Words To Live By

"Seek out what will inspire you. A life without inspiration is a half-life only."

~Stephanie Dowrick

There are times in our lives when we all need inspiration.  We cannot live constantly in a state of euphoric motivation.  Our appreciation and enthusiasm for the little things sometimes gets forgotten.

It is times like these that we must seek out the things that inspire us.  Know what captures your heart, focus in on the things that set you on fire, let your inspiration be fueled by who you really are.

Sometimes moments of inspiration come when we least expect them, and then sometimes we must find them.  Embrace these moments, don't question them, just let yourself get caught up in the energy and see where it takes you.

Trying to control every element of our existence means that we may miss some moments of astounding beauty.  Moments of complete abandon may lead us to places you never dreamed of, in ways we never imagined.

It is in these moments that great things happen, that great change takes place, the enormous growth occurs. Follow your heart, and when you're not sure where you heart will lead you, then follow your inspiration.

This page was done using Silks Acrylic Glaze, matte acrylics, and watercolor pencils in my Stillman & Birn Epsilon Series Sketchbook.

Thanks for checking in. xx

Tutorial: Drawing Bowl-Shaped Flowers

This is my week to present my lesson on Life Book 2013, and as many of you know, I get most of my inspiration from nature.  My journals and sketchbooks are filled with images and interpretations of nature and her many faces. So, to give you a little taste of what the courageous "Life Bookers" are doing this week, in keeping with the May theme of The Sketchbook Challenge, "Bowled Over", and in celebration of the Northern Hemisphere season of Spring, I thought I'd share a little tutorial on how to draw bowl-shaped flowers.

Many different types of flowers or floral arrangements in your sketchbook can but captured using these simple principles

Begin with a dot on the page. 

This is the point where the stem of the flower will connect to the flower head.

Draw a straight line coming from the dot in the direction that you want the flower to face, and a straight line in the direction of the stem. 

Draw a small oval just above this dot, this is the base of the flower head, and a larger oval above the small one, this is the opening of the flower.  

Next draw straight lines indicating the edges of the flower.  

These lines should connect from the dot to the very edges of the larger oval.

Draw a petal originating from the dot on the lower edge of the small oval, and finishing at the lower edge of the large oval.  

This is your front facing petal.

Draw the outside petals, making sure they are narrower than the first one. 

This is because you are viewing these petals from the side and they will appear thinner.  

You can tuck them behind the front petal if you choose. 

Make sure all your front petals end at the lower edge of the large oval.

Draw your back petals.  

These petals will start on the top edge of the small oval, but you don't need to show this, the bottom part of these back petals are hidden behind the front row.  

All of your back petals will end on the top edge of the large oval.

Keep the shape of your flower as close as possible within the guidelines you have drawn.

Draw in the stem and the center of the flowers.  

Keep the center tucked behind the front petals.

Draw in some foliage or leaves.

Erase your guidelines.

I used a water soluble marker to show you how to shade your flower.

Think about what parts of the flower are in shadow, where the petals sit behind each other, and how the foliage rolls.

Drawing bowl-shaped flowers is quite simple, and the concept of a center point and two ovals can be applied to many types of flowers. 

Thanks for checking in. xx

No Excuses Art Journaling

The fabulous Gina Rossi Armfield has a wonderful new book coming out later this year called "No Excuses Art Journaling", and she's having a blog hop party to celebrate.

Gina is a wonderful artist, teacher, and inspiration in the art world, and her approach to the everyday practice of art journaling is brilliant. I'm so excited that she is putting her wonderful techniques and inspiration into a book.

As part of her "No Excuses Approach", Gina is launching her new website, plus two companion DVD's;

Art Journaling with Gina Rossi Armfield 

The No Excuses Approach to Drawing and Watercolor

Art Journaling with Gina Rossi Armfield 

The No Excuses Approach to Mixed Media Collage

To celebrate, I'm giving away a copy of Gina's fabulous mixed-media collage DVD.

To go in the draw to win simply leave me a comment telling me about your daily art journaling practice, or lack there of, and I'll be randomly drawing a winner at the end of the week.  

And for more chances to win, check out all the fabulous artists participating in this blog party.

May 20 - Jessica Herman Goodson
May 21 - Dion Dior
May 22 - Serena Barton
May 23 - Chris Kalina
May 24 - Kelly Kilmer
May 28 - Pam Garrison
May 29 - Jennifer Joanou
May 30 - Tracie Huskamp
May 31 - Leslie Riley

So be sure to check out Gina's new website for loads of inspiration, and no more excuses.   

Thanks for checking in. xx

  

The Color Journal

 

Playing with a summer palette of colors I call "Sweet Radishes". It's a beautiful fresh combination of colors that invokes images of a fresh summer meadow, a dazzling summer garden, or an open air market place.

The primary medium here is Neocolor II Water Soluble Pastels in: Purplish Red, Carmine, Spring Green, Bismuth Green, Dark Beige, and Sepia.

I also made palette swatches in Peerless Watercolors, Koi Watercolors, Angora Watercolors, Sennelier Soft Pastels (Diluted), and Albrecht Durer Watercolor Pencils.

Keeping a color journal is a vital part of my art fitness and this journal is my Stillman & Birn "Alpha" Series Sketchbook, perfect for multi-media color journaling.

Thanks for checking in. xx

Ground Cover

Every day in spring something new pops it head up in the garden.

The garden beds around our deck are bursting with this beautiful ground cover.

Soon, the summer sun will be encouraging the second wave of garden glory.

I love this time of year.

Enjoy your weekend, and thanks for checking in. xx

When Artists Cook: Happy Birthday Jenn!

Hiya, it's Jenn again from Just Add Water Silly and this month, on May 16th it's my BIRTHDAY!! So what I thought I'd do is throw a little celebration here and make some birthday cupcakes. Of course they have to be delicious and also gluten free but making a successful gluten free baked good from scratch can be daunting. I therefore decided to start with a commercial GF cake mix and tweak it so it was much more rich and glorious. I researched what everyone using a box cake mix does and I combined ALL the ideas into this one recipe! Holy COW, it actually worked, hehehe.
 

Of course the cupcake also needs icing and because I'm an artist, all the colors have to match and blend together. I think, once a year, you should really indulge and there's no better way of indulging that making Seven Minute Frosting. 

It's a little bit of work, unlike throwing milk, butter and icing sugar together and beating the heck out of it, but it's SO worth it in the long run. Seven minute frosting is luscious, light and marshmallowy and since it's my birthday and I get to choose, it's also PINK (to match the cupcake papers!)

Most people don't know but I'm actually a girly girl. You'd only really tell because of the gorgeous nail polish I'm always sporting. It's my one vain thing that I allow myself, pretty nails. I don't want to always be worrying about what my hair looks like or if I'm wearing this season's must haves, but my nails make me happy. It's all about the color, I must say. I'm not surprised that nail polish intrigues me, artists love color.
 

Every year I have a tradition. On my birthday I buy a bunch of bread and go feed the seagulls. This year, since we've moved to Nanaimo, we have ducks in a duck pond right outside the back of the apartment! In the past I've had some really unusual and wonderful interactions with ducks (read about that here) so on my birthday I'm going to go feed those hungry little suckers bags of duck food that I got for Christmas. 

In my pantry I must have two dozen baggies filled to the brim with duck food, just waiting for the warmer weather to come. The ducks are really aggressive with each other and so totally pushy, biting ducky bums and quacking hysterically when someone pushes their way toward the food. I have to be strategic with my placement of food piles if I want the less aggressive ducks not to starve! It's such fun and being with nature makes me supremely happy. (the orange duck feet also totally make me laugh, I think of ducks as God's comic relief.) So, those are my plans for May 16th, cupcakes and ducks. :o) It'll be grand.
 

 
Jenn's Best Gluten Free Cake 
 

From: Jennfer McLean Yield: makes two 5" rounds (or one 9" round) Category: Cakes

Ingredients: 1 GF cake mix (chocolate or white)

1 pkg vanilla pudding mix 4 eggs 1/2 cup almond milk 1/2 cup butter (softened) 

 
Directions: 1. Add the powder of the cake mix, pudding mix and all other ingredients into the KitchenAid mixer and put on stir for 30 seconds. 2. Turn power up to medium and whip for 2 minutes more. 3. Separate the batter into two halves. 4. Butter the 5 inch round cheesecake pan and add the first half of the batter. 5. Bake @350 degrees for approx. 50 minutes. 6. Take out when dipped toothpick comes out clean. Let cool and remove from pan. 7. After cleaning pan, regrease and put other batter in and cook for requisite time etc. 8. Let both cakes cool, slice and ice as needed. 

 
Notes:

• If making cupcakes, use cupcake liners or batter will stick like crazy!

Seven-Minute Frosting  From: Donna McLean Yield: Covers 9" Round Cake Category: Fillings & Frosting 

 
Ingredients: 2 Egg Whites 1 1/2 cups sugar 1 1/2 tsp light corn syrup, or 1/4 tsp cream of tartar 1/3 

cup water, cold dash salt 1 teaspoon vanilla 

 
Directions: 1. Place all ingredients except vanilla in double boiler. Beat 1 minute with electric mixer or rotary beater. Cook over boiling water, beating constantly with rotary or electric beater until mixture forms peaks, about 7 minutes. 

2. Remove from heat, add vanilla and beat until of spreading consistency. 3. Will frost tops and sides of two 9-inch layers or one 10-inch tube cake.

4. Cover and refrigerate if needed, will harden on top if not covered.

 
Notes: 

• will also cover the 5" double tall cake or cupcakes from above recipe.
• add paste food color to desired shade. 

Best,

If you're looking for this week's APR just click here.