Hello Creative Spark! (And a giveaway winner)

September always makes me think of fall - even though we are in the middle of a heat wave here! But the fall bug has started for me! I read a quote the other day that really struck me:

"Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing.Wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating.There really is no such thing as bad weather,only different kinds of good weather."  ~John Ruskin

That really does sum things up well for me - maybe with the exception of hot, humid weather! I really do like all of the seasons and all types of weather, but I would have to say that autumn is my favorite followed closely be spring. I'm pushing the season a bit with this little package I ordered from Citron Faire shop on Etsy. Aren't they cute!

For the past few months I just haven't had a lot of creative energy. I've made art and done quite a bit of art journaling but I just haven't felt the creative juice I'm used to. I've started painting papers many times only to give up, unhappy with the results. But over the past few days that creative spark has returned. It really started with a little Bible study I stumbled on by accident. I was studying chapter 9 in the gospel of John for the study team I am on at my church. This is the chapter where Jesus heals the blind man and one of the places in the book where he says, "I am the light of the world." I got rabbit-trailed in my study by looking into the Old Testament, and especially Isaiah, at the Messianic references to light and how restoring sight would be a sign of the messiah. This rabbit-trail of light and sight made me want to make a journal to record my findings creatively, So I made a stitched pamphlet with water color paper and started painting some papers. In between all the other things that needed to get done over this holiday weekend I have been covering pages in this journal with painted papers. And I have felt that creative spark ignite! I can make art without the spark, but, wow, do I really feel more connected to it creatively when that spark exists! I just don't like doing things on auto-pilot, whether it's art or Bible study, and it's easy to get into ruts and do just that. My Light and Sight journal pages are filling up with background papers and then I'll start adding what I gleaned from my study.

Our Take Me Deeper theme for faithart devotional studies in September is about God's promises. My first page of the month:

Now for the winner of the bird themed vintage paper pack from my Etsy shop: Shawna Rash! If you like birds join our newest class from the His Kingdom Come foundation team, God's Aviary. Thank you to everyone who participated! Shawna, send me your mailing address: marybrack@gmail.com.

Congratulations Shawna!

Choose Your Lens

August brings with it a new theme for the Take Me Deeper devotions at His Kingdom Come. Our theme this month is about gratitude. This month we want to dig in a little deeper and look at being thankful as a way to focus on God and change our perspective on life and circumstances. The theme this month is very personal to me because it is the journey God has had me on for the past few years. God has used gratitude and focusing on His blessings in my life as a way to pull me up out of burn-out. He has given me opportunities to choose to change the lens I look at life through: I can either let circumstances dictate how I view God or I can choose to look at life through God's lens - through prayer and dependence on Him. Our devotions this month are going to focus on the impact that thanksgiving and gratitude can have on how we view life and circumstances. Philippians 4:4-9 will serve as our guide on how our view of life's circumstances can be turned around and lead to joy and peace in the Lord. Join us! Take Me Deeper is a weekly devotion and faithart group.Joining is free at his-kingdom-come.com

I was inspired by Kathy Shaull, one of the HKC ambassadors, who has been doing a theme each month for her devotion inspired art pages. I made two sets of background pages so that there would be a theme running through my devotion pages,

The set with the circles was done by painting onto my 4:inch circle Gelli plate. I liked the texture the brush strokes made when I stamped onto the background page. The second set of pages were made using book and magazine pages with pieces of painted and gessoed paper scraps. I chose this second set for my August pages and will use the other set in a future month. And here is my first page for the month:

I didn't use a verse from the Philippians passage on my page but this verse from 1 Thessalonians really sums up well the choice to view life through God's lens - rejoice, pray, give thanks in all circumstances.

May you choose to see God's blessings in your life this week and make time to make art!

Inspiration

Artist's are often asked where they get their artistic inspiration. I have read so many answers from a variety of artists, including some who say that inspiration has nothing to do with it, rather it is a matter of simply building a practice of making art every day. I personally need inspiration. I have written in the past about how I can get a spark of inspiration from simple things. Things in nature especially inspire me as I reflect on God's Creation. But even things as simple as a pattern in wallpaper or the shape of an architectural feature can spark my inspiration. One of the most important things I have learned about myself, and especially the artist within me, has been discovering how closely connected my emotional energy and my time spent connecting to God through His Word and prayer are for my artistic inspiration. When either of those two things are out-of-whack then my artistic inspiration is also and I experience dry times. So, for art, as well as other aspects of my life, I have been learning that I need to constantly work on and adjust my rhythm or pace of life in order for me to maintain a healthy me - emotionally, spiritually, and artistically. I find a vicious circle at work in times when I have not kept balance to my emotional and spiritual pace and health: because I am drained of energy I struggle to create, and I create and play with art as one of my ways for emotional balance and to restore emotional energy. This is one reason why I chose {renew} as my word for this year. Learning what renews my energy has had a significant impact on my journey out of burn-out and this year it feels like that journey has gained upward momentum. So, I have been praying for God to renew some of the areas of my life that were affected the most by the burn-out I experienced in the past few years.

In July for Take Me Deeper, the weekly devotion and Bible study at His Kingdom Come, our theme has been honor. I really connected with some of the verses in the book of Revelation that point us to giving glory and honor to God, so those verses became my theme for my art journal pages to go along with the devotions. Another theme popped up as I made my pages - leaves. I usually do my pages one at a time each week, but I had had a spark of creative energy and decided to make my page backgrounds in one sitting. I selected my passages and I made my pages for the whole month all at the same time. I'm going to show them all together...and spoiler alert: Even though this Friday is week 5 of the July devotions, I am showing my art journal page for that day early in order to show them all together. 

The leaves didn't end up on every page but seeing this theme emerge made me think about how leaves really symbolize renewal for me. I love Spring. It's the season of renewal. I love to watch the trees daily become full as the leaves grow. There are so many shades of green in the Spring. The world is fresh and new again after the cold, gray winter. So, it seems that leaves make a perfect symbol for my word this year.

In the past week I've had the pleasure of finding out that I have been inspiration to others in their art. Valerie Sjodin mentioned that she had been inspired by posts about my use of circles on my art pages, You can see her art here. And then the other day I got a note from Leigh Ann Napier that she had mentioned in a Facebook post that she had made a piece of art inspired by one of my sunburst collage pages. Leigh Ann used her sunburst collage to make a vision board for her family's values. Here is her piece:

Inspiration is one of the main reasons I decided to accept the invitation to be a part of the foundation team for the His Kingdom Come community. I wanted to be a part of a group that inspired others to go deeper in their relationship with God and to express that faith through creativity. I hope you connect with the things that inspire you this week,