Insert Inspiration Here

Every now and then I need to Organize my Thoughts and my Finds and post what’s inspiring me lately. If I really get my act together I might just do this quarterly!! But that’s IF!!

DRAWING:

*image posted with permission

Andrea Joseph- If you haven’t spotted this lady yet, you will be in for a treat when you visit her blog or flickr site. She can do the most amazing drawings, with a pen. Yep, a pen!!! Your standard bic pen! Who’d have thought?

Andrea Joseph's Art Blog

Andrea Joseph Flickr illustrations

PAINTING:

*image posted with permission

Leah Giberson- Oh my goodness, I have been totally suckered into thinking her paintings are photographs. She does the most absolutely amazing still life’s. Usually they are of houses, cars, RV’s or even pools. Fascinating!!

Leah Giberson Etsy Shop

Leah Giberson Flickr Photostream

ABSTRACT COLOR:

Thaneeya McArdle- She uses every color known to man. She knows what she’s doing and has a wonderful way of making ordinary things look EXTRAordinary.

Thaneeya's Website

Thaneeya Flickr Photostream

INTERVIEWS:

I am naturally curious about other people. Especially people that I can learn something from. It’s nice to get a look at the personality behind the art. What and how the artists do their work and their inspirations. Because I think we are all influenced by each other. There is no new thing under the sun (with the exception of technology). I guess it’s just the way we use it or present it.

Stephanie Levy Artist Interviews

ZENTANGLES:

Caroline’s picture Indio

Where do I begin with all the zany zentanglers out there??? Oh My!! I think this is such a good way to practice, to steady our hand with our chosen tool (pen/ pencil or brush). It’s unbelievably relaxing and for me it s.l.o.w.s. my mind down! Which can be a very good thing, indeed. Just ask anyone that lives with me.

And for the more COLORFUL zentanglers out there……I bring you Bostinstuff.

Check out their photostreams for more amazing work by both Caroline and Sheila.

TYPOGRAPHY:

For all you ART JOURNALERS out there, who isn’t influenced by dynamic type fonts? I see what these ladies can do and I drool!! Really!!

Martha Lever

Besottment by paper relics

Tammy's Art Journaling post

Dawn Sokol's Art Journal pages

Lori at Elvie Studio

Aimee at Artsyville

BOOKS:

1- My Stroke of Insight- This book was recommended to me by a Local Art Instructor. It’s about a 37 yr old Harvard trained Neurosurgeon (brain scientist), who had a stroke in her LEFT HEMISPHERE. She talks about all the beauty and peace she felt during and after her stroke. During her stroke, she had to call 9-1-1 and once she recognized the 9 she punched it…..and kept punching it, because she had no sense of time (left hemisphere) and finally realized she had to cover up the 9 on the sheet of paper to move on. She gradually regained her full use of her left-analytical hemisphere. She now could chose to let go of negative judgments or memories (left hemisphere) that she didn’t want to have a hold on her anymore. Worth every minute to read this book. Especially if you’re curious about how our hemispheres interact. Loved it!!

2- The War of Art- I heard about this book thru Mandy at Messy Canvas. There is so much good stuff in this book and I recommend taking your time to read it. Read a chapter at a time. No need to read it all in one sitting. If you take your time, you can let the ideas simmer for awhile. Very thought provoking.

Quote from this book: “I believe in Angels. They work for God- it’s their job to help us. Wake us up. Bump us along. They shout “Evolve! Evolve!”……Angels are like muses. They know stuff we don’t. They want to help us. They’re on the other side of a pane of glass shouting to get our attention. But we can’t hear them. We’re too distracted by our own nonsense. Ahhh, but when we begin. When we make a start…..When we commit & face our fears------ A crack appears in the membrane.”

QUOTES:

Raise your hand if you’re inspired by Quotes? Actually, it would probably be easier to count the hands of people who aren’t!

It’s not that some people have willpower and some don’t. It’s that some people are ready to change and others are not. -James Gordon

Maybe being brave is no more than staring down the “less than” feeling and stepping up to the “I am worthy” feeling. -Terri St. Cloud

Tension is who you think you should be, Relaxation is who you are. -Chinese Proverb

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma- which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is seconday. -Steve Job

YOUTUBE:

And last I want to leave you with this youtube video from John Cleese on Creativity. It’s about 10 minutes long, but he talks about some very do-able principles. Lots of insight and funny too!

Thanks for staying with me to the end here. I am a bit humbled to say the least. But at the same time these people excite me. To think that someone can actually draw like that, paint like that, or write like that. Wow! Hope you found something that inspired you as well.

Digital Credits:

• Picture frame for VISUAL STIMULI courtesy of Scrapgirls Freebie.
• Label Maker used for names on the above pictures, purchased from Scrapgirls Here.

Evolution of a Blog Banner……

I think I have a “thing” for blog banners! I started posting to this blog back in 2007. And my motto for the blog was “Just Do It”, to get me over the hump of writing on here. Exposing myself and my stuff to the outer world. It was fun. I liked the fact that if I was talking to a friend I could immediately show them something I was talking about by just going to my blog and finding the post.

Then in 2009, I wanted to pick a word. As you can see my word was “Start”. As in start to do the things I wanted to do, and I started to update my blog as well.

When I first named my blog I had it as “My Perspective”, so I thought it would be fun to bring that into the blog header in the one I used in February ‘09. Being that I don’t use the blog to voice my political views, my personal victories and struggles (other than with arts & crafts), I thought that name was pretty lame. So, that’s when “This looks like fun” came onto the scene.

The “Lighten Up and Start to express yourself in different ways” banner was pretty short lived. I wanted to jump start myself to really post on this blog, but I thought the “lighten up” wording came off as a little negative. Time to change again, then.

The Inspire, Love, Start header was super fun to make. I used many digital images that I bought at Scrapgirls and I got to express myself thru Photoshop more on here. I really have a thing for those birdies too! Go figure!

This summer as I foung myself with more “me” time due to the fact that my youngest child was driving herself to her activities and practices. I was able to sew things and to doodle a bit and to really express myself in color. I brought in my own pictures for the top banner… “A little place on the web where Creativity happens”. This banner really inspired me. I could see some of my favorite fabrics, my favorite self-made quilt, some fun doodles and embroidery. This one I could’ve kept up forever.

Now it’s December and I seem to be on a roll…..so, I had to wish my blog readers a Merry Christmas and what better way to do that than thru my banner. With pictures from my own tree and infusing it with the real reason for Christmas (not the politically correct version of Happy Holidays), I was able to show you a little slice of my values.

Then came the Happy New Year banner! I had hand drawn those birds (just 3) in October and scanned them into my computer for future work. For this banner all I had to do was color, crop and duplicate in Photoshop. Another fun, FUN, blog header!

On February1st, I had to try my hand at a Valentines header. As you can see, I have trouble with PINK! I love pink, actually adore it….but this banner seems too busy for me. Maybe it’s too pink!! Probably should’ve toned it down some.

Then today, I made a blog header with my own little doodle alphabet. The first three letters are from my earlier doodling. The last 3 letters are more recent. To me the latter letters (Lowercase) are a bit richer, not as boring as the Uppercase series.

Don’t know how long I’ll keep this header up. Until I get bored with it I guess. I think it would be neat if blogger was able to keep the blog header with the posts that we did at that time. For those not familiar I’ll explain what I mean. When I upload a new blog header it will be what is seen when you go back and read older posts. It’s too bad the header doesn’t appear that I used from the time I posted a certain post (i.e. Christmas banner blog header as you go back and read what I talked about in Dec 09)….. Ah well, such is life.

What have you seen evolve on your blog that surprised you? Inspired you? Kept you wanting to update and improve?

Thanks for stopping by,

Eden