No saving "for good"

I promise I was NOT saving this pristine pile of Pan Pastels "for good". 

My beloved sister gave them to me for my birthday and frankly I m not quite sure WHAT to do with them.  I am not worried about ruining them per se, but so much of what I do is "wet work" I am concerned about turning them to mud.

The directions say "use as other".  Not very helpful.  We will see.  Any hints from you would be helpful!

A new way of looking at things- Part 1

After Posting the lovely Lesley Riley's guest post I looked at my own blog and realized I had drafts in the system that are MONTHS old.  Sadness.  Working on the theory that if you haven't heard it is all new to you here it is...  From April 27th 2013

Paint squirts right out of  pump. I heart Jesse Reno!

 I ran away from home on my birthday!  My kids are old enough to be offended but I went anyway.  Where to the Art & Soul Mixed Media Conference in Virginia Beach to take ONE CLASS.  A 2 day class to be sure, from my favorite wild haired, tattooed man, Jesse Reno. Jesse's art  is dark, mysterious and just a little bit creepy for me but I really respect him as an instructor and his is one of those little voices I hear in my head when I am so busy working on my "to-do" list that I don't make art.  And uh, why isn't making art ON my to do list???  A question for another day!

Stage 1 - frankly, I liked this as is!

The workshop I recently took is called "Freedom to Create" and it about how by disrupting what you THINK you WANT to make you come out with something deeper, literally more layered and more tremendous.  This philosophy applies to life as well as art making.  As I met Jesse for the first time 6 years ago I can attest to the fact that he DOES practice what her preaches. Because his life now doesn't look like what he thought it would be six years ago.  That he seems more content and yet more enthused about his life.  Who doesn't want a piece of THAT?  Without giving away Jesse's lecture you can see a little bit of the process here.

Stage 2 - Obscuring the rhythm

The coolest part?  This is all finger painting and oil pastels!  So thrilled as when I normally try to mix colors everything usually ends up, uh a not so delightful shade of brown.  I cloistered myself this time at the retreat.  I had gradiose plans to work on my blog, fire up my Thriving Creatives event and instead sat on my balcony, looked at the water and just rested.  And slept the sleep of the overworked and comatose.  This is a good thing.  The question begs, what's next?

Finding the soul- it's in there!

Freedom to Create - I am Back

The nice thing about signing up for something (a concert,a game, an event) way in advance is that when the time comes up on the calender you HAVE to go whether it is convenient or not.  Happily, my latest version of this was the Art & Soul Retreat down in Hampton, VA. http://www.artandsoulretreat.com I carpooled with my Stifel & Capra colleague Christine of Society Hill Design http://www.societyhilldesigns.com . 

I really lucked out because I abhor driving and for the price of a tank of gas Chris drove the whole way, hooray!  The excellent traffic boded well for the event.  The retreat too went super smoothly.  Everything was easy to find, the people were lovely, the instructors informative, the food? well it was an Embassy Suites after all so we will make allowances there.  I learned a LOT while I was away but one of the most interesting sessions I took was by a gentleman named Jesse Reno.

Jesse is a former musician turned full time artist and he led a class called "Freedom to Create".  Leading was more like herding cats.  Imagine a group of 27 women, average age 62 (and that is with me being 50!) all kibitzing and commenting, all in a positive way of course!  Jesse's loving response? "Dude, shut the ()^)*&^& up, these other folks came to hear me not you!"  Jesse had a lot to say about his creative process, the cold turkey shift from music to art and how to live the proverbial artist's life.  It was really inspiring to hear someone with no excuses.  Although I received the info a bit wistfully as I seem to be full of excuses these days.

We did two exercises, the first of which involved pumping red, blue, yellow, white & black paint onto a plastic plate and painting with our hands.  This was a little traumatic for some manicured ladies.  My hang-up?  mixing paint.  But I went into this thinking that I was "just going to use these papers for collage backgrounds" so I really went at it with abandon, dare I say freedom?  Making BIG, messy pieces on paper felt great, non precious and with nothing to lose I was rather thrilled how my pieces came out.  In keeping with my new resolution to actually FINISH things I start,I came home, harassed my lovely neighbor Beth into matting my pieces for me, hung them on FIRSTfriday, and darn if one of them didn't sell!  I am so proud.  Proud I did something new, proud I actually got them on the wall and even prouder that the pieces actually spoke to someone.  Life is good.