excuses

Just a quick note to explain my absence - I have been writing a novel!

Yep, I always wanted to do it, but never had the confidence or the story to actually do it. I tried about two years ago and set that aside. Back in March I needed a new creative project and I found an old journal where I wrote to myself about my big dream to write a novel.  I knew the time was right, I couldn't put it off anymore, so I just started. It took me about 3 months to write, writing a little every day. I finished my first draft at midnight on June 12.

Now I am in the editing process. I am reading my words through and seeing so many flaws. The story is good, but needs so much shaping and pushing and pulling.  This process is not as fun as the initial writing, but without sever editing no one will ever read it.

So on I plod. Making time, showing up to do the work no matter what kind of day I had. I am applying all the processes that I talked about in my book, The Artistic Mother. I am fitting creativity into my busy mommy life.

I would be lost without a creative project. It just happens that this year it is writing.

Kitchen colors!!

Well... and house designing/decorating too. These past few months as I mentioned in previous posts I have been birthing a new apartment. We are converting our garage into a granny flat. It is almost finished (next stop wood floors, then plumbing fixtures, paint touch ups and viola). My head has turned the corner to decorating - today I went to Target to pick out bedding and dish towels. I won't be able to fully furnish the place before we leave for Ireland this summer, but it will be ready enough. I will post pictures next month when it is closer.

Lily, 9 T-shirt painting

And of course, life with children continues. We have been doing a little school, just reading and writing, drawing and crafts, always crafts!

I hope you, dear visitor, are well and I do apologize for disappearing from blog land. All of my creative energy has been tied up in non-internet related activities. And it feels good. I am where I need to be right now.

The Good Coach on CRESCENDOh

Each week in the month of March I will be offering a series on The Good Coach section of Jenny Doh's CRESCENDOh.

My topic is, as you can imagine, on Artistic Mothering.

Week one - Doing what you love (in a nutshell, doing art regardless of how tired you are)
Week two - Practical tips for introducing art to your children
Week three - Practical tips for doing art with your kids
Week four - 5 tips for finding the time for art - * Update * This post has the journal prompt download.

All this is free!

And I will be offering a free journal prompt download to compliment the series and free directions on making a folder to house your journal prompts. Each of the 12 prompts features mixed media/photos by me coupled with relevant journal prompts. I will let you know when the download is available.

I hope you will take a chance to visit me on CRESCENDOh today and for the next 3 weeks and let me know what you think.

Antidote to feeling down

So I return to what makes me whole again. Pray. Talk. Create.

Excuse my absence. 

Nothing profound is going on.

Just the ups and downs of life.

Not feeling confident in my voice.

I will post a few things I have been making/writing when I get my confidence back. 

 In the meantime I will live my real life with crumbs to clean off beautiful faces, finding time to create and think. 

Thank you all for the kind words last week when something was actually wrong - a massive cold that seems to be going around Texas. That is all over now for the Coles. Thankfully. I hope your part of the world is well.  

 

30 lb (less) later....

Okay, so I had a baby last year, but excuses aside I was 30lb heavier in December that I am today. I am back to my pre-baby. Yeah! But more importantly I feel healthy and fresh.

And I can attribute it to the South Beach diet. It focuses on cutting the carbs, like Atkins, but better cause it has such good recipes. It helps that you can buy anything you want sugar free in the US (in Ireland this summer I had a really hard time sticking to it.... what do diabetics in Eire do??).

Now, as an extra layer of accountability I have teamed up with Shannon Mucha to make art out of our diet healthy lifestyle. Each week we are going to photograph one of our South Beach meals. The only rule is that have to post by Friday in our collaboration Flickr group, Bloom. So we can shoot the shopping, prep, cooking, presentation, family enjoying the meal.... any aspect of the process of bringing food to the table to nourish our families. 

So today it began! Even though I chop onions and steam spinach everyday, I was nervous. I know that there is a huge 'food photography' world out there and I have never taken food photos, think Pioneer Woman!!! I am not even going to try to match that. I am going to try, if possible, to find my own foodie voice. 

Prep

It will be a challenge. But it will be fun cause it is new (I love a new challenge) and Shannon is doing it too (everything is better when you have a buddy on board) and the focus is on my home and the beauty of home making. 

Cook

I am not going to say you should do South Beach today, but seriously folks - between the Muchas (Shan and hubby) and the Coles (Mark and I) we have lost about 115lb these past 8 months! It really works. And we have not been miserable or starving. Nope, we have eaten yummy food. No, really yummy, not 'diet' miserable food. And I no longer crave sugary or starchy foods or feel sleepy and sluggish in the afternoon. Oh, if I could turn back the clock and be 35 again too!!!! Alas, South Beach can't fix everything. 

Serve

Of course, I love that my kids got in on the act too.... here are 2 photos that Lily, 8 took while I was cooking:

Lily's favorite image. She 'knew' this was a good capture as soon as she took it.

Lily got up on a stool to get this one! A photographer in the making.

****************

Thank you to all those who entered my peg giveaway. My camera finally worked again after removing all the batteries from camera and computer (yes, a simple fix, phew!)

Here are the pegs (I may do a few more too):

and they go to.....

Jolene of Pieces of Me

Send me your address and I will mail them to you soon!

Introducing kids to 'The Arts' - a visual chronicle!

THROUGH FINE ART & POETRY BOOKS


thanks to Matthew for the photos, you did really well son :)


GOING TO MUSEUMS/ART EXHIBITS (& buying the catalog for later browsing)




WATCHING ART HISTORY DVDS




TAKING ONLINE PAINTING CLASSES




TAKING PIANO LESSONS




DOING CRAFTS & OTHER ART ACTIVITIES




THROUGH SKETCHING




GOING TO THE THEATRE (& Opera)




CONSTANTLY PLAYING MUSIC AND WATCHING HOMEMADE DANCE & DRAMA SHOWS






DISPLAYING ART IN YOUR HOME




MODELING (ie. Seeing Mommy doing art)



& of course including discussions about and references to art, photography, music, dance, literature, poetry as part of normal daily life!

Does that about cover it? What other ways do you introduce your kids/grandkids to art?

Another fun photo activity to do with kids!

If you have kids, grandkids, nieces or newphews you gotta visit Acorn Pies. Beth has the most amazing ideas of things to do with kids in nature. I love to visit her peaceful, lovely blog - to get ideas and reminders of simple, fun activities. If you scroll down below her posts, she has listed tons of things to do with kids - from making boats out of sticks to making corn dolls, toy pennants or bubbles...

However, simple, back to nature is only a dream for our family. When I bring these ideas to my house they end up being modified to fit who we are. The Cole World is filled with pink and layers and sparkles and lots of indoor crafting. While we live on 5 acres of wooded land I am sorry to say we don't venture out much. We love to build forts and fairy houses.... but usually in the living room or den, in costume, while listening to really loud music.

So when I announced that we would be doing Acorn Pies latest activity, we modified it Cole style.

The activity is to "Take your child outdoors and see how many different textures you can find. Touch things and see if you can describe how they feel". That translated into 'go to the girls room and see how many different textures you can find to photograph'.

So we did. The kids all scouted around picking up toys and stuff, exploring the surface and describing & naming them, then presenting them to me to be photographed.

Here is what we found:



















How fun was that? It was an interesting exercise as it took the kids a while to stop describing things by shape or color but to focus on the feel. And it was a good photography exercise for me ~ to not worry about photo composition or function or even color (my passion) but to try to capture the texture, to make texture the subject.

Thanks Beth for the idea. Why not consider doing this over the weekend? Let me know what you find!

Family traditions

For Lily's 8th birthday we didn't do a party with tons of friends and games and present opening and a theme.... instead we had a weekend long celebration that included craft time with Mom, daily gift openings, a trip to see the Faberge exhibition at the Houston Science museum (her choice, that girl loves anything pretty), a picnic, a movie (The Toothfairy, which was very cute and surprisingly funny).



But the most special part involved a family tradition: when I was 8 I got my ears pierced in a department store in Dublin. So after much anticipation and discussion and forward looking we took Lily to Claire's at the Mall to get her ears pierced. She chose purple studs.



I love the whole idea of creating new family traditions. It would have been so easy to miss this, and take her any old time to get her ears done. But having that date in time 'on your 8th birthday you will get your ears pierced just like Mommy' sets the event apart, underlines it, makes it extra special. My other girls are already talking about their 8th birthday piercings! And I just know that one day their little girls will anticipate it too.

I am trying to think of other things to turn into traditions, such as getting your first box of oil paints at age 12 or the last weekend in the month is date with dad.... Does your family have any special traditions? Will you share them with me?

Crafty links

It is better to take the time to make something, even something small than to do nothing arty in the day. Better for Mom, better for the kids - creating something new is empowering and spending time together on an activity is bonding time. I often need inspiration from others on what to do with my kids. So I asked commenters in my December 2 giveaway to tell me what they are doing this Christmas.

I am so impressed at how many crafty things being made out there in the lives behind the faces of blogland residents. In summary there are a ton of handmade gifts, cookies, gingerbread houses, Christmas cards and ornaments being created.

Felt ornaments seems to be popular. So I decided that was what I wanted to try. My girls have a pink Christmas tree in their room, so we made them some flower ornaments for their tree.



For some inspiration check out this link that Amanda Pedro left to Mimi Kirchner's blog Doll, oh my, if I could I would.

And check out the pictures on this Flickr group dedicated to felt ornaments!

These are super cool envelopes made from old magazines. Thanks Steph.

Thanks to Jaiying for this link to how to make snow globes.

And to Megan for this link to learn how to make button ornaments by Martha Stewart. Very cute.

Ellyn said she was making marshmallows, and posted about it here. I think my girls would love these - pink and sweet.

This is a nice idea on 'random acts of kindness' from Hallie.

If you are interested in candle making, there is a great tutorial here by Donna.

If anyone has any other cool crafts they have completed, leave me a link in the comments. It might inspire others to do the same.

The art of borrowing

I was browsing the pages of Stampers' Sampler this week (in which I have a piece published) enjoying the handiwork of others and wanted to make something too. Anything. But I was feeling creatively empty. I was busy this week focusing on reviewing my book and getting the house ready for a new school year and have not been focusing on the arty things of life.

So what to do when the fingers are itching to create but the creative mind is blank?

I decided rather than struggle to come up with something new I would 'borrow' an idea from another artist! OK, some may be shocked at such plagiarism, but in my desperation I prefer to focus on the 'imitation is flattery' angle!

So I picked some cards in the 'Take Ten' section of the magazine and used them as templates for my own cards.


The green and orange cards above are by Teri Anderson (mine are the blue and brown ones, using stamps by Sandra Evertson)

The green cards are by Diana Foster


During the week Lily also wanted to some stamping. Usually I give her the stamps and ink and let her go off on her own. She will invariably create a 'scene' that is more of a sketch than a finished piece. But this time I suggested that she borrow a template from Stampers' Sampler too. Here is the one she picked. I think that she did a really good job (I helped with the paper cutting).


The Tulip card is by Barb Pladziewicz


So thank you to Teri Anderson, Diana Foster and Barb Pladziewicz for putting their art out there and thanks for the inspiration.

Apronology

Last night I was soldering some pendants and my mother was musing about how my granny and her sisters use to knit and sew together in the evenings and take crafts with them where ever they went. My mother did make my clothes when I was little too, but mainly out of necessity. She didn't revel in it, it was just something she did.

Now she doesn't make things, but she was marveling at my love of creating. But I don't just love the act of creating, I love having things 1) that I took the time to make 2) that are artful 3) that you just can't buy in Target.

One of my favorite things is to make stuff for my girls, they love everything pretty and are always so pleased when I make something for them. That kind of encouragement will always bring you back. Anyhow, I was delighted to be in the newest Stampington offering Apronology. Featured in those pages are these aprons I made for my girls when I was at a crafting weekend. I bought the flowers, sticker backed ribbon and buttons at the scrapbooking store we were crafting in, which are not really my style, but I knew Lily and Laura would like them.


When I work I wear a black apron by Michael DeMeng, but after reading this magazine and seeing all the lovely handmade aprons I am feeling inspired to make myself one. Misty Mawn and Rebecca Sower are both in there and worth, as always, checking out.

welcome to 2009

It is going to be a good art year. I feel it, I am committed to making it so.

In the latest Cloth, Paper, Scissors Chrysti Hydeck has a great article on creating layers in digital art. I love being inspired by books and magazines, I love having something in my hand to curl up with on the sofa that then makes me bound up to my studio/computer and get working. I created this photo using her directions, I like the texture.

And my smiling, happy artistic Lily is the perfect face for my 2009 art vision. Ahhh, if I could go back in time and be a child like Lily, happily creating everyday.... sweetness.

I have been laying around for a few days nursing a cold going over and over my vision and goals for this year. I have distilled them down a little. Each line and word represents so much to me, but I want to be succinct.

Here are some of my goals. I feel by posting them here I am going to held accountable:


2009 goals

write an artist statement for each group of photos, art work and poems

learn more about my new lens and decide on my next purchase (tripod, lens, photoshop ???)

listen to/read a poem a day

re-organize my craft room and kids craft shelf system

do a craft with the girls every Friday and Lily & Laura one on one at least once a week

take my camera with me daily

meet every AOC and North Light deadline

blog once in a while until I turn in my manuscript, after that.... more

visit 5 art blogs (art or photo) a day

re-read all the photo 'how to' books I own

work with Shannon at least once a week on our Motherhood art project

work on the sculpture path at least once a month, write up the proposal and get commitments



.....I may add to this list, but this should keep me going for now....

Art Journaling

Over the passed year Shannon Mucha and I have been collaborating on a handmade journal. She would create a page then put it in a leather folder and give it to me at church, without discussing it I would take it home and create a page in response. It was a beautiful, unspoken conversation. Visual. Poetic.

The pages of the book have been loosely housed in the folder, going back and forth between us, but this week we finally bound the book. It is a year of reflections on our motherhood - the ups and downs, the beauty, the weight, the loveliness.

Shannon, a free lance graphic designer, photographer, mixed media artist and all around artsy girl is another one of the contributors to my North Light book.