Breathing a Bit Easier...Taking Care of Business!

Exploring images of Irish dolmens yesterday...one is the Brownshill dolmen on the right, and I have no idea where the other is...

I had a couple of pieces of business that were keeping me from immersing myself in working on the class on Meaning-full Journaling I've mentioned here before...at least let's just blame them, okay?  One of them had been hanging fire, as a friend used to say, for weeks (well, months, really), and the other just came up yesterday, but I needed to DEAL with them.

Clear the decks, AND my mind.

I've received an inquiry about republishing a couple of my out of print books as eBooks--honestly, the initial contact was months ago when I was still reeling from the two deaths in the family and I just didn't want to think about it.  I finally restablished contact a few weeks ago and we're in the contract-negotiation phase now.


Let me just say that I HATE reviewing contracts.  I've dealt with dozens of them and you'd think it would be a piece of cake by now, but...it isn't.  The wording's confusing, publishing changes, and eBooks work differently from print books, of course.  Not exactly rivetting reading, either, frankly.

So my beloved Author's Guild, to which I've belonged for decades, looked over the contract and offered some brilliant suggestions, which I needed to get into the form I could send to the publisher.
And then I couldn't find their email with the original contract.  I DID find my printed-out version, so had to enter all the requests and changes onto that, then transcribe.

Are you asleep yet?

Anyway, finally DONE, and sent off...the other publisher who contacted me about those same books hasn't responded, so we'll see where we go from here.  I'll announce here if it works out!

The other thing I needed to deal with and consider was an offer to illustrate a proposed Quarto Book, on birds.  Those books are gorgeous, well-designed, elegant, beautifully printed...they like my work, and they sound lovely to work with.

But it had a deadline that would mean some real nose-to-grindstone time as well as putting off the class, and I just wasn't willing.  Those things always take more energy and time than I originally set aside for them.  (My "80-100" illustrations for The Walker's Companion, years ago, turned into nearly 300, as I recall...not all of which were used, I think.)

And frankly, I'm just not in the place where I want to fit anyone else's timetable or requirements any more.  Or anyone else's ideas!  I've got plenty of my own...

I don't know how long it will take me to actually get the class ready to go, but I want to put my love and energy there.  I want to make it worth it.

Pixel Pixies...

...that's what brilliant fantasy writer Charles de Lint calls them.  And sure enough, they're out to drive me NUTS.  Next they'll be making fairie knots in my hair while I sleep...

 We've been going fishing a lot this summer and fall, and whenever we can in the winter.  They stock trout at Fountain Bluff in Liberty, so of course my husband was trying out his Japanese Tenkara rig and practicing his casting.  AND catching fish...

And I sketch.  Not all that thrilling, there, but good practice...

This is the basic view...and I've painted it 4-5 times now.

I used several different techniques on the journal page above and decided to do some close-ups, so scanned the page and cropped a few, with details.

...and from somewhere, in my computer, words from a long-ago demonstration superimposed themselves on the images.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This one...FIT. 

That IS pretty much what I did there...wet in wet, bare tree limbs done with lines scraped in...(the lighter tree shapes were blotted but apparently the Pixel Pixies couldn't find that kind of caption...)

...but as if that wasn't enough...THIS one pretty much fit, too.  "Palette grays" are created when you pick up whatever's on your palette and mix it together to make a neutral tint.  Yep.  Like these...

...and just to prove (okay, to my own satisfaction!) that it WAS the pixies and I'm not just totally batshit crazy and I added text then forgot about it...the one above didn't fit.  It was just wandering around somewhere in the innards of my computer and got slapped into place.  NO salt at all in the sky wash...

So here's the capper.  If I looked in Windows Explorer at the file called My Scans, the above three images with text didn't exist.  If I went in through Picasa's viewer, they did. 

WHAAAT....???

So I did a "save as" in Picasa, named them something diffrent, and there they were, in my scans folder.  In Windows.



Oh yeah, and one of the images I'd planned to use in the Art Tip I was working on today?  The one that was in my file, oh, say, half an hour ago?  Gone.  First it was there, then it was a black square, then...poof!

Oh, and Spell Check has disappeared in Blogger today...

Ya know? 

I'm babbling...

Definitely time to turn the thing over to the pixies and go grab a carrot juice or something...

Life has been...LIFE!

...of course that DOES beat the alternative...

It's been too long since I've had time to slow down and just enjoy blogging...work has been intense, between classes and the upcoming North Light book.  Lots of juggling, lots of confusion, lots of needing to stop and take a breath.  And of course, family stuff...

I need to get out and sketch more often!  This one is from 2009, and no, it has NOT been that long.  I was out just last week...

This is from our October trip to Bennett Spring...I did a LOT of sketches that trip!

My sweetie and the other fishermen at the spring...

Our godchild Molly Hammer, singing at the Broadway Jazz Club with one of her favorite pianists...

Copper Creek Band, good friends we go to hear as often as we can...

Joseph's English Country Dance group...

The beautiful newborn Henry!

BACON and a Buddhist prayer...interesting juxtaposition...

...and three wonderful visits with three wonderful young women--daughters of my heart!  That would be Kristin Frazier, Christiana Farabee, and Ailsa Barrett, all in the space of a week...

...so life is good, but life is crazy.  Looking forward to breathing room December 26...

In the upcoming year I plan more journal entries, more reviews of favorite tools and books, more reminiscences, more on simplifying, more demos, more on gratitude, more mini-class giveaways (that last one was FUN!)--and who knows what else?

I hope you'll join me.

Nurturing Creativity

Playing with carving my own print blocks

I suppose we all have the occasional dry period when nothing seems exciting, when we just don't feel like picking up a brush, when we're tired or overwhelmed.  And in fact I have a whole post in the pipeline that will be a follow-up to this one, addressing those things that kill creativity--or at least inhibit it to the point of entropy.

And honestly, when it comes right down to the nitty-gritty, what inspires us--what nurtures that mischievous and elusive muse--is as individual as we are.

Often, what works for me is to make a list--well, two of them really.  One list of those things that feed my soul, and one of the things that definitely do NOT.  I have done this little exercise time and again through the years...it helps me take compass readings and make sure I'm still on course, as well as where I need to jettison some cargo or turn the wheel a bit to starboard.

Who wouldn't wish to see a few more of those stars like silvery eyes in a velvet sky, eh? (And yes, of course my sailor husband would remind me that starboard isn't up--work with me here, all right? I'm sailing this imaginary sloop...)

I've been doing a lot of jettisoning, lately.  Simplifying, getting rid of excess Stuff--belongings, ideas, occupations, imaginary or outworn obligations.

Making room for Creativity.  For life.

For we ARE creative beings.  That's what we do. Whether we create a piece of art, a symphony, a happy child, a balanced budget, a good meal or order out of chaos, we are fulfilling that urge. I once wrote an article suggesting that that is what we have most in common with the Creator; I still believe that, and I'm more grateful than ever, 25 years later.

Dip pens cut from feathers or sticks

So.  What nurtures creativity?  What inspires me?

Here's my list--this week.  Make your own.  They may be quite similar, they may be entirely different, but they must be honest, straight from the heart. 

• An open mind
• Paying attention
• Meditation
• Listening to what really matters to me
• The light on my sleeping husband's face
• Quiet
• Time
• Books
• Textures
• Joseph's hands
• Flavors
• Play
• New places
• Old ones...heart homes, near and far--places that have touched me
• Music
• Rest
• A new tool--a new pigment, a fountain pen that's smooth of nib, a vegetable peeler, whatever!
• Paper I love to work on
• Beauty
• Nature
• Light
• Color
• Learning
• New ideas
• Reviving old ones that work 
• Taking time for me (if I give it all away, I have nothing left for any of us)
• Honesty
  
• Friends who "get it"  (Get what, you say?  Well, that's as individual as we are, as well.)
• Art--seeing what others have done or are doing can spark a conflagration
• Rembrandt sketches, Vermeer's chiaroscuro, Winslow Homer's watercolors...
• A new direction (the stamps above were my balance from too many weeks of the same kind of thing)
• A different medium--almost but not quite the same as above
• The grace and antics of cats
• A quiet chat with an old friend
• A new discipline
• Old photos
• Time for memory
• Interaction with others...for me, sparingly, but still...
• A quote that speaks to me
• That One Perfect Word--you know, the one that strikes the ear and makes everything different  
• The sure and certain knowledge that there is no one right way when it comes to creativity

A friend's recent art on used teabags inspired these two...thank you, Palma.

My own technique was different...but her work let me take off from there!

And once I have my list?  I do more of that.  Whatever it is, whatever I have time for.  What bubbles to the top, what serendipity throws my way.  What insists I pay attention.

Synchronicity.

This.

Now.

TRUE obligations...mine, at any rate...

I have agreed to teach a class in Danny Gregory's Sketchbook Skool (and yes, my spellcheck cringes at that K in school, too) and some delightful people are signed up for it.  This is the third day of class and I am truly enjoying the interaction, the work, the responses and questions.

I am glad to finally be DOING it rather than preparing for it, which engaged my attention for months.

It is overwhelming, confusing, challenging and marvelous.

The platform we are using for the classes is much more complex than I'm used to, and I worry about missing questions directed to me (and as a reminder, there is a "Questions for Cathy" page at the end, and that's where I look, several times a day...otherwise I may not find a question.)

I do miss being able to hit a "like" button!  It would be nice if people knew I saw their comments without trying to comment on all of them, which is, in fact, just not possible.  I regret that reality, but there it is.  It would be nice to be able to reply to individual comments or questions, as you can on YouTube...but it is what it is, and with a class of thousands, it works amazingly well.

Interestingly, I ran out of time to do the one lesson I really felt closest to, finding a Heart Home...but that can be another day, another class all my own.

My obligation, in this case, is to the students who signed up for the course, and specifically to those dear people who are working through my week.  I do care, even if I can't keep up, or respond fully.  Time and age conspire to prevent that!

And I take time to remember that my other true and ongoing, eternal obligations are to God, to spirit, to my husband and our cats, to nature, to life, and to creativity itself.  Those things will be here long after Klass is over, and for that I am beyond grateful.  They don't feel like obligations, they are joy itself.  Gifts, pure and simple.

The gratitude list above--one of many in my journals--attests to that!