BIG ~ week 2 memories

When we were asked to paint a memory, I went with the first one that popped forward for me. At first I figured it was a happy memory, but as I was thinking about it and writing about it in my journal, once again I was crying like a baby. But then again, it’s a memory that always brings me to tears, even now as I write this blog entry.
The memory I chose was of my late grandmother and her love that just would just radiate from her. She was a feisty old lady and very much the matriarch of our family (our family hasn’t been the same since she passed). She passed away from throat cancer a few months after my son turned 3 months old.  And I knew deep inside that I wanted my painting to reflect her love.
My grandmother’s passing still affects me greatly today. There is not a moment that when I think about her or something reminds me of her that my eyes starts to water, a lump forms in my throat and my heart aches for her. I had every intention to start with an image of my grandmother and just let it go from there. Of course my painting had other plans. I admit, I was worried in the middle of when I was working on it that it wasn’t going to look right or that somehow I had screwed something up (let’s face it, my choice of paper wasn’t being very helpful at the time either). 
I started to doubt myself (yep…that damn fear gremlin again). But I stuck with my guns and pushed through. I had to. There was something that was trying to get out and this was how it was expressing itself.

Beginning and progress shots

When my grandmother took a turn for the worse in her battle with cancer, I knew it was only a matter of time before we lost her. At one point she had a lump in her through that encompassed her vocal cords. They removed the lump, vocal cords, but she needed to have a tracheostomy in the end. I have a framed picture of my grandmother holding my son when he was 2 weeks old. She smiled and beamed with love in that picture as she held him, for once since her surgery she didn’t care that she couldn’t vocalize or about the hole in her throat that she was self conscious of. All she cared about at that moment was the little bundle of cuteness that she held in her arms. Just being there at that moment definitely made the sleepless nights with a newborn well worth it.

My grandmother passed away in the spring when my son was 3 months old. I remember her wake and how much I was thankful that she got to hold her great grandbaby as I watched with mama hawk eyes as the rest of my family and our close friends cooed and passed him around. He was a very content little guy, not making so much as a whimper (call me crazy but I think he enjoyed being the center of attention that night). I knew that his presence and people getting to hold him brought comfort to a great many people that night.

I’ve always felt disappointed that my son wouldn’t actually grow up with his great grandmother in his life. I feel bad sometimes that she was very much a part of mine and my cousins lives and that we’ve had so many years with her. Sure I share stories of her with my son and tell him all about her, but deep down, those stories and memories of her just aren’t the same as experiencing the woman my grandmother was. So when my painting started turning out as it had with a very simple rendition of my son (he came home from school and even recognized it as him) with my grandmother and the love that just radiates between the two.

I wasn’t sure if it was finished when I hung it on the wall. I needed to “live” with it for a little while. And I did. I added the white outline over the light silver. But something was still off about it. I wasn’t happy with the fact that it was looking a little cartoonish. I hadn’t drawn in a cartoonish style since high school (I have sketchbooks full of different characters that I’ve dreamed up and would draw). The cartoonish style was really bugging me. It wasn’t until I was talking to one of my best friends that it all just clicked and felt right.

Week 2 BIG painting…finished

There was a reason it had an cartoonish animated feel to it. It was reflecting my son’s very animated personality and can be very dramatic sometimes (should see how dramatic he gets when I ask him to clean his room…).


Once I made that connection, it felt oh so right.

Technorati Tags: art,BIG,FEARLESS painting

BIG and FEARLESS

 

I’m learning to be just as the title states… BIG and FEARLESS.

I’ve been wanting to join Connie over at Dirty Footprints Studio and her FEARLESS painting tribe forever! Ever since I saw the videos she created of her Wreck This Journal (I highly recommend watching all of her videos and visiting her site!). Since that day I had been hooked on the FEARLESS painting process and wanting to learn more about it, but I was never in the position to join her BIG tribe until recently. She just released BIG as a self guided course which fits perfectly with my sporadic and flighty personality. I’d be able to work on it in my own time and at my own pace. Well so far I’ve been keeping up with the weekly tasks (I’m currently working on week 2).

Even before I started my week 1 exercises, I had a huge revelation that left me emotionally raw that week. I was reading what Connie had to say on fear and how to spot our fear gremlins. I was just over come with emotion because I realized that my own fear gremlin had his grubby little fingers wrapped around every aspect of my life, not just artistically. Though I was emotionally raw, I felt better about starting that weeks task. So I went to my studio (really the bedroom but who cares) and got to work.

Shapes…

Hubby asked if it was my interpretation of Starry Night 

Honestly, it could very well be.

I was in the middle of my last exercise when I had this very strong urge to go back to my very first one. It was one of those urges where you just had to do that one thing or it would totally ruin your day. Or you were taking your last breath and your last end all be all action was to do this one thing. Yeah it was THAT strong.

And of course after I had finished doing that one thing, I looked at it as it was drying and almost panicked. The instructions and videos were very clear on what to do and here I had added something that wasn’t even supposed to be added. I was starting to get upset with my self, when I just set it aside, hid it under my other paintings from that day and decided it is what it is and I was going to be done with it. So what if it wasn’t supposed to be done that way. It’s how I felt it needed to be finished so I went with it. I did it, internalized it, then let it go. I decided then and there I wasn’t going to worry about it. I was just going to do.

Just be free and true

18 inch by 24 inch watercolor paper

 

So here’s to week 1 of BIG, the FEARLESS tribe, and to learning to love the fear that creeps into life on a regular basis. Because let’s face it, if it wasn’t for that fear gremlin, we wouldn’t learn to push past and grow.

 

 

 

 

Technorati Tags: art,BIG,FEARLESS painting,Dirty Footprints Studio

Here’s to 2013!

I for one, (and I’m sure I’m not the only one), am happy for a new year. I’m glad 2012 is over. It was a very crazy year and one that marked a big shift in my life on many levels.

2013 is going to be a fresh start in many different aspects and areas of my life. Like so many others, this year I’ve embraced a word. A word I feel encompasses a lot of what I want to bring into my life this year. I wasn’t looking for my word, at least not actively. But when it popped in my head, it felt right from head to toe.  It was probably a few hours later when a pretty little lady popped into my head and a little whisper that said “Paint me”. Eventually, was my response. There was the mundane things to do, I had to get a workout in and laundry to be done, among other mundane tasks.

It didn’t take long for that little whisper to become a full on scream! Ok. I can take a hint.

I never expected “Shine” to be my word. But the more I look at the word, look at my finished painting, and say the word to myself, the more Shine just feels oh so right.

Shine

Acrylic on stretched 27 1/2 inch x 30 inch canvas

My shining lady was in control from the moment I laid pencil to canvas. She needed to be infused with what I wanted to bring into my life, infused with all the positive and releasing all the negative. I took a lesson from Lifebook 2012 and used her hair to write out all that I wanted to change and invoke in my life. I admit it was empowering to do this step and just let go of the whole process.

Shine in progress

As I look upon my painting and take my word to heart, I think of all the aspects in my life that I am changing and shining in. I’ve gotten back on the wagon and started working out again and I feel amazing and have already lost 3 pounds (GO ME!). I feel as if I’ve finally embraced exercise and how it makes me feel connected with my body, something that was seriously lacking.

I’ve been doing a lot of soul searching as far as my art goes and where I want to go from here. I was blessed with 2 sales last year and am very thankful for that. I’ve been told by friends and family a like that I should do sell my work and crafts at art and craft fairs in the area. It’s been something that I’ve toyed with in the past off and on. So I’ve been doing a lot of soul searching with that. I’d love to be able to stay home and take care of my family and home and be able to financially contribute to our household by doing the thing I love most, creating. Because let’s face it, finances are tough for everyone. Even more so when you add in 2 hospital stays a week long each and all the expenses that goes right along with them that you are still trying to catch up on. I feel guilty that hubby is the one working and bringing home the bacon so to speak. It’s at the point where I either get a part time job, or start creating more to help contribute financially. True, it’s not going to be steady. But every little bit helps. There’s still a lot of soul searching going on in that area.

Shine at home on our family room wall as a constant reminder to shine in all that I do

2013 will be about shining for me. Shining in all that I work towards and do. Sure I’m going to drop the ball from time to time. But I am going to pick myself up, put a smile on my face and just keep on shining.

This year it’s time for me to SHINE!

 

 

 

 

Technorati Tags: Life,2013,Lifebook 2012,Shine,art,change,new year

AEDM Day 14 ~ a red headed faery

Remember the faery for my niece? Well it’s finished and I’m quite pleased with how it turned out. Just like I had hoped it would.  Book pages, water colors, ink, colored pencils, sequins, button brads, and glitter make up this red headed faery for a precious red headed little girl.

 

 

 

 

 

Technorati Tags: AEDM2012,Art Every Day Month,art,life,faery

AEDM Day 11 ~ A gift for my niece

Lately I’ve been doing more coughing and sneezing than art of any kind (I will be so glad when this cold is gone). This weekend was a flurry of activity with a soccer game and a hockey game in the same day.

But I have managed to start something for my best friend’s daughter. To her kids, I am Aunt Karebear and that’s how it’s always going to be. My “niece” and I share a middle name and a love for faeries and art. She is my little artsy mini pixie with the bright red hair and I love her to pieces. So for her birthday this year, I thought it’d be fun to make her an Aunt Karebear original, a fun funky faery with pigtails.

It’s not finished obviously. Tomorrow I hope to get the watercolor down and start on the paper flowers I’ll be adding to it. I look forward to seeing the look on my niece’s face when she opens up her present!

Happy Crafting!

 

 

 

Technorati Tags: AEDM2012,Art Every Day Month,art,faery,life

Art Every Day Month!

 

Today marks the beginning of Art Every Day Month! I lurked last years participates from the shadows. Not this year. This year I am jumping feet first and making the commitment to do some sort of art, even if it’s a doodle or a quick sketch of an idea, every day for a month.

So if you are visiting from Creative Every Day, Welcome!! If you’re one of my readers, it’s good to see you again as always!

Today was a quiet day and a bit gloomy as it rained all day. So that made for a perfect drawing kind of day. I don’t have much to show today as I was putting together a project that my family will be working on this evening. But I do have a little something that I've been working on today.

 

Now to decide on my medium of choice for adding color. I think I might pull out the Inktense and use them to color it.

Happy Thursday all!!

 

 

Technorati Tags: Art Every Day Month,AEDM2012,Art

Summer and Mermaids

It never fails, once summer hits, my thoughts turn to warm summer nights, cool water to swim in and mermaids. I’ve always associated mermaids with summer. I dream of them returning from the waters where they spend the winter to cooler waters, basking in the warm sun, their young splashing around, or clinging to their mothers.

 

 

 

To celebrate summer and mermaids, I created a treasury on Etsy inspired by the creatures I love.

'Summer Mermaids' by kmichelecreations

Treasury tool by StylishHome.

Technorati Tags: art,etsy,water,mermaid,summer,art journal,mermaid treasury

Even the shy dream big…

 

I was a shy kid. Almost painfully so. I was the one who was happiest sitting in the back of the class and never raising my hand, even if I did know the answer. Sure I had my small handful of friends that I love dearly and had my moments of being the funny one, or the loud one. But when I wasn’t around those friends, I remained invisible. And for the most part, I liked it that way.

I think a lot of it had to do with moving around a lot as a kid. I remember plenty of school years being interrupted because Dad got a new job somewhere and we had to move..again.

But that shyness came with a cost. Sitting aside, quiet, longing to be part of the larger group. Wishing to be included, to be asked to join in. Wishing just once to have the courage to jump right in.

Shyness is something I struggle with even today. And it’s something that affects everyone around me, especially my son.

It affects all aspects of my life. Even the aspects I never thought it would. It’s has wrapped it’s little tendrils around everything. It’s so hard to try and break those old habits of remaining invisible.

 

available in my Etsy shop

But it’s something that I am trying to work on. Especially when it comes to my dreams and what I want to accomplish.

 

 

In the meantime, I make art. I make art to cope with things that I am dealing with. I make art that I’m inspired to create. I make art to help heal whatever is deep within. I make art in hopes that one day…

I will overcome and be successful.

 

 

Technorati Tags: art,life,etsy,kmichele creations,shy

Living a little “greener”

Hubby and I’ve have always tried to live as green as possible. Since moving back in with my parents in 2008, our shade of green has darkened a bit (it would be a lot greener if LED light bulbs were brighter and cheaper than they actually are). Every year it has been the same, all kinds of ideas on how we could live a bit greener. Our ideas have come to light slowly, after all our household is a mix. And anything that we want to do, we need to run it by the parental units to get their thoughts, and in the case of living green, their contribution and willingness to stick with changes.

Since moving back, every year hubby and I have talked about having a veggie garden or using more eco friendly products, etc. And every year the actual follow through gets put on the back burner for one reason or another.

I’m still not positive what sparked it. But I’ve become fed up with all the ideas just floating about. I feel this change in myself was sparked by a mixed media art piece I did last weekend that was inspired by a meditation (more on that later)

But whatever the cause, I’m thrilled with the changes that are happening. Last year we grew our own tomatoes and sweet peppers This year we’re going all out and having a raised veggie garden thanks to my kiddo who’s sandbox had become weed heaven. We repurposed his sandbox frame, moved it away from the kid’s swing set to keep the dogs out of it.

See how guilty Sandy looks already? We’ve dug out the sod from inside the frame, layered the bottom with some super wet newspaper (printed with soy ink), top soil, compost and some peat moss. Over the next week or so, we’ll add our veggie plants (we’ll be getting them from a local nursery since we didn’t have a place to start seeds..we will next year though if I have anything to do with it!!)

I am also in the process of cutting down on our paper consumption as well. We’ve gone to using reusable towels for cleaning spills and the like (with 4 cats, 2 dogs and a kid there is always some sort of mess to clean up). We are also now using cloth napkins, something I’ve wanted to do for a while now. But again it comes with mixed feelings from the rest of the household (This is where I pull the “because I’m going to do it whether you like it or not” card, but so far people seem to be on board) I can proudly say that we no longer are cleaning with chemicals. In fact I’ve found a recipe for an all purpose cleaner that I’ve made up that works lovely on stainless steal and I just happen to love using it!   The best part? It costs about .65 cents for 24 ounces of cleaning solution and takes no time at all to whip up.

The recipe I found came from amybaliss.com. Here it is:

All purpose cleaner:

Ingredients:

• 1 teaspoon Borax
• 1 teaspoon Washing soda
• 1/2 teaspoon Castile Soap (I’m using peppermint because I love the added scent)
• 1/2 cup vinegar
• 2 cups hot water
• 25-30 drops essential oil
• 24 ounce sprayer bottle
• large bowl or measuring cup

Mix the castile soap, Borax, washing soda, and vinegar in a large bowl or measuring cup. Slowly add the hot water and stir (I heat mine on the stove just before it boils). Allow it to cool and then add some essential oils. You can use any essential oils you want. I’m using Tea Tree and Eucalyptus. For the bottle of cleaner that I made for my bathroom downstairs, I added some drops of Lavender. Using a funnel, pour your cleaning solution into your spray bottle. Add a label and you’re ready to go! Just spray and wipe.

It works awesome on greasy finger prints and water spots on stainless steel as well (which can be annoying because stainless steel shows everything!)

Fridge Before (about a weeks worth of grime)

Fridge After (love that shine!)

So here’s to living a little bit greener and making our lives a bit healthier.

The result of play...

I guarantee you 100% of the time when I create art, I have some idea already what it's going to be and how I am going to go about bringing what's in my head to life on the page/canvas. It's very, VERY rare that I create something without having that basic idea. Life Book's week 8 lesson was with Mystele and it was all about just letting go and playing.

For me, it was very freeing just starting with a page and adding layer after layer. I played with colors I don't usually use (there's a lot of red in there) on a regular basis. I played with tissue paper. I played with book pages. I played with bubble wrap and even used some rubbery shelf liner to add texture. I played with charcoal pencils and some india ink. 

I even tried something I've never done before, "pulling" an image from the many layers on the page. I wasn't sure how my page would turn out, but I'm really pleased with how she did turn out and how I feel afterwards. It just feels like a huge weight of what I should do, what I shouldn't do, was just lifted off my shoulders and tossed aside. I can see myself creating like this a lot more often.

Searching for the Balance Within

Where has the time gone? Frankly I really don’t know. It’s been a whirlwind since Thanksgiving really. Not the busy kind of stuff, more of the internal contemplation stuff.

I’ve tried numerous times to come up with a blog post of some sort, and found that I’ve sat in front of the computer screen staring at the blinking cursor because the words just wouldn’t flow. The last thing I wanted to write about is my normal day, washing laundry, making sure dinner’s on the table at a reasonable hour, etc.

In January, Life Book started over at Willowing, which has just been an amazing blessing for me. It’s a year long course with some amazing teachers. As I’ve completed each lesson, I found myself internalizing a lot of things.     

                  

Celebrating my Goddess Super Powers (week 1)

Mainly I’ve been searching out the internal balance I’ve long since misplaced. It makes me wonder what changed within myself to allow my internal balance to be replaced with this feeling of being lost. Why had I not noticed that this precious balance was slowly slipping away from me?

There are just so many things that I want to do an accomplish in my life, and yet I find that the lack of motivation rather disturbing. Not only has this lack seeped into my creative energy, it’s starting to creep back into how I take care of myself. Since May of 2010, I’ve lost 50 pounds through paying attention to what I eat and exercising more. But since Thanksgiving, I’ve noticed that I’ve been turning to food again for that comfort. Which is very frustrating for me and I’ve kicked myself for it.

I’ve been doing art. Not nearly as much as I want to on a daily basis, but I’m getting there. I’ve been completing each of the Life Book lessons as well as practicing some other art techniques (I’m still working on perfecting acrylic transfers). I have numerous ideas as to what I want to create. But I sit down to work on something and end up drawing a blank. But Life Book has been helping, I have slowly felt the little hints of the balance within.

So I will continue on, slowly peeling away all the numerous layers within until I find that balance. I hope that with each layer, I’ll rediscover who it is I truly am and maybe one day finally accept myself and all my imperfections.

WIP Tuesday ~ Swirls!

I finished covering my cabinet doors yesterday evening before running off to Target to take advantage of their curtain sale for our closet (yeah I finally got sick of looking at it).

Today I have been getting my swirl on, literally. For Whimsical Workspace over at Willowing.com, this week is about artwork for our spaces. I originally thought to make some smaller artwork. I guess my ambition and my creative side bested my logical side (if you ask my hubby that’s not hard to do).

I’ve been drawing my swirls since high school, on notebooks, book covers, my guitar case, but this is the first time I’ve drawn them on such a large piece.

I am starting to wonder what had come over me to take on such an ambitious art project. But so far it’s looking pretty cool. I wish I was further along, but I find taking frequent breaks keeps my hand from cramping up on me and my eyes from going all buggy! HA! I can honestly say I will probably keep Sharpie in business single handed.

I am no where near done. This is just what I accomplished today. All 4 doors took 1 roll of contact paper. Which leaves me a whole roll left to change it out if I so choose to do so. Not anytime soon after all this work that’s for sure!

What are you working on this week??