for the love of maps

I've been busy. Really busy.

The littles are keeping me running. All. The. Time.

My house is a mess.

My yard is a jungle.

But I'm happy. Busy is good, even if you look like the hillbillies of the neighborhood.

I've been trying to keep up, and at the same time squeeze in studio time.  Sometimes when my life is at it's craziest, my creativity sky rockets. Not sure why. Just happens.

My current artistic obsession? Maps. I have always loved maps (all old paper ephemera really) and used them in my art, but lately I just can't get enough.

I recently found the work of Elizbeth Lecourt.  I'm besotted. Simply, over-the-top gaga.

Oh how I would love to make Birdie that last dress! I did find this map fabric that might work.

Hummmm. Another project?

bliss

Sometimes bliss is work.

This is true.  Did you know that Van Gogh painted some nine hundred paintings during his lifetime and only sold one?  Nine hundred paintings people.  No wonder he went insane and ultimately took his own life. I believe he literally painted his heart and soul out onto the canvases.

A few years ago one of his sunflower paintings sold for close to forty million dollars.  That's the going price for heart and soul these days.

Unless you read this blog. Then you get heart and soul for free.

I'm in Houston, following my bliss.  I've been blogging for a long time.  A door has opened and I thought I'd come in and take a look around.

I'm not sure where this path will lead but I do know one thing.  When I write I don't loose my heart and soul. 

I find it.

“When you follow your bliss... doors will open where you would not have thought there would be doors; and where there wouldn't be a door for anyone else.” -Joseph Campbell

trying

source unknown

A few years back my bff talked me into taking a ballet class.

She is a born dancer.

I am not.

But I liked the idea of having an excuse to buy a tutu and ballet slippers.  I'm all about the get-up. I started playing tennis for the same reason. Am I the only one out there that finds tennis skirts irresistible? It always boils down to fashion does it not?

So I agreed.  I went faithfully for a month or two but I got to the point where I just couldn't bear the embarrassment one more week. I was the girl in the back two steps behind.  The galumping ogar that fell into the other ballerinas. The clown. Can't you just see me in your mind's eye? It's not that hard to imagine.  It was a debacle.

I gave it my best shot. I really did.

When I started illustrating, I didn't think much  of it. Ideas just seemed to flow down my arm and out through the pen.  I was just doodling.  Nothing serious.  It was relaxing.

When I try to make my illustrations look like the ones my favorite artist draw they look ridiculous. I feel ridiculous.

As hard as I try, I can't seem to be anything other than just plain old me.  So I've decided to be okay with that. 

I just need to be the best me possible.

And I'm holding out hope that The Bird can dance. I'll get that tutu one way or the other.

a space to call her own

My favorite place to be in the whole wide world is in my studio, at my desk, with my babies sleeping the the next room.

Here's my desk. Full disclosure: It's never this clean.

Where do you create?

You can see more photos of my studio here.