Happy Halloween

Had fun with my girls today before they went out Trick or Treating with their Dad.  He sent me a picture of them in their costumes.  Grace went as Lady Marion of Robin Hood fame and Lyvia went as a 'Flapper.' Whats funny is none of the kids including the girls knew who or what a 'Flapper' or even a Robin Hood was.  Their Mom had to show them pictures and explain things using the internet.  You know your old when...

This just in from my son's iphone, look at that loot!  And would you look at that, the headpiece I made form Lyvie our little flapper is still holding together!

Creative Headpiece

Just had to show you the amazing mask and headpiece my daughter Olivia made for the Halloween Ball she is attending tonight.  Talk about one of a kind, it's something she dreamed up and then proceeded to create.  The girl has such an eye for detail and the patience to work at it until she gets it to that 'perfect' place, at least it looks perfect to me.

Hopefully I'll be able to post a picture of her in full costume another day.  We ran out of time. As usually Liv works best under pressure and so finished the mask today just before heading back home to get ready for the main event.  Don't know how people handle that kind of last minute pressure!

Art Journal Play

Been playing in my journal this week, creating some backgrounds and finishing a page or two.  One page I journaled about were the Dragon's that the book Point Zero spoke of and I blogged about here.  This is just a portion of the page, the whole thing has so much sheen it created too much glare to photograph well. I did a full body gel transfer of a dragon on one edge of the page with flame and darkness and lots of metallic gleam and journaled my thoughts about this battle with the various dragons that try so hard to stop us in our creative tracks.

Then I created some fun abstract backgrounds for my journal and love the overall look of them.  Lots of fun. The cool part is they were created with nothing but left over paint effects done on other pieces.  Scrapes, splats of left over paint. Stencil spray left overs from other projects all landed on this one page and made something that really appeals to me.

There's something so satisfying knowing nothing is going to waste :-)

If it ever stops raining here, I have a new experimental texture technique I can't wait to try out.  I need to do it outside to avoid fuming myself into a migraine!  Will let you know how it goes, it involves insulation foam :-)

Beyond The Obvious

As some of you know I've been reading Michele Cassou's book, Point Zero, Creativity without Limits and my last couple of posts I've written a little about what I'm reading.  Well today is no exception, here's another excellent insight from Point Zero.

Concerning the Dragon of Meaning, Cassou writes:

"The content of your creation and its meaning offers what you think you want most, something that you can identify with...True creativity does not rehash stories or look for resolutions.  It wants you to move into the unknown and explore. Creativity invites you to practice emptying your stories and letting go the known meaning.  Your mind can only come up with what it knows...By identifying with content, you become trapped."


What she is encouraging us to do as artist is to get beyond the obvious meaning of what we paint and allow our intuition to take us past what our conscious mind comes up with and explore what we have yet to discover or understand ourselves.  She then gives a great example of a woman who after painting herself on canvas then painted a large scar across her breast.  It was very powerful for her as she had lost a breast to cancer.  She put down her brush feeling this was all that the painting was about. Cassou encouraged her to go beyond the obvious to what lay beyond.  She began to paint a shooting star coming out of the scar tissue, the painting took off from there showing the artist the extraordinary gifts that had flown out from that terrible time.  Sometimes we stop short, stuck in our thinking minds of obvious meaning and fail to see beyond and truly discover the power in our art.

"Being seduced by content and meaning makes you a slave to your thoughts." Point Zero


As I've said, very interesting reading, giving me lots to think about.

'Explore' 16x20 canvas.
These are a few macro shots taken from a recent canvas done in acrylics & some ink.  It reminds me of a map, an exploration of colour, texture and the challenge of techniques. I'm still working on a lot of fine detailing but it wouldn't show well with my camera so I've posted as is.

Hope you have an artful week!  Bren

Repeats Are A Good Thing

Been working on several pieces at once this past week. While one is drying I play with another piece. These are a few shots of a canvas my daughter requested in shades of purple and blue. Wish the picture quality was better, still these give you an idea of what they are like.

Also been reading more from Michele Cassou in Point Zero, she has some interesting thoughts and observations so I thought I'd share a few more with you. I've already posted about the dragons of creative block that we face, but then she goes into several chapters on each of the dragons. One that struck me was a chapter on 'Repeats."

"Doing something more than once is often thought of as being uninventive and uninspired. It attracts the Dragon of Control, which loves to struggle with it."

She explains that there are two types of repeats, a 'controlled repeat' done out of our own frustrations when we can't come up with anything new to do. Then there is what she calls, 'spontaneous repeats' which arise out of a deep place of feeling and exploration, when something powerful or significant is being exposed and so we return to it again and again, each time going a little deeper into the heart of inspiration.

Michele says, "The full expression of certain feelings can happen only through repetitions. Repeats signal substance rather than dullness. Dragons try to discourage painters from going further by making them think they are wasting their time.  During repeats, the painter is actually exploring some new inner ground, some place out of the way, some secret area difficult to reach."

Repeats can come in the form of repeated patterns, symbols, gestures or images, etc.  Now I don't know about you but I found that very encouraging, because I find myself often wanting to re-explore some gesture or pattern in my work and have worried that I might just be a one act show!  Anyhow, something to consider as you face the next blank page or canvas or whatever your creative outlet might be.

Fought Any Dragons Lately?

Ordered a couple of second hand books by Michele Cassou, Life, Paint and Passion and Point Zero-Creativity Without Limits.  Just got Point Zero and started reading it today.  She makes some great observations that cause you to think.  Things like:

"A creative block happens when you think you should do something while you are truly interested in doing something else.  The block is caused by looking in the wrong direction because of fear or prejudice, and by striving to reach an unwanted place."

She then explains that you need to ask yourself the right questions in order to break out of the creative rut you're in but that finding that question is not so easy.

"A good question must pull you out of the fascination of thinking that you know what needs to happen or what will make you happy..."

The right question is there within the block itself, it comes out of the judgement, the fear the whatever is preventing you from creating.  Although I've never put it in those terms I can certainly see that is was the essence of most stalled moments I've had creatively.  Some of them it took some time to finally come up with the right question that contained my answer at the same time.  Interesting reading so far, up next her discussion about 'dragons.'


"The Dragon of Product: he fights your spontaneity because it loves aesthetics. It wants you to plan exactly how your finished painting will look." Oh he has given me a tussle, I ran into him while working on Worlds Crumble and here!

"The Dragon of Control:  he guards the doors of the unknown by using fear to stop true exploration.  It feeds on your lack of trust in your spontaneity and fear of changes and try to convince you that you must be in control of your creation at all times."


The Dragon of Meaning: fights your intuition by demanding interpretation and resolution at every move. It wants you to analyze your creation and assign meaning/value to everything you paint."


A nasty bunch don't you think?

NOTE: This was a play session done on 18X24" water-colour paper and will be used as backgrounds in my art journal.

Free Course with Willow

Just discovered this generous offer from Willow.  She is offering one of her art courses for free to all!  It began the week of Oct 18, so do go and check it out. It's called, Healing and Art

She has a promo video that gives you the details of what she will be teaching as well as a pdf of info.

Thanks Willow for your generosity!

Color Me Beautiful Contest

You're going to want to check out the opportunity to win one of Paulette Insall's video,
Color Me Beautiful.

So visit her blog before Monday, Oct 18 and see the various ways you can enter her contest.

Quiet Moments

It's been one of those weeks, quiet.  As many of you know I live with chronic pain from Fibromyalgia, there are days, weeks that many of the trigger points flare and despite all my efforts it takes me down for the count, then toss in a few migraines and life just comes to a stop.   I hate talking about it, hate giving into it, hate surrendering my life to it's grip.  I find joy anywhere I can, joy fuels my spirit, gives me something to fight the pain with, and life has many joyous moments.  Like the splay of colour flooding the hillside, dancing off the water and reflecting it's life back to me.  So in those moments I splash colour across my page, texturing because life is never flat or smooth, it has depth and nuances of tone and hue that I want to capture.

I've been reading and drooling over Karlyn Holman's book Watercolor Without Boundaries.  She has a stunning talent and I take tiny little pieces of her methods to adapt for my abstracts.  Although I've used tissue paper extensively, I've never done as she suggested, take tissue paper, lay it on plastic and paint in your various colours let it dry and then collage the pieces into an underpainting your created. (she used it more in realistic paintings but I adapted)  Because I work in abstracts to create even more texture I laid my tissue paper on wax paper and then painted it.  When it dried and I lifted it from the wax paper is created these wonderful rich, alternating tones.  

These are just snippets from the 18X24 watercolour paper,  my camera just won't pick up the amazing reds and golds when I take a full frame shot.

Starts & Finishing Well

Our family lost a beautiful soul this week to the vicious, devouring disease of Cancer.  It took her from us so swiftly and unexpectedly it's left us reeling.  Judy, my cousin, loved to laugh, and make others laugh with her, she will be sorely missed.

Been working in my art journal, doing some painting on water-colour paper, seeing what I can do with some of the 'starts' I created from left over paint and ink from previous works.  I hesitate to even post pictures of them as my camera does such a poor job photographing them.  A better camera just doesn't make it onto the budget right now, so poor quality or not, it's better than having no pictures to post :-)

Not sure that this one is 'done' yet.

Next up, another 'start' it reminds me of the ocean with a rock cliff jutting out.  Not sure where I can take this but we will see.

This is a portion taken from my art journal, seems I have water on the brain.  Probably because I feel a little like I'm caught up in a turbulent sea this week.