Art Every Day - Day 92 - sketch

Art Every Day - Day 91 - sketch

The Gasparilla parade was today in Tampa FL, where I am currently helping my daughter move apartments.  It commemorates a pirate invasion on Tampa Bay and my daughter was riding on one of the floats today. So I decided to draw a pirate skull.

Art Every Day - Day 90 - sketch

Art Every Day - Day 89 - sketch

Long day, late night. Quick sketch.

Aet Every Day - Day 88 - Love

Art Every Day - Day 87 - sketch

Just another quick sketch tonight. I'm outta town now and for the next week or so, but trying to keep with posting and doing something artsy.

Art Every Day - Day 86 - sketch

You can fly, you can fly, you can fly!

Thinkin bout Dumbo today so thought I'd do a quick sketch.

Art Every Day - Day 85 - sketch

Today I stumbled across this enchanting girl. Strange how a match for yesterday's sketch showed up today. I in no way searched her out. She just happened to show up as I was scrolling thru other things.

Art Every Day - Day 84 - sketch

Found this interesting guy on the internet today.

Art Every Day - Day 83 - sketch

Was feelin kinda blah and down and lonely today. So did a quick sketch of it. Thought about making it a painting but Eh.... just lettin it go and movin on.

Art Every Day - Day 82 - quotes/ mural

Added some quotes to these walls today.

Art Every Day - Day 81 - coloring

Art Every Day - Day 80 - murals

Men's and Women's bathrooms - just something simple.

Art Every Day - Days 78 & 79 - Soul Knows

I started this Soul Art piece yesterday, but I had to go out last night and realized this morning I had forgotten to post my progress on it.But I did do my art yesterday.

More and more I have been listening to my heart and soul for guidance in my life. I am finding that the times I am most happy and feeling good about the direction I am heading in are when I am following my joy, my heart, my soul. Your soul will never steer you wrong. You may resist where it is wants to take you, but that is because it is new and unfamiliar and maybe a bit scary. But if you get quiet and really listen to whats inside you - you will know the direction you are meant to go in. What you are to do. You just have to trust it.

So this painting is a representation of the Soul's Guidance to just go with the flow. The Soul always knows the way you are meant to go.


18x20 Acrylic on canvas

As I said this was a Soul Art piece. Which means I infused part of me in the painting. For this piece I used my hands. I traced them in the outline of a bird and wrote some Soul Strong words on the canvas, then painted over them to seal the energy into the work.  Soul Art is some pretty powerful stuff, or as I like to say.....Profound. 

Listen to your Soul........It knows the way. 

Art Every Day - Day 77 - vision board

So today I looked down at my vision board, which has been on my office floor for several weeks now in various states of arrangement - and it just, felt, right. I've been playing around with other variations of it my head for the last few weeks thinking maybe its too busy, maybe I need to take everything off and start again, make it simpler, different, whatever......I just couldn't seem to make the commitment to it yet the way I had originally envisioned. I don't know what it was today but all of a sudden.....I knew it was exactly how it was supposed to be. So I tweaked it just a bit, finally glued everything down, and now it is hanging on my office wall - ready to help me focus on my year.

Art Every Day - Day 76 - mural

Today I worked on a mural in a bathroom.

Art Every Day - Day 75 - mural

I finished the other 2 trees today.

Art Every Day - Day 74 - mural

One of 3 trees done today. The quote had been done previously. More will be added as well.

Art Every Day - Day 73 - vision board

Sooooo it was a snow day today, and being I am my own boss, I declared it was too yucky to travel today. So I will be going back to work tomorrow - not today lol.

And since I had a whole day I wasn't expecting, I decided to try to get this vision board done. Again. I redid the background - went with solid colors versus the crazy colorful papers I had before because it was too busy and chaotic looking. I like it much better now. The background and the main criss cross elements are glued down but........it still seems busy to me. And I'm not sure it speaks to me the way I need it to. So I've been going back thru my files of images and may change the whole thing again. I dunno. Running outta time tonight to work on  it more, so once again....it is still unfinished.

It looks finished......but I don't think its right, for me. Yet. It'll snap into place one of these days. Can't rush it cuz its my vision for the whole year and I need it to speak about what's important to me this year. These images are all important, they just don't feel visually right yet. Too much going on.

Art Every Day - Day 72 - phone sketch

Welp tomorrow its back to work and mural painting.  Today I've been finishing up some business stuff, and researching and organizing things for my upcoming projects. The next one I am doing involves sprucing up this little employee breakroom with some trees and quotes and things. So I did a couple quick little sketches in my phone on an app that allows me to draw right on the photograph - just so I had a bit of a visual for myself ahead of time. Check back in a few days for the work in progress and finished mural.

Art Every Day - Day 71 - Strength

Back on day 22 when I painted the Heron - my spirit animal - I talked about the significance animals can play in guiding us. If you are open to the idea, when animals show up in our lives (especially repeatedly) they usually have a message or guidance for us on our current journey. I have had many animals come and go over the last 2 years since I learned about spirit animals - the Heron being my main power animal.

Well this week - Lion has shown up. I have seen a lion the last 3 days in a row. First as I was going thru magazines for my vision board I have been working on, I found a picture of a lion that called to me as I turned past it, and made me turn back and rip the page out of the magazine. One of my vision board sections has to do with being fearless and lion seemed to work for it. Yesterday my good friend was visiting and had to show me this picture and video her daughter sent her from the zoo - it was of a lion. and I made the remark to her that that was twice now that I have seen a lion in 24 hours maybe it has a message for me haha! Well this morning as I was going thru my facebook feed there it was....lion #3. It was in one of those funny vines and it was actually a dog with a wig on that looked like a lion. But I still took it as a sign - cuz it still looked like a lion from the side.

So what does a Lion mean - The lion spirit animal is generally associated with a representation of  personal strength. If the lion appears powerful to you, its presence as a spirit guide can be interpreted as a positive representation of your self-confidence or personal power. As such, lions point to qualities of strength, courage, assertiveness.

There are many other meanings - it can be a warning that something wild or difficult to control might be happening, and it also can symbolize emotions like anger and fear. For me right now I can see a bit of all of these in myself, but overall I feel it is encouraging my personal power. Its telling me I'm stronger then I think.

So as I was reading about Lion I had the inclination that I needed to honor it with a painting today. So instead of doing the dozens of other things I planned to do today (haha) I did this instead -

16x20 acrylic on canvas

I wanted him to be bold,strong, powerful and fierce. As I was working on it, I would step back and look at it, or turn away and look around my studio. At one point about halfway thru my eyes fell upon the 2 paintings I did on Days 60 and 61 - 'some days feel like this'. And it suddenly struck me how similar all 3 paintings were. They were all 3 about emotions, a way of being/feeling. They all had the same power vibes coming from the center of the forehead representing their meaning - pain, determination, and beauty. I realized in that moment they all 3 belonged together as a series, and I had no idea. No idea that the first 2 were missing a third, and no idea the Lion would end up being the missing piece. I didn't plan it. It just came to be.  And it makes total, powerful, sense.  

Agony, Strength and Peace.

The full range of emotions are represented here. Some days you just feel like your world is falling apart. Like your head and body are splitting open from all the pain, sadness, weakness and depression. You want to give up and just melt away into nothingness. You are in AGONY.  Then one day you wake up and you begin to fight your way back to life. You shove ego aside and you listen to your soul whispering, screaming, begging  from the inside to find your way. You dig deep and find that power, that fierce determination to let the shitty stuff go and fight for the You you know you are.  You find your STRENGTH!  Eventually you will find that calm spot. You see the beauty in the world again and in yourself, maybe for the first time. You smile softly, you feel joy, abundance, gratitude. You close your eyes and realize you are Love. The brightness from the light inside of you illuminates everything. And you feel at PEACE. 

My friend made the remark to me when I shared this revelation about these paintings with her today, that she wished she had that intuition to follow her heart. I told her that half the time I have no idea what I'm doing when I do this stuff, until I actually do it. And not just with painting but life in general lately. I just get a feeling sometimes, a whisper from my soul, that I should go a certain way, do a certain thing. Ego fights me the entire time, right alongside fear. Can I do this? Should I do that? What if this happens? What if someone doesn't like me or what I'm doing?  Most of us let those self doubting thoughts and long held beliefs from ego run our lives. We are not happy because we are not doing what we know inside we should be doing. We live in a constant state of fear and trying to please other people instead of listening to our soul and doing what will please our self.  Yes we do have to take others into consideration sometimes especially if we have families. But more often than not we deny ourselves things we like because of what other people may say or want us to do instead. I have lived most of my life this way - in a state of fear - fear of showing my true self because people may not like me. I have spent the last 2 years working on that and made some pretty big life altering changes in 2015. I was terrified of what people would say about them. But the bottom line is - I am not doing these things I am doing for them - I am doing them for me. And a good part of the time - I have no idea what I'm doing. I just know I am being pulled and guided in a certain direction. It can take me a while to actually let fear go and follow that direction, but my soul has never guided me the  wrong way. There may be obstacles and hardships on that path, but they are all lessons I have needed to learn. Once I get through them, the relief in knowing I made the right decision takes over, and my path becomes clearer. 

 Letting go and being fearless, in all aspects of my life, is one of my top priorities I am working on this year. And I think Lion knew that, and that I needed his strength and symbolism for that journey. And thru painting him today, I made several other connections, I didn't know needed to be made. All I did was listen to the whisper and spark inside of me and follow its lead. I think that's what intuition is all about - a whisper, a knowing that you need to go in a certain direction. We all have it, we just need to be brave enough to listen and Hear it, and Act on it. That's the hardest part of all - taking the action. Especially if we don't know where it is leading. As my friend (and my little painting from weeks back) says - Trust Yourself. Trust the Universe. All you need to know is that first step you are being guided to take - take it, and the next ones will appear. Let the fear go and live the amazing life you are meant to live! 

You are stronger then you think!

Update - So I totally forgot to mention that I did this as a Soul Art piece as well. When doing Soul Art you more or less infuse your self into the painting. To do that you set an intention, then trace a part, or all of your body onto the canvas or paper. In this piece I knew I was going to paint a Lion's head only, so  I traced my head and shoulders by laying down with the canvas under my head and using a pastel pencil to outline around myself (it was a bit wonky since I couldn't see what I was doing so I adjusted it a bit afterwards). Next you write down all the things you are feeling or going thru to bring meaning into the work. Since Lion was roaring into my life, guiding me in my personal power,  I took on his power and fueled my piece with strong powerful words. Once that was done I turned myself into the Lion thru painting. Here is what it looked like before I began painting.

Afterwards you interpret the meaning of the painting - what you have learned, what it is trying to tell you, and you take action to build off of what you have learned to complete the cycle. Every single time I do Soul Art, the lessons and things I learn are profound, even when I go into it sort of knowing what I want out of it - which technically you are not supposed to do. (You are just supposed to let go and let it unfold.) It's so crazy to me how things always seem to line up though and my soul speaks thru the art I am doing. It is not something you can control. I mean I knew I was going to paint a Lion, but how it would turn out, the connections I made, the feelings and insights I had as I journeyed thru the work were not expected. They never are. That's why I always use the word Profound. But they always seem to be exactly what I need to hear, good and bad, whether I want to hear it or not. The universe always seems to know what I need when I need it, and shows me the way I am meant to go - if I pay attention and listen. I'm learning that more and more every day.  So this wasn't just a pretty picture of a lion. This is a part of me, of my soul. The strong, powerful side of me that is finally wanting to roar to life! I just hope I have the courage to honor it fully.

Lion is here to help me.

Art Every Day - Day 70 - sketch

Yum!!!    

Art Every Day - Day 69 - sketch

An onion.  :-)

Art Every Day - Day 68 - coloring

Art Every Day - Day 67 - Museum visit

Today I visited the Dayton Art Institute. One of my priorities this year is to get out and visit Art Galleries and Museums more. As an artist I do lots of art, but I don't really get out much and appreciate others art - in this capacity. I feel as though I've been limiting myself too much in this area and I need to change that. We can learn so much just by observing and studying others work. My sister lives in Dayton so today we ventured to the DAI when I went over for a visit.

Personally I am drawn most to the Impressionist style/era. Claude Monet is my favorite artist. I just love the colors he uses and the style of his work. I am also drawn to color. A lot of what we saw today was very dark and muted or monotone (the Renaissance era for example). And while the paintings are sometimes very striking, with lots of light and dark contrasts, and incredible detail, the overall feel of the work is dark and monotone. I love to see works with color especially jewel tones and pastel colors. I think that's why the impressionist style draws me in - the colors used in paintings seem to get lighter and brighter, more vibrant, around this time period (mid 1800's). I'm sure its because paints and a greater variety of colors were becoming more readily available and manufactured, rather then having to make them yourself from scratch. The subject matter seems to lighten up as well - more landscapes and everyday subjects versus the heavily religious themes and stiff portraiture of earlier time periods.


Unfortunately the only Monet the DAI has - was not on display- it had been loaned out to another exhibit, or perhaps for restoration purposes. I'm not sure I just know it was not on display. That was disappointing. But I always manage to find at least one painting that I would call my favorite at each gallery or museum I go to. There were several pieces I was drawn to including a portrait by Mary Cassatt whom I also admire, but this piece below was my favorite. I love the colors, the subject matter, and the style in which it was painted.

I love how from a distance the cliff and water look realistic but when you get up close, it's a lot of  blobs of color, if you will. I love the colors in this piece and how rich they are but also very soft. As soon as I walked into this room I was instantly drawn to it and knew this was my favorite painting there. (click on the picture for a close up view)

I also loved this sculpture, (and the fact it shared space with the above painting.) They almost seem made to be near each other - like she is diving into the water.  

Art Every Day - Day 66 - vision board

I spent most of day doing computer stuff for my business and messing around this vision board some more. It's not right yet and I may totally change it so it's still a work in progress. But my vision and business restructuring is making decent strides.

Art Every Day - Day 65 - vision board

This week I am working on restructuring my business and setting myself up for a good productive 2016. I read and hear about vision boards all the time - but I've never really made one for myself before. Tonight - after working on the next step in the Holiday Council worksheets (that I started back in early December and haven't returned to til now), which was about dreaming about what you want in 2016 - I decided to make myself a vision board. Its still in the early stages of collage gathering but here is a peek of it at this point.

Art Every Day - Day 64 - sketch

Ahhh.....to be at the beach in January.....sigh.

Art Every Day - Day 63 - double painting

I started these 2 teal canvas's several weeks ago. Today felt like the day to finish them up. Just some abstract celestial/underwater movementy kinda feelings. I added glitter too. I love these colors, and glittery things, so I decided to combine the two loves in this piece. The plan is for this to go on either side of my dresser as I have a stupid fuse box right in the middle of the wall (between my dresser and the door) in the bedroom. One of these will cover it up, and the other will balance out the wall space on the other side.


Each canvas is 18x36  acrylic with some glitter. :-)

I took a few closeup to show the detail but the camera is not picking up all the subtle color changes and details very well, but it feels light yet dark, with a bit of dreamy, in person. Magical almost. Some areas feel like you are in the depths of the ocean and other areas are like the mystery of the universe. To me anyway.

Art Every Day - Day 62 - Welcome 2016!

Here's to a new year of Artistic growth, discoveries and achievements!