Does anyone feel tentative and hesitant when beginning a new journal. My journal is…a lists of things to do intermixed with ideas, images I have cut out from magazines and sketches. But I find that when I do start a new journal it takes awhile. It is the same with ending…like I don’t know if my beginning or end will be worthy, but eventually I do and I have…new journal got some ink today.

No painting this week, I can't believe friday is already here, but check this out:
Hippily Bunny is too amazing for words (from mahar drygoods) and wait for a funny outtake at the end.

I am taking a quick girls only trip next week, I little road trip and little hanging out. Only next week would work with work, so I leave tomorrow and I'll be back in a little over a week!

I feel like blooming trees are like little kisses in the air.

…this was a trade for a lovely necklace from the sale - more on that later…

There is art talk flying around the internet. Mav had an amazing three-part discussion about what is art and Lisa started asking about talent. I am sort of interested in people’s brain process.

I have realized that process for me is sort of long term (relativity). I let an idea germinate in the recesses of my brain. Every once in a while it’ll sort of pop up to the surface and then I think on it a bit, but then I consciously push it back to this little soil area in my brain. But then it just unfurls. Does anyone else have that? Do that?

The flip side is that when I am busy, like I have been with all the work at work and with all the softies I needed done. Those ideas didn’t pop up at all.

Now I have some things percolating with softie ideas. Ideas that played out in a completely different way than when I planted them in the soil. It excites me to put an idea in my little greenhouse and see how it plays out.

So how about you?
Do ideas come at you?
Do you search out the ideas?
What things inspire you?

I believed in fairies. When I was a girl, I was sure there were fairies. I had seen the proof. Here is my story. Nicole had a much older brother, I think he was five or six years older than we were. He was big into Dungeons & Dragons. With the little pewter figures he would paint himself. While he was at school Nicole and I would sneak into his room and look at his collection. I loved the weight of them and the tiny details. We were really careful, because obviously we were NOT supposed to go in his room and we knew it. We were probably about four. One day her brother came up to us and he said he had something to show us. We were thrilled. We were being included and it was something amazing if he was willing to share it with us. He walked us over to this empty lot near their house. Telling us all the while that we couldn't tell anyone. We had to be really really quite. We had to not talk or stomp. We followed blindly across to the open light. Then he said if we were we might be lucky enough to see the fairies that he and his friends had just seen. We were silenced. As we got closer to the area we walked carefully. Trying to be really quite. Then he stopped and showed us this little city. It was beautiful. Delicate rope bridges and houses built into the dirt. It was amazing. There were tiny footprints. Tiny bundles of wood (for whittling) abandoned in the walkways. We weren't quite enough, so the fairies had hidden. Nicole and I sat there quietly for a while wishing to catch a glimpse of a fairy. Nicole got bored of waiting and wanted to do something else. So we left. I was devastated that I didn't get a chance to see the fairies. But that little fairy city was burned into my soul. It was years later, when I was visiting Nicole as a teenager that he told us about the fairy city that he had built with his friends. The time and effort for fooling to girls was amazing. Of course I said I knew that it was fake, but I had always believed that the little fairy city was real and truth. I can still picture it in my mind, which is a feet in itself, since I hardly ever remember childhood memories. In honor of that little story here is a fairy ring I found while taking photos at this farm in California over the holidays. If you don’t yet know about the amazing whipup created by kath. Check it out and see the amazing group she has compiled and all the amazing entries.

I am trying to look more at the world around me.
Having my brother come out and visit sort of wakes my everyday eyes up to see the things I just glide over with sleep and routine.

I was totally enamored of this little light man.

What do you think he’s thinking?
He looks like he is reaching out, but for what?