Art Everyday Month Project 11 "There is No Map"

I took part of the day off yesterday to go and play with little man which I don't get to do often enough. The kids of course had a day off for Veteran's Day and he wanted to go to the mall to get some new sneakers.  What is it with boys and their sneakers?  Oh my.  He's addicted.

We even started doing a little Christmas shopping which felt good to do. My normal MO is to wait to the last minute and be totally stressed out about it.  

Doing things at the wire of any deadline seems to be my MO for a lot of things! Funny how your personality traits trickle down to more than one part of your life.

It's not that I sit around either doing nothing. If there is free time in my schedule, I seem to fill it with more things. Then what happens, I start to scramble when I realize I've over committed. Time to change. How do you change?  What do you let go of when you want to do it all and feel like you need to do it all?

Today's Art Everyday Month (or yesterdays rather) is a journal page I'm calling:

"There Is No Map.....Only Signs"

 It may seem like there is a life map out there, but there's not.  No instruction book written expressly for you. Oh sure there are plenty of people, books, articles, shows and so on that will tell you what to do and when, but they don't know YOU and your situation. Your whys, your obstacles, challenges, opportunities, blessings and curses.

Only you know all that and sometimes not even you can see the big picture.

 So what do you do when you are at a crossroads, a fork in the road?

The only thing I know to do is:

Trust the signs.  It's simple enough but hard to do.  Sometimes discerning the signs is not easy.

I look for them all the time to guide me.

 Sometimes I follow them, sometimes I fight them with every last ounce of strength I have.

I do believe we get better at recognizing the right and wrong way to go as we get older but it still can be a murky highway at times.

So as you are swimming out of the murky waters and searching for the dry ground,  listen to your heart, it will more than not show you the way.

Okay so I'm off to the races....lots of great fun things in the air that need to be juggled one at a time back out into the world. I'm outta here to go and bring some colorful goodness out into the world!

Artfully Yours,

Jodi

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Do you want to paint and draw faces?  Are you looking for guidance on how to do it from a-z?  Join my class "Painterly in Pink" where we draw, paint, and collage our way to painting girls with depth and whimsy all in one!

Art Everyday Month Project 6: Simple Things

Look out...it's Friday Eve!

..a little nod to one of my dear friends who I worked with long ago.He would be so giddy like a little kid when Thursday hit with one day left away before we were done with work for the week. It wouldn't be long before we were ready to play for the weekend back home with our friends and family.

That excitement about life is something that shouldn't be wasted.

There are so many things we should do,  have to do, need to do...but how many times do we set the want to dos aside for work work work?  Before you know it time slips away and 2 or 3  months have gone by and you can hardly believe you haven't made one single hour for your bff that lives 5 minutes away. 

Simple things NEED to fill your life.

Making time for fun, family and friends are what its' all about.

We over complicate life and fill it with more more more more things until we are pulling our hair out and not making time for other great things that are also important.

The zest for life will return when we stop for  moment and take time to breathe and truly Be Present.

It's hard to do. I get it. I am guilty as charged.

I guess it comes down to Trust...trusting that if we let go, unplug, unwind, let loose, and play...the biggest opportunity of our life will still be waiting for us when we get back.

Or trust that the work will get done. 

Probably faster because a break has been taken.

Changing our ways is not easy.

It does require patience and forgiveness.  Forgiving ourselves

because we are not perfect.

Patience that not everything happens exactly when you want it to, no matter how hard you snap your fingers.

Patience that good things will happen and you CAN take time

off, even an hour and laugh with your friends and family.

I look back and thing about how different life is since the days of looking forward to "Friday Eve" and the weekend for that matter.  The days blend in now, but I do want that excitement to be in my life never the less. 

There is a lot to be grateful for.  I never want to forget that it takes a village to make things happen. There are so many connections and moments that HAD to occur for this to happen, for that to happen...and it is all lost with out the gratitude.

Today's journal page is not overly complicated. It's simple and pays homage to some simple things we sometimes forget or take for granted as the movie trailer  of life is spinning in fast forward motion. So fast we forget to watch and enjoy it.

What is your vision of "The Good Life"?

How complicated is it?

Or is it really rather simple to achieve?

I've come to realize that the forward motion of life is so intertwined with many moving parts. One thing leads to the next, to the next, to the next.   You can't have one thing with out the other.

But it's all lost when you can't stop long enough to laugh a bit or say a little prayer of gratitude.

Yesterday I was contemplating my romantic life and lamenting some things I have yet to truly feel again, today I'm looking at my life as a whole and seeing where it is I want to go and what are some things I need to follow as I reach out and follow the 'yellow brick road'.

Journaling is a great way to take that pause and just reflect.

So glad I took a moment in a rather busy day to get unbusy.

:)

Page 2..."The Good Egg"

I just finished up a couple of details on this page.

 

I loved the colors, but I also loved a couple of things I wrote in it a while back.

"I want not just to Survive, I Want to Live"

Dream Big.

Have fun on this day before the day before the weekend.

Enjoy life and don't say no to spending a little time with someone you love or to do something that gives you joy. Life is too short.

Artfully yours,

Jodi

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Do you like to use watercolors?

Have you tried Twinkling H20s?

What about Yupo Paper?

If you want to see more, check out my class, 

"Twinks on Yupo" and be prepared to be amazed!

 

The Morning After Challenge

 So its the day after my birthday and I'm feeling good still. Not sure what I expected as I head further into my 40's then I'd like to be....but I still feel the same as I did 10 years ago.  Heck, 12 or 15 years ago.  Maybe a little wiser.  Maybe a little more wrinkles.  Maybe a little more sure of myself.  Maybe a me with a little more direction then I had back then.  

Sure, I was always career orientated and I was raising my boys back then and still am today--but I find that I've finally found my grove with most things.  I know somewhat where I want to go and I have a pretty good idea on how I want to get there. I know who I want to be and I am always trying to improve upon all the above.

I 'm pretty proud that at the end of 2010, I decided that 2011 was going to be the year that I did 'it'.  Resign or take an extended break from my day job and pursue my art full time.    2012 is going to be about fine tuning my business, making sure I have income streams coming in on a regular basis and just really get much better and efficient at what I do. It's time to add some more goals to my list for 2012 and there are a couple of things I'd like to either put in the works or do this coming year.  I'd like to write a book and I'd like to travel overseas to conduct a workshop and also travel to create....just create for me.....create for inspiration.  

As I created this page last night I was staring at my Christmas tree to the left of my couch, front and center of our living room and baby boy was to my right. He says Mom, I'm pretty proud of what we did together. The house looks good and our tree is beautiful.  I smiled on the inside and outside.  It's those little moments that make the difference in the world and truly MAKE up your world.  The big moments are few and far between.      I wrote down some goals and put out there that I do want to  move ahead with my personal life. I've put that on hold too long too as I recovered from the many disappointments, heartbreak, drama, and truly abuse on a lot of different fronts.   And despite a few hiccups and wrong decisions I"ve made over this last year.....it's finally put me in a place where I'm ready to move on with my WHOLE life, not just my career and passion. 

It may be a challenge to balance it all...but that's what I do best.

Speaking of challenges. I'm going to try to do a page in my journal, or a tip in page (loose page) for the next 30 days and post it here on my blog. For several reasons....I have some ideas I need to get out....I love to write....I want to be more regular blogging, and I need to develop some good repetitive habits that will help me launch BIGGER ideas.   

Join along if you will.  I'm calling it the Morning After Challenge.

Why morning after?  Well, I've found for me I can make this happen by starting my journal page late at night while watching tv....and then the morning after I color it in and tweak it.  That's how I've been managing to get them done.  If you decide to join in, please post a link to your blog on a comment so I can visit you!

Stay tuned for tomorrow's page...this is going to be fun!

And what else am I doing today?  I'm working on ideas, samples, and plans for new classes at retreats across the country....stay tuned for more details as I (hopefully) get accepted to  new ones...and stay tuned for  my new pages to have links of my schedule. (Another one of my plans is to finish updating my blog pages and  start a website....whoohooo!!  So much to do, 24 hours to do it.  Make the most of your day, each and every day :))

xoxo Jodi

Update--here's a smaller blog button to use: