First I make the coffee. The day begins with the earliest light, and I love being alert to it. My morning coffee is my companion, offering its warmth and taste to a new me. Or at least me on a fresh slate. Over coffee, my mind gets ready to think…

I like the mornings. I can trust them to show up, on time, and serve up the promise of a whole new day. It’s up to me of course, to grab the promise and make it mine. Life doesn’t happen on its own. It passes. But without my pursuit of its promise, nothing gets done.

As too often happens to me…

What’s planned for today? Am I ready for it, organized for it?

I pull out books and papers to work from, which I neatly stack at the edge of my workspace.  It’s fast and efficient to put my hands on a resource when that’s the only resource there.

This works fine until my neat stack grows… and grows, and I begin another stack off to the side. And another.

And I lose track of what’s in the stacks.

If I can’t see it, it’s not there!

I’m not even certain what it is I’m trying to accomplish today. There are so many things running through my mind, all revolving around family and painting and writing. I know I wrote down a list of goals last January, and updated the list on my birthday.

And I know I’ve accomplished some things — but what’s next? What’s important to do today? For which goal?

Where’s that list?

Without my goals in front of me, specific and doable, I can get lost in a forest of things-to-do…

So I paint something… or draw.

This day I grabbed my liquid pencils, small brush, and a pad of watercolor paper, and drove a mile up the road into our village. I found a seat on a public concrete bench and lost the next hour to sketching. This is one of the sketches…

Next time I’ll tell you how my blogging instructor at LVSonline, Bean Fairbanks, is helping me… Her blog post explains a little of what I’m doing. I’ll be writing more on my experiences with getting organized enough to follow my own passions.

Meanwhile, if you have suggestions for me, I’ll love to hear them! Over coffee, of course. And thank you ahead of time.

Barb

Seems like August never happened.  I know it must have — I had a birthday.

At the end of July I collected a blue ribbon and my paintings that didn’t sell from one art show, and hustled them to another town a few miles east of me for a month-long exhibit. In September I moved the non-sold ones again. To a main street storefront window in yet another nearby town, where they’ll stay another month.

These things do not take up large amounts of time, but Read the rest of this entry »

If I compare myself to others, I will always fall short — simply because I know my own weaknesses and have lived through my failures. I don’t see yours. You show me only your best. How can I ever expect my weaknesses to compete with your strengths?

In an article at the Empty Easel called Have Confidence in Your Artistic Calling, Denise Ivey Telep writes: Read the rest of this entry »

An old crockery pot lay against a crooked stone wall. Dusty and hot in the sun. Chipped just a tiny piece in the back. I nudged it with my toe, and while I knocked loose part of the stone behind it, nothing crawled out, so I considered it safe to pick up. I blew off some of the dust, wiped a bit of the grime away, and thought I might have found a treasure. How old? Who was to say, and what difference did it make? What I saw was beautiful… and I had a use for it. It was brand new to me. Read the rest of this entry »

With brush and pen I paint… er, make that brush and pencil. Liquid pencils that come in a jar.

On a quick trip to Bunny’s Artwork a couple weeks ago I found what looked like an ink and wash painting, which reminded me of Angus Stewart’s watercolors. I commented to Bunny, and she wrote back that she’d used Liquid Pencils, not inks.

Ahhh… I’d never heard of liquid pencils, but I was in discovery mode Read the rest of this entry »