When You Follow Your Dreams...

Dreams - Digital Collage

Against all odds, have you ever followed a Dream? Have you, like the girl in the image, allowed yourself to drift into the night? Did you find a special place to rest and rejuvenate your creativity?

I am a new member of the Gecko Galz Design Team. Each month I will be issued a challenge. On the second day of the month, I will post my image using Gecko Galz products. And what's more, Gecko Galz have kindly allowed a Free Digi Stamp to accompany my post.

Please visit my Blog on February second. The topic, in the month of Romance, will be Hearts & Kisses.

This image is my Gecko Galz Avatar. The dreaming girl is from the Gecko Golden Splendour Collection. Part of the background is from their High Society Paper Pack. The Moon and clouds are from my own collection.

Will you follow your dreams and let creativity take you to your own place among the stars?

Have You Discovered Your Universe?

THE LETTER  Digital Collage

What warms your heart on a blustery wet weekend? 

The weather here in the Eastern part of the US certainly is reminding us that a seasonal change has taken place. The leaves are slowly adding vivid hues of gold and orange to their pallet. The constant rain of the last several days has added a bone chilling dampness that is difficult to shake off.

This feeling of restlessness and foreboding was just what I needed for our next Lunagirl Moonbeam Challenge: Gothic. The selection of images available are bewitching...dark, moody, and brooding. It was hard to choose, but I decided on a lovely woman wrapped in a cloak clutching letters close to her heart.

Instantly I was transported back to "The Dark Arches" of Granary Wharf in Leeds, England when eclectic shops and restaurants were part of the underground life in the Victorian tunnels beneath the Leeds railway station.

In a small shop window I saw a magnificent black hooded cloak...with a story even more fantastic. A man had it made to order for his wife as a surprise gift. The lining was a deep violet satin embossed with roses, her favourite flower. Near the hem of the lining was hand embroidery intertwining their initials caressing a single rose. The cloak fastened with an antique silver rose clasp and a single silver rose bead graced the tassel. The ardent gent was going to bring his wife down to the Arches later than evening and casually stroll past the window, knowing her heart would do back flips when she saw it. His plan was to get her to try it on and then say..."It's yours!” She was his universe.

I often wonder about the couple and their life after the cloak. Seeing the Lunagirl image made all the romance of their story warm my heart.

The collage used several Lunagirl images: the woman, the background, and the letter I added to the papers in her hands. The remaining images are from my conventional and digital collection.

What does warm your heart? Is it a letter, a gift, a kind word, or knowing that you are the Universe in someone's life?

Dream With Wild Abandon!

Outgrow Your Shoes - Digital Collage

If you allowed yourself...just once...to dream with wild abandon...where would your dreams take you? Would you be on a wistful journey, meandering through experiences at your own cadence? Or would you rather give up all control and fly unrestrained towards a destination that only Fate can dictate?

The focus of the latest Lunagirl Moonbeam Design Team Challenge is "Shoes".  This challenge is shared with Vicki Romaine's Blog, The Cheerful Stamp Pad.

Thinking about shoes brought me to one of my favourite sayings by Japanese writer and poet, Ryunosuke Satoro: "Let Your Dreams Outgrow the Shoes of Your Expectations". Lunagirl's images are inspiring as always. I chose a shoe and eagerly began my work.

Travel is my sanctuary and the act of my putting on my shoes was always the prelude to a great adventure. I never knew what to expect, but I wandered, ever hopeful that I would experience something different and wonderful.

By allowing my dreams to outgrow my shoes my life, and art, grew in directions I never thought possible. I wouldn't trade those experiences, the great and the not so wonderful, for anything!

So, fellow Artists and Dreamers...the call to outgrow your shoes is beckoning you. Will you take the dare?

Make Your Art Roar!

BOTANICAL LIFE - Digital Collage

Cold, ice, snow. Are you, like me, so tired of hearing these words in the weather forecasts?

When the Fruits and Flowers Lunagirl Moonbeam Challenge was announced I was more than ready to begin! And who could resist the beautiful images Lunagirl provided as inspiration?

I always loved the nonchalant  pose and lovely Spring inspired attire of the woman I chose for the collage. With Daylight Savings Time on the horizon, and looking out of my studio window at the falling snow, I wanted the work to have a warm and sunny ambiance. My heart and soul needed it! In addition to the Lunagirl Botanical images, I added backgrounds and ephemera from my collection.

The long-standing  idiom about March coming in like a lion certainly is true this year. Most of the East coast of the United States is weather weary...and dreaming of warm, sunlit days.

As artists, we are fortunate that we can create our own little place in the sun through our work. And like March, we can come in with a roar...if we want to. How do you make your Art roar?

Dreamers...What Makes Your Life Sweet?

Life Is The Flower - Digital Collage

Has anyone ever called you a Dreamer and do you wear the badge with honour? Are you proud that others recognise the dreamer quality in you?

I, too, have been "accused". I suppose I will always have the soul of a romantic and a dreamer. And that pleases me.

As a member of the Lunagirl Moonbeam Design Team. Our latest challenge is to explore the world of "Honeybees". And what a wonderful challenge for this time of year! As I sit looking out of my window at the snow that fell overnight,  I long for warm Spring sunshine and earthy scented breezes.

It's been quite a while since I worked digitally, and I thought this would be a great opportunity to take a dip back into the digital pool. And I was so glad I did. I forgot how much I do enjoy it!

I started gathering my collage ephemera with a quote from Victor Hugo. I believe Life is like a flower...each petal, each day, opening to something new...sometimes joyous...sometimes not...but nonetheless an adventure. And isn't love...in all her aspects...the sweetness, the honey, in your life?

Hugo's quote made me think of the beautiful Waterhouse painting "The Soul of the Rose" and the poem of inspiration by Alfred Lord Tennyson.  In my collection is the Lunagirl  Pre-Raphaelite Art CD. And there she was...encouraged by my Muse...I was ready to begin.

I incorporated into the design the Waterhouse woman, Lunagirl flowers from the Busy Bees Collage sheet and art, guaranteeing the honey to be pure, from the Honeybee Tag Set. I finished the piece with other scraps I have in a collection of my own digital ephemera, including a romantic morning Moon.

So, fellow Dreamers...what brings sweetness to your life? And who...or what...is the honeybee?