Tarot readings

When I started this blog, I thought it might be a way of recording my thoughts on my healing work and my art. I never really thought the two would be so intertwined - besides the fact that I was doing them at the same time in my life.

But after the last few paintings and the realisations that they are very much entwined, entangled and perhaps conduits for the other, I thought I would ask a dear friend of mine for her interpretation on them. My friend Syrinx is an intuitive counsellor - she reads tarot cards and has an amazing ability to channel advice that I know is from my higher self.

This is her address if you want to know more - she is AMAZING.

http://www.syrinx.ca/

Anyway, what I had beenwondering was why the energy work wasnt moving along as quickly as the art work? But of course, I had already begun to nut that out. The energy work was in the artwork - the paintings had become a way of sending healing energy for a longer period than just one hour of a treatment session.

And this is what the reading said:

The energy work is like 'work' while the artwork is like 'play' if you were to use these analogies as descriptors. While the energy work hasnt taken off like I thought and hoped it would, it was impertative that I travel that road. It was to reconnect me to my intuition. Ahhh, intuition. I love it!

But, I'm at a crossroad. I need to choose a direction because I cant do both. If I am going to be a channel when I paint and when I do my healing work, then I need clarify my intentions and strenthen the messages that I receive.

So, I have to choose!

The cards that came when looking at the artistic side of things reflected a calling to my higher purpose. I think the choice is clear.

There was a final message that came with the reading - I am not supposed to look at a change in direction as a failure or a mistake. I needed to take that road for however long I travelled it - so I could get to the next step. My pathway is a stepping stone pathway - it is my pattern or way of doing things.

Those words are the so important - I am quite the typical gemini - I love the change in scenery and the adventure of new things. But of late, I am quite aware of how I look to those around me - changing my mind and changing my direction. I was extremely sensitive to this with my thesis work - I changed my topic maybe five times. Each time I came to a point that I just couldn't continue on the road I had taken - no matter what the advice. So many advisors tell you to just get the schooling over and done with. But my inner voice was too loud - for me, my masters isnt a piece of paper. It is an experience and a journey in learning... I need to make my topic personal and it needs to be important to me. It wont lead me where I need to go and I wont meet who I am meant to meet if I take someone else's journey and research someone else's agenda.

And so, I'm delving into the esoteric, the rich and unique. I'm researching intuition and alternate healing... and now I know that this writing, these questions, these thoughts and musings, will also be about my artwork and the manifestation of healing through a visual form. From intention to the purity of energy and the utter surrender that comes when you allow Spirit to work through you. For the higher good of those around you and even more so, for your own higher good.

I wish I had a picture to share - something ethereal and light, something that speaks of Spirit. A pressence that is gentle and yet supporting - omnipresent and omniscient.

Oh, I know... J gave me this Autumn leaf - one of the first to fall this season. He also gave me this Buddha head - they sit in my kitchen with photos of my family. A little piece of the sacred where I cook.


In the mean time... I need a name. It was my homework after my reading - for want of a better word. I need something that describes what I do.

I think to tie in with this blog - and my email address.. the intuive bit is a must.

And to describe the painting - rendering.

Intuitive Rendering !!

I'm still working on a description of what that is for those that dont know me or havent read this blog.

and for those that do, Happy Halloween.

thanks for sharing this journey with me.

Michelle

(I thought this might work here - it is the first sketch I did when working on the vertical chakra pieces. It is in blue ink and I literally scribbled it on a piece of paper. But look where this little doodle led!!)

silent auctions

This post will be a little ditty about the other work that I have been doing of late. My partner is a Mason and last weekend, they had a fundraising steak night with a silent auction.

He asked me if I would donate a painting. I was so honoured that he thought that much of my work - I still catch myself being suprised when I think of myself as an artist.

Anyway, I thought my chakra paintings might be too ...well, abstract for a bunch of old Masons. (no offense J!!) So I had intended to donate the autumn leaf you have already seen.


But the day before the event, I realised that it wasnt going to fit in the frame I had for it and no amount of creative framing was going to work.

Pick the frame first, then paint to fit the space. mmmm - good lesson

So, I started another piece.

This was literally four hours before the event and of course, what content do I know well enough that it will flow out of my brush without fear of me fudging it up? The chakra.

And so, as J calls out that he is leaving to take the donations to the lodge for that evening, I open my heart and call on Spirit to create a painting. I ask that the person that it was meant for, would see it and would recognise it as their's immediately. I decided to paint the heart chakra.

Here it is:
I am still amazed at how quickly it painted itself. I watched as it unfurled in about half an hour. I had it done and framed before J was ready to leave. It was meant to go to that fundraiser.

Here is the quick pick I took with the phone of it sitting with it's bidding sheet at the dinner.


You will have to excuse the quality of the picture. I was a little shy taking a photo of it with everyone milling around inspecting all of the donations.

Anyway, as you can see, there were bids on it. I was over the moon. Part of me was definetly afraid no one would like it and that it would come back home with me.

But someone did. And that someone is my beautiful friend Ellen. She fell in love with it and took it home with her.

Now, the amazing story of this picture doesnt end there. Ellen is a very sensitive soul and she has felt the energy of the heart chakra calling to her. It is emanating off her painting and is sending that healing light her way. I am awed that I am a conduit for this light and energy. It is an amazing experience.

Now as it happens, my kids' school is having a silent auction in a week or so. And I was asked to do a painting for them. I had thought that it would be a chakra painting - that people in the neighbourhood would be able to see an example of my art and my own style with the curly, swirly lines of my chakras.

But that isnt what came out.

I tried.. but the piece looked dreadful. I should show you.. but I havent taken a photo of it and way too late and I'm way too tired to do that now.

So, what I did was I got some new paper... you saw my post about the landscape... and from there, I found that the free flowing lines, the total surrender .. well, that was the lesson. And this is my second attempt.



It reminds me of home - of our mountains that are too small for snow. Or perhaps that should be - where it is too warm for snow!! But most of all it is the purple of those mountains when the haze is coming off the valleys and fields in the foreground and you know they really arent that colour, but your heart sings that nature can be so mercurial, changing each day, each moment even. Then the sun sinks a bit lower and the purple hues become the dark indigos, and the sky lights up with millions of stars. I love the smell of the country at night. The smell that greeted me when I was a child, as I got out of the car when we arrived at our Granddad's on a Friday night. So cool and clear and filled with starlight.

Home soon to smell that air.

aha!!

Last week I was giving an energy treatment and as my mind contemplated all things esoteric that dwell in this amazing space between thoughts, I had one. A thought that is. It occurred to me that the paintings that I have been doing are a little more than I had originally conceptualised.

And while I say a thought occurred to me, I readily acknowledge that someone let me in on a secret - the thought never had its origin with me... it felt as if I was being awakened to somethign that was always there.

Anyway, back to afore mentioned thought!

It occurred to me that while I set the intention to connect my paintings energetically to their recipients so that the pieces are a visual representation of their chakras, there is more going on than just the production of the painting.

When I painted the chakra painting that had the missing petals from the solar plexus chakra and then found out the husband in the couple that was getting the painting, had stomach health issues, I realised that this is why the petals were missing.

Well, this happened again when I painted the horizontal piece. I left off half of the petals. Half of them!! (there are supposed to be ten). As with the first painting, I caught myself after I realised what I had done. All with no thought, it just came out that way. But I painted the ten petals anyway, fitting them in but noting that there was something afoot.

When I delivered the painting to my friend, she told me that she had just had a bout of the worst gastrointestinal bug she had ever had. No wonder half of the petals were missing.

But what has just occurred to me, in this inspirational thought that comes from the space between thoughts, is the fact that by painting the full complement of petals, I am engendering the healing energy of the universe to flow into the chakras of the recipients of the painting. What was deficient and in need of more prana, is now being rendered in full health and spinning with the force of a life inspired vortex. While the painting alerted me to an area where energy was needed, by painting it I am actually practicing my healing work through my art.

I'm speechless of course. It seems so obvious now. I guess I'm a bit slow on the uptake!!

I just realised that I havent posted a picture of this piece completed. Well, here it is.


Dont you think the sanskirt script for Visshudha (the throat chakra) looks like the word IRIS?

My sister's favourite flower (and mine too) is the dark blue iris. And her favourite colour was blue. I used to tell her about the throat chakra being blue and how it didnt suprise me that she liked that colour so much. She was a writer.. the throat chakra is all about communication. mmm. Nice memories.

Namaste

a little exploration

I got some new paper yesterday - it is very rough and textured and I love it. So I thought I would play around with it.


I threw around the paint on this one... and what I found is that I really like the really rough lines that I scribbled down without too much thought as opposed to the carefully placed ones.

swirly - mmmmm

I think I will play around with this image some more... but remove the caution and control. Something to be said for surrendering.

More later.

!

Gratitude

This is a post about gratitude. What an amazing week I've had. As I sit here typing this, I'm staring out at the first snow of the season. In about half an hour, I'll have to walk my little people up to school for the afternoon - something that usually would be quite unpleasant in the mini blizzard that we have going on at the moment. I dont mind walking when big soft fluffy snow is coming dow.. but the wind blowing wet ice in your face type of sojourn - not so pleasant.

But today, we get to drive to school - toasty warm and get home dry because last week, my mother-in-law gave us a second car. It is a 20 year old beater.. but I dont mind in the least. This of course, is helped by the fact that my darling man is driving it to work and I get to keep our comfortable four wheel drive for my driving pleasure. And for an Australian living in Saskatchewan for the winter, four wheel drive is a must.

When the little beast (the car that is and not my man) comes home tonight, I'll get a photo to pop in here.

In the mean time, here are some amazing shots of the sunflowers that are outside. My next door neighbour planted them just outside our kitchen window so I got to look at them all summer. So very grateful - not that I had an issue with the view of her side wall - but sunflowers - so much better.

She had asked me if I wanted her to pull them out just yesterday as they were hanging over our fence but I was really looking forward to seeing them when the snow started to fly.

And fly it has!

What started as a light dusing of snow...

has become a good couple of inches. And it is still coming down.

I love the little curl on the green part of the plant = it is so subtle and usually lost in a busy background. But the white of the snow brings it out into a very stunning part of the flower.
I usually expect the first snow to be a light dusting that is hardly visible the next morning. But today, the wind is blowing and it is a slushy, icy mess.


Quite beautiful - but still, mucky. Of course, the kids love it. I saw all of the kids at school playing in all of this whiteness when I was up dropping off Autumn. They were having a lot of fun. I'm so glad - this year, I might be able to finally kick them all outside to play - and they might stay there for more than five minutes!!


As for the rest of the dialogue on gratitude, the rest of my week has just got better and better. After the car came an amazing little sewing machine from my friend Lauren. The projects that are brewing in my little mind are all bubbling to the top... now, to clone myself so I can get it all out of my head and make it a reality. Of course, being so inspired my Monika's work doesnt help either. Wait till I realise that sewing in a straight line is a little out of my league.. then I may have to rethink those plans!!

See, swirly lines everywhere you look!

I also got some beautiful cornflowers from my wonderful friend Victoria during the week. She knew that I was going to try and add the sunflower petals to the paper I plan to make - these will be amazing. The blue of the dried petals is amazing.



And last, but not least... the biggest news of all. This week I have been offered a free trip back home to Australia. OMG IS RIGHT!!

There is someone making a documentary about my sister and they had been planning on interviewing me for some of the content. The full amount of funding they had hoped for didnt come through - but some of it did. And instead of the whole film crew flying over here - they are going to fly me back home to Australia. FREE. I get to see my family and friends - I am so overjoyed I cant describe it. I am also in such amazement...

In April I made myself a dreamboard and on it I had a wish for a trip to Australia, among other things. Some of those other things being a second car and a jar of home made granola. Well, the car has arrived and I started making my own granola about two months ago... and now a trip back home. I can not wait to look back at this dream board next year when it is time to make a new one to see what has come true.





As for my small gratitudes, I love my man - Thankyou JP for getting rid of the mice. (One of the biggest reasons this blog entry is so delayed - I've been cleaning the house and getting rid of all traces of evil varmints for the last few days!!)

Inspiration

I've been thinking of what I wanted to write in my next entry for the last few days. So this little ditty is all about inspiration. On Sunday, I went to help my friend Monika hang her beautiful work in a gallery space in town. It was so funny how our different perspectives influenced how our eyes moved around the space. Her prairie heart preferred the horizontal lines - like the open prairie spaces. And I was naturally drawn to rolling lines and vertical dimensions - something Monika links to my love of tall Australian snow gums. But what really moved me was how amazing her artwork looked. She was so nervous and all I could think was that she had absolutely no reason to be. Her pieces are amazing. I loved hearing the comments from people passing by who didnt know I knew the artist. "spectacular"


This is Monika tweeking her space - getting the lighting right and putting on the finishing touches. I hope she doesnt mind that I've 'borrowed' this image from her blog. But I didnt take my camera to get my own snaps of her finished display and I wanted everyone who reads this to see what I mean about inspirational.

It really was inspiring to see where this art business can lead.

When I was pondering what else I would write about inspiration, I thought of all of the things that inspire me. I am (as usual it would appear) a bit tired and perhaps not as eloquent as I would like, but I will try to share a few little things.

I love the way the paint moves when I wash my first brush of the day, when the water in my glass is still clean and the ink flows off the brush and in lazy, delicate circles. I keep thinking I will have to take a photo of it... maybe I'll get a chance to capture that tomorrow.

I also love the way I keep finding the spiralling lines that make up my chakra paintings, all around me. In nature and in design... like my journal - bound in pink leather with the most amazing design stamped onto the front. Now, that really says something - a pink leather journal - lol - but I hasten to add that it was the spiral design on the front that drew me to this book and ...well, there is something ironic about choosing pink when you really arent a pink kinda girl. And I must admit, I am really not a pink kinda girl!!

stay tuned for a photo of the journal.!!

Anyway, I'll think of more things to add to that list ... but now for some artwork! Last week I showed a friend of mine the elvish piece that I had just finished and she loved it. She said she would love one as well but the perfect spot for it in her place was above her bed - and that called for a horizontal painting.

Of course, the chakra lineage represents the alignment of the chakras up the spine - traditionally a vertical position. But hey, I guess if you are lying in bed, then horizontal works just fine!! Anyway, I got to thinking about the piece.. and how it could change whilst reclining in this horizontal garb and it led me to the inclusion of the sanskrit names for each chakra.


As you can see my lighting at night is dreadful!! Hence my lack of any other photographs to go with this blog. I'm still working on this painting - as you can see, there is room on top of the chakras for the final 'petal work' - which I have started but thought I would wait till daylight to continue.

But I had to share.. the way the thought of approaching this painting from a different direction led me to the inclusion of the horizontal script... I love it and the way it has turned out. I also love the curly lines - left over from my flirtation with the elvish energy.
This is a close up the Anahata - the heart chakra. What I really like are the lighter lines where I havent loaded as much pigment onto the brush and just the hint of a line or spiral flows underneath the other markings.

And this is a close up of the end of the painting... exit stage right so to speak.


From this perspective you can see how the solid line that is part of the sanskrit script, underlines the entire piece. I've bled the colours into each other as the words move from one chakra name to the next. So hard to capture with the camera... especially with this dreadful light. Would you believe I have four lamps turned on when I work, just trying to throw enough light onto my work, but not into my eyes. I know they say that the best light to work by is natural daylight.. but unfortunately, my kids are wide awake during the day. Funny about that! And painting is often something that doesnt get done for any great length of time when they are underfoot. Another shocking revelation I know. LOL.

Anyway, that is what I've been doing and mulling over. There is so much more I want to write about inspiration but I'll leave it for when the light is better and the sleep has left my tired eyes. I hope you have found a little of the magic stuff in your day today, wherever you are.

!!!

What I am going to do with my homemade paper you ask?

I've actually collected some sunflower petals from the sunflowers that hang over our back fence.



Since they were the inspiration for the sunflower paintings... what I am imagining is some paper with dried sunflower petals in it and a small watercolour sunflower painting set in there somehow.


I figured the wet paper and watercolour would make an interesting mix. Still to get ol choppy up and running - well, I know it works. I plugged it in to make sure. But I need to get a little more stuff together to make the paper. Like a big trough or bucket to put the pulp in. For that, I'm thinking a rubber maid container. Unfortunately, I'm using all of the ones at my house... so I'll have to get one next time I'm out and about. But I've been having way too much fun going for coffee with my mummy friends. Very funny bunch of women. Of course, I'm not getting a thing accomplished. MMM, this comment should really be another blog post.. might just cut and paste that and do just that. !! and add some photos of my sunflower petals...

done!!

nighty night.

Ancient History

ok.. dinner has been eaten and I've got a little bit of energy - so I'm going to upload these pics before I go to bed very very early...


This is something I knocked up in class one night just playing with brush strokes to make the grass and a really wet brush to do the colour on the elephant. I really really like it now that I'm looking at it again after all of these years. I should pay attention to the background seeing as I've been having so many issues with them lately.


This next piece is one of the first wolf pictures I did. I love love love wolves... I always stop to say hello to the pair at the local forrestry farm, such beautiful creatures. I enjoyed doing this piece so much that I did a couple more wolf paintings but I moved on to a new brush. You can see the difference that it made - my very very thin brush allowed me to do all of the hair on the wolves and now does all of the fine line work that makes up all of my chakra paintings.

Here is a close up of the eye..



These paintings were done in 1998 - wow, how times flies when you are busy wrangling children. I am so glad that I am back to my art - I have really missed it and it is turning out to be an amazing journey.

Now, to go and read some comments that I just found on here.. man, this blog stuff is a learning process. I didnt even know anyone was reading this - well, except for Monika cause she linked her facebook page to my entry. I think it was payback for mentioning her blog
http://www.mysweetprairie.blogspot.com/

Ha Ha - sorry Monika but seriously, if you havent looked at it, you should take a look. This is one amazing, very talented woman and her blog is so inspiring. Thanks Monika = when I'm feeling uncreative, you always without fail lift me up and make me smile.

For everyone else, check it out.

ok, now to read my kids some stories and fall asleep soon after.

Elvish Energy

I think it is safe to post these pictures here now - I didnt want to share them until my friend had received her painting and got to see them first. But it should have arrived today and I'm so excited to hear from her and hear what she thought.

Sorry the picture is so awkward and crooked. It is a very long painting and wont stand on its own, so I try to precariously balance over the top of it. But of course, it never quite works out.

I love the lines and the energy or feeling from it. It is so different to the other chakra pieces that I have done. So perfect for my friend and her beautiful elvish soul that peeks out at you. Here is a photo of the other chakra lineage painting that I've done sitting beside this elvish piece. You can see the lighter lines and ethereal nature of the new painting.



And after a six am start and a midnight to bed time last night, I'm hitting the wall big time. About ready to have a nap right here on the laptop. But dinner is on, just waiting to be cooked. So, I'll leave you here.. but stay tuned. I have some more photos to upload. While feretting around downstairs, I came across some old paintings I did years ago when I first learnt how to paint with watercolours. I did a couple of courses at a local gallery. You can see the evolution of my style and how the discovery of my favourite paint brush really helped. Now it is the only one I use - perfect for all of the fine line work I like to do.

ok. nap time.

nighty night.

I finished my ethereal elvish painting last night - amazing how when you are in love with a piece, it just flows. Three days of painting and it usually takes about three weeks to finish one. I couldnt take pictures last night because the light is so bad - amazing that I can paint that way actually. So as soon as I get my turkey in the oven for thanksgiving, I'll get the camera out. It is overcast today - so a great day for cooking and perhaps to start my great paper making adventure.

In the mean time, I've been taking some pictures that I would like to share - I guess it fits the theme of thanksgiving and harvest time.

These were another bucket of apples we were given that made some amazing apple sauce. The kids have been taking it to school and I used it to sweeten some home made granola I made. mmmmm.


These are a pile of crabapples we were given. They were tiny and my little guy loved eating apples that were his size.


This is the wee little pumpkin that we got from our garden - it was green when the first frost arrived so I bought it inside and with the warmth we've been getting, it is starting to change colour.

I love the patterns you find in nature - the curly lines in the little pumpkin top remind me of my paintings.

Well, time for that turkey to go in the oven. Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Another lesson learnt.

There was more that I was going to tell you about with what I was up to over the last few weeks. This is another piece in the works basd on the chakra design.

My lesson from this piece is that I am not sure that I like it. And I sat with it for a week and really, I should have moved on to something new. Like the elvish piece I'm working on now.

What I do like about it though, is the way the water section turned out. Water is the element that corresponds to the second chakra, svadisthana.

And when I look at the lines in the elvish piece, I can see that this painting is what allowed that movement in my brush.

So, note to self - allow the energy to flow. Dont get stuck on a piece that isnt moving - put it aside and maybe I'll get back to it... maybe I'll find something else that I fall in love with.

mmmm.

:)

ask and you shall receive!!

So, in the back of my head along with all of the thoughts and projects and plans and dreams, I have always wanted to make paper. A few years ago - god, nearly a decade ago actually, I lived in London with my man and I bought him the most gorgeous lamp from Camden Market one christmas.

It was made with simple balsa wood but the lamp screens were made with handmade paper that was a very light shade of green, hardly noticeable to the naked eye. But when you turn it on, you see the blades of grass and the seeds - it is beautiful and I've always wanted to make my own.

A couple of years ago, I started to make one - having found some beautiful paper with rose petals in it. I got the frame put together... but haven't yet managed to fandangle the workings that would support the light bulb. That would have required power tools.. and that is definetly my man's domain.




So, now that I am off exploring all of my creative inclinations... I am back to the urge to make my own paper. And perhaps while I am here, I might finish this lamp and work out how to make more. My mind is ticking over as we speak.

The first step in making paper is to throw it in the blender to make a sloppy mulch. Something tells me that after doing that, the blender isnt going to clean up that easily. And paper pulp in my kids smoothies - something that probably wont go down very well from their perspective although it might add more fibre to their diet!! So, I needed a new blender.

If I were a garage sale guru like my good friend Monika (who's blog you just have to read!! http://www.mysweetprairie.blogspot.com/) then it would be no problem. I'm sure there must be millions of blenders out there for the picking. So that got me thinking... kijiji!! And there I found it. FREE. My new blender. It is missing the lid - but hey, I can do what the previous owners were doing - throw a tupperwear lid over the top.

Here it is - I guess it shall have to have a name. How about choppy -?? dunno - perhaps after I run it through it's paces and see what kind of personality it has!

So, yippeee - paper making here we come!!