May Link Love #2

Posted on May 12, 2013 by Natasha White

Joining in with Tammy’s Link Love Mission which you can find out more about over here.

My first bit of link love this week is Christine Mason Miller. I love her work, her words and her art. I have both of her books and they are both filled with wisdom. I have a collection of her postcards and art, and I am a fan. Last week I reread this and it felt so full of truth. It really touched me in one of those gut punches, that almost leave you gasping for air with the truth of the words.

My next bit of linky love is to a blog that has not yet been updated this year, but the work is so glorious I am linking to it anyway so that anybody who has not yet seen her work can go over immediately and be inspired. Go now! Such visceral raw work. I love the lines and mark making. LOVE.

This artist! oh my gosh. His art is incredible. INCREDIBLE. The detail. And layers. Go back more than once and you will see even more the second time that you missed the first time. So inspiring. His work will take your breath away.

I am currently rediscovering my love for watercolour, but I remembered when I first fell in love with the vibrancy of watercolours and what they could be it was on this blog here. Her work is incredible. Her Flickr…be still my heart. She did a video series a few years ago, and if you are interested in watercolour or painting you may want to check it out. :)

My last bit of Link Love for the week is going to Michelle at Lost Coast Post. There is a lot to love about her blog. She is currently working through a series of characters and monsters that I have fallen in love with. Last week I was inspired by her Watercolour Wednesday post and realised she had done a few Watercolour Wednesday’s that are very informative, so if you want to explore watercolour this would be a most excellent resource for you to explore. :)

And that is it. It is Mother’s Day here today, and so if it is Mother’s Day where you are then I wish you a Happy Mother’s Day, and even if it isn’t I wish you a Happy Mother’s Day anyway!! :)

Rocking my world this week.

Posted on May 10, 2013 by Natasha White

Linking up at Virginia’s as we all record our rocking moments of the week.

We went to the beach over the weekend was magical. We were all in shorts and t-shirts and the weather was really good. Later that night we had a huge electrical storm with HUGE thundery booms and lightening which left dogs shaking an hour later (but the children slept through it all), so I am glad we did the walk.

There was rock climbing and river mouth crossing (I got dunked when I underestimated how deep it would be), cave exploring (Victoria wanted to explore all the way to the back since she was the only one who could keep going, but I told her I was worried she may wake up the taniwha so she changed her mind), and it was an all round magical autumn day that felt a bit like summer.

What was even more exciting to me was this:

Look at all the stones!!!! My stone collection has some new specimens! :)

I was talking on the phone to my best friend (who deserted me for love in the USA) after she saw the photos on Facebook and she commented on the magic of my life (which of course it is…hahahaha). So in the interests of full disclosure and keeping it real we went to the beach only after I had a grumpy morning that had me standing firmly on the why-am-I-the-only-one-doing-anything soapbox and feeling very curmudgeonly. In fact when my Beloved said he thought we should go to the beach because he thought I needed it, I was less than enthused about going.

So my next rocking mention is going to my Beloved for knowing what I needed before I did and for knowing the healing power the ocean has over my grumpiness and PMSy-ness. And just for loving me. I did feel so much better within minutes of getting there, and it was just what I needed.

The children are back at school and that has gone seamlessly. I think they were both ready (and I felt very ready as well). My cold is the only one remaining which is good, I am glad they have all cleared up, and I am well on my way.

We have been playing a lot of card games and Victoria is becoming much better at not winning (something she has struggled with sometimes). :)

Other than that my week has been filled with connecting with good souls online and paint…I could not ask for more! :)

May Link Love #1

Posted on May 3, 2013 by Natasha White

Tammy has decided to expand Link love into May and since I decided last week to keep going I figured I may as well join up. You can find out more about Tammy’s mission to bring back link love and inspire blogger connections here.

If you are into drawing, this site called the Five Pencil Method is really helpful. I get the newsletter after discovering Darrel Tank a few years ago, and this week he sent out a link to this video (if you follow the link you will find other videos as well), and I was reminded about what a valuable resource this is.

My next link is Lisa Firke, who has the blog Rabbit Rabbit. I love her blog and recommend it all but the following posts really excited me recently. These collages…OH MY GOSH. Goosebumps. Then there was this Bird Print. The texture, and mood and mark making – it is a beautiful evocative piece.

My next bit of link love this week is going to Gabriele. Check out all her work, it is layered painty juiciness and I adore her line work. But it was this piece this week that took my breath away and gave me goosebumps. I have a stash of corrugated cardboard to use and she has inspired me to use it!

Next up is Dawn from Girl Unwinding. Her work is all quite fabulous, I love her Junk Journals, they are anything but junk (:)) and you should head over there to check them out. In this post she actually provides a video and a link to another video so you can see how she puts her Junk Journals together. They look fabulous. I am now going to begin collecting all envelopes (I can tell already my Beloved is going to be thrilled by that!! :))

My last bit of link love is for Juliana Coles. I love her journaling style so much. Her work is raw and meaning-filled and energy-filled. It excites me and makes me feel. I love her style. She also offers some free videos over here. Click on the ‘Pictures & Videos’ tab. I love watching her work, and find her really inspiring.

A sneaky little extra link has crept in…you do not need to look very far at the moment to find posts about Gelli plate/gelatin printing. The posts are everywhere (because it is deliciously addictive!!), but I have just seen the most adorable skulls that I have not seen anywhere else so I wanted to post a link to Carmen’s blog because I am in love with THESE SKULLS. LOVE!

I hope you find something here to inspire or excite you. Have a good weekend! :)

Rocking my week this week

Posted on May 3, 2013 by Natasha White

Joining in at Virginia’s place where I am sharing my rocking moments of the past week.

It has been school holidays and the weather has mostly been really good which I am very grateful for.

Giant Autumn leaves were also discovered, and added to the magic of autumn. Victoria in particular was entranced and we came home with a little collection which we did rubbings with.

In amongst the bickering the children have had moments where they have played together well and I am SOOOOO grateful for those moments. Like this nest building that went on…it seemed to grow bigger and bigger!

I made resin paper!!! I saw a reference to someone who had used it and I thought that would make a good stone (:)) so I googled how to make it and OH MY GOSH. It is magical. You can see in this photo that the text from the other side glows through to the side you are seeing, the book text is almost translucent.

Feijoas have arrived. Our tree has dropped the first lot of feijoas which is one of the crowning jewels of Autumn to me. So far they have all being eaten, but feijoa and apricot jam will be made in a few weeks, and probably a feijoa cake or loaf, but for right now there is excitement every morning as the children rush out to check for new feijoas, how I imagine it would be if we were to have chickens.

We have done so much painting this week, and we have been painting even before breakfast…I will be a bit sad when school goes back.

Other than that, we have all had colds this week, and I am grateful for hot lemon and honey drinks and the ability to hibernate with the children and not get even worse than it could have been. I am also MOST grateful that the cold did not morph into asthma for Victoria.

And always for my Beloved for making me laugh even when I thought I was too tired and grumpy to even contemplate laughing. The man has a talent and knows me so incredibly well I am very blessed.

Rocking my week this week!

Posted on April 26, 2013 by Natasha White

Joining up over at Virginia’s as I record my moments that are Rocking my World this week.

This week we had ANZAC where we remember those who have fought for us in the World Wars and more recent fights. Sebastian participated in his first parade this year as a St. John’s Cadet, and he looked beautiful up there marching away. Also my baby sister has joined Sea Cadets and was in the same parade so I got to waver happily between a proud big sister (because she looked STUNNINGLY ADORABLE in her uniform) and a proud Mum. I also quietly cried throughout the service and it felt more emotional to me than it has before, although we generally go to the dawn service each year.

The school holidays are here, and my Beloved took this week off so we have been spending a lot of family time together and it has been wonderful…apart from the bickering between the children, but even that has slowed down in the past couple of days.

Sebastian and my Beloved went to an exhibition at our National Museum called Game Masters that they have been talking about seeing for months. I thought that while they were there, Victoria and I could go explore their art collection which I have been wanting to do for ages, but normally we get waylaid by the children and the interactive exhibits and collections on the lower levels.

The art gallery space had an “art studio” where they had a light box set up for sketching and a big poetry wall.

They also had things for doing tribal rubbings and stencils:

Once I got Victoria set up I got to spend time in the gallery space and it was BLISS. There were so many works I wanted to see, and got to see and I was totally inspired. Victoria would join me for bits before disappearing to read books or do more creating, and I kept an eye on her from where I was, but I was in heaven. It felt very luxurious and I loved having the time to do it.

Watercolours have also been rocking my world this week. I have dabbled in them before, but not hugely and doing one of the workshops at 21 Secrets has really inspired me! I have played with them more this week than I have since I got them.

I also sewed up some prayer flags.

One was for somebody in particular who is going through some stuff at the moment.

BUT I had 7 left, and I have been meaning to do this ChakrArt course, and there are 7 Chakras so I had the idea to do each of the chakra projects on a flag. So excited about this and the synchronicity of how things work out…I thought it was just complete procrastination and was feeling guilty for not getting to the project yet.

Things have a way of working themselves out!

Finally we have had our first fire of the season. We had just stacked the wood the day before, and the weather completely packed up and turned very cold. Perhaps not cold enough for a fire, but it excited me, as did the lego universe building in the living room and the board game championships that were going on. Combined with the paints that I had out it seemed like an auspicious start to the cold season! :)

And that was my rocking moments this week. :)

Link Love #3

Posted on April 20, 2013 by Natasha White

Linking up with Tammy’s Link Love which you can find out information about over here.

When I first began exploring my creativity via my art journal one of the first places I found on the internet was Leslie Herger’s Art Journaling Ning group that you can find here. It was such a supportive environment to explore and experiment with in my art journal and I learnt a lot through those initial explorations and adventures. I can still remember how freaking nervous I was to share anything and so afraid of being found wanting and I am still grateful for that community. I really love Less’s work, like this, this, and this and there are going to be some new things happening over at the ning community in the next wee while (I have it on good authority!), so well worth exploring.

My next link love is Letting in the Light. Oh my gosh how I love stalking this blog. Her work is magical and with so many layers I can keep looking at one of her pieces for ages. I love what she does. From her books, (and see here and here for some extra love), her other pieces like this, or this, or this (the last link has LOTS of examples of why I love her work), and her luminaries made with teabags that are the most divine kind of magic.

This post by Stephanie Lee. OH MY GOSH. I know my daughter is only six but it is something that I have been conscious of, having much younger sisters (the youngest is 15) and I am very careful in the clothes she wears. Some of the sayings on t-shirts for little ones nowadays staggers me, who are the people buying these for wee girls??? Anyway, this post touched me this week and was one I fully resonated with. I have told my one it is about having standards for herself, and recently she saw some teenage girls who were not wearing much of anything and told me those girls had no standards for themselves, and I thought the lesson was getting through, long may that continue (touch wood!). While you are there check out her art (like here) because OH MY GOSH, how her art speaks to me.

My next link is to Jane, someone I have connected with online and then met in real life (which does not happen often to me! :)). She is such a light on line, and in real life postively glows with such real wisdom and love. I adore her. I adore her art work (which is so soul touching and story telling) and am blessed to have a piece on my bedside table that I wake up to everyday. Her words are full of lessons and wisdom (see here and here). She holds a space where stories are shared and healing happens and I am blessed to know her, and to have learnt from her sharing.

My last link love for the day is for Connie over at Dirty Footprints Studio. I love her wise sharing on her blog, but I was actually going to share her Total Alignment FREE class today. When I went to grab the links I noticed that she has another FREE and generous offering at the moment, so I am sharing both. I love Connie’s wisdom, humour, realness and supportive tender soul. She so openly shares her own journey and inspires bravery and honesty. I am grateful to have done BIG with her, and to be doing DEEP at the moment. Both have marked me and changed me as an artist and as a person.

April Link Love #2

Posted on April 12, 2013 by Natasha White

I am participating in Tammy’s Link Love over at Daisy Yellow where she is encouraging everyone to share the love and link up to some inspiration juciness or things we just plain love during the month of April. Then we can join her linky sign up thing, and go check out some new to us links and sometimes fond remembrances while getting to know some new people and discover what inspires them. A proper little inspirational love fest!! :)

She even made a badge!! :)

Here is last week’s link love from me if you missed it.

My first bit of link love this week is going to a free class called Finding your Muse that Alisa Burke set up to encourage people to find inspiration in their own lives. She takes you through different things she finds inspiring and then takes you through her process so you can see how the inspiration was used to become a final project.

Julie Prichard is the most amazing art teacher and I love her work. Her first layer love class was the first online class I ever took, and she is such a professional teacher. She has a policy of getting back to you quick smart, her videos and pdfs etc are of the highest quality, and she delivers exactly what she says she will and then some in my experience. You can find out about her classes here. And this latest work she has put on her blog is stunning. I loved it when I saw it the other day. Her work has so many layers and textures and I am drawn to her palette. A lot of urban grungy goodness going on.

This address by Neil Gaiman, is really inspirational and full of good advice for all of us, in all situations I think. I imagine that there is something most people could take from it.

Neil Gaiman Addresses the University of the Arts Class of 2012 from The University of the Arts (Phl) on Vimeo.

Tammy’s art journal resource is a well-known wonder for the fullness and complete information it contains, but Tammy also has some other wonders on the site. Her drawing inspiration posts were one of the first things I did when I began this creative journey and I found them very helpful. As seen here, here, here and here.

My last link love for today is Wyanne. I love her watercolour work, and she is such a generous teacher. Her blog can be found here. Look at this post at her elephants (including her super big one), I also found the post really inspiring. I also completely adore her youtube videos which can be found here.

Her use of colour and painting style just inspires me every time I see one of her videos. She paints without rules and with such freedom and abandon. As a bonus I really like Mindy Gledhill whose music Wyanne plays in this video as well!! :)

Rocking this week

Posted on April 1, 2013 by Natasha White

Linking up over at Virginia’s, with my rocking moments of this week!

I started this earlier last week, so I would hopefully have it post while I was away, but I didn’t get it finished or scheduled so Easter Monday it is!!

Most of this week has been taken up with making these postcards, but there have been other important happenings as well.

Miss 6 lost her first tooth:

It has been wriggly for a while and she has been steadily trying to wriggle it out of her mouth for the last couple of years, so when she came home from school carrying an envelope she was over the moon. A dream had come true for her. It made me think she was growing up far too fast for my liking.

So plans were made for the tooth fairy visit, and plans were hatched so that she could sneakily peek at the tooth fairy. Then her brother told her that he hoped it was the tooth fairy that came and not the Tooth troll, because if one of them comes they eat small children. There were tears and decisions to not put the tooth out after all but I made a spell to troll proof the room and we were back on for fairy visitations!

Once I recovered from the exasperation I have to say I thought the story was genius,and it has made me smile all week. I think there could be a story in the tooth troll, though it was pointed out to me that the child-eating would have to go! :)

Our local art museum had a big free day out planned over the weekend with lie entertainment (with some really good acts) and a circus and art activities for the children. We packed up a picnic and camped out under a tree and the feeling of peace as I lay back listening to one of my favouritest singers on stage with the sun on my face and bubbles coming from somewhere drifting overhead felt quite magical.

We also caught Holi, which is a traditional Hindu festival of colour where they throw pigment and water at each other. With our water shortages the water throwing was out, but the children were invited to joing in and they loved throwing pigment at each other and the people around them. I even got visited by a woman and ended up covered in colour. It was a fun explosion of colour and I am glad we caught it!

I caught up with a good friend over coffee which was so appreciated, and refilled me completely.

My love also rocked my week, with organising our travel and accommodation over the weekend for my family gathering.

All in all, my week was pretty rocking and creatively very full! What more could a gal ask for! :)

Double Take #2

Posted on February 28, 2013 by Natasha White

Last week we saw the unveiling of Double take #1 where Tammy and I created pages with the same ephemera and art supplies that she sent. This week we are showing the pages using the ephemera that I sent. To see the package I sent, the gorgeous and much better organised Tammy has taken a photo, that you can see on her post here where she is unveiling her pages.

Last week, the best part of this for me was seeing what Tammy did. INCREDIBLE. It felt like magic, and was so amazing to me that from the same products you can produce such different pages. This was one of the objectives of the exercise, but the magic of seeing it, was really exciting, and I am really looking forward to seeing Tammy’s pages this week.

Last year I was going through my art journal pages and realised I did not use a lot of “earthy colours”, which was something I wanted to challenge myself to use more. I tend to turquoise and teal, magenta and reds, bold jewel tones and then the contemplative payne’s gray and nickle azo gold. But no earth tones really. After I assembled my little package for this project I realised there were very earthy colours in the mix, which was not my intention at the outset. I was going to change the package contents, because I know that Tammy does not tend to the earthy colour palette either, but I decided to stick with my first choice.

I also added in a few self-adhesive jewels that matched the pink in the scrapbooking paper, because I have had them for ages, and never used them. I thought it would be interesting to see how each of us integrated those into a page. I didn’t hear any screeching from the other side of the world, or get any emails asking me what on earth I was thinking, so I assume Tammy was okay with the unintentional challenge within the challenge. :)

I began by drawing some lines with my Neocolors, and then collaged on strips of book text and some scrapbooking paper. I added in a bit of paint. But still wasn’t really sure where I was going. I had included some coffee dyed muslin in the package, and while I was playing with it I discovered the threads could be manipulated a lot, so I played with it a bit and created some gaps before I glued it down.

As I was considering what to do with the saintly women, I saw them in a rough temple like structure, standing guard over our souls, so I added that. I then saw a bird carrying the other birds so I added a cage over two of the birds. Then the journaling. This page had no clear direction as I was doing it, but I love the way it came out in the end. I really, really like the graphite lines. After a bit of white paint splatter the page felt finished.

I was clearly in a very reflective mood when I was journaling :) It reads:

‘Sometimes I just want to stop aspiring to be worthy and just be me, to let go and trust that another will be there so I don’t fall too far or hard. Sometimes I am not worthy.‘

So that is my Chapter 18. I am looking forward to seeing Tammy’s page!!! Check it out here.

Also…I don’t want to speak out of turn, but I feel that there is a very good likelihood that this challenge is going to repeated! :)