Sunday afternoon/evening. Myra is sleeping, Sam is snoozing on the couch. And the creative urges I have been sitting on, keeping them locked down, need to break free. I need to paint and draw and write, I feel like I won't feel settled today unless I do. I started creative writing Friday night, and like always, once I open the door a little, everything creative wants to come out.

I don't know why sometimes I feel afraid of being creative. It soothes me, it makes me happy. It makes me feel...good. Alive. And yet, I sit on it a lot. I'm trying to work on that.





With Sam asleep, I figured it would be a good time to start playing. He didn't bother me while I was drawing a tree with hot pink flowers that is everywhere down here, or when I was drawing my favorite foot bridge that I see on my way to work every day.

But Sam is apparently a painter. He had to help, check out my paints, see how I was mixing colors.





I haven't picked up paints in a very long time. I decided it was more important to play and put colors to paper instead of worrying it's not good. I think that is part of why I don't paint much. I love it, but I don't really know how to do it, or I don't know how to do it the way other people do. But just playing with colors, blending white into my swirly blues and greens, trying to make my heart have wings, it felt really good. So I guess I shouldn't worry about not doing it right.






It says: Let your soul and spirit fly free.

Painting, drawing and writing seem to do that for me.

Hrm. The painting is actually much more vibrant, and the photos in iphoto look brighter and richer. Not sure why they seem flatter on the blog.

computer painting!

Tim found this great tool, where you can paint and draw on your computer, and the colors actually mix like real paints, you can use a palette knite to spread things out, all kinds of cool things. I downloaded the free version, and the full version is only $20. One of the cool features is that you can trace an image.

I just tried to upload one of the paintings I did, tracing a pic of myra, but it is saying it is not the right format. I'll play around with it to see if I can get it to upload. But it is super fun!

The coolest part is that it will help with my painting and drawing. I love painting and drawing, but it takes me awhile to feel comfortable with the paper, with the paint, with what I'm doing. So I always start out safe, drawing stuff like trees and flowers and such. But I don't want to "mess up" or try something harder but not know how to finish or what I need to do to make it better.

But now I can draw and paint without wasting any paint or paper, and I can just erase and start over if I want to. I think this will give me more confidence to branch out (har har) away from trees and into new things.

Check it out here: www.ambientdesign.com/artrage.html

overall, a quiet weekend

Yesterday was class, then shopping at the Paper Zone for Christmas card making supplies (wheee! Love that store), then almost two frickkin hours grocery shopping. I am thinking strongly about grocery delivery, going to the two or three stores I need to go to is just too time consuming.

Today was my mellow, lounge, crafty day. Made my first batch of christmas cards, and I'm really pleased with how they came out. Read some of the Voyage of the Dawn Treader, third in the Narnia series, and generally lounged about in jammies for most of the day. To my mind, that is exactly how a Sunday should be spent.

Now for some exercising, dinner and then maybe watch a movie with the boy. Purrrrr.