fresh starts and chasing dreams...

Easter Lilies

8"w x 7"h, coloured pencil on Stonehenge

copyright Teresa Mallen

For me Easter lilies are a sign of spring, new beginnings and a symbol of hope. I think we can all use a new beginning, a fresh start now and again. What better time than on the threshold of a brand new year?

I love new beginnings. In fact I look on the beginning of each month, the start of a new week or even the morning of a brand new day as an opportunity to have a fresh new chance at things.

So as we enter this new year let me ask you this: What do you want for your life? I'm not talking about winning the lottery but something deeper...are you happy with your life? If twelve months from now your life were to be exactly as it is now, would that be okay? Or do you long for more? Again, I ask, what do you want for your life? At first this may seem simple, but actually a lot of people don't know what they want. They go through life getting up everyday, going through the motions, dealing with all the stuff that comes up and then they go to bed to crash, so they can get up the next day and do it all over again. Survival. Yes, we have all been there, but life can be so much more! But first you have to determine what it is you want.

To define what it is you want, start by looking at what your dreams are, your daydreams, the if onlys. What are you passionate about?

As someone who is reading an art journal blog, I would guess that your dream might include being an artist or perhaps being a better artist. The great news is that you can! All you need some forward momentum...

Perhaps you don't believe me...well hopefully my own art journey will inspire you. I didn't do any art as a child. I didn't draw all my waking moments, in fact I didn't draw at all. I had no desire or ability. I coloured in colouring books and I painted some paint by number kits. That was it. By the time I was a young adult, I started going to art galleries, museums and shows. I became aware of a longing. An 'if only'...so I started to try. I quickly discovered that oil paints were difficult for someone who didn't have a clue what she was doing. I read books, I tried acrylics. I was frustrated so I eventually gave up. But the desire didn't go away. By now I realized I had no talent or natural ability but I gave myself permission to try drawing just for fun. One Christmas holiday I picked up a pencil and did a sketch on a piece of scrap paper of a candle centerpiece on my coffee table. I erased a lot but at the end of the evening it looked like a candle in a centerpiece and most importantly, I had enjoyed myself. The next morning I tackled drawing my coffee cup. Lots more erasing but in the end it looked somewhat like my mug. Then I drew another cup and then a rose that I went out and bought. Yikes, that one took a while. But I was captivated. I was enjoying this. I bought a sketchbook and I started filling it with one image after another. That is how I got here!

I never started following my passion in order to sell originals, or to develop and teach classes or to have a website and an art blog. I did it because it gave me pleasure.

Perhaps I am a good example of a late bloomer. I hope that my life's journey will inspire you to start chasing your dreams. I know you will be surprised where following your passion leads you.

Dare to dream a bigger dream. Allow for incredible possibilites. Stop thinking about it, talking about it and just do it - whatever your 'it' is.

Will it all be smooth sailing? Probably not...I had to work quite a while to get my coloured pencil work to look decent. Be tenacious. Don't quit and give up.

So, do you know what you want? Why not make 2009 the year you start going for it? Set yourself a goal. For me, I grew tired of just filling a sketchbook. I decided that I would go for a really BIG dream - having something I thought was good enough to frame and hang on my wall. I looked at a calendar. My birthday was nine months away. It looked like a good deadline. I coloured and coloured. I studied books and I practiced and practiced. It was close but I made it. By my birthday, I had created a small coloured pencil picture that I was satisfied with. I stuck it in a store bought frame (I even painted the frame) and I put it on the wall in my dining room. Talk about gratifying. I was tickled...and now I was unstoppable. Less than two years later I was juried into my first big show. Don't be afraid to start small! Just start!

It is never too late to start living your dreams...please feel free to write me and let me know what you have decided to chase. I will happily cheer you on.

A dead bird and fresh starts...

Yes, I really did mean a dead bird. I was driving down a country road this morning and I spotted this red winged black bird by the side of the road. It had obviously just been hit by a car. I pulled over and popped him into the trunk. Why you wonder? Well for reference photos of course. While I don't have any of my bird pics on my website, I have enjoyed drawing birds in the past. My biggest problem is obtaining good reference photos to work from. Birds just don't stay still too long. The picture of his feet is worth a lot to me. Enlarged, this photo has a lot of detail. Capturing a true likeness of a particular bird depends on getting the beak right, the thickness of the neck, feather features etc. (Lest you think I have completely lost my sense of propriety, I did take the pics outside on the deck. Yes it is on a scrap of old carpet - for the sake of the photo - but I did not have him on my best carpet inside the house!)

If you haven't heard of such macabre activities before, let me assure you that many artists have resorted to such measures. According to Harry Davis, in his book entitled The Art of Tasha Tudor, the famed illustrator used carefully preserved dead animals as models. They were kept in a basement freezer. She apparently had a mouse 'morgue' with as many as a dozen occupants. When partially thawed, she could pose them in various positions. In addition to mice, the freezer contained a variety of frozen birds, including an owl that she kept for years. Mr. Davis also tells of how when Tasha was illustrating The Great Corgiville Kidnapping she was reluctant to work on the villains of the book as it had been many years since she had painted a raccoon. As fate would have it, Tasha discovered that the nightly intruder to her garden was indeed a raccoon. She borrowed a trap, set it and managed to capture one. She put this very much alive wild raccoon on her table and proceeded to paint her model for the next day and a half! Another famous illustrator, Beatrix Potter also kept many animals such as mice and rabbits. She would spend hours observing them, studying their behaviour and sketching them. I don't know if she had a stash of dead ones.

I spared you the rest of the photos. I hope you like seeing the first poppy to open here this spring.

So, June 2nd...does the start of a new month give you a sense of a fresh start? It does me. I love the notion of a fresh slate, and a new start. I feel this way at the start of a new month, at the start of a new week, as the seasons change, when a new year begins, in September as we mark the end of summer and the start of new activities, etc.

Yes, I love new beginnings and I use lots of opportunities to celebrate them. Why do I love them? Well, I guess it is the whole notion of getting a chance to start afresh. I am an organized person and I love making lists. Each week I take stock of what I have accomplished and what yet needs to be done. I make my notes and my plans. Ultimately this helps me have a sense of direction with regards to my career and my other responsibilities. When I have a sense of some sort of control over my life, I gain a sense of peace. I may not be getting everything done that I would like but I have it down for some time in the future!

Of course, life does throw us those interesting curve balls. Like a week and a half ago when our elderly frig stopped working. We scrambled to find friends who had a freezer with enough room for our stuff. We borrowed additional coolers. We spent six hours on a Sunday (not how I planned or hoped to be spending my weekend) shopping all over the city of Ottawa for a frig that we liked (and that was in stock, ready to be shipped). I guess the start of June is a busy time in real estate. This is when many people get possession of their new homes and they need appliances. We have had to wait for delivery. 'Camping' with coolers and buying ice for the past nine days is getting real old. Good news though, the new frig is to be delivered tomorrow morning. Yippee. Then there was the unexpected frost a week ago that snuffed my newly planted tomato and pepper plants. I had to take the time to buy new plants and now I get to do some replanting. Just when you thought a job was off the to-do list! Oh and how about a few weeks ago when my old printer stopped working just as I was preparing for a presentation I was to give. You know how it goes...sometimes life is just like this.

I don't let this stuff bother me too much though because it really isn't important in the big scheme of things. I recently heard of a very young wife and mother who is about to graduate from her nursing program and who has a job waiting for her...but her cancer is back and now the horrible treatments are completely derailing her plans - not to mention that she fighting for her life. Yup, a frig conking out and the loss of some perishable food is really not important.

Yes the month of May had some interesting surprises, some wonderful, some not so wonderful. I wonder what this fabulous fresh month of June will hold?