Be A Mermaid

 

Before the summer totally gets away from me, I wanted to tell you about how we taught my granddaughter how to swim. 

Cate is four years old, and for some reason, she's always had a pretty strong fear of the water. Baths and showers are fine, shallow baby pools are fine... but actual swimming pools? Not so fine. Since she has a swimming pool in the backyard of her new house, naturally her parents were eager to teach her to swim. They signed her up for swimming lessons last year and this year, but poor Cate was always frightened and would only get into the water if she could ride on her parents' back. After a while, her parents got pretty frustrated with the whole process of teaching Cate to swim. Nothing seemed to be working...

Until Mimi and Opa came to visit (read here: Grandma and Granddad). We all went down to their pool one afternoon and just sat on the steps of the pool in the water and pretended to be mermaids. First we had to swish our mermaid tails back and forth, and after we'd done that for a while, Cate was willing to hold onto a kick board with Mimi and practice her mermaid tail swishing while floating. Pretty soon she was laughing and kicking up water to splash Opa. She actually got brave enough to jump into the water so Opa could catch her! It just goes to show you that using play and the imagination of a child can really be the key to solving some hard-to-solve problems! 

Here's to many fun and splashy summers at the pool for our sweet Cate!

 

**I created the mermaid painting above in my art journal this summer, using Decoart acrylic paints, micron pens, a couple of collage pieces I'd painted, and Aartx acrylic paint markers. I think it came out kinda cute! 

Moore Doodles

One of the talented artists I enjoy 'following' is Stephanie Ackerman, whose colorful doodles & lettering style are whimsical & straight from her heart. As a Christian artist, Stephanie has been an encouragement to me to combine my faith & my love for color & illustration & journaling in a fresh new way. You can take a peek at Stephanie's Doodle Gallery here.

Just recently I decided to take one of Stephanie's online classes... 'A Whole New Doodle'. Honestly, I've had the BEST time playing with my pens, doing some 'freestyle doodling' and learning some basic lettering... and I'm just beginning!

While I was at our family's farm recently (and away from all my internet distractions!), I got out some basic supplies... a stack of plain old lined notebook paper, a pencil, an eraser, a medium sharpie pen, and a box full of Prismacolor markers... and I doodled my little heart out!  :)  I drew the borders 'freestyle' (no pencil sketching first), but the alphabet required a little more pencil & erasing!

Above is a little 'freestyle' border doodling...

...and some decorated capital letters below. My capitals are 'embellished' using Prismacolor markers... but you could use colored pencils or paint, really whatever you want!

I left these 'little' letters simply colorful, but they could have had some funky doodles in them too, just for fun.

The last Sunday afternoon of our farm visit, I sat at the kitchen table next to a sunny window, spread out all my art supplies, and colored a whole page of borders I'd inked up on Saturday. You would have thought I was a little kid with a brand new box of 64 Crayola crayons!... I was one happy 'colorer.' (that's a word, right?).

Color Me Happy!

If you like to doodle like I do... then I totally recommend Stephanie Ackerman's 'A Whole New Doodle' online class! Before you know it, you'll be doodling your heart out too!

The Trouble With Dust Bunnies

"Dust Bunnies"

I love having my studio in our home!... There is nothing like blogging in my PJ's with a fresh, hot cup of coffee in my favorite mug. I love curling up in a comfy corner of the couch to sketch while listening to our lab, Winnie, snoozing happily on her bed. I love brainstorming new ideas & jotting them down while fixing dinner. I love having Aha! moments when I just drop everything & follow my latest creative intuition, playing with markers & colored pencils.

But there are some things I find hard about working & creating at home... and most often my biggest hurdle to overcome is ME!

Yes, I'm one of those bed-making, do-the-dishes, work-comes-before-play kinda people. I'm the kind of person who sees the spider webs, the dog hair, and all those dust bunnies. And it's hard (really hard!) for me to ignore them & go on with my next "great" creative idea. No... first I think I must banish the dust bunnies & all of their friends from my home, and then (only then!) do I feel OK about indulging myself in a little creative playtime.

As you can probably imagine, the playful side of me can get pretty exasperated with the dutiful side of me! 

So today (once again!) I want to remind myself that life is a balancing act... and there will always be dust bunnies! Sometimes the best thing for me to do is to ignore all the dust bunnies life holds & simply let the little girl in me come out to play.