Two great books

Oh, am I a big Martha Beck fan. When I read any of her self-improvement books, I feel such hope and joy, followed immediately by searing anger. White hot, searing anger. I'm not sure at what or whom, but probably at myself for not living the best life I can live. I've spent a lot of time being unhappy with parts of my life; really suffering in my twenties.

She tells us to play and rest, and forget everything else (well, not really. Actually, yes really.) It's a great prescription. I know it's the right way. I've been fighting against the answer my whole life, trying to conform and do what the rest of the people I know do. Even when I've gone off and worked for myself, I'm still trying to fit in.

The title of her latest book is

Finding Your Way in a Wild New World: Reclaim Your True Nature to Create the Life You Want

by Martha Beck. Available at your local bookstore and through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, on your Kindle and Nook.

Martha, among other things, is saving animals in Africa. Lately, I've been thinking about the decimation of the Elephants in southeast Asia. She gives me hope (although I can't believe we still have to worry about them.)

I've read this book completely through only once so far. I'll keep coming back to it this year and see how I progress with finding my way in a wild new world and reclaim my true nature to create the life I want. ;-)

The second book is an example of a person who followed his interests to create great things. Gabi Campanario is a journalist who was born in Spain and now lives in Seattle with his family. He liked to sketch and connect with other sketchers around the world, so he started the UrbanSketchers.org website.
That led to Urban Sketcher conferences (Portland, Lisbon - and next in the Dominican Republic), scholarships for the conferences and now a full-fledged, beautiful book.

It brings together works from many of the original artists on the site, and adds a lot of information on the drawings, work methods, materials and sketching on location. There is background on each artist, tips, and even a notation of the time it took to draw and paint the sketch. Lots to look at and enjoy.

The Art of Urban Sketching: Drawing On Location Around The World
by Gabriel Campanario, also available at all of the usual places.

Happy final day of 2011!

This has been a long year for a lot of people for a lot of different reasons. Personally, we lost two of our pet friends, gained another, and my husband had a lot of health challenges this year. I've been scrambling to catch up with bills and taxes, which seems like a big hill. But we're looking forward to 2012.

I don't have any art to post, but here is a link to a drawing and painting video by Nina from Sweden. I love her work and I love this video:

Nina's drawing video

Goodbye 2011, Hello 2012!

A couple of visual blogs

Photo by Margaret Oomen, ResurrectionFern (Click to enlarge and see the snails)

While it is fun to read blogs, sometimes I just want to relax with a few words and some beautiful photos.

Margaret Oomen, in the Toronto area, takes gorgeous photos of the natural area around her home and the east coast of Canada. She also creates various beautiful hand-made items. Her blog is called ResurrectionFern.

Another blog containing lots of homey photos and snippets of homelife is called Habit and has several contributers.

Both of these blogs are updated often and are a quick stop to reflect and enjoy the beauty of the world.

As for my own photos, I think I lost my digital point and shoot camera. Plus, the preview pane was broken, so it was a little awkward to change menu settings. In the meantime, I'll have to make do with my Windows phone camera.

Sketch of Honey the dog.

Wild Arts Festival

Encaustic: Rue de Pic

The Audubon Society of Portland puts on the Wild Arts Festival every year - this was the 31st.  This year, the event was November 19 and 20, 2011.  I created a painting for the 6x6 show.  The art piece needed to have a bird as the subject. Art Media, now Blick Art, donated a 6x6 canvas. Each artist created a work of art and it is sold for $40. The artist received acknowledgement, free tickets to the events and some nice coupons. 

I painted a watercolor picture on water color paper and then affixed it to the canvas and added the encaustic to it.  Using heavy staples and a dark colored encaustic on the sides definitely give it a bit of an industrial look.  As usual, I enjoyed the combination of water color painting, language play (pic = woodpecker in French, and the Latin for Flickr is up in the left corner), real postage stamps and encaustic paint.

The show is fun - lots of people and art. Bob and I showed up Sunday afternoon and I was pleased to see my work was gone.  Phew - I didn't have to buy it myself!  I picked up some art cards of herons - inspiration for painting another favorite bird.

I barely made the deadline for the show.  I've been pretty lax and felt a bit rusty, but I managed to get something together!

House of Dreams for Kitty Cats

On November 12, 2011, House of Dreams cat shelter is having a Pretty Kitty Craft Bazaar at Tabor Space, 5441 SE Belmont Ave in Portland, Oregon. They will have all sorts of fun gifts to buy which will help the shelter continue to help kitties with no homes, including a room of Feline Leukemia positive cats.

I won't be able to attend, but I did donate some of my Speedy cards:



Speaking of Speedy, this poor kitty is really feeling the weather. He's very wobbly on his feet right now.  At 18 years old, this Age Chart says he is around 88 in human years.  We visited Bob's sweet grandma Reggie to celebrate her 89th birthday last night, and she would agree that she's been unsteady on her feet lately too!

If you can't make it to the Bazaar, I'll be listing cards on Etsy soon - the one above and a close-up in a vertical format.

Postcards from the Swap

Here's an assortment of the postcards I received in the swap. I'm posting late, as usual.

Here are links to some of the senders:

http://www.loneblackbird.blogspot.com/

http://andria-drawingnear.blogspot.com/

http://purplelotusart.blogspot.com/

Stephanie from Singapore, of purplelotusart.blogspot.com, sent me a postcard both this year and last!

iHannah's Postcard Swap 2011

Hannah's postcard swap ( www.ihanna.nu/ ) was in April this year. I thought I would just make "what I felt like." The first thing I wanted to do was paint skies in water color. So I did.  What next?  I'm still crazy about yarn.  I'd been wanting to experiment with some "motifs" which are small shapes in crochet. Of course, that meant that my postcards now needed envelopes.

I enjoyed playing with the color combos and yarn varieties.  Still a little plain.  What about some words?  We spent time on vacation at a place that had signs everywhere which read: "Deer have right of way."  We saw several herds of deer and came within 15 feet of a herd while on a hike. (Eagle Crest near Redmond, Oregon)

I added the words "Deer have right of way" to the cards on pieces of decorative tape.

As I was preparing the cards for mailing, I realized that I had 4 recipients who don't live in the USA. They are in Canada and The Netherlands.  Uh oh - that requires customs forms.  What am I doing?  This is supposed to be a simple post card swap.  If I send a package, will they have to go to the post office to pick it up? Fill out forms on their end?  That doesn't seem right.  So, I took off the crochet and added a free form deer head created from washi tape. 

I've been thinking about stencils lately and how you can suggest a figure with a minimum of shapes.

Anyway, it was an interesting experiment.  All of the postcards were mailed late and I apologize!  I've been receiving lots of fun ones.  I'll show photos in the next post.