Using an already stretched canvas for a different type of wall art inspired me to make this project:
The deep-edged canvas is 6×6″ and the back has a “cavity” that I used for displaying the figure.
I don’t have any pictures of the process, but it’s not hard. I covered the canvas with many layers of tissue paper that I painted and distressed with paint washes of various colors. The front is a window made from cardboard and plaster strips. I like the way the plaster makes lots of texture. I slathered on a layer of wet plaster on top and let some of the strips bleed through.
I added some tissue paper over the dried plaster and painted the front to look like the back. Then I added some positive affirmations to the sides. I formed a box inside the back of the canvas from cardboard and added tissue paper to get some texture. I then painted it with a burnt sienna wash.
The figure was the hardest part since it had to fit inside the opening. I used a styrofoam ball that I cut in half for the head and added a torso of crumpled foil. I covered the whole with epoxy clay and sculpted the hands, face, and heart. After it all dried, I painted the figure with acrylic paints.
Epoxy clay will adhere to just about anything, so it was easy to fix the parts to the main figure. I then sprayed the whole thing with glossy varnish and put a hanger on the back.
I had a bunch of air dry clay that needed to be used before it dried up, so I made some bowls or dishes. When they were dry, I painted mandalas on some and sculpted a face with wings on another. That one has some interesting vines on the back. See the pictures below.
I added a YouTube VIDEO on how I paint the mandala on the clay bowl.
A strange bird
I also made this strange bird this month…
I look back on September and conclude it was a good month even if I didn’t make as many art projects as I normally do. I’ve been trying to think outside the box and challenge my creativity. It’s exciting but also difficult.
In one project I was trying to pour resin over a picture that I had enhanced with “jewels”. It turned out that they were plastic and mostly melted making the resin turn blue. The jewels turned into flat mirror disks, and the project was ruined. Live and learn. I don’t use resin much since you can’t fix the booboos, but it’s an intriguing medium.
Dream life or dreaming awake? What does that evoke in you? Do you want a dream life with all the comforts and shiny stuff, or do you want to know more about dreaming? As in living by your inner guidance.
Sometimes I feel as if I’m wandering like a puppet through a dream, and that’s in “real” life. People seem like cardboard characters, and the craziness of the world is just that–crazy! As in unreal.
I know in my heart that there are peace and beauty. I feel it every day, and it’s in sharp contrast to the 3D life all around UNLESS you focus on the mystery of life.
The tiny signals, the simple synchronicities in everyday life are what makes things really interesting. They are subtle but you can experience the support of the universe through those signals.
It becomes a fun game to discover more of the treasures.
It’s too difficult to describe since it’s a personal inner experience, but it’s available to anyone who is curious enough to want to find out more.
Life is massively more profound than what we normally experience.
That is what inspires me these days. I want to know more about the mystery.
Everything else is pale in comparison.
Still, I can’t just sit in a corner and wait for things to happen. I still create and that is as close as I can come to the mystery in my actions. I love the surprises that happen.
Lately, I created some clay hearts/ornaments out of air-drying clay. It is different to work with than polymer clay. Lots of fun. I molded everything by hand.
Sooo much fun!
You are blessed! We truly all are. There is a difference to really feeling it versus just seeing the words.
I’m okay with hanging in limbo art-wise. There are so many ways to find expression, and these clay hearts became an experiment when my painting muse had been absent for a while.
Meanwhile, I look toward the mystery every day to see how I can receive more of the gifts by being open and grateful. Everything else has become secondary, but I long to tap more deeply into my creativity too.
I highly recommend a book I read recently: A Complaint Free World, by Will Bowen. I’m in the middle of the 21-day complaint free challenge, and it’s hard. It has shown me just how much negativity seeps from others, and also lives in me. The more aware I become the more I reject complaining, gossiping, sniping, bitching, etc. You get the idea.
Try the experiment. It will change your life! 🙂
So, there is only one way to go–forward!
Kicking and screaming sometimes, but that’s the human dilemma.
My dear companion kitty, Bailey, crossed the Rainbow Bridge two weeks ago, and I miss him so much.
Who is going to lie in the middle of my work table now? He would always jump up when I was in the middle of creating, but I didn’t mind. I moved to the side as you can see in the picture. 🙂
What we do for our furry friends…
I’m going to my studio now. It’s time to create.
I wish you a creative and wonderful weekend with lots of sunshine.
Finding clarity is not always easy. I have wanted to be more clear about what I offer people to help them advance with their creativity.
One of the most valuable tools in seeking the next step on the journey is imagination. My mom said I always had a wild imagination, and I’m grateful for the gift! 🙂
How do you use your imagination to gain clarity?
I like to meditate and sometimes I go on a journey with my imagination. Night dreams are possible guide posts to what is going on in your life, and through the gateway of imagination, you can re-enter the dream and get some answers.
On a journey into the unknown (or known however you see it) it is always great to bring a protector in the form of an animal. You would think bear or tiger or wolf would be the ones showing up, but I got a hummingbird leading the way.
For some reason I had complete confidence that this little bird could protect me if necessary. I don’t know if you’ve seen hummingbirds in action, but they are tough little warriors.
I read somewhere that hummingbirds evolved from a raptor in the time of the dinosaurs, but I’m not sure I believe that. Anyway…
Traveling with hummingbird, I went back into my night dream. I had missed an appointment with a man in a brown hat. I was in a room with my Mom and there was a sink that leaked. A full bucket of water sat under the sink and I wondered why no one had emptied it.
There was more to the dream, and the feeling was that I had screwed up somehow. The man in the hat had awakened me from a deep sleep.
I realized through my dream that I need to wake up and honor my “appointments.” Don’t miss important meetings due to sleep (unconscious behavior.) The water bucket was full and stagnant, and it was up to me to empty it.
Why wasn’t the leak fixed? No one cared enough to fix it.
Those were the major insights from the dream.
I have been at a crossroads for a while and it’s time to “empty the bucket.” Something new has to open up or I’ll be stuck (asleep) forever.
Dreams can tell you a lot of things, and so can art.
Intuitive art is often far from pretty, but it often holds many insights, just like dreams. In a way, they are both the same.
Honoring the hummingbird
Art = dream = imagination = creation.
To honor the hummingbird I painted this page, and a brown cow showed up as the gatekeeper to the unknown.
We have the power to create something new, something that is closer to the soul’s path.
I would have to say that spiritual experience is the closest to my heart, IS my heart. Art is something I DO, but it can have a deeper meaning, drawing me ever closer to Source.
There are so many variations of spiritual art, women’s empowerment, shamanistic art, religious art, but I don’t feel spirituality has to be labeled, and we don’t have to seek it through some path. We are already THERE.
The key is to recognize that fact and create that which makes us feel connected and feel GOOD in the moment.
Sometimes there are too many paths to follow. The mind says “do that, that artist is successful” or “try that style; it might be saleable.” “Follow the path of that shaman, they seem successful.”
The hardest part is to follow your own path. So much doubt and so many choices. They are all tricks by the mind.
Your heart is always true. Finding clarity in the heart is the purest form of clarity. However, when experiencing the heart there is no NEED to DO or make anything.
However, since we live in a 3D existence we have to move our bodies, so there might be a prompt, a glimpse of something intriguing to do that feels ignited with joy. There is also a chance that everything will feel blah, but I call that a time of transition.
sheep standing on my head
I made another art journal spread where a sheep (or goat) showed up standing on my neck and obscuring my head.
Sheep are stubborn. Reading the message of this intuitive page, I saw that my image of clarity was obscuring real clarity. I had built the dang sheep as an excuse to not move forward.
But look at the heart that showed up under the belly of the sheep! It was moving into a lighter sense. I had the words Follow Your Heart cut out from a template I had made for another project. I never threw out the words, and they fit perfectly.
I say that all the time “follow your heart.” Well, it takes a lot of courage to follow your heart. Sheep and other stubborn folk may show up to stir up confusion.
They are only images of fear of change. You can’t blame the messenger…
I am more committed to exploring my inner landscape and making art from that. That might be the end of “pretty” art but the goal is to be more open to the mystery and see what happens.
How does that sound to you? Are you ready to delve more deeply into the mystery of you?
I’m going to blog more about it and you can subscribe to my blog or my newsletter (see upper right hand corner of this page to access both.) I wrote a recent blog post about Intuitive art versus Structured art.
What happened to January? It went by in the blink of an eye. So much upheaval came with the Presidential inauguration and so much unrest. So much polarity among people. So much ugliness. Is that who we are, ugly people?
I have to say, though, that art unites. Some might scoff at that, but art reminds us that there is something deeper, something more profound than our human petty concerns. There is beauty.
Art holds things together and I have seen so many artists in the groups coming together more tightly than ever, thinking of ways to make this a brighter world.
Art is a reminder of beauty, that we come from beauty, and can focus on becoming more beautiful inside as our heritage inspires. I talking about a deeper heritage than our ancestors.
To see any real change in the world, each person has to change inside, find the peace and love that truly lives in the heart. Access the heart wisdom! It is a choice. The heart brings UNITY within a person, and that mirrors into the world around us.
Art at its best brings out the best in us! We are all touched differently by what we see, but ultimately, we experience the same. Art can awaken the soul, awaken a person to look for the deeper meaning, the bigger picture than we see on TV.
To solve the issues in the world, we have to go within. The solution is a spiritual one, and each person has the responsibility to connect to their higher wisdom. Be one less problem in the world. It definitely is a choice. Are you in? I’m in.
Do what you love is a concept that is tossed around all the time on social media these days.
I agree with the concept but it becomes a thought form for the busy mind, not something that actually sinks in. I make these inspirational wall plaques that say “follow your heart.” I do mean it, but what does it actually mean?
I was at an event at a bookstore recently where I have some art hanging on display. I watched the people wandering around the walls, looking. There were those who threw a cursory glance at my art, and there were those who stopped at every painting and took in every detail. I’d say they liked my art, or they tried to figure out the technique.
I have followed my urge to paint for a long time, and what appears on the canvas today is something I have developed over the years, and maybe there is more “heart” in my art than there was. I don’t know. All I know is that I’m on a journey that never stops as long as I can paint.
My art will never stop developing, so if one of those people at the event would have approached me with questions, like “what inspires you”? I would have answered “many things.” There is no one thing in particular.
What they actually see is my DOING over the years, with no particular goal in mind.
I think the painter Paul Cezanne might be the father of abstract art when he discovered he could paint the loose rendition (or energy) of the landscape he was looking at. Discovering that took many years of DOING.
The issue was not to create a strong brand of Paul Cezanne, but the journey that led to his discovery of abstract ideas. Like most painters he probably took classes and experimented endlessly with color and form. His art became his brand, but I’m sure he would have resisted the word.
Why lock oneself into a box of “this-is-who-I-am” and I will be this for the rest of my life. Life is an evolving journey of many “follow my hearts.”
The problem is: most people like to dream but not DO. It’s in the doing that all is revealed!!
You can’t put heart in a box or on a wall plaque and hope it will transform someone, but my intention is to inspire. Still, the journey is mine.
Every day is a day of DOING or not… your choice. By trusting, by taking action and not sitting on the sidelines you will in fact be led by the heart.
xo
Maria
P.S. I have lots of art for sale in my etsy shop Greene Earth Originals: HERE.
Artist and writer
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