Athena Dreams Design

Design an Album Cover {meme}

original image Been Done Before by bellarosebyliz

A creative, fun and idea sparking exercise, found on m heart's secret notebooks • wild pages thru HOW  thru Facebook. Some may say, "oh what a way to waste an hour", but truly, any endeavor that has me using my brain for creative stretching, is a fun and useful and never wasted time.

Here are the basics:

1 - Go to "wikipedia." Hit “random”
or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.

2 - Go to "Random quotations"
or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.

3 - Go to flickr and click on “explore the last seven days”
or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days
Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4 - Use Photoshop (or similar) to put it all together. 

• My Wikipedia page was about the president of Finland 
• My quote was by Nikola Tesla 
• And my random Flickr image was from bellarosebyliz 

And Just What, May I Ask, is a Pecannoot*?

Jess Gonacha - amazing painter, illustrator, and pattern designer extraordinaire - has started another endeavor that is full to the brim with Abundance and Collaboration and Wings for the Spirit and Dreams in the Daylight .:. Pecannoot.

I know I have spent a fair amount of moments thinking about where the world is right now: economically, politically, socially, environmentally... and all those other ally's, and though I have cut out all the doom and gloom news from my daily fare, and consciously tried to remain positive, tempered with some realism, there are days where the weight of everything that is happening in the world, and in some cases to people I love, get the better of me.

So the goal for me has been

How do I stay positive in a world over-run with negative?

How do I stay buoyant when all the pictures advertise drought?

and these questions lead me back to this shortlist:

• Create for the sake of creating 
• Support my fellow artists
• Reach out and make connections with people
• Write down all my fears on a piece of paper, and then burn it (repeat as necessary)
• Seek out at least one positive, every day
• and then, Create because it feeds my soul.

When I read Jess' announcement about her new blog, I clapped my hands and said Yes (my positive for the day)! Her new site is all about ABUNDANCE and ART, I mean could it really get much better than that? She is looking for artists to contribute work to be shown on the site, so stop by and have a look and submit some artwork. Artists supporting artists - Jess models that ideal with beautiful grace and abundant enthusiasm.

When I read her announcement, I e-mailed her immediately, and sent an image that I had created this past fall, and I am totally thrilled that she posted it on the site today.  It's kind of like being in second grade, and after art period, your teacher puts your drawing up on the bulletin board, and you feel so happy and shy, all at the same time. Remember those moments? Submit some work and recreate a second grade moment . . . I am so looking forward to seeing what you all submit.

  

  

Visions and Dreams and All Those Things

Sometimes I wish that I was a person who didn't start the rice cooking for dinner, and then forget all about it because I picked up a book I am in the middle of reading, and then can't put it down. 

The rice just does not wait patiently to be turned down.

And sometimes I wish that I was a person who had all her plans and schedules carefully organised, and never forgot a meeting, or a deadline, or a date for tea, or a walk with my favourite dog, who lives down the street.

And sometimes I am a person who has just luck enough to spend my days designing and colouring and fitting pieces and words together, to create a page in a calendar that may hang on someone's wall  and remind them that the world truly is a magnificent, magical and lovely place, when we remember that every tomorrow truly can be a vision of hope.

Sometimes a day just has all the right curves, all the right corners and all the right edges to make a person feel truly blessed. And really, what more can we ask for, than some days that make us feel like that. And so, to a beautifully wonderful day. There may (and will) be those days that come along that try to make me forget what a beautiful day can be, and so I am placing a marker on my page, to help me remember.

Painting: Just to Paint

No deadlines. 

No specific purpose or specific agenda. 

Just painting.

I was thinking today about Elena's question: What does surrendering to your personal vision look like for you this week? And I was thinking about wanting to surrender to my creative process, instead of wrestling with it. 

Forget the overthinking.

Leave aside the existential angst.

Sip from the cup of joy and creation.

And make some art.

That's my personal vision for this day anyway, and it feels all happy and warm and cozy inside this vision.

Remembering to See

As an artist I spend a fair amount of time thinking about what things look like, literally and figuratively. Most of the time I am not even aware I'm doing it. Looking for the light source, looking for the perfect balance, or imbalance of objects in a scene, looking at the relative perspective of the bowl to the apple I have just picked up from it, things like that.

I arrange and re-arrange things on the table that sits just inside my front door, and on the mantelpiece in the living room, on the kitchen windowsill and so on. I add, I subtract, I spin a vase so it's facing a different way, all in the cause of wanting my eye to alight on a grouping of "things" making my inner "eye" smile. 

So as I got into my truck the other day, just on the way to do some errands and meet a friend, I was surprised to notice that the side of our house where the second car has to park because our garage is to full of "things" to fit both of them (an entirely other story), looked kind of like, well, a small dump.

It's looked like this for months. But when the rain finally returned, within a day, a deep purple bearded iris pushed itself up about a foot and then just, bloomed. And when I saw the iris, peaking up over the front of my truck, I realised that I just had stopped noticing. I said it outloud, parked beside our little dump, with the windshield wipers squeaking and the rain pitter pattering, "I stopped noticing." And somehow, the words, freed into the air, made me laugh and also made me fell a little sad. 

I mean really, how could I stop noticing the fact that there are two pieces of hideous garden "art", that for various reasons make me sad to think about throwing away. Coupled with the endless buckets of tar that our landlord has been applying to the roof after each rainstorm, because it has leaked more inside (and I'll stop there on that topic, so I don't begin the usual foaming at the mouth whilst discussing said landlord, and his roof). And the weed-filled edge of a garden that I did nothing about deadheading, fertilising or generally cleaning up this past fall. I now wonder at what point I stopped noticing, because I do remember an earlier moment, many months ago, of thinking, "wow, we kinda might look like trailer trash". So at what point did it all just become background to parking my vehicle? 

And as thoughts have a want to do, it travelled to other topics, making other connections, wondering more thoughts. Is there a particular moment when we stop noticing things, even things that are dear to us? I know it's all about pattern and repetition and I know when we step outside of our usual patterns, and then return, we see things as new all over again. 

I think we all have felt that 'OH!' of returning home after a few days away, to our beloved, or to our children, or our furry loved ones, or the half finished painting in the studio, the book waiting to be finished, etc. etc. That 'OH' of wonder and remembrance that sometimes even when we are aware, we stop seeing what is in front of us. We may need some time away to remember, or maybe we just need something new to step into the picture and change our whole perspective.

So, this one iris reminded me to remember to see: To turn myself around every once in a while, rearrange myself like I do the things on my kitchen windowsill, and look at things from a different perspective, because I can't always go away from my life in order to see it with new eyes. Sometimes, I need to stay right here and remember to see all of it.

Some Pink and Some Lime for the Start of a new Month

Wow, and there went January, in a haze of tight deadlines and an amazing amount of work, and too many hours spent in front of the "glowing box". 

One of the joys of being self employed is also one of the downsides, when the work comes in and you either a) need it or b) want it, or c) both a & b, regardless that when looking at the calendar you realise that all the deadlines for the jobs you have now said yes to, are for end of January, and your better and more sense-able self says: "Self? can we do this? that is, can we do this and keep sanity, clean clothes, and perhaps eat a cooked dinner once a week?" Oh, and: "Self? When I say dinner cooked once a week that implies not eating it standing at the kitchen sink before returning to the computer. Just wanted to clarify that little detail." But, yes I had said to all, and so yes it was to be.

And so there went my January, and now I am on the other side of the down: I have the next couple of weeks stretched out in front of me, where I am thinking I will be painting, lounging about reading books that have been stacking up at my bedside, going for late winter hikes with friends, perhaps a lunch or 2 out, and oh, dare I say, a nap, maybe once or twice a week, .: s i g h :. 

All that and searching out new colour and shape and form inspirations from all around the internetasphere. Today I was in a Key West - Aleuthra kind of mood... and so the day serves up some Pink and Lime flickr style.