Persistence

I'm a persistent kind of person. I will work and work and work at something until it's what I want it to be or I'm so frustrated I want to chuck it through the window. Sometimes both. But when someone ELSE is pushing and poking at me? I dig my heels in. That's just how I am. This is a Kellyism, because she's the same way!

Remember Angry Caterpillar? He's resisting the urge to become a butterfly! 

Butterflies!

Just some sketches for the ATC swap we're doing in Suzi's Fairy class...

This guy is a little bewildered, like "Um...what just happened?"

This one is the most bug-like:

And this one is supposed to be sniffing the flower, but it doesn't really look like he is:

I'm bringing some blank ATCs to school tonight to sketch them out on, I think I'm going to make one of each for my swap partners. That way if they hate them, they can pick the one they hate the least and keep it.

Fairy #2

I don't know about this one, either. Maybe I'm just not a fairy kind of chick.

First Fairy

I've sketched a bunch of fairies for Suzi's class, but this is the first one I've painted. I can't decide if I'm happy with her. I really like the colors, but maybe she's not shimmery enough for a fairy.

 I sprayed purple on her face. Accidentally, of course, poor thing.

FIrst Fairy Palette!

Will posting this here help me actually start painting? Am I accountable to you? Maybe! Here's the palette:

And the paints I made for it!

More to come!

Decisions, decisions

Do I like journaling like this? I think I might. Draw something, doodle something, make a little list - and glue it in there. It's something Suzi is teaching us to do in the Fairies class and I'm really enjoying it! But I find myself drawing less than I used to. I used to draw every day. Every single day. Gotta get back to that. 

And yes, Kelly really DID say that.

Kindness

It's something I need to work on. Like with my thoughts, not outwardly. I give the appearance of being kind. But sometimes I have ugly, mean, rude thoughts. There are two quotes that I absolutely LOVE about kindness:

"Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be  kind."    - Henry James


"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle."   - Philo of Alexandria

And now I'm going to give you an example of the need for kindness. I have (often) seen someone park in a handicapped space, climb out of their car, and stroll into Wal-Mart. In my head I'm thinking "That asshole doesn't look handicapped to me!" Now, of course, there will always be someone who takes advantage of a situation. BUT: I have a friend. One who "doesn't look handicapped". Yet when she walks or stands for long periods of time, her bones fracture. I'm not exaggerating. They literally fracture. Break. Crack. From walking. 


Sometimes, she and I go on SHORT outings. We go to Target to buy birthday gifts. We go art supply shopping. She has a tag that she hangs on her rearview mirror so that IF SHE NEEDS TO, she can park in a handicapped space. She doesn't always need to, and she doesn't LIKE TO. She HATES it. I had to TALK HER INTO renewing the tag last time it expired. She knows people look at her and think "That chick doesn't look handicapped." She has overheard people make nasty comments about it to their companions. It's so ridiculously easy to judge people, isn't it? Why, why, why are we so suspicious of people? Why am I so suspicious of people? I want to think the best of them from this day forward. Can I? Probably not always, and not immediately. But I'm going to make an effort. 

This page looks a lot better in person, I swear! 

Ideal Bedroom

I am in love with this color scheme. I know it's a little odd, and lots of times I see gray with blur and red instead of brown, but I'm not a huge fan of gray and my bedroom furniture is beautiful and brown. So, keeping it as the central color, I'd like the walls to be a nice, peaceful, gorgeous blue and then red accents. Lamp shades or lamps, or maybe even light fixtures? I don't know, I just really like these colors and want them for my bedroom. BUT I don't want them for the whole house. I like each room to have its own identity, and the peace I want to feel in my bedroom is not the joy I want to feel when I'm having dinner in the dining with my friends and family, or the playfulness I want to feel on Movie Night with my son in the living room. 

Here is more about my ideal bedroom:

The blue is a list of things I can do NOW. Why wait until all of the steps can be taken? Why not take a little step or two and see where it goes? That's what Suzi is teaching me in the Fairies class. 

Change is good...or bad...or good

Something that's been bothering me for a long time is the feeling so many people have of "I wish I could be like that". They wish they were faster, slower, better. Now, there are certainly things that we can aspire to. I'd like to be a bit thinner. This is something I can accomplish. But taller? That's not going to happen so it's not something I think about. I'm not short, I'm just Goog.

So many people think "I suck because..." instead of "I'm awesome because..." So what if you're a procrastinator? Accept it, figure out how to live with it, stop whining about it, and don't expect me to relate - I'm not a procrastinator. So what if you're OCD about where the bathroom towels hang? Accept it, try not to drive other people crazy with it (because my bathroom towel racks are empty, I gotta tell ya), live with it, but again, don't expect me to relate.

To some extent, we are who we are. Change is always possible, but it's not always NECESSARY. Would you still like me if you knew I was wearing a twelve-year-old paint-spattered ragged hoodie and a pair of workout pants? You will say "Of course!" in your head. If you came to my door and saw me in it? Maybe you'd give me a funny look. If you saw me in public? You'd probably be glad you weren't my friend. Guess what? I don't care. I'm not a different person whether or not YOU like me. I'm exactly the same, inside AND out.

You don't need to acquire a taste for things you don't like - and I don't just mean broccoli or beer. I mean people and places and things. You don't have to like abstract art just because someone else is willing to pay a million dollars for a splat of red paint on a canvas. You don't have to stop drinking chocolate milk just because you're an adult. My husband and I are the only parents who follow our son down the slides at the park and sometimes we'll swing while he's running around - who doesn't like to swing? I prefer going to the movies alone. I like to sit and study at Barnes & Noble with my headphones blasting so I don't have to listen to people. I don't really like to be touched, so if you accidently brush against me I'm probably going to jerk away. NONE of these things REQUIRES change. Why is OK for you to randomly touch me? Why should I have to listen to you chewing at Barnes & Noble? Why shouldn't I swing? Why can't I go to the movies alone?

PanPastel Portrait...

Mine doesn't look like Pam Carriker's...

I cut out the face and glued it into my Butterfly journal. Everything except the face and neck is paper..

Butterflies

The newest class at Suzi's Academy is Fairies. But before we get started with Fairies, we are making journals. We are calling them "Butterfly" Journals. I used to scoff at butterflies in peoples' art. They're BUGS. I have zero connection with nature. I love to open up my windows and breathe fresh air, but I don't have any connections with critters at all. But I realized the appeal of the butterfly. It's transformation. From caterpillar to butterfly. A total transition.

One of our first assignments was to describe an ideal day and the first thing that comes to my mind is: PEACE. I want peace - but not outer peace. I don't have a crazy, chaotic life. I have crazy, chaotic thoughts. I just want peace inside my head. I want happy, peaceful, calm thoughts. I want to figure out how to make that happen.

Usually when I take a class with Suzi, I watch all of the videos, ignore most of the assignments, and only do what interest and appeals to me. I avoid thinking too hard or too deep. In truth, I have no desire to figure out why I don't have peace of mind, I simply want to fix it.

Crazy, racing, revolving thoughts make me tired and I'm tired of being ashamed of them. Is ashamed even the right word? I don't know how to talk to people about it. Can I tell my friends that I count the number of syllables when they speak to me? Can I tell them how I picture the worst-case scenarios of every single thing in my life? That the reason I read so much is to try and distract my brain from these kinds of thoughts? That when I go to bed at night, the reason I leave the TV on and read until the book literally falls out of my hand is because otherwise I imagine people poised outside my window just waiting to break in and do horrible things so I open my eyes over and over and over and over until they're so dry and sticky my contacts pop out? I am 100% positive that my friends would love me anyway. But since there's nothing they could do about it, there seems to be little point in talking about it. The point is, I want to change it. I am hoping that admitting these thoughts here, admitting them to the universe, will help me to change them. I don't know how to bring about peace of mind, but I'm going to work on it.

Inspired by Amy McDonald

I really liked the way Amy did hair one day - it totally made me think of fairies, because it's totally out of the way for flying and ding magic. I loved it, so I tried it!

And since it was on canvas board, not paper like usual, I headed straight for paint. No colored pencils.

Voila! Fairy!