A few more touch drawings . . .

Sweet moon faces . . .


And a nest - drawn by moving the paper from one color of inked surface to another until all the color is applied . . .


And here a hand - I layered tissue paper, text, and pastel highlights to create this composition.

A Beautiful Place to Draw. Inward.

Retreat is important. It's not something our culture really values, but I believe it's critical for creative health to spend time in a quiet place and listen to the intuitive voice. It gets louder as we quiet down . . . this may not be true for everyone, but I have certainly found it to be true for me.

There's still lots more to share with you about the Touch Drawing workshop last week. I've had to dive right back into non-art-work this week, but I'm feeling strangely grounded after a week of intuitive artmaking . . . it was like getting a tune-up.


Whidbey Island is a beautiful place . . . quintessential northwest . . . clouds, ferns, ocean, ferry rides . . . and Chinook is an amazing place on Whidbey Island. We had amazing food to eat, a beautiful labyrinth to walk in, and an amazing room to work in.


The round, moon-like reflection in the glass is from a window on the other side of the room . . . this enchanted me all week . . .

And here's the farmhouse where I slept in a snug little room on the second floor . . . I really think we all need these places and times in our lives.

More actual artwork tomorrow.

I'm a Lucky Girl

I'm up on Whidbey Island, Washington (west of Seattle) at the Touch Drawing Gathering organized and facilitated by Deborah Koff-Chapin, the developer of Touch Drawing. It's an intuitive, process-oriented way of drawing that uses your hands as the primary mark-making tool. I use it with my students in the Artmaking as Playful Prayer classes, but I've really been wanting to take the practice a little deeper . . .


The event is held at the Chinook Center of the Whidbey Institute on Whidbey Island, and we've been having amazing weather - sunny and 70 degrees, surrounded by forest . . . and the food has been amazing, too . . . "macaroon" is today's magic food, followed closely by "peanut sauce on kale and mushrooms." Wow.

But it's not all about my stomach - there's been drawing, too. I'm pretty lazy with my drawing (a reminder for those of you who don't remember Janaury's "Drawing a Day" madness), so this is a great stretch for me - doing 15 or 20 drawings at a sitting, focusing on the process, not worrying too much about how things look, but still getting better for all the practice.

The Weather is Good for Poetry

The Blank Canvas, my little white truck and the Eyes Aflame representative in the Portland Poetry Posse, got a good washing a few months ago. And then we (me and my truck) waited for the weather to get good again so that we could clean up the gigantic poetry magnets and put them back where they belonged.

And now - the weather is good, the poetry magnets are clean enough to touch, and The Blank Canvas has been encountered by poets in many a parking lot around town the last few weeks.

The poetry - or at least the creative combination of words - is flowering.

And I think that one's my favorite.

Fabric and Bugs . . .

I made this lovely little caterpillar stamp, and its bumpy bouncy little many-legged body just makes me so happy!


I'm putting it out there today that it's ok to make art that makes you happy.



And still call it art.

Happy Birthday - My Best Friend Forever Has a Blog!

My BFF Leslie, whose birthday is today, just started a blog! It documents the cool paintings that she's been working on, most of them adapted from vintage photos . . .

This is one of my favorites . . . I love the composition . . . so drop by her blog, check it out, and leave her some happy birthday accolades of praise!!

Joy of Fabric

I've been having a lot of fun printing fabric . . . using everything from foam to potatoes . . . the little birdie teetering on the ladder just makes me smile . . . and I've always had a thing for the way clothes look on a clothesline . . .


And scissors . . . what is it about scissors?