paintings and nature magic

This is an old friend I wanted to update you on. I started the "quadropus" when I was in North Carolina. So it has been a long process so far. I just wanted to give you a little pictorial tour of the changes its been through.

This orange phase was the under painting. I like do do under painting so that when I paint the final colors on top some of the colors underneath can show through.

 This Phase was the background painting. You can see some of the orange pokes thru the green blue background. If you could see this in person the orange is very firy and red like a burning sunset.

 I had a hard time trying to decide how to finish this one. I paint relatively fast and I tend to not have a whole lot of patience for tedious details. (which is kind of ironic...) I ended up having a lightening strike moment. I do have patience for embroidery and its tiny details. So of course I had to put them together!

I remember having a distinct vision of what the little suction cups would look like when they got embroidered. I have a clear vision for a few of the other details as well. The quadropus is a work in progress very slow progress! I love it!

This monarch I just recently finished. He (yes its a he!) sat patiently as I tended to sewing. I actually originally didn't like how the background had turned out so I set him aside. (do we see a pattern here... apparently my paintings need time outs before they get finished!) I felt so happy as I painted the wings. I could just feel the joy pouring from my heart. 

This is my little Goldfinch friend. She came about right after the monarch. I had her drawn on the piece of hard board and just went straight to it after the monarch. 

She was a visitor about a month ago, she came to visit me 3 times (did i tell you this?) right before I headed to the Midwest Shamanic Gathering. I looked up what she meant in my Animal Speak book, and in short she was awakening me to the Nature Spirits. I was so excited! When I say she visited me she landed on my window twice, barely gripping to the trim on the outside as she peered inside. The first occasion I was singing in the shower and stepped out of the bathroom still singing and she was perched there listening. The second morning i was sitting on my pillow meditating and I heard a small noise on the window, she had come back again! The third visit I was talking with my uncle in the living room and saw a flutter high in the window sure enough she was there! 

A day or so before this all had happened I had discovered an old feather I had found while in California. It was crumpled and kinked up from being smashed in a pocket in my backpack. I showed it to my squeeze and we both determined that it was probably a turkey feather. I set it on my window sill (yep the same window where Goldfinch landed!). After my visits with Goldfinch I took the feather and others with me to the Shamanic Gathering, where they lay in a net in my tent all weekend. On Friday night I attended a sweat lodge, which was amazing! That night I had a glowing vision of feathers as if backlit by a bright white light. I scratched out a picture and proceeded to be serenaded by a thunderstorm all night. Then on Monday when I was packing up my things I pulled out my feathers and as I grabbed my 'turkey' feather my first thought was that it looked like a hawk feather, and my second realization was that it look like it was in almost perfect condition! Over the weekend the feather had been healed. The extra funny thing was that I hadn't touched it all weekend! I wish I had a before picture, it had at least 2 kinks in it and was bent into a "c' shape.

Happy Nature magic! Keep your eyes open it's happening all the time!

Much Love!

L

And I almost forgot! Check out my Etsy shop there are a few new listings!!

Transitioning and Painting

It seems life is almost always transitioning, at least in my experience. Well, yet another transition is happening. I am moving to Virginia for a spell to help a wonderful woman whom I met at my Vipassana Meditation course named Neville. She and her husband Michael own  Wood's Hole Hostel which is located 1/2 mile off the Appalachian Trail. So they host lots of those thru hikers! For those of you who don't know, a thru hiker hikes from Georgia to Maine on the Appalachian Trail (AT) which usually takes around 6 months! Pretty amazing! One friend I met while working at Emandal, Dave, completed a thru hike a few years ago doing it entirely (as far as I know) in Chacos (hiking SANDALS!?). Also very relevant Dave may be nearly done with his first Vipassana Meditation course! I hope he is learning much and working very diligently. Not only do Neville and Michael host hikers but they also feed them, grow a garden, keep bees, teach yoga, and perform massage! I know right!! I am excited to help them with whatever they need and hopefully I get to play in the garden a bit. I hope they are prepared for me! I come bearing plants and an arsenal of seeds! This looks to be a wonderful next step.

With this transition my path leads away from Dorian's. It has been a bit tearful but very important for both of us. I can't speak for him but for me it equates to an excellent opportunity to practice presence and non attachment. Within relationships I tend to become dependent, which suppresses my intuition. I just end up wanting to please the other person and lose track of my path. With that said I can feel the excitement of opportunity and the thrill of not knowing what the universe holds for me in its hands. Taking each step as it comes. Just like flowers, as one fades another rises and blooms, but not after dropping a few seeds ;)

Shifting gears a little, you haven't seen much of my work lately huh!? Well, my favorite neighborhood family was over working out the other day and we decided to see if 5 year old Gage wanted to do some painting. (Dorian and I ended up taking about a million canvasses from his parents over the holidays, and it was a good time to put them to use...so we didn't have to pack them in our cars!)  While Gage was experimenting with color mixing on his canvas (his paintings were awesome by the way...) I was thinking about two furry roommates....one fat and white and the other thin and orange.  I entitled this diptych "Fat White and The Orange One" The cats real names are Sugar and Ginger but ever since Dorian and I moved in Sugar has been Fat White Cat.  And for a while I couldn't remember Ginger's name so I called her The Orange One, currently she is walking across some bare shelves then onto the bed and crashing her head into my arm, licking and biting me. I'm not sure what it is but cats tend to bite me...usually not in a mean way...except for one.... Though she bites me I can't help but feel very relaxed and calm when she walks past and grazes me with her tail and kneads me with her paws though the drooling and sandpaper tongue is less effective at this....

"The Orange One"

"Fat White"

You can see an orangish splotch on "Fat White" I decided not to paint over it because we were all joking that it was a scale representation of the two cats! haha! These masterpieces are going to stay up in the cat's room :) cats should have art too I guess!

This is a shot of one of my fabric cuffs that has a happy new home with one of my favorite farmer's market friend Katy, she also owns the wonderful bag I made for her which I decided to entitle "The Katy bag"

Be Happy & Much Love :)

xo

Creativity comes from NO-MIND and thru the hands

We have taken a cute little doggy named Bella Sue out on some walks in the afternoon.  As we walk on the sunny side of the street the grass shadows on the edge of the sidewalk always catch my eye... Especially in the late day orange-gold sunshine that leaves shadows so blue...So through my eyes and into my hand comes this simple image. Too bad cameras are a little incapable at capturing images as I see them...

My hands have transformed the octopus's environment. So quiet, serene and deep. I've enjoyed gazing upon it. I find the colors very beautiful. It's so beautiful that I'm feeling a touch apprehensive about painting the octopus itself, but I think its time for it to transform as well!

Wonder what this could be...?? Leave a comment with your guess!

 mmmm You may have noticed by now I see the world in colors! These ones look juicy and delicious I kinda want to lick them!!

Much love!! xoxoX

YAY ART!!

Hey I made some art! Now it's time for show and tell!! or at least show! BOOM! There it is self portraits yep... all you need is a mirror! Oh yes even though I look perhaps near petrification in my charcoal drawing and that the length of my face is nearer a horse than a human I consider it a success!! I LOVED drawing the face, nose and mouth it's the spaces in between I have to work on.... there isn't much detail for me to work with so they are largely blank. I look rather disgusted in the charcoal form hah! Either way I am proud of myself, especially having had a chance to look back at my drawings from good 'ole Stout, I feel I have made improvements.

Now zee painting! I didn't feel I liked this one completely. There are definitely parts I enjoy like the lips and fingers. Uh, very yummy and full of color (which really is the only way to be!). So after some looking and squinting and turning and looking and walking away and staring and looking again I got it. I really liked the paintings more as separate paintings. Though they match up together my favorite is the bottom one. But both paintings obviously talk with each other but it is in the way it's displayed. The art is currently in my room in a suspended tetris formation where the top portion of the painting is in suspension above and to the left of its counterpart. So now you use your hand and cover the top half of the painting... What do you think??

ps. two consecutive month postings!? yeah that's right!

A Painting!

(read the following post with a slow Texas drawl) Hey hey I did an art project!! Ok one of many but I'm real proud of this one! This is the epitome of farm life, a barn, a tractor, a farmer and a red plaid shirt. Yup! When I saw Casey driving that tractor I knew I had to paint it. And this is what it ended up being. Strangely enough I think its the first time I have painted a face and I LOVE IT! Casey and his gal Diane loved it too, Casey said, "It'll do my mom's heart good to hear about this" in his little slighly texas drawl. Yep Casey is a mixture of willy nelson and santa clause...haha and he's full of one liners! Diane thought it be best to be named "Grump of the Farm" Here' to Casey, aka Mr. Fixit!