Breathing Exercise

Earlier this summer we did a book club in the HKC community and read the book The Creative Call by Janice Elsheimer. But I got busy and didn't finish the book. The other day I picked it up again and what I have been reading has been just what I needed. God knows what we need when we need it!

In chapter five she talks about the artist gaining their creative inspiration from the Holy Spirit. So often it is my time in prayer and in Bible study that sparks creative inspiration in me and much of the time I can connect dry times creatively to having not spent much time with God in His Word and in prayer. I tend to suffer spiritually and creatively when I get too busy. It's a constant theme for me and one I wrestle with often as I try to balance the many demands of life with what is best for my heart, mind and soul. So, for the past week I have been reading abut what Janice Elsheimer calls "breathing exercises". She says that, 

"In order to take in, to breathe in, the inspiration God offers us, we have to learn to pay attention tot he world around us."

It's doing things that stimulate our senses and things that give us energy - things that nourish creativity within us. Breathing exercises are "taking time to be alone, to absorb whatever God wants you to take in." It's funny because God tends to speak the same thing to me over and over again to get my attention. I have spoken often on my blog about the battles I have faced with burn-out. As I have studied my Myers-Briggs personality type (INFJ) in attempts to help fight the burn-out tendencies in me, one of the things that came out is the need for me to 'stimulate my senses" in an effort to stem the tide of burn-out. For me, that means getting outside and taking in nature. I've known this, but have been slow to make it a practice. So when I read this chapter in The Creative Call I felt God once again leading me to the same thing, to something He knows will feed my soul and give me energy. In the chapter she really encourages us to simply get out and do whatever it is. Not to talk about doing it but to "just do it". So, on Monday, after getting my work done, I drove over to the park along the river and I took a photo walk. Walking in nature with my camera is relaxing and stimulating, and is even a spiritual experience for me. I planned for an hour and ended up spending two! I took in the water and the birds and the sun. I breathed in the fresh air and listened to the sounds of nature. It was wonderful and I felt my spirits lifting. It was therapeutic. I have vowed to do this for at least one hour per week, to make time for it no matter what is on my schedule or what the weather is like. I went back for an hour on Wednesday afternoon! Here is how I recorded it in my Creative Call journal and some of the pictures I took:

White-breasted Nuthatch

I saw a Killdeer for the first time!

I think this is a Sandpiper but I couldn't get closer.

I'm pretty sure this is a Red-cockaded Woodpecker

I found a bit of Autumn

Red-bellied Woodpecker

Toward the end of my time on Monday I stumbled upon an artist painting along the river. Her name is Patti and she is new to our area. I ran into her again on Wednesday.

This experience also reminded me of a quote credited to Augustine that resonated with me last year:

"Solvitur Ambulando - It is solved by walking."

I really feel so slow in getting the things that God places before me for my good. He just keeps lovingly putting up billboards in my path to help me get the message!

What are your "breathing exercises"?

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,

Monday Meandering 2.9.2015

We visited my sister this weekend. The past few years have been full of weddings and wedding showers and the family events that surround them, so it's been a while since we just went for a weekend to hang out with no events or plans driving our time. This weekend we just "chillaxed" together.
I love to experience the lake in different seasons. It was very peaceful and quiet, frozen and covered with snow.

(I just love the patina of the rust on the bottom of the blue paddle boat!)

My niece just purchased her first house and is expecting her first child. So, while my hubby went to a classic auto swap meet, we ladies went furniture shopping. We explored some great used and repurposed furniture stores. It was a nice relaxing weekend.

I have a little catch-up to do on posting my pages for the Take Me Deeper faith art weekly challenge. 

Our theme for week 4 was Transform Faithfully.

Our theme for week 5 was Transform Purposefully.

For February we switched themes and are focusing on love. Week 1 focused on God's Love:

The past month has been full of writing and art journaling in preparation for various aspects of the His Kingdom Community. Last Sunday we sang "How Great Thou Art" in church. The song was stuck in my head for days and I was feeling the need to just play with paint and paper and do something that wasn't tied to a particular project or group. So, I decided to make an accordion style page using the song as my theme. I can then attach it to a page in my journal. This has been a fun project to just loose myself in. I find painting background pages using my Gelli plate to be very relaxing as well as a creativity spark! Here a a few shots of the process:

Side 1

I experimented with some shades of navy blue. I really like how they turned out!
I was afraid the text wouldn't show through such a dark color.

Starting to add collage pieces.

Side 1 before adding some highlights and details.

It's almost done so I'll post more pictures on another day. I got a little inspiration while doing this project and used some paper scraps to make a little journaling gift:

Prayer cards to insert in a journal.

Those are my meandering thoughts for today. I hope you are finding inspiration and making time for creativity. :)

A Few Things

Today's post is going to serve as a few things all rolled up into one blog post. How's that for multitasking!

First, I finally decided to participate in the September 30 Days of Lists. I've hesitated because I have a tendency to involve myself in too many things. But I was looking through my previous 30 Days of Lists journals the other day, looking for a particular page, and that stirred up a desire to join in again. And let's face it, I just love making lists! So today they are doing a blog hop to get the challenge going.

We were challenged to go back to the March 2011 list and select a prompt, make a list, share it on our blog and then link up with other bloggers doing the same thing. I chose prompt #1 "A few things about yourself"...although I have a "few" more than a "few" things! (Ironically I labeled this post without even thinking about the title of the prompt!)

I actually just finished this page last night and loved how it fit with the list prompt. It is actually a page I made for a prompt I did with my art group. As I mentioned in my post last week (Read it here), In August a few ladies from my church got together with me and we formed an art group. One of the ideas I had with this group was to use ancient art forms and re-purpose them using paper and mixed media. Our prompt was to make a list of things about yourself starting with "I am" and/or "I am a/an". Then we made mosaics out of paper and put our lists on them. So the above page is the result of that prompt for me. All of my mosaic pieces were cut from magazine pages. Here are some details before and after I added the words:

I love it when I can kill two birds with one stone without even realizing it! If you are interested in participating in the September 2014 30 Days of Lists challenge you can learn more about it here. It's a fun challenge, especially if you love making lists! Even if you don't it helps you be present to things in your everyday life. There is also a Facebook page for today's blog post where you can view other bloggers lists  #30listsbloghop.

If you feel inspired you can make your own magazine mosaic and include a list of things about you. Don't forget to share it with me!

Summer's End

Can someone please tell me where the summer has gone?! It seems like it has flown by so quickly. Today I stopped by the school and visited with some of the staff and teachers and that really makes it feel like summer is at its end.

Last week I took my last summer break. I took my little God-family to my sister's house on the lake for a few days. A few days at Bliss cottage was a real treat for us city folk being in the quiet relaxing atmosphere of the lake. The kids were water babies and in their glory!

The kids (and mama) had their first boat ride ever!

Maggie was sad to see us leave.
The kids gave her endless attention!

Documented Life Project catch up:

Week 31

Week 24 challenge

Challenge week 26

Challenge week 8

Each week in the Doc Life group we are offered a new challenge. I have not done them in order but instead have done them when inspiration hits.  In week 8 the challenge was to add a flap page. Week 24 was to use a book page. Since I already use book paper on most of my pages, I wanted to use it in a different way. Week 26 we were to use a favorite Bible verse. I combined all of these challenges into one page spread.

This weekend our church hosts our annual neighborhood picnic for the neighborhoods around the church and for the families of the school we have adopted. And school starts on Tuesday...I hope you're enjoying the last weeks of summer~!