Inspired by mixed media artists of the internet, I created Peony yesterday and finished her today. She’s my first attempt at large scale mixed media – in fact I couldn’t fit the entire picture onto my scanner so you’re missing the cool edges and little flower garden at the bottom-left.

At this point I’m experimenting with textures and materials, and media. I have a lot more to learn… but am glad I started or I would not have met Peony!

The messages got cut off when I scanned this… they are: “Allow it to BE” – “Heart art” – “Blossom City” – “Carry on” … sort of a pep talk for myself, to keep going with the mixed media idea.

I slapped a final coat of Mod Podge on top of the picture so it shines. I plan to frame it, rustic-style… and hang something from the bottom. Maybe little pinecones, since we’ve got a ton of them outside (we live in a forest). She will probably go into my kitchen because we have vibrant green walls in there and the painting looks fantastic up against them… but right now she’s on top of my dresser where I can see her from where I write at night (my bed!) … yes, I’m sitting in bed warm and cozy under a comforter and my thick sleeping bag that I use on my bed during winter months.

I have a habit of putting my paintings on the walls of my bedroom where I can see them every day…. sort of as a subliminal message to myself that says, “You see, Linda, you CAN create art worth looking at.” I consider it kind of sad that I need this kind of encouragement, but whatever works… and I do love looking at the art I’ve created. Still I’m not ready to share most of it with the world. I have a long way to go.

I have actually sold some of my art – at Zazzle… my art store is named Emanations from a Playful Imagination. I cannot tell you what an amazing feeling it was to know that someone would pay for art I created. Head rush! I could develop the Zazzle gallery a lot more, but my time is already being pulled in too many directions. Zazzle continues to be way down on the to-do list… and my children’s literature online publication, Literature For Kids, has come to the top. I quit doing that a couple months ago while grieving over my father’s passing… and now want to get myself back into publication mode.

I’m getting excited about our summer growing season already. We’re looking for seeds, planning new raised beds for vegetable crops, and designing a meditation garden. It will be in a secluded area and will have room for meditation and yoga. Definitely something that will be used by both of us in the months to come.

On the other side of the cabin I have a herb garden. I was out there trimming back the sage a few days ago. I may have gotten carried away, but the plants came back nicely with lots of new growth last year and I expect they will do the same this spring. The last few days I’ve been looking at raindrops, unable to spend time in the garden as I’d love to. We had early-spring weather for a week. Now it’s gone.

Today’s sketch was of meditation. This is not me… I sketched from a photo of a woman meditating. My goal is to learn to draw more realistically… I have a lot to learn. This took about thirty minutes, maybe a little more. Well, this is a small part of the complete drawing. I cropped it.

My significant other (Baba Bob) looked at this and said it was a perfect image for a female character in my WIP novel, Oja. He’s now reading that novel and offering ideas. He is my idea man…. he comes up with some great ones. I keep encouraging him to write novels of his own but it hasn’t happened yet.

A few days ago I did another meditation sketch. This was of my Quan Yin figurine, with a fictional background. She’s a Chinese goddess of mercy and vegetarianism…

The top drawing was done with a hard 5H art pencil, and the bottom one with a soft 6B pencil. Can you tell the difference? They are both colorized in Paint Shop Pro (brown and green.) Before they were just white and gray pencil sketches.

I’m trying to do a sketch every day so my skill will improve. Art is a lot like writing – the more you do the better you become. Some people think it is all just talent – something you either have or don’t have. But it isn’t like that at all. Most people quit learning to draw when they were about 10 to 12 and our USA schools don’t encourage art much after that. Only a few students will enter high school art classes, and those will probably be the ones that showed more aptitude as younger children. The others got discouraged and gave up!

If you’re one of those artists who gave up drawing before you got good at it, you might like to try again. I’m learning with the help of a classic art book, The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain: A Course in Enhancing Creativity and Artistic Confidence.