Free Intuitive Heart eCourse by Lauren Luquin

Have you checked out this beautiful ecourse yet?



Lauren, beautiful soul that she is, decided to offer it for free!

You can read her lyrical, eloquent description of the course by clicking the image above.
Participants decide their own level of participation, no pressure or expectations.
:-)
That's perfect for me - I'm in hibernation mode right now, moving slowly and being cautious about commitments.

Lauren notes:
"*all Intuitive Heart members will get 11% off everything in my Etsy shop,

VisionWise - Earth Livity 1111, for the duration of the course*"

Mosaic Mandala

I hope you are all having a lovely summer (and winter to those in the southern hemisphere).
The weather has been very weird here this year with temperatures going from cold to hot to cold again all in a single week but in the last few weeks, it's finally been hot more than not and the gardens are suddenly going wild!
I've been spending less time on the computer and more time in 'real life' :-)
My favourite thing about this season is the magic of flowers blooming. I get up each morning excited to go out into the yard and see what new blooms are waiting to light my face up with a smile or awaken my fingertips as I gently touch their petals.

What's your favourite thing about this season?


mandala created using sumopaint.com from source image:

In Love With Texture - Sculpture Painting

Now that I am starting to be able to use acrylic paints and glue again as my chemical sensitivities are improving, I am starting to get excited about returning to my first artistic love: TEXTURE building.
I am completely in love with building interesting texture and painting over it.
I use various things to build the texture, gluing on whatever calls to me in the moment.
Tissue paper, fabric, brown paper bags, found objects and dried organic objects like leaves, feathers and seed pods... the possibilities are endless when you have glue and can use it!

Here is a sculpture painting from many years ago that I had a lot of fun making:


And another angle with less glare:


A number of years ago I lived in Montreal which has an amazing system of alleys - awesome places for finding strange little bits of this and that simply crying out to be glued onto something and enjoyed :-)
Most of my 'strange stuff stash' has been packed away, awaiting the day I could use glue again. I think it's time to get it out!


Is there anything you've been saving to use 'one day' that you could dig into right now!?

Sharing Beauty - Links To Other Bloggers' Work

I seem to be in a winter hibernation mode... spending a lot of time within both the house and my own heart and mind. I'm doing creative things in tiny bits... at slow paces... and rarely feeling inspired to take photos of them (let alone upload and edit those photos I do take!).

Wintry Window

Winter is a darker time for me - inside and out. I've been craving colour so I'm working on a rainbowy crocheted cell phone cover that I hope to share soon.

Until I have something of my own to share, I thought I'd share some things I've seen in the Blogiverse that I found beautiful or that reached out and brightened my life in some way.

These are all from blogs that I follow in my RSS reader - they are my equivalent of a daily newspaper - a morning dose of wonderful inspiration and beauty!

In no particular order...

These wonderful seasonal tree paintings at Curls Of Red

Every Single Post at A Magic Mom and Her Mandalas (seriously... I could not pick just one - many of her poem/mandala combinations move me to tears of beauty :)

Rabbits are a very special spirit animal for me and so I am loving Leah's New Moon Rabbit and Lit From Within.

This cheerful box and frame at Grace Is Overrated (and all of Christie's journal pages - they rock).

Eden's fabulous, vibrant Doodle Directories!

Dandelionlady's rich painting: Offering to the Swans

This amazing, colourful Tree drawing (done with markers) by Amy at Surviving the Day Every Day.

iHanna's hand-embroidered bicycle seat warmer. Wow!

Although not art directly, I'm really enjoying Lauren's series of Artist Interviews over at VisionWise - Earth Livity1111♥

This Flower Power print by Eliza Lynn Tobin of Art Asana


What are some of your favourite creative blogs to visit?
~

We Are All Connected

those are galaxies in that photo - it blows my mind :-)

When Leah posted this month's Creative Every Day theme of Cosmos, I was so excited!

Thinking about our amazing bodies in our amazing world and it's place in our amazing Universe is one of the things that feels incredibly spiritual for me. I am in awe of both the vastness and the intricacy of the cosmos.

My mom sent me a link to a video a few months ago that perfectly expressed the joy and awe that I feel when I think about 'All That Is'. It effected me and inspired me on a very deep level. I often watch it a few times a day.

It's partially electronic music (warning for those of you who don't like that :) but the music is not overly what hooked me - it's the words of the various scientists in the video.

We Are All Connected by Symphony of Science:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGK84Poeynk

Below the video, there is a part where they have entered text sharing the words in case any are hard to understand. I found it helpful.
If it doesn't show, you can click on the little down arrow that is right under the number of views the video has had.

In the video, there are some clips of physicist Richard Feynman - who I hadn't heard of!
He was so charismatic and joyful that I got curious and read more about him. He's a very fascinating guy.

For those of you who would enjoy watching simple physics things explained (like how light works, why ice is slippery etc) there is a fun series of videos by him that I loved. It's called "Fun To Imagine". He has a great gift of explaining in ways that non-scientists can understand.
Note the sound quality is poor - I had to turn them way up to hear.
Some of it is complex enough that it boggles my mind a bit and I really love how passionate he is. It felt like the passion itself helped me to understand things that may normally have been impossible for me.

part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3pYRn5j7oI&feature=related

part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITpDrdtGAmo&feature=related

part 3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRxAn2DRzgI&feature=related

Further parts should be listed on the right of the youtube page of those videos. let me know if you have trouble finding them.

Collage: Falling In Love With My Body

In a previous post, I shared about a dream I had that inspired me to make this collage and, hopefully, will inspire me to exercise entirely for myself. Not from any 'should', or because it's healthy or because it will make others like my body better.
Entirely for ME. So that I will be able to enjoy living in a strong, fit body that I like the feel and look of better than I do now.

I want to focus on working toward strength, flexibility and fitness - not a specific shape or size or lack of lumps and bumps :-)

I am hoping that in the process of getting more fit, I come to feel more comfortable being present in my body, and perhaps even fall in love with it. Being present is a huge challenge for me.


I enjoy what has blossomed in this collage. I'm still looking forward to adding in more details and decorations with black, white, silver and gold pens and the blank area below the word STRENGTH wants... something. Time will tell me what it will be :-)

Part of me is still feeling daunted. I find big change can feel very difficult to me and exercising regularly - without thinking of it as a chore - is a radical change for me.
I don't plan when I collage - I go through magazines and cut out the things call to me and then arrange them on the paper in the way that 'feels' right.

In the process of doing this, the issue about change got addressed with wisdom from some wiser part of me:"You will reach a turning point beyond which change comes easily"

The words "comes easily" are written on a colour copy of a watercolour painting that flowed out of me so easily after years of thinking I was 'no good' at watercolour.

The grungy blue star paper was made using this technique: grunge star rubbed impressions

~

Critters in the Gardens

I am a person who can get over-the-top excited and happy about a bug.
A praying mantis to be precise. (if you're freaked out by mantises, scroll down to the tiny amazing gold beetle instead :)
A few weeks ago I was having a very glum day and sat down on the steps outside.  Something made me look down to my right and I gasped!  A beautiful praying mantis was sitting in a plant less than foot from my leg!
I put down my hand and it crawled on.

Look at those amazing segmented antennae!

I was in heaven and just sat there for ages looking at how incredibly delicate and intricate it's body was.
It never ceases to amaze me that such an effective predator can be so calm and gentle with humans!  I have caught and held mantises (mantii?) since childhood and have never had one show aggression toward me though I have heard it can happen.  The word 'caught' is actually misleading because when I put my hand in front of them, they simply crawl onto it. :-)

tickly little feet :-)

It also kind of amazes me that I can enjoy such a big bug and not get creeped out.
Mantises enjoy crawling up which meant that it wanted to crawl over my face to sit in my hair.  Except for a butterfly, there is no way I would let any other bug that big do such a thing!  And not many small bugs either.

Also seen in my garden recently was an amazing tiny beetle that looked like it was made of liquid gold.
Unfortunately, the macro function on my camera didn't work (it has since been taken to the camera graveyard) but I'll include this picture anyway in case anyone can help me identify this shiny little bug:
To be honest I think it is the one that has been chewing huge holes in my morning glory leaves but I don't mind. :-)

UPDATE: I found out that this beetle is the fascinating Golden Tortoise Beetle - it can actually change colour!  So cool :-)

The day before yesterday I was sitting on the steps with my (indoor) cat, giving him some fresh air.  We were lucky enough to see a big grey mouse run around the corner and disappear under the steps below my feet!  In broad daylight.  Very happy cat ;-)

Then yesterday, most wonderful, sitting in the same spot... we saw a HUGE TOAD.  Likely the biggest toad I've seen in my life.  As big as my fist, more than 3" long, about 2 feet away from my feet and not minding our presence one bit. (once again my cat was pretty happy about this)
It was feasting on big flying ants that have been all over the place recently.  Toads are so cute and funny when they eat.
No photos I'm afraid.
A neat toad fact I hadn't known before today: when growing, toads shed their skin!  Every few weeks!  (and they shed it in one piece and eat it... ick).

I get so excited about critters in the garden
:-)

6 Random Things About Me

Random piece in progress

1. I never get tired of Terry Pratchett books (NFI) - they are the one thing guaranteed to make me laugh out loud every time.  I love laughing out loud :-)
2. I love storms - whether white-out blizzards or torrential rain.
3. I hold back from trying to draw/paint/create more than 75% of the things I want to because I know I will not be able to make them 100% symmetrical.  The thing I do create never are symmetrical and no one else seems to mind... I so want to get over this!
4. I still don't have my driver's license (I'm 34).
5. Unless I have guests, I eat cake and pie right out of the pans I bake them in (I'm thinking a lot about baking yummy things now that it's cooling off enough to use the oven).
6. I sing to my cat... and he loves it   >^..^<