This week: sketching LIVE

Chinese kite; inspiration in my studio on a rainy day.

Best of the week:  learning to use color to capture the shape, single pen 'serious' composition and a big, blank sheet of watercolor paper and pencils and erasers, and techniques, and brushes, and . . .
line to suggest detail, and getting it done . . . one simple sketch a day.  I'm finding it really (really) energizing to just flip the page and create again.  That quiets my critical monkey, who tends to arise when I'm faced with a

The Gossiping Goddess: A Very Late Bead Fest Giveaway....

My friend Lesley Watt is hosting a very special giveaway; her own elements, and others from some very creative ladies!  Check our her blog, and prizes offered, here:
The Gossiping Goddess: A Very Late Bead Fest Giveaway....: OK I know Bead Fest was weeks ago now but I did promised that when I got back I would give away some goodies. Well September kind of got away from me and snook out the back door and now here we are running headlong into October. Better late than never though especially when it comes to a giveaway and here's what's up for grabs...

Media has been masking the voice of my Spirit.

"The Medium is the Message"; Marshall McLuhan

Although I dislike blogging, it occurred to me that I had been sitting still, trying to read the Sunday New York Times, but had been distracted for most of the afternoon from doing so attentively because cable was on, making "noise, noise, noise, noise, noise" (apologies to Dr. Seuss). 

Fifty years ago, in his book Understanding Media:  The Extensions of Man, Marshall McLuhan argued that the media shapes and controls “the scale and form of human association and action”.

Borrowing a summary from the dreaded Wikipedia:  McLuhan compares the "content" of a medium to a juicy piece of meat carried by the burglar to distract the watchdog of the mind. In the process of attending to the content, we largely miss the structural changes in our affairs that are introduced subtly, or over long periods of time. As society's values, norms, and ways of doing things change because of the technology, it is then we realize the social implications of the medium, whether in regards to cultural or religious issues, historical fact or fiction, or even artistic and creative processes.  

I know that I, like many others, am susceptible to the suggestion that I NEED things to carry out my mission in life -- to feel fulfilled.  And I those ideas are paralyzingly reinforced when I find myself mindlessly taking in external messages--especially from television and social media.  

At any rate, tonight I step away.  I am checking in with some creative friends for inspiration and encouragement, and sharing my reflections here.  But I am so done with allowing myself to be passively 'entertained' while my own creative energies sleep.  

So here's to creation, rather than consumption, for tonight.  May your own energies find wings to fly as well! Here's a kite to remind me . . .