I have so many questions…

I have so many questions. They keep returning, again and again. Things like…

What does God want me to do?

What should I pray about?

How should I pray?

Is there a proper way to pray?

Is just talking to God okay?

Is it okay to just tell him what is on my mind?

Why am I so afraid of what He might want me to do?

Am I doing the things He really wants me to do?

How will I be able to tell what it is He wants me to do?

Most days I work on my computer. Who am I kidding? Every day I work on my computer. I write in my journal. I  create graphics or I alter graphics for my own personal use in my journal. I scroll through Facebook looking at images and sometimes reading posts, rarely replying to any comments unless something strikes a chord with me. And once in a while, I write in this blog.

One day, recently, I was working on some graphics in Affinity Designer. I tried to open one of the graphics but Affinity Designer responded with an error message stating the filename I was trying to access didn’t exist and yet I could see it right there in the OPEN FILE dialogue window.

I spent hours trying to rectify this situation.

At first, I thought it was associated with Adobe Bridge which I had installed a couple days previously to help with finding files faster on my system. I had started tagging some files and the one Affinity Designer had issues with was one of the files I had recently tagged, or added keywords for in Adobe Bridge. I use the keywords to help me find the files easier by creating a smart collection. What was odd was Affinity Designer could open other files I had been working with in Adobe Bridge, so I decided to uninstall Affinity Designer and install it again to see if that would fix the issue.

Things went from not so good to another step further into bad. Affinity Designer wouldn’t load after it was re-installed. Every time I tried to load Affinity Designer, it responded with a blue screen stating there was an issue with the cldflt.sys file and would cause my computer to restart.

My computer is really slow on restarting.

I spent several hours researching this new situation. I am sure that several of the “fix it” scenarios assumed the problem interfered with booting my computer but my computer booted just fine. I knew this because every time I got the blue screen when I tried to load Affinity Designer, it forced my computer to restart.

I finally found a location where I could get a clean copy of the cldflt.sys file and instructions on how to replace it. The author of the instructions warned that only the highly experienced should attempt to do this. I took the risk which wasn’t as straightforward as it seemed, and replaced the file, restarted my computer. This time,  Affinity Designer loaded successfully.

However, Affinity Designer STILL had the original issue of not being able to open the file I wanted. Although, the file would open if I located the file in the folder outside of Affinity Designer, right clicked the file and told it to open in Affinity Designer but I didn’t want to have to do that. I wanted to understand why Affinity Designer would NOT open the file when I tried to do so from WITHIN Affinity Designer.

I finally renamed the file and gave it a rather short name that was maybe 8 characters long. Low and behold Affinity Designer opened the file without any problems. So… my original issue was with a filename that was too long for Affinity Designer to handle.

I have run across problems with filenames being too long before but in that case the file just didn’t show up in the software. This can be rather frustrating because more and more people in the business of creating graphics are using rather long filenames and they are either not aware that some programs have limitations or don’t care.

I will admit when I was stuck on the cldflt.sys issue and Affinity Designer wouldn’t load, I started to believe my system might have been invaded with a virus. I had been through enough system problems in my life of working with computers for over 30 years to know viruses can manifest in very odd ways.

In the midst of my struggles and considering the possible infection from a virus, I sat silent before God, with only one question on my mind.

“What do I need to do?”

“Get back into the Word of God.”

rang loudly in the midst of my silence and chaotic mind.

For the past couple of months, or rather since I had completed reading the bible from cover to cover, I had become inconsistent in my reading of His Word. My goal of reading the bible from cover to cover had sustained me and kept me hungry for His Word, but as soon as I had accomplished my goal, suddenly, I was at a loss as to maintaining that focus or how to get it back.

I felt bad. I knew I should be in His Word every day but I couldn’t seem to maintain it.

Then this happened. And BAM! when I heeded his message, I hadn’t been in His Word for more than five minutes when the answers to “fixing” my issues started presenting themselves. I was taken to the location for the clean file to replace my corrupted file. I was able to replace it and Affinity Designer started working again. By the time I had read two or three chapters in the bible, I had also discovered the reason why Affinity Designer wouldn’t open the file, by renaming the file.  I was back to working in Affinity Designer but not until I had finished my daily reading.

I had more questions, like…

What bible study method should I use for studying the bible?

Should I follow the bible study courses I have added to my arsenal as they are, or should I find my own way?

What works best for me?

One of the things which had distracted me from my daily reading was my struggles with setting up a prayer/war journal. I tried about three different ways of setting one up but couldn’t quite make it work for me. It wasn’t something I would turn to every day and when I did, I always felt like it didn’t feel right. I even tried sticking prayer lists on my wall and sitting down to prayer but that wasn’t working either. Eventually, I sat down and prayed, that eventually, I would come across something that would work for me. I sort of felt like I was giving up.

I knew God was working on things. I am continually amazed when out of the blue one of my questions will be answered. The answers never come to me in any way I expect. Some of them come within minutes or hours of me forming the question in my mind. Other times they may come days or weeks later or even months later. Sometimes they come when I didn’t even realize I was asking the question. But in every situation there is no doubt that the answers come from God.

As I continued to try to find something that would work for me, I signed up for a free Bible Journaling Conference. I wasn’t sure what I would get out of it but I hoped I would get something. In fact, after viewing the videos, I was rather disappointed in it. I didn’t think I had gotten anything out of it at all.

Then, one of the videos I had watched kept popping up in my thoughts. I couldn’t understand why it was so insistent on popping into my mind at what appeared to be random moments. When I watched the video, I wondered how the person went about doing what they were showing and describing. The video had appeared to me as a show and tell of what she did with and contained very little instruction on HOW she did it. She, apparently, was doing this with a group of people and they all found it helpful but I didn’t feel like she gave enough detail as to how it was done.

After viewing the video again, and going on a search online to try and find more information, I didn’t find much that helped. Mostly what I found was just tidbits of what she had shown in the video. I started just looking at whatever images I could find and trying to deconstruct them until they made sense to me. I eventually gave up on getting any more information. The thing that intrigued me in her video was  the making of a prayer page and a gift page. All I could get out of the video were two things:

1. the gift page was about selecting something from our day that we thought was a gift or a sort of gratitude and writing it down.
2. the prayer page was about writing down one thing to pray about that day and doing some doodling and/or coloring.

Both pages were worked on for the whole month and then you start new pages for the next month. It wasn’t the actual making of the journal or pages that had me stumped. What stumped me was the same thing I had been facing since I started this journey over a year ago:

What is the thought process and how does that translate into prayer?

When I first watched the video, I had questions:

How do you choose what to pray for that day?

Don’t get me wrong, I pray every day. I pray abundantly every day. In fact, I feel like I overdo prayer. Why do I feel that way? Because, I don’t feel like I am very focused on prayer and my prayers feel very selfish and reactive. I don’t want to be that way but that is how it feels to me. I wanted to find a more focused prayer life and one that has purpose and power behind it. One that God would be appreciative of because it wasn’t always “me” focused or complaining in nature. This is why I set out to try and create a war/prayer journal. It bothered me that it didn’t seem to be working out for me.

However, I am learning.

The other things I eventually weaned out of the video and my research, is this:

1. prayer page
   • divided into sections (can be random or any design you want) or just build it as you go
   • color while praying, helps to maintain focus as you pray (this is a huge issue for me, I loose focus and my thoughts go all over the place, sometimes I don’t even realize I have left my prayer completely for the random thoughts that pop into my head)
   • a scripture is selected for each month and used in the daily prayer
   • select one thing to pray about each day, write it somewhere on the page, then doodle and/or color while praying
   • creates a historical prayer journal
2. gift page
   • format is a numbered list for each day of the month
   • select one thing from your day that is considered a gift or something to be grateful for
   • write it down on the number for that day
   • consider decorating the page as you go through the month
   • creates a historical record

In regards to the gift page. I heard the word gratitude more than once, and the word gift used not so much or I wasn’t listening very well. I have, in the past, several times in fact, tried writing out a gratitude daily but it wasn’t something that stuck and eventually they started feeling repetitive and to be quite honest, not sincere. Therefore, when I heard the word gratitude in relationship to the gift page, I became stuck. I felt a block go up and resistance entered my heart. BUT, a question kept haunting me:

Why do they call it a GIFT page?

It didn’t take long after formulating this question in my mind for an answer to come to me.

Think of it not as a gratitude page, but ask myself,

“what GIFT can you find in your day which you feel God gave to you?”

I knew when I heard that message, I was going to have to give this a go. I wanted to see if it was something that would stick.

Would it be my thing?

Would it work for me?

The decision to give these two pages a try occurred a few days before the end of October. I couldn’t wait to start.  I wanted to start that very day. In fact, I did write down something I thought was a gift from God that day and did a bit of a doodle which felt good. The next few days was in setting up my pages for November.

I chose a journal that was partially used. This journal had a blank page facing a lined page so the blank page would be perfect for the prayer page and the lined page would be perfect for the gift page.

How am I doing?

Well, I’m still adding to my pages every day. I haven’t been coloring yet on my prayer page but I am writing out something to pray about each day and sometimes I add a doodle to the page. When I take the time to doodle, I feel myself focusing on prayer.

Sometimes, I find it difficult to come up with something I think is a gift from God for my gift page but eventually I come up with something that isn’t repeated. I know there may end up being times when I repeat something, like the warmth of the sun, because I do love the feeling of the sun’s warmth, so I have no doubt God would love gifting me with that feeling quite often.

So far, I am keeping up with it and it feels right, though I still have a bit more to learn about the process for making it more powerful. And I feel like I have a lot of work to accomplish regards to my process for praying.

However, I am learning.

I just had a thought. Maybe I need to create a Question page, and maybe an Answer page. Wouldn’t that be something?

I mentioned my bible studies earlier, so….

what about my bible studies?

Oh, I’m learning there too. At least for now, about what works for me. I’m combining some methods I have come across to devise my own way of study. I’m using a class from Robin Sampson called, “12 Bible Eras”. I’m doing the first lesson “Creation Era”. Robin’s lessons usually involve Bible journaling, which can mean anything from using the images she provides for the lesson or finding free/purchased images or even creating your own, mostly digital or physically in a traveler’s notebook (TN). She does support you in doing your own thing or your own art but doesn’t teach it. Sometimes there is writing but it doesn’t seem to be a large portion of her classes.

I have another of Robin’s classes, called “Proverbs 31 and Bible Women” and I thought I could do what I had been doing in that class, where I take the PDF document she created and add it into my digital journal where I can add my own notes.  I am doing this so I can search for information later on if I want to go back and study something or need to find something. But she didn’t make the PDF for the Creation Era course the same way she did in the Proverbs class. This caused me some frustration. Who am I kidding? It caused me a lot of frustration. I spent a LOT of time trying to get the information from her PDF files which were setup like slides but they wouldn’t format correctly and I couldn’t get it so the text would be searchable.

Once I figured out the process for the PDFs from the introduction, I discovered that process wouldn’t work for the next lesson. The next lesson had 4 slides per page. Printing them didn’t work because they were too small to read. I had to do a lot more work to separate them so they would be larger and readable but once again would not be searchable in my digital journal. Merging PDFs was an option but again the slides were too small.

Then I discovered the next set of PDFs were done even more differently, and even smaller, so I gave up on trying to use the process I had used in the Proverbs class. Or even including her PDFs in anything I was doing.

In case you haven’t figured it out by now, I like to find a process that works for me and stick with it. I don’t like having to come up with a new process each time I want to do something. It is very time consuming when all I want to do is just jump right in and learn.

Learning is my passion.

I used to wonder what my passion was. I think I finally know. Learning.

And if I learn something well enough, then I love showing others or helping others learn what I have learned.

I didn’t give up on Robin’s class. I’m taking her class, just adding my own twist to it. From another bible study group, they encourage writing out scripture that is being studied, so I decided to add this to the lesson. I listen to Robin’s videos, which are really just her talking through the slides/PDFs she provides. And I listen to other videos she has linked in her lessons. These videos are available online and don’t require Robin’s lesson to access them. Then, I choose an image I like that represents what I’m learning.  I add it to my page and I hand write the scripture.

As I was writing out the scripture for chapter 1 of Genesis, a question kept coming up, over and over again:

What is the original Hebrew word that was used, and what does that word mean?

So… I started looking up Hebrew text on blueletterbible.org. This site is extremely helpful for bible study. There is much more there than what I’m about to tell you. I lookup the scripture I’m studying and in the tools I can find references to the original language, and read the definition or possible interpretations. This gives me more insight into what the scripture means. I am adding this information to my journal because sometimes what I have heard others say about the scriptures isn’t really in context or within the meaning of the original language used and how it was interpreted. Yes, preachers, ministers, clergymen put their own spin on the meaning of scripture. I love that we now have access to the original scriptures in the language it was written in.

I don’t always realize how inquisitive my mind is. In fact, I didn’t think I was very inquisitive at all until I started writing this post. If I want to know something, I just start researching it. Sometimes, I don’t consciously realize that is what I am doing. I just do it.

What is next?

Where do I go from here?

I’m not sure. I do feel I am finally finding things that work for me. I have no doubt these will evolve over time. For now, I am glad God is teaching me what I need to know and answering my questions.  Sometimes, he even answers questions that pop into my head even though I haven’t taken that question directly to Him. This is something that was mind blowing for me. To know he actually pays attention to my random thoughts and takes the time to respond to them without me going to him in prayer. It is like my thoughts are prayers even when I am not consciously attempting to pray to Him, if that makes any sense.

Don’t get me wrong, I have heard preachers say that God knows our every thought. I believed it but in the way a child believes what someone says is true, not in the way where I believe it because I’ve seen it in action or experienced it. Seeing it in action, is just mind blowing for me, because I never thought I would experience that aspect of Him knowing my every thought and Him thinking it is important enough to take the time to respond.

Below are images from my journal for the Creation Era class. I have used some images that Robin supplied but I also used other images I got from other places. I made the journal by printing a pattern on both sides of just regular printer paper, then folded them in half, stacking 4 or 5 papers together and sewing them into signatures. This booklet has 3 signatures sewn into it. The cover is watercolor paper I painted and then coated with matte medium. I haven’t put a title on it yet. I may not do so until I complete the journal so I know how much is included in it.

 

The writing is scripture handwritten on a piece of paper before I glue it into my journal. The paper was created by me in MS Word where I can add images, background color and lines, before printing it. The I write out scripture before gluing it into my journal.

Before writing out the scripture, I read through it and decide how I will organize it. I don’t mean I change the order of it. What I look for is how to group it. I look for things, like subject or topic, search for images I want to use, then where there is a change within scripture and what image to use with it. In that way, I split scripture into manageable sections. The images help me when I look at the section to remember what it is about.

I discovered something interesting when using images someone else selected for a particular passage of scripture. I don’t connect with it like I do when I find the images that resonate with me. For instance, I used the images for the 6 days of creation supplied by Robin. When I flip through my journal, those images don’t immediately make sense to me. She had no image for Day 7 so I selected an image online and as soon as I see that image I know it is for the day God rested without reading the words. The same goes for the other images I selected in Chapter 2. Now I know, don’t use an image just because someone else used that image, choose one that resonates with me, so that is what I’m doing as I go forward.

I chose to create this journal differently than I did the journal I use for the Proverbs 31 class. I learned the hard way in the Proverbs lesson on issues that can be caused by gluing backgrounds onto a page and how it can warp the binding of my journal, so I’m trying it differently in this journal by printing the background on the paper and then making the signatures. This seems to be working very well.

Plus, my journal isn’t getting distorted due to the thickness of the layers. If I want to go back to this lesson and dig deeper, I will be able to add more notes by creating tip-ins. I could add in a tip-in that has information such as WHO, WHAT, WHERE, WHEN, WHY and HOW as a deeper study and even later I could add another tip-in that contains relevant references to other passages in the bible.

I expect, I will be creating many, many, many more journals like this as I work my way through the bible. Only time will tell if the prayer and gift pages continue to work for me or if they morph into something completely unexpected.

I am grateful to God for every moment I have in His Word and for the answers he gifts to me every day.

 

Things I’m learning….

Between reading Exodus (Moses arguing with God about his ability to speak.) and the verses from Warrior Women and Prayer Warrior and the challenges I have been facing, lessons are learned which are not always easy to accept. It is difficult to accept my own selfishness and how it can interfere with my trust, faith and relationship with God. But God brings me these things so I might learn and become the person he wants me to be.

For a long time now one of the simplest prayers I pray is “God help me to be the person You want me to be.” I, invariably, say this prayer at least once a day if not a thousand times a day but after the revelation I had last night, after creating the page below, my prayer now has more conviction behind it. It can be difficult for me to remember that I am supposed to live for God, not God living for me and serving me. I am to serve him. I see his hand and I know he is with me, moving the mountain of stubbornness which has been a part of me my whole life.

This first image is yesterday’s page in my TN. The opposite page will be filled in with today’s verse.

This above image is days 28 and 29 of October’s Warrior Women (prompts from Robin Sampson).

I love being able to flip through my TN and read the verses I handwrite and then decorate as I have time. It tells a story which was unexpected.

I’m glad I switched back to doing this in a physical notebook and not digitally. I may scan it when it is done so I have a digital record if something ever happens to the notebook. I am half way through it. I may have to glue some pages together to help strengthen it and keep it together but that won’t be an issue since I have more pages left than there are days in the month. It is already getting quite full. It includes Warrior Women (prompts from Robin Sampson) from October and Prayer Warrior from November will complete the journal. These two months support each other very well in the story they tell.

I didn’t create all the images and I don’t have a record of where they all came from or I would credit the creators. Some are purchased and some are free. I started learning how to use my Silhouette Cameo which I have had for a couple of years and barely used. It is a challenge to cut out images using it that were not created using the software. I have had some issues with cutting but I think I found the reason why when I read a post on reasons the Silhouette doesn’t cut properly. I am hoping once I sort out the Silhouette Cameo that it will save me time on cutting out images to use in my journals, which will then give me more time for my bible studies.

The other thing I am learning to do is layering to create backgrounds in Affinity Designer. Today, I layered some images for backgrounds and it is the first time all the blend options for the layers came out looking fabulous. Below are two of the blend options performed on the same layers.

I use the backgrounds I create or purchase to print and glue down on my TN pages. I am considering doing this a bit differently in my next TN. I’m thinking of printing the pages on both sides then creating the signatures from these printed sheets of paper. I know, you would think I would have thought of doing this before. It was one of those “duh” moments… lol.. I probably didn’t think about it because I didn’t really have a lot of backgrounds to work with and so for some pages I was using paint to create the backgrounds. Now I have enough digital images  and I have learned how to create my own images that I can use to layer for making my own backgrounds like this one. This is something I can do after work, when I’m physically exhausted from being on my feet all day and I just want to sit and stream some Netflix.

I have also learned how to tag images on my computer so it will be easier to find images for my projects. Tagging them though is time consuming but hopefully worth it in the long run.

 

Letting go. Handing it all over to God.

“Father, I feel you nudging me to write another post. I hear you and obey. Soften my heart and mind and help me to allow the Holy Spirit to speak through me, giving me the words and story you most want me to tell. In Jesus name, Amen.”

It may seem strange to see my posts now beginning with a prayer. For me, with the changes in my life, it makes more sense than ever. I want God to guide me and I want Him to know that I want his guidance. Prayer is my intentional way of letting Him know.

I feel compelled to write a bit about my story.

In 2014, I was diagnosed with breast cancer but prior to that I had been intentionally living a life that was taking me farther and farther away from God and my beliefs. My rational mind gave me all kinds of reasons which gave me permission to do this. The main reason was to satisfy my desire for happiness in my life. It didn’t matter where I looked, happiness was only temporary which just kept me searching for it until my life came to a screeching halt.

My diagnosis of breast cancer had not been a huge surprise. I had lived in denial over the lump for quite a while but life intervened in such a way as to make me finally take responsibility and have it looked into.

I handled this diagnosis like I did everything in my life. I got the information from the doctors I needed. Then I researched it to death. By the time the day of my first surgery arrived, I knew all the alternative treatments. What I could afford or not afford of those treatments and even knew the type of anesthesia and pain control medicines I should or should not take. This of course all happened after I was told by my surgeon who did the biopsy that I definitely had breast cancer but the most common and treatable kind. That day I sat in his office like a zombie, hearing and yet not hearing what he had to say and what he saw as my options.

You would think this diagnosis, the surgeries and treatment would have turned me back to God. Oh, don’t get me wrong. I prayed. I was angry. I was furious that this was happening to me when I had an 11 year old daughter to take care of. But it didn’t change my direction in regards to my relationship with Him. All it did was bring my life to a screeching halt. What I had been pursuing stopped completely. I had no direction other than to just get through this.

There were problems with chemo. After my third treatment complications threatened my life, so I stopped chemo and all treatments including their recommendation for radiation treatment. They recommended these things even though they had no proof I still had cancer in my body. The surgeries I went through and the tests they did of the lymph nodes and breast tissue indicated they got everything but they have no proof because there are no instruments strong enough to detect single cells of cancer. In fact, the devices they have today only detect cancer if it has begun to cluster where there are at least millions if not billions of cells. My last treatment was two days before Christmas in 2014 and since then there has been no since of cancer. This December will be 5 years of being cancer free. Five years seems to be a milestone for determining if someone is cured or healed from their cancer diagnosis. It doesn’t mean it can’t or won’t come back. It just means according to their statistics, the chances of it returning are lowered greatly. I don’t hold much stock in statistics. I seem to defy them all in some way or another, usually for the better.

In 2015, we decided to celebrate the end of my cancer treatments and started looking for a house to buy. We found one and bought it, moved in August 2015, and from all appearances it looked like life for me and my daughter was looking up. We were better off financially than we had been renting. Had a larger place than we had when renting. And we had plans to slowly improve our new home.

Then, January 2016 arrived in an unexpected and devastating way. I was informed that my position which I held for over 30 years was being eliminated and I was being laid off. This news hit me harder, much, much harder than my cancer diagnosis. It threatened the very foundation of my ability to take care of my daughter. I am the sole income earner. I get no child support. I have no other source of income. This news came to me and completely destroyed the foundation I stood upon that helped me feel safe and secure and positive in my belief that I could care for my daughter on my own. Every future my imagination could come up with ended up with us losing our new home and being thrown out on the street to live. I was terrified.

I had 8 weeks to find a job within the company but every job I looked into, I was told I did not qualify for even if I was willing to relocate me and my daughter using my own money. I came to realize this company had no intentions of keeping me on as their employee no matter how much they told me I could look for an internal job to transfer to. I started looking externally.

It looked like everything was falling into place with a new job I applied for. I was hired to start only 2 days after my layoff date. In a matter of 6 weeks, I had an emotional breakdown in the office and was unable to perform my job. At the advice of my doctor to take three months off, I had to quit since I was still in my probationary period. Prior to the breakdown, I was their top performer.

This breakdown added another layer to my terror. I had discovered the limit of what I could endure. My doctor prescribed medication to help. After three months I started applying for other jobs. I applied for all the jobs I knew I could do which were mostly a subset of the job I had been laid off from. I received no call backs. This went on for a year and in that time I had only two interviews. I lived that whole year in terror.

In May of 2017, I looked at my prescription and discovered what was supposed to be short term, I had now been on a year. I didn’t know where that year had gone. I couldn’t really remember it other than I had submerged myself into drawing, painting, mixed media, and ink. I loved that aspect of having all day to play in my art supplies. I went to my doctor, told him I didn’t want to be on the medication anymore but asked him to provide a prescription for emergencies when I felt overwhelmed and unable to cope. He did.

Finally, in July 2017, I was hired as a cashier earning minimum wage. My financial advisor said this would be enough to eliminate the shortfalls in my retirement. But I soon learned it wouldn’t be enough because of how much time it had taken for me to find a job. I lived that whole year off of my savings from my severance package. Working part-time at minimum wage also meant I would have to continue pulling money from my savings and reducing my retirement funds.  I used the emergency prescription intermittently as I learned I could cope in my new job and then not at all when I realized I really enjoyed interacting with the customers. As a replacement I started to use GABA which was sufficient from then on when I needed something to calm my nerves, except in a few situations.

Almost a year later (April 2018, 2 years by now), I was still living in terror over my financial situation. I was still applying for jobs, hoping to find a full time job or a part-time job that would pay more but again no call backs or out of the one or two call backs I received that ended up in interviews, none ended up in any job offers.

I still could only see in my future, my daughter and I being thrown out of our house and living on the street if we couldn’t pay our bills. You might wonder why and think my imagination is extreme but it isn’t. Renting an apartment in our city isn’t any cheaper than the mortgage payment I have for our home, in fact it can be more expensive than a mortgage. Housing is in high demand in this fast growing city. Reasonable rent isn’t possible, at least not without ending up in some poverty ridden cesspool. This is the way I saw our life going and it was becoming more and more apparent that I had no control over this situation.

I lost hope.

I had no more dreams for our future other than just surviving from one day to the next.

Then on April 8, 2018, I heard very clearly that it was time to turn back to my roots but in a different way. Because, what I had relied on in my past had never worked for me. I had grown up in a Christian home, going to church each Sunday, and relying on Sunday school teachers, teen leaders, and pastors to tell me what I needed to know about God and the bible.

On April 8, 2018, I was told to pick up the bible and read it cover to cover so I could know the true God which was written about in His Word. I had nothing to lose, so I did it. I started at the beginning and started reading one chapter at a time. In time, I started to pray daily. I felt compelled to search for bible study methods which took me to bible study groups online and eventually to going to one church or another locally just to see if I would find any connection there. I haven’t really found any connection with a church yet. I have felt a connection to God during a Sunday service once or twice.

In my search to know more, I learned to turn EVERYTHING over to God. And I do mean EVERYTHING. Because my work schedule doesn’t leave very many Sundays available for me to attend church, when I pray to God I tell him, if he wants this to be part of my life, then he will need to make it happen. Which is how I usually approach everything, including my job/financial situation. If he wants me to have a new job, he will have to make it happen… and so forth.

It was interesting in regards to the job situation. I ran into some conflicting and aggravating situations with my manager at work some which caused me to take GABA. I let it go and let God take care of it. I saw her in turn have a situation happen which caused her to come to tears. This isn’t anything I wished for her, no matter how she treated me but I saw God’s justice in it. I desired another job, and so I would apply for job postings I knew I could do but always with the same result, no call back, or no job offer. All I heard was, “Stop, let it go. I’ll take care of it.” Everything pointed for me to just stop applying, to stop trying to force my way to a different job while I heard this voice saying, “if you do nothing, then you are proving you are just like all those people on welfare who just sit around, are capable of working but don’t even try. You are proving you are worthless.” It was hard to know what to do. Which one was right? I decided to trust in God (at least for a while) and see what he would do. I know that sounds terrible but that is what I decided to do. I was at the end of my rope.

I knew my trust would come slowly. I often felt like I was an awful child of God, or not truly a child of God. Did I have the right to test him like this? Was it a sin to do so?

Things happened in stages. First, I prayed, “God help me to become the person you desire for me to be.” I would pray this every day as I drove to work, and as I drove I would tell him how beautiful our world was that he had created. How amazing He is to create such a world where we can make so many things to help us to live more comfortable lives. The beauty of nature around me and how it all worked together. On and on, I would praise him.

I slowly started humming as I drove back and forth from work. Sometimes I would even hum as I worked, and sometimes it wasn’t even the music which played over the store’s sound system. I hummed what came spontaneously upon me. Sometimes words would form and I would sing them. I found myself humming and singing in the shower or as I washed dishes or did chores.

Slowly, I learned to turn EVERYTHING over to God, and to ask for his protection from the enemy which was trying to take everything away from me that God had given me throughout my life.

One day, I realized worry and fear became less and less a part of my life. I started to truly believe God would take care of us. As worry and fear became less, anxiety and panic became less and less. I realized my humming was actually a sign of happiness and also praise to God for how he had brought change to my life in such subtle ways.

I still had concerns financially and couldn’t visualize how God could change my situation unless I won the lottery, which yes, I do play, just in case he would want to provide for me through it. (it’s okay to laugh, I do, I’m grateful the lottery here does help pay for health care, education and other services needed across the province)

Then during this time of not applying for jobs, and just letting go of it all, giving it all over to God, I prayed, “God, if you want me to have another job, then you will have to provide it.” I don’t know how long it was after that prayer, but I do know it wasn’t more than a couple of weeks when, at work, in our lunch room, there was a notice stating that the pharmacy was hiring, and no experience was necessary.

Should I? Shouldn’t I? What was I supposed to do?

I prayed. “God, do you want me to apply for this job? If so, you have to give me a sign I can not doubt. You know me. I doubt everything. I see both sides of any sign. A sign can mean, yes go for it, or it could mean, no don’t go for it and I could see the same message for one sign. I need something I cannot doubt.” The very next day was my day off. I woke up around 4:30am in extreme pain. It was the pain I had experienced from my 3rd chemo treatment that made me stop taking chemo. Well, it was part of the reason. The subsequent issues I had following that pain were the main reason for stopping chemo, that being, I was unable to eat or drink anything but tiny sips of water for a week.

Back to my story… I woke in pain. I knew it was from over production of stomach acid which was what was the issue before, so I took some tums, hoping it would help. Two hours later I was still in a lot of pain. I knew a walk-in clinic would open in an half hour. I woke my daughter asked if she wanted to go with me, no, she was too tired, so I went alone. I had taken two more tums hoping in that half hour it would help more. They did a bit but not enough and I wanted to make sure my self-diagnosis was right.

To make a long story short, it was the same, I ended up with a prescription which made me go to the pharmacy. I couldn’t deny the message. I put in for the job. I, of course, ran into some opposition. My manager wasn’t happy. She probably opposed it and discouraged me as much as she could without outright telling me she wouldn’t let me transfer. In the end, I gave her a copy of the transfer paper and handed the other copy to the other person in the office who was handling the process. Everyone else was excited to learn I wanted to work in the pharmacy. But I left the office feeling like it wasn’t going to happen.

The next day, circumstances happened where I ended up having a discussion with the store manager. The discussion had nothing to do with my transfer request but at the end he told me they were going to make my transfer happen. I was ecstatic!

The day after that I was told I would transfer officially on the 19th.

I have known my whole life that when things are meant to be, they happen quickly, easily and sometimes with the speed of a locomotive. That is what happened in this case. I handed in the transfer paper on 6May and on 12May the store manager came to me and asked if I was okay transferring that day (a week ahead of schedule) because the pharmacy was in dire need of someone now. I said, “sure no problem. I would be happy to.” And it was made so that very day.

I have been in pharmacy ever since, learning to be a pharmacy assistant. I don’t make any more money right now though the possibility does exist for getting more hours. Every day I work,  I am filled with exceeding joy. I am left with no doubt that this is God’s plan for me. I am trying not to read into where this will take me.  I am learning to let go of my financial concerns and just hold tight to God’s plan for me and always look to him in ALL things. In doing so, I get a sense of comfort I have never felt before.

I can see Him working in the background on other possibilities, they give me hope. Hope I have not had in over three years. I see his handy work in this new job. Since starting it I have worked only one Sunday. I work fewer days but no less hours than I did as a cashier so, it feels like I have more time for my studies and reading.

I continue to read my bible every day. I finished Zechariah this morning which means only 1 more book and I’ll have finished the Old Testament. I have been looking forward to starting the New Testament and learning about Jesus. I can’t tell you how excited it makes me feel.

Today or tomorrow, I will complete the “It’s Not Supposed To Be This Way” bible study I mentioned in my previous post.

I started Proverbs 31 & Bible Women from Robin Sampson’s bible study and journaling class. I start lesson 3 today or tomorrow. In just the first two lessons, I am finally connecting with how I can study and journal about the Word of God. It is exciting to use my artistic skills along with my studying the Word.

Digital journal spread for lesson 2 of Proverbs 31 & Bible Women

Handmade Traveler’s Notebook insert for Lesson 2 of Proverbs 31 & Bible Women

I am still handwriting Psalms. I’m up to Psalm 103. I don’t just handwrite it. I, also, type it out in a digital journal using the NLT version and the CJB version. I learned about the Complete Jewish Bible (CJB) from Tom Bradford’s Old Testament Survey class on Torahclass.com. When I read the CBJ version, I get a more positive feel from scripture than I do when I read the KJV, NIV or NLT versions. I type the NLT and CJB versions side-by-side, sort of creating my own parallel version. I like being able to compare the two versions side-by-side. I have room to add graphics so when something grabs my attention and I feel called to add something visual, I will insert graphics which helps me to connect with the scripture. Nothing too elaborate because with everything else, I don’t have the time. My plan though is to go through each book of the bible, creating my own digital version which I can then use in my deeper studies, probably using the inductive study method.

I don’t know if you caught on to what happened over the past month. I have had two major prayers answered for me:

1. a new job

2. more Sundays free for attending church, God’s way of letting me know he does want me to attend church, I just need to find one that fits

There are numerous other prayers which have been answered so indirectly, I have yet to really recognize all of the ones which have been answered. I feel God working towards transforming me into the person he desires for me to be. I also feel God working towards transforming my life into what he had always intended for it to be.

He is building my trust and faith and not demanding it be given completely or fully upon his demand. I think this is important for me, as well as, others to understand. God wants us to willingly trust him and have faith in him. He isn’t about forcing us to do what we don’t want to do. I just had to see that he will be who he says he is and do what he says he will do. This is what builds my trust and faith in him.

I also have to be willing to let go of MY expectations of what he will do. In other words, I can’t make him or demand he provide the results I want. I have to be willing to accept his choices for me. For instance, if I could only visualize myself in an administrative job and that is the only job I wanted, it doesn’t mean that is the job God wants for me. I had to let go of all job possibilities and let God choose for me. This really was the hardest thing for me to do. I don’t relinquish control easily. God knew I needed time to learn how to do this and I think too he knew I would need extreme circumstances to get me to the point where I could.

There is one thing that comes to my mind periodically, these past few weeks. As I was reading the last two chapters in “It’s Not Supposed To Be This Way”, it came to mind again. Sometimes, we are so focused upon ourselves that when things happen we perceive them as a personal affront to ourselves. That God, or the enemy is doing this personally to us. If we step back, we may discover what is happening is a side effect of something someone else, someone who is close to us, needs to learn.  I find, I am often so focused upon my own suffering I don’t see someone else standing right next to me is suffering too or that what I’m going through effects them too.

When I was going through my cancer treatment, dealing with the pain and discomfort of the surgeries and the chemo treatments, my daughter was right there beside me. I knew she felt helpless and didn’t know what to do for me but what I didn’t know until much later was how afraid she was to go to sleep at night. That something might happen. That I might need her at night and she not know it. She felt safe to sleep in the day when I was awake. She suffered through this time with me but in such a different way and so silently on her own. When I look at it now, though I was the one diagnosed with cancer and felt this was happening to me, it might have happened to me in order for my daughter to learn something she needed to learn. Yes, we both had something to learn from the situation but maybe my suffering was required in order for her to learn.

When you find yourself in a difficult situation, look around, see who is standing next to you. Maybe your suffering is what the other person needs in order to learn something God needs for them to learn. Maybe it will lead to their salvation.

 

Slowly but surely….

I am adding some unexpected interest to my digital planner.

I’ll state this up front, the actual digital planner was not created by me. This planner was offered in the Friday Freebies on Boho Berry’s Digital Planners Facebook group. I have only made slight alterations to the planner so it will work for my personal use.

It first started when I decided to add a tracker for my bible reading. Then I thought I would try adding the daily weather. Things progressed from there.

These are my pages for yesterday and today, without my journaling. I inevitably fill up the white space with journaling about my day and my thoughts. I should tell you now, the artwork is NOT mine.

The graphics for the weather came from a Friday Freebie on, you guessed it (if you read my previous posts) Boho Berry’s Digital Planner Facebook group.

I did create the box with the list in it and the trackers at the bottom. Thanks to someone in the same group sharing how they could easily create trackers in a spreadsheet, copy them and paste them into their digital planner.

The flower on the list and the background fox image came from a coloring app I use on my phone, called Happy Color. After I completed coloring in the graphic, there is an option to share it so, I sent it to my computer and pasted it into my digital planner.

I really loved how the flower looked in my planner yesterday so today I decided to see how the images work in the background. It worked AMAZINGLY!! So now, I can capture some details about my day without having to say anything, by choosing one of the pictures I color that day and placing it into my planner.

None of this is difficult to do. Some of it requires using a couple different applications. I had a few obstacles to overcome, like acquiring Affinity Designer. If push came to shove, I could have done most everything in my older version of Adobe Photoshop Elements but the process takes far longer and is much more complicated. I discovered Affinity has all its products on sale so I jumped on it and gave it to myself (a few days early) for a Christmas present.

I did have one issue in trying to figure out how to make the background of the images transparent in Affinity Designer but a quick google search took me to the Forums on Affinity where someone had already asked the question and received an answer. Again, it is a very simple process. It was just a matter of finding where in Designer it could be done. This wasn’t one that would have been intuitively obvious. I might never have found it if I hadn’t searched online for the answer. Once learned though, it is quick and simple and I don’t have to use a magic tool to click in all the small areas where I want the background transparent.

There is at least one huge difference between Adobe Photoshop Elements (I have version 10), and Affinity Designer. Affinity Designer will import a PDF file and build layers. If I open a PDF file in Affinity Designer it shows a dialogue box where you can import ALL pages or select a page to import. I usually select one page. Designer builds layers for each element in the page. How quickly Affinity Designer does this is amazing.

My version of Adobe Photoshop Elements does NOT build layers. It opens a single page onto one layer which means there are NO elements which can be altered.

The layers Affinity Designer creates are great because each element is given a layer. I can then select an element and alter it if I want to change part of it. For instance, in the digital planner, if I want to change the text on a tab, all I have to do is select the text and change it. Same with the tab, if I want to change the color, I can do that as well. I can alter the shape of the tabs or any part of the page.

In Adobe Photoshop Elements, I’m either stuck with the shape and design or find a way to put a layer over it to cover it with what I want. Adobe Photoshop Elements is also VERY slow in rasterizing the PDF file.

I know this functionality of creating a layers from a PDF file so all the elements can be altered can create an ethical dilemma for designers. When I first came across digital planners, I wanted to know how they worked. Knowing how they work, also helps me to know what software was needed to make them work. I needed to know this because I was wanting to use them on my Windows desktop, not an Android table or an iPad. Watching some of Boho Berry’s videos gave me enough information to find some software to play with but it took a lot of searching to find the RIGHT software for the job I wanted them to do.

The other thing watching her videos did was help me to understand the planners are built by using layers upon layers to achieve the effect. I wasn’t sure how deeply this went until I discovered Affinity Designer. Breaking a single page down into ALL of its layers gave me the information I needed.

These planners take a lot of work to build. What Kara and others have built took a lot of time. Seeing all the layers in Affinity Designer for just one page makes me appreciate all the HARD work the creator of the planner did to develop it.

Affinity Designer enables me to alter an existing PDF to make it the way I want it. But it also opens up a possible ethical situation if someone should use it to take someone else’s design and change a portion of it and then call it their own. As an artist, I would never do that. It bothers me immensely when I hear of other “artists” taking someone’s work and either not crediting the original artist and letting people assume they own it or altering it slightly and then claiming it as theirs. They are not artists in my opinion.

I may one day attempt to create my own digital planner. If I did, I would create it from scratch. But right now I’m just happy to be able to use a planner someone else built for my own personal use so I can determine whether this is a daily practice I will continue with or if it will peter out like it did when I tried creating my own bullet journal. Working with a bullet journal lasted maybe six months before it became old.

I had, also developed an issue with my wrist due to all the handwriting I was doing. Switching to using the computer to type out my journal digitally has allowed my wrist to heal. I,also, learned the benefit of being able to keep up with my thoughts through typing. Many of my thoughts wouldn’t end up on paper because I couldn’t write fast enough.

I am an interesting balance of analytical/logical and creative/abstract. This becomes apparent when I consider what I’m drawn towards. I love math, especially algebra and geometric shapes. I think things through logically. I’m always wanting to create things with my hands. I knit and crochet, draw, paint, write stories and poetry along with my journaling. Once I learn how to do something I then find ways to tweak it, especially in my handmade items, like knitting. Computers have enabled me to combine both worlds which is why I think digital planners/journals will be my forever “go to” for expressing myself.

If an app is ever created which will allow a user to work completely within one app with their digital planner, I can see using these digital planners by everyone from church leaders/pastors to, business leaders, government aides and even children with their school work. I have been able to incorporate pages into my planner from a Bible in PDF format, have a blank page opposite where I write my notes, highlight the bible text, circle, underline and add supporting pictures and whatever else someone does to make it stand out. AND… it is all searchable in the PDF document once it is saved, including any annotations and notes. This can’t be done in hand written notes or hard copy books. I can add links to the PDF document as well so a reference can be found easily. In essence, these planners are becoming archival information of people lives and the knowledge they gather for themselves.

WE ARE CREATING OUR OWN HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS.

For someone who didn’t excel in history class, I find this fascinating.

 

 

The Light in My Darkness

It has been almost two months since my last post. As to why, well, the answer can be quite complicated and too personal to want to talk about. I’ve been struggling with life, mostly, which means I am also struggling with my art. Or rather, I find when I loose interest in life, then I also loose interest in my art.

There is one thing which has remained consistent since I added another element to my journey a few months ago. That element is reading the bible every day. I don’t know why NOW is any different from the times I tried to do this in my past.  I only know that it is. If I miss a single day in reading the bible, I feel compelled to read twice as much the next day. The hunger inside of me to read and learn what the bible has to teach me is strong. It keeps me going. Though I have felt lost these past few months in my life, the one thing which has kept me from loosing myself completely is my daily reading.

I have heard other artists say that art has saved them or helped them through some tough times. I wanted this to be the case for me but it wasn’t. I believe we all have something which can help us and we each have to find what that one thing is. I’m learning, mine is feeding the hunger I feel in my soul to get to know God through my reading of the bible.

I pulled out a bible I bought some time ago. It is called “Inspire, The Bible for Creative Journaling”. I bought some clear gesso and started prepping the pages so I could use markers for making annotations in the wide borders or coloring in the artwork that was already in the wide margins. If I don’t do this then the markers bleed through the page to the other side and I’m finding I don’t like using colored pencil as much as I thought I would. It is too slow for me to keep up with my reading. Also, some ink pens will also bleed through the pages so the clear gesso prevents that.

On two of the pages, I discovered parts of scripture which has come to mean a lot to me these past couple of weeks. I decided to create a couple loose art journal pages so I could display them as reminders. Below are the two pages I created.

This first one comes from 2 Chronicles 20:12 but is a shortened version and I changed it to have a more personal meaning for myself, which is why I didn’t reference the verse of the bible on the page. It has become a daily prayer of mine when I’m feeling particularly lost.

This one, I did reference the bible verse. Though it isn’t the whole verse the words are verbatim and part of the verse. This one gives me hope that my prayer is being heard.

It may seem odd that I came across the verses in the order they are presented here since I’m reading the bible from front to back and not skipping around. Not even to read any versus that are referenced in my study bible.

How I discovered these verses is like this…

I was feeling rather tired and went to put my bible on the table but instead it fell on the floor. My first thought was, “I wonder what it opened up to.” This is what I saw:
I immediately knew I needed to make this my daily prayer when I’m feeling lost and in the need of help.

I don’t remember if it was the same day or the next day or the day after. All I know, was within a day or two, I came across the second verse when I was flipping through the pages getting ready to prep them when I saw this:

I knew I wanted to put these two versus on display in my house so I would be reminded every single day to not loose faith.

Things happen in the way they do, for a reason. I believe I was shown these two verses in the order they were given to me, to help me regain my faith.

I had both of the verses in mind when I started working on the first page. On the day when I put the finishing touches on the first page, I was given an answer I was looking for. I created the second page soon after and finished it tonight.

I have a lot of hard work ahead of me in order to follow up on the answer I was given. My artwork will continue to be a part of my life and always will be. There might be times when it seems like it has taken a backseat but hopefully if I do my work, and keep my faith. All will become clear.

After adding the text to my second page, I was given another answer I had not really known I was looking for. I knew art would always be a part of my life but as time continued, it was beginning to look more and more like my time was going to be pulled away from art. I wondered if it would slowly disappear from my life completely. Then, just as I was almost completed with the second page, I received my second answer.

I had been doing the steps for Let’s Face It 2019 and Paint Your Heart and Soul 2019 to try and win a spot in their giveaways. I started doing this last year when I realized my income might not make it possible for me to purchase both the courses and art supplies. If I could win the courses then I should be able to purchase the art supplies.

Let’s Face It was easy to get the information for each of the artists to enter the giveaways. However, Paint Your Heart and Soul was rather frustrating. There were some I couldn’t find any postings for at all. The dates in the post containing the list of artists indicated it was the date for the giveaway. There were links to the artist’s social media pages but a couple had issues with the links, others had no posts for the course or any instructions for the giveaway and there was no way to tell when the artists would post for the giveaway. Some artists posted well before the date of their giveaway and others, well, some I never found and I reached the point of just giving up and be satisfied with just the ones I had entered.

Then one morning (20 Sept) I was checking Facebook. I discovered a friend request from Sabra Awlad Issa.  I didn’t realize immediately that she was one of the artists only that she was friends with other artists, so I accepted her. That was when I discovered, I won a spot in “Paint Your Heart and Soul 2019”!

Sometimes signs/messages/answers come to us in ways that we may miss them or barely even notice them and we barely acknowledge them and most often forget about them. Then there are times when they come to us like a bolt of lightning or a two-by-four over the head or just so blatantly obvious we can’t ignore what we are being told. This is how I feel about winning the spot in “Paint Your Heart and Soul 2019”.

I hadn’t realized I was looking for a second answer regarding my art. I have always been creative and though I had doubts about how much time I would have to devote to my artwork, I didn’t doubt I would continue. This, however, was a sign to tell me it will continue to be a major part of my life.

Between the two answers I received, I understand the message being given to me. Work hard to get what I want. Stop doubting my abilities. But most of all be strong in my faith.

These past few years, I have felt like I was being buried alive. I have felt like I have no future and my existence on this earth has no meaning. I’m still not sure about the last part but at least I don’t feel like I’m being buried alive anymore. I have my work cut out for me. There might be gaps in posting because I have new priorities which I must not let slide. I might just post a piece of art once in a while but I can’t promise that because I love writing too and I feel like I need to write too if I post any art. Only time will tell what I’m inspired to do.

I am so thankful to God for all that He has done for me, especially this past week. I was so deep in my own darkness there was no light at all. But now…. now there is light and I’m hopeful but most of all I have faith and a direction to head towards.

❤ ❤ ❤

~Patti

Focus, mindset, learning and taking my time…

I am taking my time with this one and totally loving it.

I wasn’t sure if I would stay with the same color palette when I added color to the puppy. I am glad I did! I love how they are both developing. Other than the white acrylic paint I used to tone down the background, everything is done in watercolor with a bit of the Elegant Writer when I first start building shadows.

I feel like I need to talk about my state of mind the past month or so. I have made mention that I’m on the search for a new job. This is what has kept me distracted from my art and a bit off balance. It’s okay. It is important to allow our focus to shift to those things which are important in our lives. Though art is important, searching for a job and finding the right one that fits for me is even more important.

I have learned over the past few years, the importance of understanding who we are and what makes us tick. It has been an interesting deep dive. I knew I had artistic ability and I also knew I am very logical. After working in IT (information technology), I had grown to believe my logical side was the strongest and didn’t see the creative aspects I incorporated into my work. Since taking up pencil, paper, paint and pen again, I have come to realize I am equally creative and logical and have been using creativity to help me in my work. It is so easy to mistake creativity as just a product of what our logical mind is working on and not thinking of it as being creative at all. We can so easily overlook that our creativity is really supporting our logical thinking to help us find solutions or build new concepts.

I use logic to work through problems and creativity to find alternative solutions. It is an interesting balance. Logically, I step myself through a process of asking myself questions to hopefully reach a conclusion. If I don’t know something, then I know I need to do some research. Sometimes the research doesn’t follow a linear path or logical path. Creatively, I know I can explore this even deeper by experimenting and exploring things which may appear to have no connection whatsoever to what I want to learn.

Something I found interesting is, what happens, when I step away from an issue or something I am trying to learn or understand, with the intention of going back to it later. All I want to do is give my mind a bit of a rest, so I get involved in something that isn’t related to what I was working on. Then out of the blue, a connection will be made, a solution found, or an answer is given for that problem I had set aside for a bit. I have had this happen quite often and my brain does this happy little neuron dance when it does.

I have this pension towards learning. It surprises me sometimes, when I look back on all of my skills and the amount of knowledge I have. They were acquired through alternative learning. In other words, I didn’t learn them in the typical classroom setting, or through typical training through the company or companies I worked for. I found alternative resources, sometimes reading a book, sometimes watching a video online, sometimes just playing around with an application to see what I could discover and other times just talking with people. Then there are times when I’m playing a video game with my daughter, I discover something new which can send me down another avenue for learning something unexpected.

It frustrates me sometimes when businesses or potential employers filter out applications all because a person doesn’t have education credentials. I have taught my daughter that she can learn anything she wants to learn and she can do it on her own. She can choose to take a class, or read a book, or explore the various options available which provide the information she wants to learn and understand. For us, everyday life is an educational resource and education is a life long endeavor.

Why is it potential employers don’t see what this means for them in the potential employee who applies for the position they have advertised is available? This question has baffled me. When things baffle me, I research. I have also come to this conclusion. If a potential employer doesn’t recognize the brilliance within a person who is constantly evolving and learning through alternative methods, then we would not be a good fit anyway.

This just means it might take longer to find that perfect fit for us both (employer and employee) in my job search. That is okay. It means my focus might be shifted a bit and I might not progress as quickly as I have in the past on the pieces of artwork I am working on. That is fine. In fact, I am finding with this change in focus, I am not just more thoughtful in regards to my job search, I am also more thoughtful in regards to my artwork.

In learning to take chances in my job search, I am also learning to take more chances in my artwork. I love how changing my mindset in one area bleeds into my mindset in other areas and allows me to expand in ways I never dreamed possible.

What ways do you like to learn? Do you find your interest to learn is widespread or narrowly focused? I have to say my interests are widespread with no boundaries on what I like to learn and I learn through all my senses.

 

The completion, a new beginning and hope for a new connection…

My focus comes and goes in regards to my art. It is just about 5 days short of a month since my last post and I haven’t felt like I accomplished anything even though that isn’t really true.  It is difficult to remain focused when it feels like the world around me is falling apart. This is what prompted my latest art journal spread. I wrote a bit about it in my previous post when I started it and it has taken me almost a month to complete it. Here is the completed spread:

The flowers are a collage of flowers from napkins. I added a bit of white acrylic paint for highlights on them and her hair and face. I added more layers to her face to create more depth. Most of it is watercolor, some of it is mixed with white acrylic paint. I didn’t make any notes on the process and because of the frame of mind I’ve been in over the past month, I don’t remember the different steps I took.

On a previous spread, I had tried to work with watercolors similar to CeeCee in her videos but it came out just looking splotchy. I let it sit while I worked on the above spread and returned to it after it was completed.

To try and create a background on which I could work on because the current background was too bold, I used white acrylic paint with a really wet brush and brushed it over the watercolor. In the image on the left, you can get an idea of what the background looked like after it dried and the sketch I did on one side of the spread.

The next image is of the whole spread, after I started adding color. I started with the Elegant Writer pen and using a water brush to blend it out to create some shadow. I wasn’t happy with it so I decided to try watercolor. I am often surprised how well watercolor (Prang) works over the white acrylic paint that is painted over a watercolor layer. Because I use a really wet brush with acrylic paint, the watercolor layer reactivates a bit, so what happens is the watercolor mixes a bit with the acrylic paint. The acrylic paint I use is a really cheap white paint from the dollar store. Maybe that is why using watercolor on top of it after it is dry, works so well. The water and watercolor doesn’t bead up when applying over the dried layer. I really love that it works that way. I know people say that using watercolor on top of dried acrylic doesn’t work very well and maybe a layer of watercolor ground would be needed but not in this case.

The puppy on the right side appeared to me from the shapes in the background. I drew the outline of the puppy first before sketching a face. I make decisions as I go, so at this point, I have no idea where this will go, other than I’ll probably continue to use the same process of Elegant Writer and then watercolor mostly so it will appear cohesive. I am leaning towards using the same colors throughout but we’ll see what happens.

The below image is something I am working on periodically. It started with spraying the page with watered down acrylic paint and Tulip Fabric Dye. Some of my spray bottles are slightly clogged which creates the larger splatters. Once it was dry, I used my compass with a pencil and drew overlapping circles. I am currently coloring in the shapes using Prisma Premier Colored pencils. Other than selecting the colors to use in a shape, the choice of shape to use the colors in, is fairly random. Where this will go from here is anyone’s guess.

To elaborate a bit on what I wrote about in the first paragraph, I’ll mention a bit about my life. Right now it feels like it is in shambles if I’m given any time at all where I can sit still to reflect upon my life. Being laid off work over two years ago is still affecting me. It has been extremely difficult to find a job that will pay enough to pay my bills without having to pull from my retirement money. This leaves me frightened as to what will happen when that money runs out. Focusing on art is difficult at best with this always hovering over me.

Sometimes, life has a way of reminding us of things we need to pay attention to. In my job search, I remembered the saying that goes something like this which is credited to Albert Einstein “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results”. When I remembered this, I realized that is what I was doing in my job hunting. With that in mind, I started taking a bookkeeping course so I could add it to my resume and hopefully provide some credentials which will come to someone’s notice when applying for jobs. I hoped too that doing this on my own would show a future employer of my willingness to expand my skills and I have the initiative to do so on my own.

I am about half way through the bookkeeping course and have enjoyed every minute of it. In fact, I was running so high on the enjoyment and excitement of doing something that quite frankly excited my brain cells that at the half way point when I decided to give myself a couple days off, I dropped so suddenly, it was hard to recover. Now I’m taking it at a much better pace while still enjoying what I’m learning.

The hardest thing for me to do is to find enjoyment in life when I have pressing concerns weighing me down. I find it very difficult to focus on my art when I am in such a state of mind. I have read some people say how art helps them through times like this. I think it does for me as well, at least when I am able to set my concerns aside and let myself sink into my art. I’m working on trying to find ways to do that more often. I know it would help tremendously if I were able to find that one job which would provide not just the financial relief I need but also create a connection which would bring meaning back into my life. I applied for one job which I hope will do just that because it would help me support alternative learning for those who want a better way of life. What could be more meaningful than that for someone who loves learning and sharing what they learn?

 

Handmade stencils and life

I’ve been working on designing and creating my own stencils. In my previous post I wrote about two of those designs.  Since then I created two more designs and cut them out. Then I did a test to see how well they worked.

Below are pictures of the stencils after I tested them.

The blue stencil (crosses) was cut out of a Casemate Index Divider. These are 8 1/2 in. x 11 in. letter size dividers which are generally used in notebooks. This divider is very thin and therefore quite flimsy. During testing this divider lifted a lot when dabbing with a makeup sponge which made it difficult to have clean edges (the paint got under the stencil). I also needed to have less paint on my makeup sponge.

The other three stencils were cut out of Avery Insertable Plastic Dividers. These are also 8 1/2 in. x 11 in. letter size dividers. They are thicker than the Casemate Index Divider. During testing these stencils stayed in place better and didn’t lift as easily when dabbing with a makeup sponge.

Here are pictures of the tests I did. I first spread a layer of acrylic paint over the page. Then I used black paint with the first two stencils.

The third stencil I used white paint. It was a bit thinner than the black paint but also this stencil is the one that was cut out of the thinner divider material. I wasn’t as careful as I should have been when applying the paint which is why the edges are sloppy.

The fourth test is a bit harder to see but shows up nicely on the white paint. I wanted to see how they would look layered and I like the effect. I used a magenta acrylic paint.

What I learned from these stencils is I prefer the Avery dividers over the cheaper Casemate dividers for making stencils. I cut them out using a box cutter. I like the control I have over the larger handle of the box cutter and it was easier on my hands and wrist than a craft knife. Maybe in the future I’ll see if I can use my jpeg images of these stencils with my Silhouette to cut them out of actual stencil material. However, I have found hand cutting them is relaxing, enjoyable and a good mental distraction.

I like the idea of using just portions of these stencils for layering backgrounds as well as using them with my homemade gelli plate. I have several other stencil designs which I’ll be working on and cutting out over the next several weeks.

Unfortunately, this is about all I have accomplished since my last post. Life is taking precedence. Even when I have a few moments to be creative, it is difficult to focus. Creating the geometric designs and mandala type designs for my stencils helps to bring some creativity into my life and helps me to feel like I’m not avoiding my artwork entirely.

Tonight, as I write, this is really the first time I’ve picked up any paints since my last post where I had worked with watercolor. The reason for that isn’t easy to reveal. Sometimes I get in an emotional place where I have a difficult time finding any energy to work with paints. When I’m in such a place, all I want is for things to go well. Paints and I have this unstable relationship right now where I tend to go dark with them and then don’t know what to do next. This creates a sort of anxiety stress, so when I’m in an emotionally stressful place, I just don’t want to add any more stress. I, therefore, try and avoid it.

Of late, I’ve been on shaky ground. A lot of life requirements which could no longer be put off are causing stress and anxiety. Any little additional stress just compounds the situation. This is why I haven’t done much with paints lately. Drawing geometric shapes and mandalas help to de-stress me or at least give me a break from the stressors in life which I feel I have no control over.

I am trying to learn to let go. This isn’t easy for me. However, life/God/the Universe has a way of forcing the issue.

After I did the tests with my stencils I decided to play around with the page. In the process when trying to splatter some black paint, I ended up dropping the bottle and spilling a good amount of the paint on the page. Trust me when I say the amount of paint spilled had me just looking at my page and thinking I couldn’t make it any worse. Therefore, I thought what the heck and I decided to add water, let it run around the page a bit as I tilted it in all different directions, then blotted it with a paper towel. The resulting pattern in the black paint was fascinating.

What I didn’t tell you is I had kept the cutouts from the stencils. I thought some of them might make a good mask, especially the large and medium size crosses and the other odd shapes could be used with my gelli plate to make some interesting patterns.

When I was trying to decide what to do about all that black, I laid down the cross stencil over the page and really liked the patterns I saw in the large cross. This gave me the idea to try using the cutout of the large cross as a mask and sponge white paint around the outside of it. I did this three times. Then I used a wet wipe with some white paint to try and soften the edges.  I used a section of the cross stencil to paint some black crosses around the lower part of the page. I’m starting to like the page so I know I’m not done with it  yet. I did decide however to set it aside for now since it is around 1am.

I was wondering how my choice in reading and studying the bible would influence my creativity. I knew it would, just wasn’t sure how long or in what way. Therefore, I’m not surprised it has, just a bit surprised it is doing so already with having only started my studies just shy of a month ago.

I want to write a bit about how my studies are going so far. I’m up to Chapter 27 in Genesis. I have found that using McGee’s recordings in “Thru the Bible” series inspires me to study the scripture deeper. I am almost always mentally challenging McGee’s interpretation and I’ll admit I often do not agree with him. I am not sure if it is because of my lack of knowledge of the rest of the bible or if it is because he and I are very different people.

Listening to his recordings does two things. It reminds me why I don’t attend church and because they are recordings I can first read the scripture, then listen to the recordings, and then read the scripture again, looking at it deeper to hear what it is telling me. And I can replay the recordings or go back to certain parts of the recording to help me understand why I feel a certain way about what he says. I can’t do this when attending church and just listening to a sermon leaves me with feelings that I don’t understand and at a loss as to what to do with them. I’m realizing I need to take things apart, digest them and put them back together again in a way that makes sense to me. Thereby, creating my own interpretation.

For example, McGee speaks about the description given of Esau and Jacob. The bible describes Esau as a hairy man and Jacob as a smooth man. For those who don’t know, Esau and Jacob are twin brothers. McGee compared Esau to being like a caveman or a hippie. What one needs  to remember is McGee’s recordings started in 1967 for Thru the Bible and I keep this in mind when I listen to his recordings. He considered Esau like a hippie because from his perspective hippies were hairy (they had long hair) and didn’t bathe much. I guess in his eyes he felt cavemen and hippies to be very similar. I would disagree with this but I do so from the perspective of someone who was born in 1960.

I sometimes feel McGee has a closed mind. His comments regarding books outside of the bible and hippies are just two examples. When I read the description of Esau and Jacob, my interpretation was more of Esau being a man with a lot more body hair like some men have today, while Jacob had much less body hair like other men today.  I believe the description was meant to emphasize how different the two brothers were, not just in thought but also in physical form. Knowing they are twin brothers without this description might lead us to believe they were more alike than they were, so the description aids us in understanding the deeper nature of their conflict. To go even deeper is the fact that there is also a mention of Rebekah, their mother, feeling the strife between them even as she carried them prior to their birth. I don’t believe Esau was anything like a caveman or a hippie. This is where McGee and I disagree on a fundamental level.

I remember as a child being told the the reason the bible is considered a living bible is because everyone who reads and studies it will receive their own interpretation or  understanding of what the scriptures mean to them. Therefore, I use McGee’s recordings as a catalyst. Without that catalyst, I have no doubt my attempt to study the bible would end like all the other times I tried and gave up. This time is very different from the other times and I find myself drawn towards my studies first thing after waking if I have a couple hours available before going to work. I also find myself drawn to study more than one chapter at a time even if I’m short on time. I try not to do so because I don’t want to feel rushed. I’m both surprised and fascinated that this is happening.

In other news, last week, my daughter and I needed to go into Vancouver. While there we decided to go to the Vancouver Art Gallery. It was our first time there. I am so glad we went. I got to see my very first Monet.

I was thrilled knowing I was standing in front of an actual Monet. I tried not to be disappointed. I couldn’t understand why I was disappointed. When I looked at it, I was left with a feeling that maybe it had lost its luster. It seemed dull or a bit out of focus when I looked at it and thought about other paintings but this is probably due to my lack of knowledge on Monet paintings. I have done a bit of research since then and discovered Monet did several paintings of the same subject in various conditions. I have no doubt the feelings invoked by the painting weren’t in fact disappointment but my reaction to the subject matter and the subdued nature of it.

What fascinated me even more about our trip through the art gallery was the exhibition “The Octopus Eats Its Own Leg” and my reaction to it. I don’t think I could do it justice in describing what it was about the exhibit that fascinated me. I could probably look at just one of the paintings for hours because of all the layers and fine details, and OMG the bright colors and patterns. My mind was blown away. All I could think was ‘how does he do that?!?!’ over and over again as I looked closer. In truth, when looking at the paintings at a distance the subject matter didn’t really fascinate me. It wasn’t until I got up close and saw the details. That is when the fascination kicked in.

I am so glad we went to Vancouver when we did and took the time to go to the art gallery. I’m enjoying my studies. Work is okay, I still enjoy interacting with all the people. Even though all of this seems to be going well, mentally I’m not in a good place right now. I honestly do not know how people do it. How do they live pay check to pay check trying to feed their family if they are only making minimum wage? Maybe it is worse for me because I had a really good paying job that I took for granted. All I can think about sometimes is that it should be a crime for people who work to not get paid enough to support themselves.

I saw a sign at a company once where I knew they paid minimum wage to the workers on the front line, which stated they supported a program to end child hunger. My first thought was, “then pay your workers enough so they can feed their children!”. Minimum wage doesn’t pay enough to enable the employee to support themselves let alone a family. It makes me sick when I think about it. I can’t tell you how helpless I feel to do anything about our current situation which if it doesn’t change could be quite devastating. And yet I know there are people who are in worse situations which I cannot even fathom right now. It scares me to death to think we could end up in one of those worse situations. I need to have some things done around the house but I’m afraid to spend the money and yet I know if I don’t those things could and will get worse. So, in a few weeks I’ll bite the bullet, find out how much it will cost, and spend the money.

I stopped writing this last night and went to bed. It was getting so late and I needed some distance to decide if I wanted to include all that I had written so far. I needed a fresh mind. At first, I thought I would delete a good bit of what I wrote since the intention of this blog was to be about my artwork. As I consider what I had written and whether I should delete anything, I ask myself, “Would I be denying the real artist within me by omitting anything I have written?” Yes, some of it is very personal. However, I cannot separate the rest of my life from my life as an artist. When I go out into the world, I do so as an artist. When I sit down to do a painting or drawing, I do so with the weight of my life and all that has influenced me, good and bad. Therefore, if I am to be true in my writing about being an artist, I need to include all areas of my life because no matter what it all influences what I create.

I also have to remember, I am not just an artist who draws or paints, I am also an artist who writes and a writer who is an artist. Writing helps me to process and that includes this blog.

When I worked or rather played around with my page last night, I got my hands into it. I had used a gift card for the first layer in spreading the paint I had dribbled all over the page in a haphazard manner. I can’t use a makeup sponge to dab on paint through a stencil or around a mask and not get paint on my fingers. I wasn’t liking how the splotches of color looked when I tried to add some layer of colors so I just started dribbling on paint and haphazardly smearing it around with my fingers. I didn’t use a brush at all on this page. The closest thing I used was a makeup sponge, a wet wipe and the gift card to move paint around. I still have some paint on me this morning. 🙂  Yes, I’m normally very fastidious about not getting too much paint on me and when I do to then get every bit off of me.

I am both fascinated and fearful of the changes which I am experiencing in my life. It is a scary place to be in right now. If it was just me, I think it wouldn’t be so frightening. Knowing I have the responsibility of my daughter and I am her sole support compounds the fear. Knowing I have a breaking point has me very weary and watchful that I avoid that breaking point at all costs. It is obvious I’m seeking answers, a resolution and a way through to a life that is less stressful or anxiety driven. For now, I’m doing what I can, which might mean that art takes a back seat if I have to work a second job to make ends meet.

If you have made it this far through my rambling and spilling out of my life, thank you. You are appreciated. Thanks for being here. ❤ ❤ ❤

~Patti

The art of “what if”…

This week, since my last post, has been busy with work. Those who work as a cashier where standing on your feet for an 8 hour shift is part of their job, know how exhausting it can be. In four days, I worked three 8 hour shifts. Going into my 8th month my body is finally becoming accustomed to it. My feet ached but only for a couple hours after getting home. My energy levels were fine which meant cooking dinner wasn’t an impossible chore and my muscles and tendons didn’t lock up on me after sitting for thirty minutes at a time. In those 8 months I have gradually lost 15 pounds. This is all wonderful, exciting and a testament to the resilient nature of our bodies, minds and spirits.

These 8 months have also taught me the importance of making time for what is important in our lives. It has also taught me to allow my fifteen year old daughter to find her own way while still being the parent she needs.

This week I started just watching the videos for the art classes I have, mainly the videos in Life Book 2018 and stop trying to do every lesson. I watch the videos and think about how I can incorporate some of the techniques into my own artwork. With this in mind I decided to play a bit. One of the questions I like to play around with is how watercolor and acrylic paint can work together.

I love watercolor. I love seeing how watercolor flows on the paper and observe the colors bleed and blend into one another. Unfortunately I didn’t take pictures of the different steps I took on this page:

I did start another one where I am taking pictures which I’ll talk about shortly.

This page started with a background in watercolor. The colors that resulted are what you see in the flowers. I let the page dry completely. The page was overly dark/bright and I knew trying to do any tangles would be difficult to see. I decided to try and tone down areas by applying white acrylic paint. I watered down the white acrylic paint a bit and applied it. When I did, of course, the watercolor reactivated and blended with the acrylic paint. In some places it became muddy. I continued to work leaving some spaces untouched which I planned to make into abstract flowers.

As the mixture of acrylic and watercolor paints started drying I continued applying acrylic paint selecting some other colors, like yellow, orange, and green. In some cases, I mixed some of the colors together, like yellow and green, orange and yellow, sometimes adding white to lighten the colors and adding water when I wanted to thin the paint. Sometimes I would mix it in a bowl and sometimes I would mix it on the page. I continued this process until I had a background I loved and the untouched areas popped more off the page. I let this completely dry.

The next step involved a Uni-ball Signo black pen. This isn’t permanent even when dry but that was okay because I wanted to use water to create some shading effects after I put down the ink. I used the pen to roughly sketch around the watercolor areas that were untouched by the acrylic paint. Then created sketchy stems and leaves. I let the ink dry a bit then took a water brush to the ink. I didn’t want to completely erase the dark lines so I just touched upon the ink enough to cause it to bleed a bit creating some shading. Again I let it dry.

Another “what if” question came up. What if I put watercolor over top of the dry acrylic. I’ve done this before and in some cases it would bead up because it doesn’t absorb into the substrate. The acrylic paint I used was a cheap craft paint called Craft Smart. It leaves an almost chalky appearance and feel which is why I think beading wasn’t a huge issue. Where it did bead up I didn’t mind. I used watercolor to color in the leaves, except for the rare blue ones on the top left flower stem. The bluish leaves are actually an area from the first layer of watercolor background which wasn’t touched by acrylic paint. One of the few places where the paint was a soft pastel color. The color in the rest of the leaves are a result of watercolor on top of the dry acrylic paint. I added watercolor down the stems, at the bottom of the page for grass, in the petals of the flowers, using a variety of colors to create the effect I wanted. I let this dry completely.

Most of these steps done between the drying periods were done before or after work when I had an hour or two. Today, I added just a touch of more watercolor in a few areas just to add some additional shading and a bit more grass on the bottom of the page.

I’m not done with this page yet. I have plans to add some white highlights but I’m waiting for a set of detail brushes I ordered. I am pretty much done with trying to find paint pens that work for fine details. I have gone through several varieties of paint pens, Posca, Painters, Sakura Permapaque, and Craftsmart, just to name a few. All of them have failed me in various ways for what I need when I want to add white details. They either let the background color bleed through them so the white isn’t bright enough, or the tips have issues like leaving blobs of paint where I don’t want it, or they clog or fall out completely. With my strict budget I can’t keep buying products hoping they will work so I’m going to rely on the old faithful brush which can be used with paint and ink.

One of the issues I had when working on this page was at the very start. I added too many different colors for the background which is why in a few areas when I added the watered down acrylic white paint it became muddy. On the page next to the one above I started a new page and decided to limit my colors to yellow, oranges and reds for the first layer. Here is what I have so far:

There is blue around the edge, that came from paint when I was working on a previous page when I failed to put paper towel under the page I was working on. It looks like there is blue in the background of the page but that is actually white. It is untouched by any paint at this point. Interesting that it looks blue in the picture. I kind of like it so after this layer is dry I may try adding some light blue in watercolor.

I tried to go lighter with the watercolors on this page. I get too heavy handed when I work with the Prang watercolors. I love how vibrant they are. As much as I love the vibrancy it is an issue when I want to add any details, plus I want to learn how to get a more pastel effect which is another reason why I’m playing the “what if” strategy with my journal right now.

The rest of my life is also a “what if” sort of game. “What if” I do this or that, or think this or that, or…. and it goes on. I want to understand why life works one way for some people and another way for other people. It is an interesting experiment in both art and life. I entered into Life Book because I felt a need to find a way to heal. Even so, I felt something was still lacking. Don’t get me wrong. I love the lessons. I love what I’m learning. I love that I can use art IN THE MOMENT to release, to let go, and to alter negative into positive. I wanted to expand on this further and this is where I felt the lessons stopped, at least for someone like me who can sometimes have trouble using lessons as a base or foundation and then expanding upon them. It has taken me a while to find what I was looking for but without these lessons and life experiences over the past ten or fifteen years I would not have come up with what I’m experimenting with now.

There are many different processes being shared in the world today. Some of them are about how to become successful, others about how to attract what you desire, or how to be happy and so on. I believe it is important to share all of this with each other. However, as a person who has been trying to find her own way in life, these processes have one thing in common. They work for the person sharing it and may work for others but it doesn’t work for everyone.

I’ve been struggling with understanding why that is. I have come to a sort of conclusion today. It is probably only a partial understanding or conclusion. My conclusion so far is this. Everyone has to understand how they interact and connect with the Universe.

It is very much like working with various artist supplies and tools. What works for one in a certain way doesn’t necessarily mean it will work that way for someone else. To make it work for me, I had to find my connection with the Universe. For some people it is praying. For others it is meditating. For me, it is how I have always seen things with my mind since before I can remember.

I was led to understand this today. I read something that resonated with me, which opened me up to listening to a recording made years ago in which someone was explaining how they understood something. This person is the only person who explained things in the way I understood as well. I know I’m being vague about this. I don’t generally share my beliefs with the world. It isn’t my beliefs that I want to share anyway. The fact that after all these years, and at my age, I have only found one person who has expressed an understanding so very similar to mine is an important thing in and of itself.  It means everyone has their own truth to understand and that truth isn’t the same for everyone. In fact it might be very rare indeed.

What I want to share is this. When I stopped fighting against the Universe and it’s way of interacting with me is when I gain the most understanding. When I stopped fighting against the way art supplies and tools interact with me is when I learn the most about what works for me and what doesn’t. When I leave myself open to the connection I have where information flows and utilize this to explore is when the world changes around me. But more importantly it changes through me first. You can’t change the world around you without first changing something inside of you.

I am a member of a lot of art groups on Facebook. In every single one of them, there are people who ask for set answers to their questions. What is the right product to use for this or that lesson? What is the right pen… What is the right paper… What should I do first… What…. How…. When should I do such and such…. and so on. The questions are good. It is good to question. Don’t ever think I’m criticizing someone for asking questions. I’m not. Some people are limited financially so they need to know what product works best so they aren’t spending money on a product only to find out it doesn’t work and then having to spend more money on another product and so on. I get that.

What I’ve learned over the past couple of years but more importantly what I learned most recently is this. You will always be seeking answers from someone else until something changes inside of you. “What if” there is a knowledge base we are all connected to and that knowledge base is updated from every single person’s conscious and subconscious mind? “What if” we are able to connect to it and by just listening and experimenting with what we hear, we are able to learn everything we ever needed to know? “What if” that connection is different for everyone? For someone, it could be in story telling. For someone else it might be in creating art. For someone else it might be working with numbers. For some it might be prayer, or meditation. Or for others it might be by visualizing a connection to everything and anything.

I don’t know where it comes from but I like the phrase “Fabric of the Universe” or “Fabric of Time”. The use of the word Fabric in both phrases make me visualize the Universe or time as a woven fabric but not as a single layer but multiple layers in all directions. In that fabric everything exists and is connected otherwise it would all fall apart. If one part becomes torn, lost or worn out, it can weaken and cause the rest to start to unravel. This is why it is important for all of us to find that connection, open ourselves up to it and allow knowledge to flow through us and out into the world. When that connection is broken is when we find ourselves fighting, struggling and falling apart. When that connection is made it brings strength and flexibility to the Fabric.

It is amazing to me how allowing creativity into my life is slowly altering my perception of reality. I have read where some artists use acrylics and oils together, two mediums I never thought could work together in one piece of art. If this is possible in art, then what are we capable of in this world if we just stop thinking things are impossible and start playing “what if”?

“What if” I create a force of energy around me that attracts beauty, love, abundance and harmony? “What if” I create a shield which repels hate, anger, toxicity and destruction? “What if”…. fill in the blanks. Find what works for you. Share in the comments, maybe it will spark something in someone else. Nature doesn’t hold back on the “what if”. It doesn’t ask “what if” I mix red and blue. It just does it. It does it so well we see a never ending kaleidoscope of purple hues in this world. Think about that for a moment. If nature or God (depending on your belief) had stopped with the “what if” or limited the “what if” then maybe humans wouldn’t have existed.

Only you can decide if you want to play “what if”…

The madness of being a rock…

I’m not sure where this post will end up. I have a feeling I will spill more onto this page than people might want to hear. My intention for this blog is to talk about my journey as an artist but a person can’t do that without spilling their guts about other aspects of life because an artist can’t create art without life getting on the page or into the paint or ink or whatever medium is used.

I started this bear over two weeks ago.

About a week ago, on February 23rd, I finished him.

On February 22nd, while waiting on portions of my bear to dry, I read an article, Creative Tarot Journaling Made Easy. I decided to select a prompt and give it a try.

After completing the bear, I decided to create my alternative version to him in my own style.

This is still a work in progress. It is taking much longer to complete than anticipated.

There is a story between all these layers. I can’t talk about these three pieces without filling in the story which exists between the layers. The layers represent the many layers which are occurring in my life. Mixed media art or any art for that matter isn’t just laying down layers of paint and then creating an image on the page. Every piece of art, no matter the medium, has the artist’s life interwoven within it. Unless you are an artist it might be difficult to comprehend exactly what I’m trying to express here. I’ll try but I’m afraid I might fail at really helping non-artists (if there really are any non-artists, everyone is creative in their own way) to understand.

I have had to learn to give myself some space in regards to working on my projects. What that means is, if I’m feeling resistance then I back off. Resistance comes in many forms and sometimes it is difficult to know the source of the resistance. I have to discover what that source is in order to move forward. Then, sometimes, moving forward takes time because there maybe a need to process something before I can release it into my artwork.

On February 14th, I heard some not so good news. It wasn’t awful but it has created a bit of friction emotionally for me. The news is that the income I’m receiving in my current job isn’t enough. This has triggered a return of anxiety which so far is manageable. That anxiety is rooted in varying aspects of my past, from childhood, to several relationships the worst being the last relationship I had, to fighting breast cancer, to being laid off and to the last of having trouble just getting a job. Knowing I need to go back to job hunting is also triggering depression. This has also taken the joy out of the job I’ve been doing. I thought it would be enough. To find out it isn’t has not been easy to accept.

The bear is my version of Tam’s Compassionate Bear lesson in Life Book 2018. The Universe has a way of timing things perfectly, for this lesson could not have come at a better time. It reminds me to be compassionate with myself, especially now after hearing the news and each time I apply for any jobs that are posted.  It is difficult to remain compassionate as the weeks go by without any calls for interviews. It is even more difficult to not allow emotions to surface relating to not being good enough. When I wrote in the previous paragraph that the job wasn’t enough, it made me realize that what I heard when I received the news was that I wasn’t good enough. Even though I know this is not true, old emotions arise from my past when circumstances made me feel that way.

There are so many emotions being triggered right now, some of them can be overwhelming. I could have written so many things on my Compassionate Bear and all of them would have felt fake even though they might be true. The one thing that felt true and seemed to put my unrest at ease was “You are loved.”

I posted this bear on the Life Book Facebook group and realized when I looked at the picture that he also looks a bit like a mouse. An interesting combination because though mice seem small and delicate they are quick and cunning. Bears may appear slow but they are strong and dangerous.

These are things I didn’t think about until just now, which is why I love to write about my art and my life together. I find insights like these which can help me deal with “life”. I have always felt an affinity towards bears because of my last name. There could not be two more opposite creatures, the bear and the mouse, and yet somehow they seem to fit together within my Gemini personality. I will be the first to admit that I have opposing forces strong within me which can make me appear to be a very complicated person. This might be why my individual style seems to be focused around mandalas which help me combine these forces into a central focus.

The hard part the past few weeks has been to not let the news suck me down into the emotional turmoil I felt for a year and a half after hearing the news of the workforce reduction I was caught up in. They don’t like using the words lay off anymore. Like a change of wording can make a person feel any better about such a situation. No it isn’t for the people being laid off to feel better. It is to make those making the decision to lay off workers feel better or not so bad. Okay, I went there. I didn’t mean to go there. But it hurts. I’m angry still after two years. And the news just reawakened all of those feelings.

Consequently, working on my art has been in small doses. I work on something for a bit, like on the bear, I would do a layer and then let it dry. Most times I let it dry far longer than it needed to. Meaning it was dry long before I returned to it.

During one of the breaks, the choice to do the Tarot drawing and then an art journal page on it was a good choice.

The prompt I chose was important to me. During a time when I was not feeling happy, I needed a reminder of what does make me happy. I don’t want to say I was surprised by the cards I pulled. Rather, I was, intrigued by what they confirmed.

My intent was to pull just one card but as things often happen with me, my intent isn’t what needed to happen. The Universe took over and I ended up with two cards in my hand. When I flipped them over at the same time, the first thing I noticed was they were both Major Arcana cards, IV The Emperor, and XVII The Star. I won’t go into my complete reading of these cards, some of it is too personal. I will tell you a bit about it because I feel it is important in regards to my current situation and my art journey.

What I came to understand from the cards is my happiness comes from balance, stability, reason, logic, harmony and hope. I put these things in overlapping large circles on my page because they all influence each other in one way or another. I used to listen to people who said I ‘think’ too much. When they would say this, I took it as a bad thing, and that my reasoning, and my logic were bad parts of myself which I needed to tone down or find a way to not rely on so much and learn to be less of these things in my life. Consequently, I fought against them. I would use logic and reasoning to understand something and then I would try and use a not so logical way of overcoming a situation or problem. Until I did this Tarot drawing, I didn’t realize how much logic and reasoning brought me happiness.  I also didn’t realize how much logic and reasoning also inspired hope.

I found it interesting to also note that my 2018 word ‘balance’ showed up. It makes sense that harmony and stability are part of my happiness. Those words just seem to go along with balance for me this year and have shown up in previous artwork since I chose the word balance.

What this reading did for me was tell me to stop fighting against the things I do naturally. To allow my instincts to guide me. I have always known that when I’m faced with a challenge my first instinct is to let logic and reasoning take over. I need to understand the situation and the best way I know how to do that is by use of logic and reasoning. Fighting against it means I throw myself into turmoil which just amplifies the emotions which I relate to stress. I end up feeling like my life is beyond my control.

The smaller circles on this page represent elements in my life that make me happy. I have a few more things to add to this page which will be other elements which can influence my happiness. They will end up being words that float around in the white space.

I enjoyed this exercise using Tarot cards and I may do more of them.

This is my current work in progress. It is my alternative piece for the Compassionate Bear lesson. When I started it, all I knew was I would start it using the grid method I use for drawing mandalas and at its center I wanted a heart. The heart would represent the ‘You are loved’ statement on the bear. What I like about this design is I can add writing around the design if I feel the need to do so.

All of these pieces are done with Prang watercolor paint. The yellow however is Daler Rowney watercolor. I ran out of the Prang yellow so I substituted a Daler Rowney yellow from one of the yellows in the Simply watercolor tube set I have.

I’ll briefly describe the process for each:

Compassionate Bear: sketched in pencil on watercolor paper. I wanted a happy multi-colored bear so I used purples, blues, blue-green, yellow, magenta, green and white watercolor. India ink and dip pen for the black sketchy outline and marks, and tried some India ink using a brush for shading which was a bit tricky and I ended up layering over some of it with more watercolor because I didn’t like how it turned out. The white is either acrylic white paint or Uni-ball Signo broad gel pen.

What Makes Me Happy?:  Tombow markers for the title lettering. Using pencil and compass I created the circles, then Prang watercolor to fill them in and Tombow markers around the edges to define the edges better. Uni-ball AIR black pen for the words inside the circles. I’ll use the same pen when I add any words or phrases in the background.

Alternative to Compassionate Bear: using painters tape, taped the watercolor paper down to hardboard, thoroughly wet the paper and randomly added Prang watercolor paint, yellow, orange, red, red-orange and magenta. Let it dry completely. Using pencil, compass, and ruler lightly drew in a mandala grid. Pigma micron pen, permanently drew in the shapes I wanted that I had drawn in pencil in the grid, then added in patterns within the shapes using the same micron pen (size 01 or 03). I erased any pencil lines I didn’t want or need anymore. I am currently at the stage of using Prisma Colored Pencils to add shading and color to the various patterns. This always takes the longest.

As I stated earlier, I may add some writing around the design to support the ‘compassionate’ nature of this piece. I don’t really plan these pieces, they develop as I work on them. They sort of let me know what needs to be done next. Sometimes the next step doesn’t always make sense to me and I fight against it, like the blue I am adding now. It didn’t make sense when I felt the need to do it but somehow it works, even though there isn’t blue anywhere else in the piece.

I’m currently in an emotional place which feels like I’m struggling both artistically and in every day life and work. I try to tell myself that I am exactly where I am supposed to be right now but it feels like a platitude. I feel like I’ll never get ahead and the reason for that is years and years of neglect and wasting the resources I had available to me. I would say more but I’m afraid I would sound like a whining brat and that isn’t where I am right now, or I  hope I’m not.

I guess what I’m trying to say is for some reason the Universe feels the need to put me through this turmoil when all I want in my life is peace and harmony. What I’m thinking right now is maybe what I’m supposed to learn is peace and harmony are always present even in the turmoil. Am I able to be that rock in the middle of a raging river and let the turmoil flow around me, letting the friction shape me into what I need to be even at the risk of being unseated? Ever wonder how the rocks got there in the first place? Some of them look like they were just plunked down in the middle of the river, while others look like they grew right out of the riverbed. In school, we learn they were there all along, appearing slowly over time as the water slowly eroded the soil and gravel around them.

I sometimes wonder how many artists really think about how their lives appear in their artwork or how their artwork helps them to understand their lives. Or do they paint or draw because if they don’t they will go mad?