1.An excercise in "artistic individuality" 2.Meeting new people

When Johnny Comes Marching Home, mixed media, 8x11"

What inspires you? Externally focused art is born from what the artist sees around them. When an artist draws inspiration from their thoughts and feelings you could call it internally focused. Then there's a whole range where an artist can fit between the two.

After learning how to draw, I lost interest in making external art. What goes on inside myself, or what I imagine is going on inside someone else as opposed to painting the outside world around me is what stimulates my creativity.

I've increasingly felt the need to do projects outside of my regular style. Even small discoveries can fuel and refine artwork, so I'm working through the projects in Finding Your Visual Voice. It's been liberating.The piece above was an exercise based on a dream I had a couple months ago about the aftermath of war. Since the immediacy of the dream was long gone when I went to finish this, I listened to a Roger Waters recording that would invoke some of the same feelings. It's not a place I like to be.

It's necessary to express negative feelings. Some artists are able to shake things up- wake up people who are cocooned in apathy. That is one way to bring about change. For me though, the message has to stay positive. A completely negative message has a destructive effect on me and I think focusing on what's bad in the world and what's not working without seeing any good will destroy one's spirit. A broken spirit is not so helpful in bringing about positive changes. So I restrained myself a bit with this piece. I kept some detachment and I learned to respect that my art has to be about hope.

If you're in need of a good dose of positive messages on what's beautiful in life, stop in to visit Tracy of Pink Purl. She's the sweetest and I'm sure you'll feel 'at home' right away. I have a big thanks to Tracy for giving me this award. Thank you Tracy! What an unexpected gift!

I realize I've been a tad too introverted for a blogger. I've been happy to read my regulars and haven't been out meeting new people. My favs are so good I'd nominate them gladly again, but I'm going to break the 'rules' a bit here (I like how Tracy put the rules in quotation marks). I've been following The Pulse lately from The Altered Page to find some new and interesting reads and I'm going to nominate some of my favorites from that list. So most of these people don't know me yet, but I already love their blogs!

Here's the "rules":


1. Please put the logo on your blog.

2. Link the person from whom you received your award.

3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs.

4. Put the links of those blogs on to your blog.

5. Leave a message on their blogs to tell them!


1. Art Vein Vessel (an exception. I do know Kate!)

2. Ramblings

3. David Castle Art

4. Contemplating the Moon

5. Artistic Journeys

6. Into the Blystic Elis Cooke

7. Be...Dream...Play... and Listen