orvieto. a dream ~ but I do believe that dreams can come true. as a dear friend strongly believes "If you can dream it ~ you can do it."  Walt Disney

so with pieces of charcoal flying as the piece was hung on the wall ~ the lovely lady appeared. 

I gave the piece more depth and feeling with darker lines. now she appears on my wall, yet another piece totally inspired by Misty, but with very much my own twist.

autumn ramblings 10 ~ more stages of creativity

a blue vignette just cause this is a rambling and the image is looking ugly very scary at this point.

As you have probably noticed ~ something went totally awry after the fourth picture. By that time I was getting pretty frustrated. I was nearly ready to paint over and start from new. But thankfully I let her rest for a while. I moved on to a couple of other creations. Not certain why I was panicking stressing. I suppose those nasty life challenges were getting the best of me. Finally I came back to my drawing book inside cover page. Answers came to me. 

I am now calling this page complete. There is probably much more I could do but after all ~ only  a journal page.

"I will always remember

I am strong."

autumn ramblings 9

or "taking a creative interlude"

As you could realize from my latest ramblings ~ sometimes the rambling is a bit hard to take. As I began the ramblings, I believe I had mentioned that what was flowing through onto these pages was very much the way things are within me. Confusing. Making no sense. Never ending. I suspect you have been getting numerous indications of that particularly recently. You might pause to wonder how anyone could survive a continuous, ongoing thought process as that. That is at times what boggles my mind - how to get away from it. How to unwind the tightly wound knob on my back so that the thought process might slow down. 

I am so grateful for a creative soul. So grateful for an awareness of nature and the need to "be still". So grateful for music. So grateful for tools and imagination and eyes that "see beyond".

Truly I have tried to remain creative. Here is one of my more recent creations shown in steps from earlier beginnings of a sketch to looking very gaunt, to looking like a sophisticated young lady very worthy of framing. I often begin sketches on whatever happens to be handy as I prepare to talk with my Momma on the telephone. Those beginning sketches are sometimes "way off" but I have been reminded time and time again to practice. That is another part of what keeps me going in this creative journey.

 Created with graphite, soft pastels, pastel pencils.  

I know. She looks pretty scary above. She would have been very appropriate for Halloween or some very scary movie. Funny. I trusted myself and carried on. I have learned that a very bad, nearly frightening look is typical at some stage in most paintings. Trust in oneself. And I realize now that creating brings about trust. Ah, I think I learned that a long time ago. It was just a lesson forgotten, a lesson which I should allow to be at the forefront much more often, in creating, as in life.  
 

"You know, you do need mentors, but in the end, you really just need to believe in yourself."
                                                             Diana Ross                                     

Angel blessings my friends.