Eye see and other little creations...

Hi Everyone! I hope you had a great creative week! This one flew by with the best weather yet this year! What a total pleasure and treat! I am looking forward to seeing your efforts this week! Here are mine:

Monday: Very tired today after work so only a quick, very rough sketch looking out the glass of my patio door:

Tuesday: Had no idea what I'd do today when I sat down at my desk at home, then I looked out the window, saw (and heard!) a family of chickadees in the tree flittering around and playing! What a delightful sight! 

Wednesday:

April Fool's Day aka Thursday:

Some days I feel like the first image and then the second one overrules it. I still don't know where I am going with my CED2010 involvement. I am almost finished my blank journal where I have been creating. (yes, I bought another one ) and that seemed like quite the creation itself! But as I was drawing this and clicking on the new CED2010 Mr. Linky links, I came across something that means I might do more rather than less! 

Friday: I posted this one to the Inspiration Avenue Weekly Challenge - a fun challenge and a lovely group!!

Saturday: My forsythia is so gorgeous at the moment that I cut some, put it in a vase and decided to try and capture it! 

Happy Easter aka Sunday: Hope everyone had a Happy  Easter!

A good and productive week for me. I kept up with CED2010, exercised or gardened (strenuously - so I'm counting it as exercise! I sure don't have the energy to both exercise AND garden!) 6 times this week. I started two new creative endeavors. The first, a Gardening Art Journal:

and completed the cover and 4 pages. Not sure that I need to show the actual pages here, but so far I am enjoying the process. Does anyone else keep a Gardening Art Journal? The second, I came across (and I apologize to whoever mentioned it in the weekly check-in, but I didn't keep track of where I saw this) on April Fool's Day. How appropriate! International Fake Journal Month!! I'm not sure what appeals to me so much about this (keeping a fake journal for a month) but I immediately decided to participate and have 4 journal pages already done! I'm usually not into "FAKE" but.... I will likely check-in with Roz on Tuesdays so if you are interested in what my alter-ego for April is doing and where he/she (?) is adventuring, please come by then. Lastly, I participated in Sunday Sketching at Blue Chair Diary with this Easter themed entry. I'm pooped! Next week I will be at a conference out of town for much of the week so I'm not sure of what I will create, except for a better understanding of what is happening related to the conference topic!

What about you? How was your week creatively? My best wishes to all of you for a great week coming up!!

EVA

Zen and Fruit, Fruit and Zen

This week's creations were much like last week, I continued to try pastelled fruit and did more zen doodles. Different fruit, though. I smiled when I saw Leah's theme for April "5 Senses" as I felt my fruit explorations fit the description nicely: Sight - looking at the fruit closely to try to make my version somewhat like the original; Sound - especially when biting into some of them after their portrait was complete; Taste - yummy!; Smell - the riper the fruit, the richer the smell; Touch - holding them to eat, to figure out texture, to peel. Working with pastels on these fruits has been interesting. I've learned you always need an extra piece of paper around to rub off the excess colour the crayons pickup when blending. What I haven't yet learned is how to create a sharp edge for outlines and details.

So here are my activities for the week:

Monday:

Tuesday:

Wednesday: I liked these but couldn't get the colour quite right. None of my red pastels was the red of the strawberries. Out of a 50 pastel pack, I'd thought I'd have better luck. 

Thursday:

Friday:

Saturday:

Sunday:

So what else did I create this week? I tried a couple of new recipes with changes so that kind of qualifies as creating. I continued my exercise program and exercised 5 times this week - my work on creating a fit body continues... (will it ever end???). I participated in the Sunday Sketching challenge again that Sophia at Blue Chair Diary hosts. And I finished a second acrylic that I started last week. I have a wonderful hydrangea tree at my front door that blooms in the fall - and tried to capture one of its flowers here.

Enough of me. What about you? Did you have a good creative week? What was the most fun for you? I look forward to checking out your work on Leah's Mr. Linky! Thanks again to all of you who have commented. Have a great week ahead!

A Fruity kinda Week!

Still going strong! Well, perhaps that is an exaggeration. Some days, I have more fun and more ideas than others. What about you? But I am keeping at it. This week I had a bit of a theme. While shopping, I thought that I really should eat more healthy food and bought a bunch of fruit. On Monday, I decided to draw some of it, so the major focus this week has been pastelled fruits with a couple of Zen Doodles thrown in for fun! Lovely fruit to look at and all very delicious to eat afterwards!!

Mango Monday:

Tasty Gala Apple Tuesday:

Happy St. Patrick's Day!! (aka Wednesday):

Thirst Quenching Kiwi Thursday:

Fabulous Nectarine Friday:

Saturday:

Sweet Raspberry Sunday:

Along with CED2010, I have been working on a few other projects this year. Fitness is one: - and I exercised 5 times again this week (Yay!!). Cleaning and De-cluttering my House is another: - mostly this has been a room by room superclean. This month was my basement family room and I decided to clear off the desk that used to be stacked with old computer equipment (ugh). Then we discovered the secure computer recycling depot and now it is all gone (Yay!). So I cleaned the rest of the clutter off of it and decided to use it to try out some painting. Starting small, I bought some little 4x6 canvas boards and acrylics at the dollar store (I do own more expensive paints but I thought I'd first try these) and thought I'd experiment with a flower. So here it is:

There are two others started but not complete. Maybe next week. And I tried participating in Blue Chair Diary's Sunday Sketches.

So that was my creative week. What about yours? I'm looking forward to reading all about them!

Pastels and Pens - CED2010 Weekly Check-In

As I suspected last week, the theme of STORY isn't really working for me. Yet in spite of that, story threads did emerge in my little creations this week. Two threads - one of my continuing work to create a fit body: and the other - Alice in Wonderland (no doubt because of all of the publicity with the new film release). Mostly I played with pastels and pens.

Monday:

Tuesday:

Wednesday: This was an attempt in more than one way. Working on strengthening my stomach and knees in the physical form and working on a frontal view of sitting in the drawn form. Hard and harder!

Thursday:

Friday:

Saturday:

Sunday: Trying "Wall Sitting" again. Argh. This person looks deformed not like they are sitting with no chair. :(   Maybe I'll have to take a photo and see how to improve my perspective. (Note to self - must learn how to do happy/sad faces on blogger)

Still creating small things. Exercised five times this week too! Went for a walk with my daughter and our cameras. Maybe I'll post a few photos next week as I haven't had a chance to look at them or edit them yet. Beautiful weekend!!! So happy to see signs of Spring! I was invited to speak at a conference and created an outline for my talk. More work on that this week. A few words made it on to my page/word document but not nearly as many as I had hoped. 

That's it for me! What about you? Did you have a creative week?

I look forward to seeing your work and reading your stories! 

Have a great one!

"What Makes a House a Home?" Series. Plus Now and the Future

This is the last week with the CED2010 HOME theme. It's been a fun month. I managed to continue to create every day and to create using the HOME theme. How about you? Most of my week was spent exploring the idea of "What makes a House a Home?". I finished with two all encompassing little experiments that seemed appropriate for completing this month. Here are my efforts:

Monday:

Tuesday:

Wednesday:

Thursday:

Friday:

Saturday:

Sunday:

I did a few other creative things this week. I participated again in Inspiration Avenue's weekly challenge - this week was "Purple" (while on a plane from Toronto - making creative use of travelling time!). Also it was a full moon yesterday and time for Jamie Ridler's Full Moon Dream Boards, this month Dreaming Big on the Full Snow Moon. I continued to work on creating a clean, less cluttered house and a fit body. The habits I am trying to create are still intact and I exercised 5 times again this week. :)

Next month the theme is STORIES. Sigh. So far nothing excites me about this theme. (Sorry Leah.) AND I am getting about concerned that my keen interest in participating in CED2010 is distracting me from the writing I want to create. What to do.....??? My plan so far for next week is to do something in my CED2010 book every day but it will not likely be on theme and may be just something easy, and not terribly time consuming - so I have something to "show" to myself and to you. My main goal, however, will be to write every day. 500 words a day ideally, 3500 or the week. Or sit in front of my word document for an hour each day - hopefully that way the words will come! If successful, I will be creating! 

I hope you had and will have a great creative week! I look forward to seeing all your efforts! My heartfelt thanks to those of you who have been commenting!

Purple Orchid Zen Doodlng

Last week was fun with the "reflection" challenge so I'm back with an attempt at "purple" at this week's Inspiration Avenue challenge.

Have purple pen, will travel. This one was done on a plane, in the air with a purple pen and my moleskine journal. Not nearly as elaborate as my last attempt but kind of fun. (BTW, it is much more purple in my journal than it seems to be in this scanned image.)

Thanks for another great challenge. Looking forward to seeing everyone's efforts!

Music and Home Melding in My Mind and on the Page

Another week and another 7 days of little creations. Hope you all had a great creative week! This week I had a few songs, and rhymes stuck in my head. So I tried to play with those. As I write this blog post, I am playing with some links to go with those thoughts and these images of mine!

Monday:

 

As you can see, The Beatles "Yellow Submarine" was the first song.  I'm still humming it! (Argh!)

Tuesday: Next was a rhyme or Nursery Tale - but my version looks nothing like the old boots I usually see! This is an old lady who got her home (and style) back in the '70s! And now her home is back in style!

  

Wednesday: Back (way back) to songs, and this one kept creeping in while I was thinking of the theme Home.-

  

Thursday: There were a number of road songs that also came to mind. So many ways to live life on the road or Highway...

  

Friday: While there were doghouse songs, this one wasn't inspired by them. It just jumped in and gave me a chance to play more with Zen doodles.

  

Saturday: Thinking of dogs made me think of cats. Favourite places within a house are where cats feel most at home: Here is one of them (with a bit of a zentangle flavour.)

  

Sunday: I guess I wasn't done with music. A happy home often exudes it...

  

Also this week, I continued my work on creating a fit body and exercised five times. I also continued working on creating a clean, less cluttered home and finished the drawers and shelves in the upstairs bathroom. I went to see others' creativity again - this time to my daughter's Art Teacher's photo exhibit. Awesome!!  Unfortunately nothing on the web to link to that I could find. I tried a new Challenge with my "Mirror, Mirror on the Wall" post.  

A few weeks ago, Upsidedown B posted her evolution of headers, so I thought I would change mine. I loved that starfish from Virgin Gorda, so I didn't want to make a dramatic change. For now I am going with a variation of that theme.

Before: 

 

After:

I'm not sure I am in love with this so I suspect it will continue to evolve, but it is a start! I love Bee's idea! Have any of the rest of you evolved your blog header? Have you posted about it? If you do, I'd love to see them so please comment and let me know!

Hope you all have a productive and creative week ahead! Thanks for your comments here. I'm looking forward to seeing your new efforts!

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

Who is the Most Creative of them All?

This week, while checking out some of the creations of people I have come across during my CED2010 participation, I saw a gorgeous image by Annette Q. She was entering it into a challenge, not CED2010 but Inspiration Avenue's weekly challenge. This particular one looked intriguing and I had this idea that I wanted to try.

So here is my Reflection:

The execution isn't terribly professional but I enjoyed this new experiment. If you click on the image you can see more detail. The creative reflections are saying:

"Come. Join us! There is a place... Here... For you... For All of Us!"

Now that I am done, I will go back and look at everyone's posting!

Hope you are having a creative week!