ADDICTIONS

FIGHTING THEM ALL THE WAY... addictions
(blogger is going bananas with the spacing - sorry!)

I've given you a tangent of pictures below.  The first set is my "scribble till you dribble" style, the second a picture drawn by my daughter, which is "in progress," and the 3rd...some color and excitement...to lighten up the mood!

I have 3 addictions that are killers for me, so hard to battle; I have battled them all my life and they are murderous on my physical, emotional, mental and spiritual health.

They are Sugar (the Cocaine of the 40's - refer to The Sugar Blues book), Wheat, and Dairy. Sweets emit the same pain in my legs that runners get after a marathon or extreme exercisers get after a workout without a good stretch before and after. Wheat gives me the 3 month pregnant feel and look (refer to The Wheat Belly) and Dairy puts me to sleep instantly in a black-out style.

When I looked at my piece of "Scribble till you Dribble" I saw 3 nuns. I magnified them, saw "my little children inside me (my conscious mind that speaks in my gut) and their NEED for me to STOP! and to STOP NOW! I have gone as long as a year in my past, and it was glorious. I realized with this piece of art that my inner children can not breathe as long as I continue to feed this addiction.

This addiction is life-changing for me. It affects my mood in serious ways, my body in extremely painful ways, my psyche in dibilitating ways and my mind in numbing ways. It is time....

What is your addiction and how is it affecting you? Only if you are comfortable, and only if you have one/some we can all fess up and share....or not!  All is good!!  Kisses, Samara




 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 





 

Daughter Ayla - The True Artist's - Work of the Week (in progress)

 





My color station....ahhhhh....now I can breathe.  My Private Rainbow!!!

 

 

  

 

 

Me! At the thought of success.

Life without Sugar, Wheat or Dairy!

Bazoonga!

Kisses
Samara

WONDERFUL SITES FOR YOU TO SEE:
http://paintpartyfriday.blogspot.ca/
http://balzerdesigns.typepad.com/balzer_designs/

"INFERTILITY" ART

This is a piece I did this week.

The piece speaks for itself.

I also did a fun duck! 

Both used what my little inner children have named 

the "Scribble till you Dribble" method!

What I am about to post gives Dina Wakley the credit for getting me here.  She is a master at what she does and without her, I would not have discovered what I have about where I can explore with my own art styles.

It is interesting, in my last post I was so sure I had found "my place, my calling, my style."

 I started with The Dina Wakley Style and then, as seems to happen when one "copies" another in any way whatsoever, it stopped working for me the next day!  

 G-D Speed

So I had to keep working and drawing and looking and seeing and feeling and exploring.

What I discovered.

I can not color the image (as Dina does) and see ANYTHING! (as in seeing forms in the clouds.

I can not keep my eyes open and let my hand wander, (as I was taught) I have to CLOSE my eyes and go right to my inner most being FIRST, then with my eyes CLOSED, start "Scribbling till I Dribble."

What I mean by the "Dribble" is listening intently to my little children inside.

They tell me "enough!"

We are done.

I don't paint my art (as Dina does and as I was taught, before I look.)  This made me a bit crazy and confused and I was going against my grain and working completely from my head.  I just seemed to SHIFT from my gizzards to my brain automatically when I started to paint my scribble....so I don't....

I WALK AWAY. 

IMPERATIVE.

If I look at my scribble right away, I feel my impatience come up big time.

This impairs my art.

It brings up all kinds of things like:

Failure

Can't do it

I'm not really an artist

Why didn't I stay in Law School

I really should be officiating weddings and funerals

AND NONE OF THIS WORKS

BECAUSE IT ISN'T THE REAL ME

anymore.

When I come back to my picture, I stand about ten feet away and put it on a solid background.

OH! (also a departure from Dina) I use a SU water soluble pastel rather than a   water soluble pencil.

I need heavy black marks.

?

I look and look away.

I come back and rotate the pic.

If my mind wanders, I shelve it (like in therapy or meditation.)

I come back again and rotate it.

And

I come back again and it is back where it started.

Then I come up close and look on the diagonals.

This is how I found this picture.

It jumped right out oat me.

INFERTILITY.

I saw two beings fertile and one not.

I saw a goddess on the far right.

I saw twins in the being on the left, one being in the middle and a void on the right.

The Goddess was safety.

DUCK and baby duck FOR FUN!

This was a "snap" to see

in my "LITTLE CHILDREN ART CLOUDS!"

I paint, I use tombows, I use mists, I use pastels, I use crayons.
I fingerpaint, I use household goodies, I use proper stencils, I use lace as stencils.
I hate what I create and cover it up and finger paint over it in white gesso or black gesso.
I buy the cheapest products available.
I boycott liquitex and all the expensive products.
I shop at Hardware stores for most of my products, mediums and the dollar store for my paints.

I AM ON A BOYCOTT TO NOT MAKE THIS CRAFT CLASSIST
 I'm a really poor people mommy artist.
and I know there are LOTS of us out there.
Too many crafts (music lessons etc.) I find are CLASSIST and not using a sliding scale of ANY sort.
You can tell I am passionate about this!

because liquitex, neo, dylan, ranger, Caran D'Ache, Dewent, Kohl Noor etc. (though you will see and the rest of the typically names products are do damn expensive!
I do buy only some of these products but very infrequently.
My friend Roben-Marie has always given me great alternatives for expensive products and links to get them as well as her original products.

My new friend Tam, from Willowing, also recognizes that not all people can afford all the expensive workshops out there but would love to take them and as are entitled as everyone else who CAN afford them.  She accommodates this.  She is an AMAZING artist!!!

And I am sure there are many other artists who will accommodate, if we ask.  I only know my OWN experience of asking and not being met by many many workshops I would have loved to take (asking for payment plans only!)  GRRR.  Oh well, in my next life maybe.

on that very strong note


Finding Zen in the Pen
Samara

http://balzerdesigns.typepad.com/balzer_designs/
http://paintpartyfriday.blogspot.ca/

21 SECRETS Workshop - Teacher 6 - Dina Wakley

This is a letter I wrote to my Teacher of the ART 

Hi Dina (Wakley): 

from The Dirty Footprints 21 Secrets Workshop 

This was so cool!  I think I might have found my style...  What an all day process.  oy.  Well, the first go at it I really loathed.  It took 3/4 of the day.  So I decided to cover it all up with gesso and then finger paint.  I loved that and wondered why I hadn't done that all along!  I realized I was too much into your style after watching the video - very aware of my boxes etc. when I am a complete spiral gal.  

So after I did the gesso I did a bazillion circles with my palette knife and the wonderful gal I did underneath all the gesso, with a camera taking pics of her came through under the gesso (the colors), which I loved!  

Then I decided "close your eyes Samara, get rid of all the visual stim and just sink down."  And WOW what a diff!  I opened them and saw ME!  I still didn't know what I saw but I knew it was MY style.  So I looked and looked and looked.  Close up, far away, upside down etc. and then found it. Just like you suggested:  "look at your picture just like you look up at the clouds and find your picture....or not!"

I have always hated nursery stories and never said/read them to my kids for all the negative psychological/philosophical reasons and studies that are out there about them.  And this is what I saw in my pic.  WOW I thought...how amazing.  Here I am scribbling like a child with a black pencil with my eyes closed, and how I feel about nursery rhymes (sp) comes through.  

I took some "under my paper fabric" that I use for the messes but keep for just things like this, for the wagon and wheels.  The top of the baby was initially arms, as I saw it, then when I was finished I saw the weight of the nursery stories on babies (in my view only.)  Circles and circles and circles of them (all the generations telling the same stories.)  

The wagon (for me) was pulling the child into the abyss of the nursery rhymes (sp) and believing (in my view) they were innocent nice little stories (or walt disney movies and plays) that we take our children to (I didn't with my 27, 24 and now 14 year old) - without looking at the psychological imperatives it is brainwashing them with (in my view and the studies "I" choose to side with in the journals etc.)  

Wheels above, wheels below..."falling off the wagon"....literally and figuratively" because their was so much guilt (in my case) to tell my babies these stories or to be at "mommy and me groups" and be the only mommy who didn't know the words because I chose consciously to not have them in my psyche or the psyche of my cubs.  

So Dinawww.dinawakley.com, my newest artist kisses friend, onward to the art, now you have the story and how effective "what you wanted to achieve was" in my somewhat convoluded process.  Oh, btw, the second piece took 1/4 of the time of the first piece!  No surprise.  Honestly Dina...I look at it and and am shocked such a process of (my new name - for me - "Scribble till you Dribble" (while always giving you credit for teaching me) - could be MY most comfortable way to epitomize who I am and where I am at, was at, will be...without even knowing it!  So Random!!! or not!!!  Gosh, I hope I can one day come to one of your workshops in person and see where I go with it.

I'll upload a few so you can see the techniques I used.  I loved this and will surely do a few more before I move on to the next workshop.  thanks so much for helping me to find MY way that digs deep to where I "need" to be! 

Kisses, Samara

 

Products Used

SU Pastels

Dylusions Mists

Inktense Pencils

Watercolor Acrylic Tubes (of every sort)

Pitt Pen, Faber Castell, Sharpie, Uniball

Drydex Spackling

Pre-Mixed Adhesive and Grout

Tombow Markers

Fiskars Templates and Stencils

Royal Paintbrushes

Pure Cotton Fabric

Cotton Material Cover that covers a Cooked Ham (used as a stencil)

water (of course)

My Fingers!

Plastic Spatula

Sharing Picture With

to be determined

21 SECRETS.....

THE DIRTY FOOTPRINTS STUDIO....

Has this incredible workshop on right now called "21 Secrets."  You will see it on my sidebar.  I am finding myself short on words and long on art so I will go straight to the art after a short meditation...

When you are with everyone but me,

                    you're with no one.

When you are with no one but me,

                    you're with everyone.

Instead of being so bound up with everyone,

                    be everyone.

When you become that many, you're nothing.

                    Empty.

-Rumi

Hop over to The Dirty Footprints Studio.  This is from Dale Anne Potter's Workshop. You can find Dale Anne at daleannepotter.com/blog/ .  Dale is not only a possitivarian, she is a quality, honest and genuinely frank person who will share her difficult journey with you and how she "personally" became one of the most possitive and inspirational people I know.  I am proud to call Dale my friend.  You will be too. 
On 21 Secrets,  You can read what Dale taught me, what the book is for, what is inside, and how magical it's contents are for positivity, enlightment and extreme upliftment. 
I say no more!

KISSES!

SAMARA

http://www.justaddwatersilly.com/
http://craftycreationschallenges.blogspot.ca/ - Fall colors
http://divasbydesignchallenge.blogspot.ca/ - Texture
http://pinkbydesignstamps.com/ink-it-pink-challenge/ - AG
http://papercraftstar.blogspot.ca/ - Paper Piercing
http://pennyschallenges.blogspot.ca/ - Die cuts and Punches
http://rubysrainbow.blogspot.ca/ - Trees (they are the stencils which are a "Nature" set of trees, birds and flutterbyes - I used the trees - to match the Greens on the flip side of the Postcard decor)
http://7kidschallengeblog.blogspot.ca/2012/09/challenge - Fall
http://thethreemuseschallenge.blogspot.ca/ - A Quote
http://whimsyinspires.blogspot.ca/ - AG
http://www.wordartwednesday.blogspot.ca/ - encouragement/upliftment/love
http://paintpartyfriday.blogspot.ca - it's a party!
http://www.justaddwatersilly.com/p/artists-play-room.html - add your art!
http://cachallenge.blogspot.ca/ home
http://artistsinblogland.blogspot.ca/ - autumn beauty

ITSY BITSY CARDS...

ARTIST TRADING CARDS  TOPIC - JAVA!!!

I made itsy bitsy cards for Wednesday's Lady Anne's Site - Anything Goes.  They are also being used for my ATC card swap at The Crafters Cafe.  I wondered how I was going to confine my art to a 3 1/2 x 2 1/2 space but once I began, it really was NO different than making a 12 x 12 piece of canvas art.  It was mega enjoyable.

First I cut the cards - they are coaster thick cardboard in white, actually used for making coasters - to the required size.

I then rounded the corners (my 14 year old noticed this and asked if this is allowed on an ATC.)  I thought "Wow what a smart question - who knows?"  But they are rounded.

I then used Dyan's Dylusionals Mists and my Classic SU Reinkers with Water in Spray Bottles and went my usual Crazzzzzzzy!.

Then, in my usual fashion, I put one card on top of the other and began again.

The neatest thing happened.  When I separated the cards, the one side was "as I created it," what Roben-Marie Smith so aptly called my jewel preference for my artwork, and the otherside.....WOWZERS.....it was this gorgeous pastel piece, just simply because I lay it on top of the deep wildly colored jewel colors.  THAT IS A COLOR STUDY!!!!

Picture it, on my table I had 14 ATC staked up - each card facing up jeweled with bright rich colors but not knowing what was happening beneath.

Now I best show you what came of all this.  As I am writing, I now know to take pictures of my process, something I love SO MUCH when I see it on other blogs.  Promise!!!


Here is a pic of the different color combos of the ATC's where I used SU stamps and India Ink with the above Mists etc.

The ATC's have some dictionary paper attached with  Acrilex Gloss Gel.  These are papers that were put under all my art as "catch the mess" papers.

The ATC's also have a mini SU tag with a SU stamp "friends" 

Given these are cards for other's to use, I wanted to put a library stamp on the back so I could put my information, date, etc. as a keepsake for the recipient

I realized I had two cards stuck together so the "imprint" was reversed with the pastels on the front and the "jewels" color on the back with the library card.

This is another variation of the card

And...this is the best part!

The cloth is my clean up cloth and the paper is the newsprint that goes under my art to protect my desk.

How gorgeous do they end up!

 

Again, this is the newsprint only, that is beneath the work that I do.  I always use this paper for pieces of my next art (such as I did with these ATC's on the edge with the dictionary paper.)

Stay tuned for future pieces of my art with the paper below on part of it! lol

AND....THIS is paper towel!  Can you believe how gorgeous these colors are?  This roll is for mopping up the colors after I spray them onto my art.  When I use baby wipes, and then they are heat dried, they turn into fabric.  You have to try it!  I used them for a tab on a piece of art in a previous post.

And....The work space in action (of course a pink cell phone cover for me!)

FINDING ZEN IN THE PEN

Samara

THE CAT'S MEOW CONTEST!

SHORT BUT SWEET POST....

Hop on over to:

http://scrapinit.blogspot.ca/2012/09/top-10-contest.html?showComment=1347153405475

and check out what is in store for you!

A facebook friend of mine is having a very cool contest that you will kick yourself in the pantaloons if you miss!

Best of luck to all of you!  Be sure to blog about the wonderful use of Einat's generousity!!!

 

{Hearts}

Samara

PAGE 3 - INVITE NEW CHALLENGES - MOTIVATIONAL JOURNAL

HOW EXCITING IS THIS!

I am still stoked about Roben-Marie's Workshop and am on Phase two of my Art Journal Conversion JOURNALS.  It is completely different than my first JOURNAL but will take some time for me to show it to you.  Here is page 3 of the first JOURNAL.

I hope you are continuing to like it!

Please pop over to Roben-Marie!

This is the front of my journal, which I will post each time.

This is page 3

 These papers below are from a dictionary and were the papers that were behind my pages as I worked.  The colors on them are the colors that were the "mess" that was created from my journal sprays etc.

 The flower is made from Construction Paste that you use to fill holes in your wall, then sanded down.

 The same with the corner, then I put a stamp into the medium.  You really can use what is around the house.

 These next two pages are the result of what was created on the pages before.  These are the backs of the pages.

 And the VERY cool thing: The Tab on my journal is made from the Baby Wipe I used to mop up my mists.  It turned into a Fabric once it was dried with my heat gun over and over!

FINDING ZEN WITH THE PEN

Samara

http://365cards.blogspot.ca/ - Smart

http://artwithnoboundaries.blogspot.ca/ - Anything Goes and A Doll

http://bunnyzoescrafts.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/challenge-27-summer.html - Summer

http://cheerylynndesignschallenge.blogspot.ca/ - Stitch it up (using a Cherry Lynn Die)

http://samaranavi.blogspot.ca/2012/09/page-3-invite-new-challenges.html - Use Marker

http://avadareschallengeblog.blogspot.co.uk/ - Make it Sparkle

http://ladybugcrafts.blogspot.co.uk/ - Anything Goes

EVERY LIFE HAS A STORY WORKSHOP

"HAVE FAITH IN YOUR ABILITIES"

 

page 2 of my journal from the workshop...

Loving what came out of the workshop.  As you will come to see, I decided to do a motivational workshop for myself for my project in the Workshop. It has moved me forward to new ways of approaching my art.  I am finding that Mixed Media is far less fearful, making messes is more comfy and using everything but the kitchen sink "is working" for me! 

Remember, Roben-Marie Smith, EVERY LIFE HAS A STORY is the teacher.

Enjoy.

FINDING ZEN IN THE PEN

Samara 

FANTASTIC WORKSHOP!

EVERY LIFE HAS A STORY

Art Journal Conversion Workshop

Roben-Marie Smith

 

I wouldn't be doing Roben-Marie justice if I didn't post in one of her favorite colors! (or as close as I can get on blogger) lol Yea, not too close.  It is this gorgeous peachy, smoochy color.

 

I just finished this workshop and it was absolutely amazing.  The first day I worked from 7:00 a.m. to 2:00 a.m. with little break.

 

Her videos are mesmerizing! (spellcheck please)

 

Without further adieu - I will post a page of my Workshop Journal that I took with Roben-Marie, online, each day.

 

Today, I will post the FRONT PAGE of the Journal of Inspiration.

I hope you enjoy it! Roben-Marie does not waste one single scratch of paper that you will splat on, mist on, spill on, wipe off ink with or on...she is a wonderful ambassador of the earth in my mind.

 

 

I am on to another Journal by Roben-Marie...and she is the sweetest workshop teacher ever!  Check out her blog - http://www.robenmarie.com/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FINDING ZEN WITH ROBEN-MARIE'S WORKSHOPS!

 

Have a Great Day

Samara

Samara

DIANAHS PLACE

I FINALLY GOT IT!

I always wondered why writing, art-ing, speaking out in my blog was so important and life-ful to me.

Today I found out.

I'm going to send you over to www.dianahsplace.com to see if dianah's profile speaks to you.  For me it was a huge "aha" moment.

Enough to write a post about.

Enjoy and please let me know how dinah's profile strikes you in my comment section, as my womyn BFF! (Blog Follower Forever) and back atcha your BFF.

I shall be very interested!

Smiles and Joy to you today,

Samara