I started this pastel sketch last Friday at Nola Cafe while listening to all the entertainment for the night, and just had a few finishing touches that I did on Sunday at home with my pastel pencil.  So next time, I’m taking my traveling pastel bag so I have all the essential supplies to finish a piece:

• Soft Pastels: I prefer the cheap ones made by Loew Cornell
• Soft Pastel pencils: black ones are a must!
• Fan Brush: helps brush away unwanted pastel dust (also good for correcting mistakes)
• Sketchbooks: always bring more than one for anyone that wants to sketch with me
• Canvas Rug: a huge piece of canvas with durable hard black plastic on the other side so I can sketch anywhere and clean up is a snap!
• Baby Wipes: makes clean up easy and eliminates the need to go to the restroom to watch my hands
• Fixative Spray: it’s what binds all the pastel dust together so it can be enjoyed for years to come

Now the inspiration for this piece came from this month’s theme, Dream, over on Creative Everyday, and Arty Girlz’s weekly challenge, Butterflies.  Both of which, always have great art challenges.  So go be inspired with the New Moon and create something…

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Creative Every Day’s February challenge is to incorporate words into your creative endeavors.  This pastel sketch is actually my third attempt tonight to capture something that called out to me.  While I’ve definitely been creative these past couple of months doing activities that range from making jewelry to designing my own wire-bound journals, I haven’t touched my soft pastels in awhile and it shows. 

My earlier attempts tonight ended up having color selections that clashed so I decided to stay with a simple yellow-green-blue combination.  The flower stylized dragonfly wings is a design I sketched awhile back.  While I have always loved dragonflies, they seem to be reappearing quite frequently right now.  I even saw one yesterday on one of my walks.  As a creature of the wind, dragonflies symbolize the ability to change form, adapt to various situations, and emerge anew. 

When it comes to being creative every day, it’s a lifestyle that embraces all things creative from cooking up a great meal to share with family and friends to practicing the art of feng shui and re-arranging your room in a way that is more pleasing the eye.  Being creative everyday isn’t limited just to traditional forms of creativity from painting to creating music.  It’s about embracing each day with creative energy to sing along with your favorite song and maybe even dance a little jig.  So to inspire you to become more creative everyday, I’ve made this pastel sketch available to download in three different desktop sizes.  cheers!

This week’s theme at Inspire Me Thursday is Nervous.  It comes at the perfect time to explore this emotion, as our economy is, on the surface, unraveling before our very eyes. 

Many people are nervous about something…  Nervous about losing a job or wondering how one might actually find a job in this kind of economy.  Despite this overwhelming aura of anxiety and despair (perpetuated by the news media at large,) I cannot help feel anything but peace, hope and joy. 

As someone that has been laid off three times, I have come to understand that giving in to the worry and nervousness just isn’t worth the emotional investment.

If I do end up laid off, I’ll deal with it then.  Otherwise, I live for the moment, let the worry go, and prepare for the future with a clear mind.

The nervousness needs to be transformed or channeled into something.  To me, it translates into enjoying the many blessings that every day brings.

I’m also a firm believer in planning for the future so I invest and save so that one day, I’ll be able to enjoy the fruits of my labor.  Sure, my 401K’s rate of return sucks, but right now, I’m buying low so eventually I’ll see the light at the end of the tunnel.

With every action there is a consequence and it’s no surprise to me that our economy is in the state it’s in.  Many of us live beyond our means.  But I don’t think the end of the world is coming and that it’s not impossible to arise from this chaos.  Anything is possible if you put your mind to it. 

So as someone that has a hard time identifying with nervousness at the moment, I felt compelled to accept this week’s challenge.  At first, I pondered what to create.  The interesting part is that I already drew the black lines.  They were doodled in my pastel journal, just awaiting the moment where I felt inspired to fill them with color. 

To me, the lines suggest the state that nerviness brings.  The knots in your stomach.  The fears of money in the shades of green.  Even the red heart tells us that hard times bring difficulties into relationships.

But it doesn’t have to be like that.  You can break free from the nervousness.  You just need to take a deep breath and let go of the fear and anxiety.  And take each day as it comes…

For this week’s creative prompt at Inspire Me Thursday, Melanie offers a poem by Rumi.  If you read it very slowly, it might call out to you, awaken your senses:

Out beyond ideas
of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field.

I’ll meet you there.

When the soul lies down
in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.

Ideas, language
- even the phrase “each other” -
do not make any sense.

Yes, this world we live in doesn’t always make sense so I drew windows of swirling possibilities, an abstract interpretation of this week’s theme.  I started to write out the poem with a portrait layout, but found myself wanting to turn the page to a landscape view when I started to begin the layers of soft pastels. Possibly an subconcious move that we need to change our perspective…in times such as these you have to ask yourself…do you turn to the grass to escape reality or to gather renewed strengthen, energy, and hope?

In my interpretation of this week’s theme at Illustration Friday, I decided to capture the little sparks of “electricity” that you can feel by reaching out and touching someone.

As C. J. Franks once said:

“Love and electricity are one in the same, my dear. If you do not feel the jolt in your soul every time a kiss is shared, a whisper is spoken, a touch is felt, then your not really in love at all.”

This week’s theme at Gothic Arches is “History”, which immediately inspired me to work on a piece of artwork reflecting the fall of Rome.

For the background, I selected a map of the Roman Empire at it’s most expansive that was taken from an ancient history book which has been handed down through my family. The poor book is falling to pieces from use so I need to research how to properly glue back the leather spine that came off during this project. (Any tips would be greatly appreciated!)

The other main element of design is the peacock, which is the symbolic animal for Juno, the goddess Protector and special counselor of the Roman state. Quite fitting, don’t you agree?

While I could easily write a good, long post pointing out the similarities in the current issues facing the US in comparison to Rome, I’ll spare you. If you pay attention to current events, you can see the writing on the wall, and while it may never happen in our lifetime, the question is…will we learn from history or simply repeat it once more?

I’ve designed several Valentines day cards recently, but none of them really move me as much as this one.  Finally, one worthy to give the hubby!

[Submited for Mixed Media Monday's theme, "Love & Romance"]

Created in response to Created Byhand Challenge’s Tuesday theme, Black and White.

The fish might look familiar. It’s one of the six goldfish featured in my most recent soft pastel paintings created for a surreal theme. This fish is actually the original sketch that I applied a photoshop stamp filter to give it that fossil look. I’m think it would make for a smashing father’s day card.

Inspire Me Thursday’s theme this week is New Year Resolutions…

The new year is always the perfect opportunity to review the past year, and see what next steps we need to take to bring ourselves more inline with our overall goals. Yet, while I’m a firm believer of setting goals, I’m also think it’s just as important to listen to intuition if not more so.

Last year when I sat down to write down my goals for the year, I never would have imagined that by the end of the year I would have my artwork displayed in the Tampa Museum of Art nor I would have the opportunity to create a live painting at one of the museum’s Art after Dark events.

This past year brought many wonderful opportunities from redesigning my studio that has allowed me to finally create larger scale soft pastel paintings to opening my online Etsy store that has given me the opportunity to connect directly with art collectors near and far.

In this upcoming year, as silly as it sounds, I simply desire to lock myself in my studio and create. While this image is probably what most people would envision an artist doing, it’s been a challenge for me since I’ve become active in the local art community.

As an artist that has a demanding full time job outside of the arts community, my free time is very limited. So in this next year, one of my major goals is to plan out my month in advance to set aside for creating, networking, marketing, and setting up photo shoots with local models to develop a collection of source images for paintings.

So this upcoming weekend, I’ll be locked up in my studio with pastel dust flying everywhere, but I will be out and about next Friday checking out retro|perspectives, the last Art after Dark event, at the Tampa Museum of Art before it’s scheduled closing and demolition. There will be over 50 emerging and established artists participating so you definitely won’t want to miss it if you’re in the Tampa Bay area.

When it comes to creating art, there is a time for everything, and a season for all of our creative cycles.  A time for serious paintings and a time to experiment.  A time to explore in our art journals and a time to create mantra art.

Mantra art speaks to the soul.  Like a written affirmation, it contains a message that we need to remind ourselves of every day.

So I leave you with my mantra art created for this week’s theme at Inspire Me Thursday, “Watercolor“: