Embrace the Yellow

A beautiful print by Maya Donenfield of the always wonderful maya*made.

She offers constant inspiration to me, and today, she is reminding me of something I am ready to remember how to do.

To embrace all the colors of our lives, even if we think they aren't our favorites, or aren't what we should like or aren't what we are used to or aren't what we are longing for.

Because there is beauty all around us and joy in all moments of life, if we can just see it.

Ruth Marks, Lovely Work

In the interest of Day of the Dead and All Saints Day here's a lovely new to me artist. Her name is Ruth Marks and she has all sorts of dolls and sculptures that are just dreamy and spirity (it's a word [okay it's not, but I'm working it]) and eerie.

Like this one

or this one

Very cool. I went through all her previous works of the various years, but I'm having trouble saving the photos. And I really wish she had a blog.

If you're out there Ruth Marks, can you start a blog? It's not that hard. I'm dying to know about your techniques and inspirations.

Nolan Haan-- You Are Not Alone

Sometimes I come across something in a surprising place.

Today it was on my google page. Artist a day.

Nolan Haan paints on cinder block walls. I was struck with this message. Sometimes it is so easy to forget that we are part of the human family, struggling together, in our aloneness. Plus I like the contrast of the hard edge wall and graffiti with the soft, spiritual message.

Eggman Studios

Loving this shop right now. The carnival/museum/specimen feel of the work is eerie-cool. It's hard to pick a favorite, but as someone who spends most of her time around people, I'm feeling a longing for this solitude print.

The artist is Michelle Knowlen and she also has a blog, here.

The Sketch Book Project

I signed up for this project. It's a global art journal project and in the end, the journals will go on tour and end up in a permanent exhibit in my old home of Brooklyn.

It actually took me a while, like months, because every time I tried to sign up, for some reason, it wouldn't allow me to log on. And every time I saw it online, I would get the urge to sign up again and go to the site and go through the same frustration of being bounced back to the "sign in" page which would not let me sign in, or get a new account because I already had one. I bet I signed up last year on my gmail account and forgot the password.

Anyway, finally, I got smart and used my secondary email to sign up. Then I picked my theme and bought my notebook. My theme is "If you lived here..." which is actually the third or fourth theme I chose, since each time I went back, my previous theme was sold out.

If you want to do something so much that you keep thinking about it, keep having the urge, and keep returning to the same place, it's probably a sign that you should do all you can to make it happen.

Now all I have to do is figure out how to fill this journal.

There's still time. If you want, sign up, journal away.

Brilliant and Creepy Illustrator: Jason Holley

This book cover was done by Jason Holley. I love it. I love everything on his website, actually.

I am putting him here because I wouldn't mind him illustrating my book cover, when it gets published. (I'm putting that out there as a "when" not an "if" because I just finished the third draft of my novel, and I am gearing up to get it out into the world. Positive thinking, folks.)

Anyway, take a look at his illustrations. Great work, thought provoking, beautiful, chilling, slightly Audubon inspired, slightly graffiti inspired, full of decay and yearning. Me likey.

Also look at his archives. When I get obsessed with something, it gets featured here. I'm obsessed.

via the always inspiring automatism

they sacrificed everything to the stars, print by Amanda Blake

One of my favorite artists, Amanda Blake, and her new print available now in her shop.

Oh buying art could bankrupt me, at least if I bought everything I loved. I love everything about it, the stars, the houses, the bonfires, the family, and the tapestry-like details of the ground.

Love.

Toto. We Are Not In Kansas

I am afraid of tornadoes. I had to spend a few dark hours in a basement with my kids and my neighbor, after I heard the train rumble and a tree fell down knocking out the electricity all over town.

Fine. No one saw an official tornado, but I'm pretty sure that when I was running around trying to close the windows to the wind and rain, and found that ALL the windows had rain blowing in, that meant it was an actual tornado. Plus that train sound. Plus the tree falling and the light going out.

Okay, we were only in the basement for a few minutes before it passed but it was scary.

Oh. What is not scary but in fact fantastic and inspirational?

The above tornado is not real. Nor is it digital. Nor is it an illustration or a painting or any of that.

It is a diorama.

*blink*

This man is a genius. He does dioramas of all sorts of scenes. From outer space, to glacier chill, to conflagrations, to gentle landscape. Amazing.

via astulabee. Thanks, Nicole. I love your blog.

Leah Giberson and her Pretty Trailer Painting

Land Yacht (three)

I love this painting/print by Leah Giberson. It's for sale in the Tiny Showcase and 250$ of her sales there will be donated towards the Gulf Restoration. Love also the rest of her work here on etsy.

I wonder where I would put this print if I were to buy it. Hmm...

Oooh. I bought it. That's too exciting.

Now we can have a print of one of these dreamy trailers, even if we don't have the actual trailer yet.

Oooooh. Purty Violets and Design and Handmade Displays. Just Ooooooh.

I just found this lovely online thesis from whatyoulove by aprile.

I'm not 100% sure what it is exactly. All I know is that it is wonderful and magical and beautiful and inspirational. And you know what? That is good enough for me.

via robayre inspiration junkie, who ain't no slouch in the inspiration department herself.

Double Outstanding!

First this awesome art installation/camper for one on a deavy duty tricycle, found on Inhabitat,

then the awesome painting by it's owner Boston based Kevin Cyr. Loving. And check out his truck paintings, too.

I don't know why I've been loving campers and airstreams lately, but I have. Actually I always have. I'm a nester at heart, and sometimes I wish I could travel with my home right there with me.

If I had this camper, I could put my groceries away before I left the grocery store!

Wouldn't this be wonderful in your house?

How awesome would it be to have this typeface deer head mounted in your living room. The graphic quality of the print and the majestic, natural quality of the deer combine to make it a cheeky and conceptual statement, which is at the same time down to earth. Me love.

And if I have figured out how to post pictures from the web to my blog, again, I might just be able to start posting here again. My computer died, you see, and now I have to learn the new system.

I think I got this. I've been trying to post this for a couple of days. Yay me. But I'd like a better shortcut. I will keep figuring out.

In the meantime, lets thank this wonderful etsy seller, ruby's lounge, for her inventive creation.

Oh dear. I just realized this seller is Jennifer Koshbin. I've seen her art around for a while. She's wonderful. Check her out.

What Are You Afraid Of?

What Are You Afraid Of, sculpture

I know I have been absent lately, kind of being a hermit, if you will, and have not posted... but I saw this artist in a treasury that I was included in and I fell head over heels in love. If I had a spare 500$ I would buy it. But since I don't, I have to post my love. Love love love.

Her name is Darla Jackson. Glad to find her.

And it is quite, uhh, coincidental that the title of this sculpture is "What Are You Afraid Of."

Stop hiding little hermit rabbit and start posting again.

Beth Hannon Fuller

"Making art and ignoring the dishes since 1994" Now that's a blogger I can get with. Beth Hannon Fuller has 3 kids... little ones, and does a painting a day. I mean, I don't know if she does one EVERY day, maybe it's 5 out of 7 days a week, like me. But how cute is that studio/workspace of hers? And how cute are her pieces? Go check out her etsy shop. She has originals and prints for very reasonable prices.
Love this blueberry collage with the little stem over the map.
and I am really attracted lately to anything that resembles a lollipop. I'm doing trees shaped like these olives. Ivy calls them "popsiple" trees and makes me draw them all over the place.

found via paper n stitch blog. she's the featured seller.

Kendra Baird

How lovely is the work of Kendra Baird? I love the stylization of the figures/foreground against the textured and painterly backgrounds. I like it when the painting fools with the fourth wall and reminds you that this is not real, not a window you are looking through into another world, but an actual painting, made by someone's hand.
I think this one is my favorite. Love the girl in blue, and shadowy, foresty paint splattered canvas. Oh wait, there's more.She's called "Dissappointment"

found via scoutiegirl.

Misty Mawn

Misty Mawn got my attention with these. I love the imagery and I love the paint treatment. I suppose it's no mystery that I would like these, there are definite parallels between my own work. I also love the title of the post. "art, it's good for you." I love the writing on this one, and the little house sketched in there. I love little houses.

Bring on the Spring. I think everyone is ready.

Amanda Blake-- Sigh! So Lovely

she dressed her children in clothes made of night, painting by Amanda Blake

I love everything this woman does. Her awkward little personalities, the blockiness of it, the backgrounds, alternating between flat and patterned. Look at the little hatches in the yellow tree. I just love it. Reminds me of Aboriginal dream paintings. Oh, well, maybe that's another reason why I love it. Those paintings have enchanted me since I was in college.

I love the starlight here. I should, I do starlight like that often. Well, sorta. Doesn't matter. Still makes me swoon.

I love also the way she talks of being a mother and a painter. It just resonates.

Imke Klee

A photocard by stylist Imke Klee, found via Visual-Notes, a lovely blog.

I've been seeing these things all over the internet, and every time I do, I get the almost irresistible urge to gather up my collections and start photographing them on a white background.

And then a messmaker or two comes barelling through the room with peanut butter fingers akimbo yelling like a banshee and swinging a light saber, so I never get around to it.

I still love the idea of documenting loved and beautiful things. I love the ideas of collections. I love the idea of coordinating a color theme with them, to give some unification of the disparate items.

Looking at this one here, though, I start getting an idea to allow the things within them to not be random, but to tell a story. These little animals put me in mind of fairy tales and getting lost in the woods. I feel like there should be a red riding hood in here. But that wouldn't fit with the color tale, would it? She's got more color collections in her flickr photostream.

What kind of "random" items can come together to create a mystery? I am intrigued by the concept, although I might never get the opportunity to try it until the kids are in High School.


Look at that. There's a whole flickr pool for organized collections. I have got to figure out flickr. Any suggestions for an overwhelmed newbie?

Diane Benezech-Schuh

Art by Diane Benezech-Schuh

Beware of stepping through this portal, Hibou-Caillou-Chou, you might be swallowed by the whale. She paints clothes, makes other cute things, and has an etsy shop

I have that funny feeling in my stomach that I get whenever I stumble upon something magical.

I found this site through an interview on Lou Lou and Oscar and could not get away.

Abundance For All

I am loving Jess Gonacha's new blog... Pecannoot. The whole philosophy behind it is to focus on the abundance in a world that is fricking FREAKING out about not having enough.

But the truth is, we never have enough, when we look at it in that light. And we always have enough when we focus on what we actually do have.

It doesn't mean you have to settle for things that suck, but it does mean you live the life you have in the moment and appreciate it.

I've been thinking lately that although there is no guarantee that thinking positive will result in a positive end, I am pretty sure that if we go around thinking negatively, we will be miserable, even if we do get the happy ending. And we probably won't be satisfied with the happy ending, anyway.

Which one sounds better, being happy living your life even if things end up badly, or being miserable with your life waiting for things to turn out right, and then being miserable anyway?

So hop on over to lovely Jess' new abundance spot and revel in how you already have all that you really need.

Oh, she's also looking for submissions from artists who are celebrating abundance in their art. How is that for practicing what you preach. Nicely done, Jess.