Wings—
To fly
To carry you
Beyond the everyday
To places yet unknown With hopes
That something new And miraculous
Will happen.
Mysteries abound
If only you are open
And willing to quiet
That ceaseless voice
Inside
Listen—
Listen—
Listen—
There’s another voice
Deep
Wider
Greater
To guide you where
You
Truly belong.
Listen—And fly…
Though I’ve been working with PhotoShop for a long while, I’m still amazed with what you can do with it. I generally use it for painting original drawings, but lately I’ve been using it to photo editing. This time my niece-in-law ask me to update a cherished photo of her mom and dad for a Christmas gift. The original image was so dark and dead looking, but PhotoShop brought it back to life. That program and my Wacom tablet are just too cool with work. So much room for creativity!
I’ve been having quite some fun with my new WACOM tablet. It is making editing so much easier. It’s like having my hands back on a brush. I knew the limitations of working with a mouse, yet I didn’t realize how much more control a tablet would actually give me. Navigation within a document is so much easier. There’s some quirky things I’ve got to get use to. It’ just a matter of rethinking how I do certain commands and setting up the tablet to match the way I would use key commands. It’ll take some time, but OH! the results I’ll get
Here I’ve used the tablet to do some photo editing. I couldn’t have done such a great job layering the textures or bringing out the details on the hair if I had to still rely on the mouse. Now I wish I had bought a tablet sooner.
If life is a circus, then we all stand suspended on a tight rope between our next act and the consequences it may produce. In our hectic lives these days it seems we only have time to act and not ponder the consequences like we should. If we could only slow down and take a moment to just think things through a bit more those consequences would so different. We need more balance between action and thought.
Hot, muggy summer days can be a real drain on one’s mood. What better way to refresh than to jump into a pool of cool water.
There is this question that is asked to see if someone is an optimistic or a pessimistic. Is the cup half empty or half full? I don’t like the question. Maybe it’s because I waver between the two points of view. Sometimes the world is good. Sometimes it’s not. Time changes one’s outlook on life. In fact, at this time in my life, I know that the cup is never empty because it is always full of space. It is space that allows the flow from full to empty and back again. Space that reassures me that there is room for that inevitable change that will come. All I have to do it look at the lives that came before me to know this. I can see the ebb and flow of it in all my ancestors lives. So I am neither a optimist or pessimist. I am the space between the two.
It’s raining in the Bay Area. It’s being raining for days, and I’m starting to feel like the little girl in Ray Bradbury‘s short story All Summer in a Day. Living on the Venus, she’s been living through seven years of continuous rain in hopes of finally seeing the Sun break through the clouds for a summer that will burst upon the planet for only two hours. This is what I love about the arts; that we are connected by our common feelings and experiences. And, the arts go beyond this. The arts explore the possibilities that our imaginations envision. Bradbury takes the rainy day blues to another level that makes you appreciate the weather you are experiencing today. Life isn’t so bad. Spring will just get here, just a little later than usual.
This weeks prompt for Illustration Friday brings up a quote by William McFee; “There is nothing like an odor to stir memories.” How often this is true. A whiff of mowed grass on a warm summer afternoon while walking home from school, the smell of mom’s apple pie during a dreary, raining day filling our home with cinnamon or the scent Old Spice after-shave on my fathers neck as he gives me hug before bed, they take me back to events that haven’t been thought of for years. Then just as quickly they fade back as the present calls me to this moment. Once recalled, though, they flavor current events. The past affecting present. The past changing this moment that like the odor will drift away to be recalled by some other smell one day.
So many ideas swarm around in my head, and yet, I can’t seem to settle on a single one. My brain is lit with the fire flies of inspiration. Over and over again I start a drawing only to deem it less that my best. Self-criticism is the toughest critic around.
Caged — A better prompt could not have been selected for this week as this is exactly how I feel as I move closer to going back to work. My vacation has gone too quickly. It’s really been a working vacation with so much going on with my home improvements. Even so I know my creative self will be caged away as I go back to teaching. Yes, I have a great job that does allow for a lot of creative activity on my part, but there isn’t much time for exploring my own artwork. It has to be squeezed into days filled with all the tasks that teachers do. I’m really grateful I’ve found Illustration Friday. It’s be a key that opens the cage door a little.
Debra A. Collins 