when you love the giant

How gorgeous is this picture?  It is called when you love the giant... it is from  Deviantart.com

halloween art therapy activity...

I thought I'd share the following post from Art Therapy Blog - here is a snippet, if you'd like to read more the link is at the end of the post.

 

A Halloween Art Therapy Activity

Let’s start by thinking of all the negative energies or influences in your life.

1. Think about any negative people, events (recent or otherwise), or anything else that has had a negative impact on you recently.
2. Take all these negative “pieces” and imagine each of them has a spirit.
3. Take a moment to forgive these negative spirits in your life, if only for a short period, and focus on what you would offer these spirits as a peace offering, or a “treat” if you will.
4. Ideally you create something that you can give to each negative spirit, but if you have too many negative spirits to treat, then think of something you can give to all of them.

Alright, now feel free to be as creative as you like. I might suggest trying something different and going with a Halloween-ish theme for your creation…maybe using pumpkins, leaves, or construction paper and crafts, or even just incorporating the colors of fall. But if you’d like to draw or paint in pastels, that’s good too! Good luck forgiving those negative spirits and Happy Halloween from Art Therapy!

Read more: http://www.arttherapyblog.com/art-therapy-activities/halloween-activity/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ArtTherapyBlog+%28Art+Therapy%29#ixzz12ktxhZZh

don't say i love you unless you mean it

You really shouldn't say "I love you" unless you mean it.  But if you mean it, you should say it a lot.  People forget.  ~Author unknown, attributed to an 8-year-old named Jessica

if the coffee pot

if(pot.coffee=EMPTY) {programmer->;brain=OFF}; Author Unknown

blogging is about discovering your inner voice

I was just looking at Pam Carricker's Artful Blogging this morning and the message is just wonderful (you'll have to visit to find out what it is) as well as Pam's art - so inspiring - people often ask me, 'why do you bother blogging?', and I have never been able to share properly why I find it so fullfilling. I can tell by the blank looks after I tell them what I like about it, that they don't understand what I am talking about. I think you have to be a blogger or have visited blogs to understand. I enjoy writing myself and adding my artwork, but I also enjoy visiting a wonderful network of artists and journalists, home makers and food writers, who share some of their day-to-day creativity online. It's being a part of an online network of people that I would never have met otherwise. A glimpse of life in another country, that would have remained unknown to me. A teacher that I would never have met before. A friend that would never have crossed my path.

"Blogging is about discovering your inner voice, finding your own path, experiencing growth, and sharing what you learn with others." Pam Carricker
Artful Blogging

art offers space

'What art offers is space - a certain breathing room for the spirit.' John Updike

mandala - freedom to grow

This is a mandala based on freedom to grow that I drew, as I was working through Susanne Fincher's book Creating Mandalas.

art junk serenity prayer

I love this prayer I just read at Artjunkgirl's blog...

God grant me the serenity
to accept the fact that I can't make every room in this house a craft room:
Give me courage to clean the studio I have;
and wisdom to know the difference.
Love, Artjunkgirl

click here to see ART junk Girl's blog

art journal

Loved this art journal... on you tube

paper house

Random blogging looking for how to make a cardboard castle I came across this you tube video...

collage a day

Magic Wand image by Randel Plowman: http://acollageaday.blogspot.com/

I love random blogging, and finding a treasure each day... This is the latest treasure I found when I happened across Randel Plowman's blog, A Collage a Day.  Randel sells his collages on his site, and if this one was still available it would be on it's way to me right now.  But it's sold sad for me, I love this little magic wand image. 

art - just another way of keeping a diary

Pot with Indigenous Art by A.L Barlin

The pot in the picture above means a lot to me - it is a pot my father painted. My dad spent a lot of time in Darwin and New Guinea during WW2 and during his quiet times painted and sketched. This is the only piece of his art that I have and it is really precious to me. My dad's pot reflects the time he spent at Katherine Gorge. He told many stories of the min min lights and his time with the local people there. This piece of artwork reminds me of those stories. His words of advice when I wanted to start painting was; 'well do it... don't go to art class, just get some paints and paint'. So I did, and in the process have had lots of fun.

There is a quote by Picasso that says 'painting is just another way of keeping a diary'. I know that the artwork that I have painted reflects my journeys in recent years. I think buying artwork is another way of keeping a diary as well - a piece can really speak to our inner selves as we look at it. Even though it may mean something totally different the buyer than what the artist intended. My artwork shows pictures of homes and Hawaiian women, of prayers and food - I am always fascinated when I listen to what others see in it and how it shows me a glimmer of their inner life.

art plates

This is a plate I painted some years ago now - I learned from Suzi down in Sydney. Suzi now owns a gorgeous Japanese style shop that is adjacent to the The Buddha Belly restaurant (click here to for a online tour) in Terry Hills and is selling some of her work there. If you are visiting there, stop in for a coffee and have a calming walk through the Japanese garden, listen to the little waterfall, chill out in the zen rockery, be inspired, and visit her shop, you'll be in for a real treat.

video by jan phillips on making art

Video by: Jan Phillips.com I saw this on
Creative Workshops.ning.com

food for the soul

collage - first layer food for the soul

Finally found an art journal that can take gel medium and paint.  It came from India, is only $6 and is sold in Target.  I am off to buy some more today.  This is the first layer of a collage I am working on - the magazine pieces came from an old Inside Out Magazine. 

installation piece floating bowls

I was just visiting Alicia Tormey's Blog and was fascinated with the you tube video of the bowls shown here...

relax and enjoy life

art journalling on small canvas

I hope one day I'll end up with an art journal like some of the others I have seen online on you tube... this is a start

Too cute owl to make

I just found this gorgeous scrappy owl to make...

From KidGiddy Blogspot

Fairy doors in trees

No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist. Oscar Wilde

I was so glad to read this quote, I went to a drawing class, with a certain local teacher, and we took our sketch pads with us into the wilds of downtown Laurieton. Well we had to draw a tree, gnarly wonderful old tree it was, and as I sat drawing, I started to draw a fairy door into the tree. Well did I get into trouble. "Only draw what is there" I was told as 'he' took my pencil off me, grabbed the eraser, and rubbed out my door.

Poor soul, he couldn't see the door in the tree. (I didn't go back for another class.)

a painting is what you make of it

A painting is what you make of it, besides which, 'Moon, Weeping' has a better ring to it than 'Paintbrush, Dripping.' Robert Brault,

lying in bed drawing on the ceiling

Lying in bed would be an altogether perfect and supreme experience if only one had a colored pencil long enough to draw on the ceiling. G.K. Chesterton

my frangipani life

"What makes me is a project developed by the Australia Council for the Arts and invites us all to think about what art adds to your lives. Part of the challenge is that for many Australians, 'the arts' is associated with images of snobbery and inaccessibility.

We want to encourage people to see that art comes in many forms, and that school bands, amateur comedy and circus are every bit as artistic as classical music and oil painting.

We want you to show what it is that you like about art by creating your own art cube. As everyone's cubes are combined, we will gradually be building Australia's largest collaborative digital story.We want to demonstrate that the arts are a powerful agent of change in our lives: they enrich our society and make Australia a better place to live, celebrating and defining us as Australians, as communities and as individuals."

my frangipani life: "from the What Makes Me website..."

the human heart

painting is just

Painting is just another way of keeping a diary. Pablo Picasso

When my daughter was about seven years old, she asked me one day what I did at work.  I told her I worked at the college - that my job was to teach people how to draw.  She stared at me, incredulous, and said, "You mean they forget?"  Howard Ikemoto

Doorway with climbing Frangipanis

Cross

Behold I send you an angel to guard you on your way

Art work done for christening

Dance me to the end of love

Guitar still life -

words 'dance me to the end of love' leonard cohen

Hawaiian Angel

conception

Painted with a prayer for a couple to conceive.