Thoughtful Friday 180

"What in your life is calling you?
When all the noise is silenced,
the meetings adjourned,
the lists laid aside,
and the wild iris blooms by itself
in the dark forest,
what still pulls on your soul?"

The Terma Collective

Ink blots

Having seen a great tutorial by Quinn here I just had to get my inks out and have a go.  Not quite the practiced hand that Quinn is, mine don't really look like trees but it was great fun to play.  I loved the final one which ended up being the paper which scooped up all the excess ink!  

Learning to play and experiment more these days.  Some interesting discoveries which I will try to share on the blog soon.

Thoughtful Friday 179

"Finish each day and be done with it.

You have done what you could.

Some blunders and absurdities have crept in;

forget them as soon as you can.

Tomorrow is a new day.

You shall begin it serenely and with 

too high a spirit to be encumbered

with your old nonsences."

Emerson

Thoughtful Friday 178

 “As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.”

Thoreau

(artwork by me!)

Thoughtful Friday 177

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed

 by the things you didn't do than the ones you did do. 

So throw off the bowlines. 

Sail away from safe harbor. 

Catch the trade winds in your sails. 

Explore. Dream. Discover."

~Mark Twain

Making Books Again

 Another homemade fabric paper cover (using napkins and old paper)  and long stitch binding

 Having a go at Coptic stitch - a great Youtube tutorial can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ue52htX3j0k

A little concertina book made with potato prints, handmade stamps using funkyfoam and polystyrene.  It looked really messy so I added the black outlines with my Pitt pen, some collaged latin flower names and some rubber stamped words and I really like the result.

Thoughtful Friday 176

"Art is the stored honey of the human soul"

Theodore Dreiser

Thoughtful Friday 175

"The heart has reasons

that reason does not

understand"

Jacques Benigne Bossue

Thoughtful Saturday

"Never cease wondering

for wonder defines the path of discovery"

Norman Hollendy

Thoughtful Tuesday

"Being an artist means: not numbering and counting, 

but ripening like a tree, which doesn't force its sap, 

and stands confidently in the storms of spring, 

not afraid that afterward summer may not come. 

It does come. But it comes only to those who are patient, 

who are there as if eternity lay before them, 

so unconcernedly silent and vast.

 I learn it every day of my life, learn it with pain I am grateful for: 

patience is everything!"

-Rainer Maria Rilke from Letters to a Young Poet

Thoughtful Sunday

"Being artful is pouring your soul into it.

When we’re giving our best, we’re artistic.

When we’re intentionally making something 

more beautiful, more understandable, 

more accessible, we’re artistic.

When we reach below the surface

and bring something thoughtful forward, 

we’re being artistic. 

It’s happening all the time. "

  - Danielle LaPorte, The Fire Starter Sessions

(handmade notebooks using fabric paper and a Japanese stab stitch binding)

Thoughtful Sunday

“Sometimes,' said Pooh, 'the smallest things 

take up the most room in your heart.”

― A.A. Milne

Little Jars of Inspiration

I made these little jars for my daughters at Christmas. I tried various techniques to dye the glass blue (with very varying effects I have to say!) including glass paint, then filled them with inspirational quotes by Mary Anne Radmacher (one of my favourite authors) and decorated with a spring of ferm, cinnamon stick and raffia.

Thoughtful Friday 175

“To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.” 

~May Oliver

My associate!

I'm doing a piece of work which requires intense concentration at the moment so I am working at the bottom of the garden in 'solitary confinement' in 'the studio'!  But I have a furry associate

who likes to get 'up close and personal' and comfy when he's found just the right pile of paper (exactly what I am looking at usually!) to sit on.  He is a cutie nevertheless. 

Thoughtful Sunday

Be brave enough to live life creatively. 

The creative is the place where no one else has ever been. 

You have to leave the city of your comfort 

and go into the wilderness of your intuition. 

You can't get there by bus, only by hard work and risk 

and by not quite knowing what you're doing. 

What you'll discover will be wonderful. 

What you'll discover will be yourself.

Alan Alda