Entries Tagged as: nature
Intuition amongst the Trees
May 11th, 2010, Comments (22)
One of my favorite places to connect with myself and my intuition is in Nature. I love going through walks through the woods, perusing local neighborhoods and sitting near bodies of water. Sometimes just by myself, sometimes with an ipod, sometimes with a sketchbook to write or draw in, and sometimes with a camera. Oh, and trees, which I love to draw and paint, strike me as great growing souls with their own personalities. I love being amongst the trees when I need to get in touch with that still, small voice inside.
I was thinking about all this as I finished up this tree swing painting yesterday. Makes me want to get on a swing sometime very soon.
Where do you go to connect to your intuition? Do you have a favorite spot? Could you make some time to go there this month?
One Theme Flows to the Next
April 28th, 2010, Comments (13)
Wow, what a fun time of year to focus on the senses. I think my senses are already on high alert in Spring, especially as I've gotten older. Summer has always been my favorite month (I love the warmer weather, my b-day is in July, and summer used to mean vacation!), but in the last few years, I've been especially enamored with Spring. I can't get enough of its young, green, flirty ways. I've been especially loving the flowering trees all around this new neighborhood I'm living in, the young birds visiting our yard (cardinals, blue jays, robins, and a woodpecker, among others), and just being outside. When I was feeling a bit funky on Monday, I took a long walk through the woods and snapped these pictures. Doesn't the path look mysterious? And then below, another mysterious looking picture of the sun reflected in a bog. It felt like I was looking into the moonlit sky, a through-the-looking-glass kind of image.
The senses theme this month also seems to lead perfectly into the theme of Intuition for May. A bunch of people mentioned Intuition or their sixth sense in the comments this month, so I sort of hinted about the upcoming theme here and there. I could barely contain myself from shouting, "Yes, you're right on the money, Intuition is next!" Hehe. I'm terrible at keeping secrets.
I love the way one theme has flowed seamlessly to the next this year. But really, getting in touch with your senses is a great way to tap into your intuition. And speaking of Intuition, today I have a guest post about creating sanctuary to help discover your purpose over at Intuitive Guide, Bridget Pilloud's fabulous blog. I've taken a Chakralicious class from Bridget and think she's just awesome. And I'll be sharing much more about Bridget next month, so stay tuned!
Spring Birds
April 6th, 2010, Comments (9)
This weekend, I was out of town visiting with the hubster's family, and oh my, there was a lot of food! To counter balance the intake, we took a two hour walk through his old neighborhoods, walking by the water, admiring old homes, enjoying the beautiful weather. I had the theme in my mind as I walked, noticing the different ways my senses were inspired.
I had a break in the action to start a painting on Sunday evening, which I finished up today. I think it was inspired in part by Easter eggs, all the birds I saw everywhere, and the feeling of Spring.
Today, on a different walk, I was inspired by bumble bees, crunchy pine cones underfoot, the smell of sunscreen, and rushing water. What's been catching your eye and inspiring your senses lately
Hello April, Hello Senses
April 1st, 2010, Comments (7)
Happy April, everyone! And welcome to the month of the 5 senses here at Creative Every Day. Spring and the senses seem to go so well together, especially after a month of record rainfall here in New England. Signs of life and sun and Spring are like little espresso shots to my system.
I enjoyed a walk/jog this morning and used my phone as a combination of stopwatch, mp3 player, and camera. I had to stop a few times to capture the little signs of life I saw around me. I was especially excited by all the little buds on flowers, bushes, and trees. Life bursting into action.
When I took the time to pay attention to how all my senses were taking in my surroundings, I was delighted by color combinations, like the colors of bricks and shutters against great green bushes. I noticed the snailish, muddy smell in the air, I could taste water-logged smell of growth, feel the cool moisture on my skin, and hear the scratch of my sneakers on sandy pavement. And oh, I felt so very alive.
I'm noticing now, as I look back at my phone snapshots that I've captured different colors, blue and yellow flowers, white magnolia buds, green shoots, brown bark, orange bricks, a red garage door, and gray pavement. A lovely palette to play with. The next time you're outdoors, check in with your senses and see how they might inspire you. As I'm typing this, the sun just burst through the clouds! Yay!
Winter Roots
February 5th, 2010, Comments (39)
Some home related art. I started with a very vague image in my mind with layers, red, and houses, and then, following my intuition, it went in a completely different direction with lots of trees and roots. I'm calling it "Winter Roots."
Tree Bodies
January 23rd, 2010, Comments (30)
Trees always strike me as figure-like, especially in winter when they're stripped of their leaves. Perhaps that's why I love drawing and painting them so much!
I've been super sick over the past few days. I felt it coming on early in the week and tried my best to listen to my body and take it easy, but this cold/flu-thing still hit me like a ton of bricks and knocked me out for a few days. I'm still in recovery mode, living in pajamas and surviving on soup and tissues, but I started to get itchy to draw something this afternoon (a good sign!) and drew this tree image I've had in my head for awhile. I kept it simple, playing with watercolor pencils in my sketchbook. I like it though. Perhaps I'll do something else with the idea when I'm feeling better. Or this may be enough.
Being sick is so boring sometimes. I have no energy, but I'm restless from being still for so long. But I appreciate being doted on by the hubster who made me yummy soup and picked up medicine for me at the pharmacy. What a guy. 
I hope you're all staying healthy! Stay tuned, early this week, I'll be announcing February's totally optional theme for the Creative Every Day Challenge!
Blue Tree
November 22nd, 2009, Comments (22)
This morning I played with blue ink, colored pencil, and a bit of paint to create this tree.
Thank you so much for all the love and support you all sent my way in response to losing my Grandma. I feel the love and so appreciate it.
I may not be able to get around to visit as many of you as I'd like this week, so if you could each visit a few of your fellow Art Every Day Month participants and send an encouraging word their way, that would be wonderful!
Stained Glass Tree
November 9th, 2009, Comments (28)
Today I used a little doodle from my sketchbook as the inspiration for my art. I wasn't intending to do it like this, but when I started to work, it was like my hands just wanted to collage a paper background, so I did. The end-result reminds me a bit of stained-glass.
I'm resting up today, spending some time resting and reading mixed in with short bursts of arting and cleaning. And before it gets too dark, I'm going to get out for a stroll among the trees!
Connecting to Your Longing
October 8th, 2009, Comments (39)
I have these pictures from a nature walk I took the other day and when I was thinking about posting them, I thought, "Oh, but you already did a post about connecting with nature for the connect theme! Write about something different!" But sometimes you've just gotta go with where your heart is tugging you.
It's kind of funny because of all the Joy Diet chapters (the book I'm reading with Jamie Ridler's book group), the one on Desire has been the most difficult for me. I'm not sure if it's because it gets harder as one chapter builds upon the next, if the exercises themselves are getting more difficult, if I'm losing steam, or if I have some kind of resistance to looking at what it is that I desire. I have a feeling it's the latter.
I've continued to get in my nothing time (mainly in the form of walks), I've done the truth exercises, but by the time I get to the desire piece, I've "run out of time" or "forgotten" or brushed it off. Hmm. And this is something I've been working on too, speaking up and saying what I want instead of being so easy-going to a fault all the time. Perhaps there's a fear underneath it all that something I want is too big, too grand, and the disappointment would be too great. Or perhaps I feel like I have enough and who am I to want more?
For now, I'm going to continue to practice Martha Beck's method of "picking a pebble" of any small desire and follow it where it leads. On my walks, I've been so thrilled with colors and shapes and have been so glad to have my iphone with me to capture snapshots of it all. I've been especially excited by reflections of sky in water and the shapes of leaves. Color and texture and beauty, oh my!
I feel like I've been successful in following my desires in terms of inspiration. It's something I'm more familiar with, allowing myself to be pulled by the inner nudges that lead me to mediums, subjects, and experiments in art. And perhaps this is enough for now and maybe if I continue to practice this, my desire skills will expand into other areas of my life.
I guess I did end up writing about a different sort of connection here. And in reality I could write about connecting with nature and all the things that come up from doing that all month long! (Although I doubt I will.) But isn't it interesting to see where following desire can lead?
Where are your inner nudges leading you in your art? Are you following them despite what you may "think" about it? What are you longing to do creatively? And if you don't know yet, how could you connect with that part of yourself?
Connecting with Nature & with Myself
October 1st, 2009, Comments (30)
It is the month of connect for the Creative Every Day Challenge, which has me thinking of all the ways I connect in my world. One of the things I've been loving about the home I've moved to, is that it's close to nature trails. Since I'm reading The Joy Diet with Jamie Ridler's book group, I've been using my walks in the woods as a time to do nothing. It's a great practice in staying in the present moment, letting my thoughts march by as if they were in a parade, returning and returning and returning again to my breath, forward movement, step, step, step.
There's a lovely resting point at the end of a wooden pathway that trails right into a pond, filled with frogs. I'm already enjoying the ways the trees are changing all around it and the way they reflect in the water. So peaceful.
This week in The Joy Diet, the focus was on truth. At the end of your nothing practice, you ask yourself what you're feeling, what story you're telling yourself about it, and whether another story might work better. I've used this sort of practice before (it's similar to Byron Katie's The Work), but having the reminder to do it every day has been helpful. And I love the practice of asking these questions after the meditative time.
Although winter will make it hard to take these long walks, I plan to continue them as long as I can. When I'm out connecting with nature, I feel like I'm connecting with myself and my spirituality. And that fills me in a wonderful way.
What are some ways that you connect with yourself?
