Color For My Breakfast, Words For My Supper

Blogging has been last on the "to do" list lately.

I've been DEEP DEEP into a nine month FEARLESS™ Painting teacher's training course

which has resulted in

eating color for my breakfast and words for my supper!

No, not really!  

But metaphorically for sure.....

Here is the GIANORMOUS art journal I created for my painting assignments in class.

It's 18"x24" and is filled with my favorite Fabriano paper.

I covered the outside and inside covers with portions of larger paintings I did in Sedona.

Ripe juicy neon colors!

Only this morning (it's still dark outside!) I began painting the first page.

Yes, beginning with scribbles is the easiest way to get over the dreaded white page syndrome.

Just mess it all up....then rescue it!

I'm 4 painting assignments behind already, so I gotta get with it!

Yet wise words from within began to spill onto the covers.....

"follow the magic * let color lead the way"

and silly ones too.....

"eat paint for breakfast and words for supper"

and heart felt true words . . . 

"this is what you were born to do - I know because I cannot stop"

And out of those early morning scribbles, Sedona skies dawned onto the first page.

The circles are the "orbs of light"

 that unfailingly show up in my (and everyone else's) photos of Sedona.

The energy there floats through the air, dancing for the camera lens.

Here's the "screen" I painted for the teacher's training class.

It's 6 feet long when extended!

(And heavy - made of wood and hinged with iron.)

Painted vessels and tribes - yep that's my thing.

Above, you'll see the back side.....dots, dots and more dots!

This screen has many stories to tell, but I cannot share all my secrets....

Figures in the messy background were "excavated"using my favorite "found image" painting method.

There are real pressed orchids buried in the paint!

Aren't they yummy?

Here's some closeups of the tiny figures on my screen . . .

Oooh I see another face floating just above the couple.....can you see it too?

Is that spooky?  I confess sometimes it freaks me out (just a little).

And all these faces were clear as day to me.

Okay, THAT really does freak me out!

Each are adorned with crowns and jewels of metallic golds, bronzes and turquoise.

They're special little ladies - princesses and queens of the Tribe.

And buried beneath all this paint are words.

Secret words that no one but me will ever know.

Don't you loooovvvvve secrets?

Or do they make you overly-crazy with curiosity?

 Lean in . . .

 Tell me your's and I might tell you mine.

(No . . . no - I won't.)

The Cairns of Sedona

On my trip to Sedona, we hiked through a field of Cairns.

Cairns are a pile of stones set up as a landmark or monument.

My friend and fellow hiker, Christine, says they are little "heaps of intention".

I think she's right.

Each cairn marks a moment in time where a person stopped what they were doing

and intentionally set stones atop one another, sometimes creating a seemingly impossible

feat of balance.  

We walked through fields of cairns!

It was breathtaking!  

Each of us quieted down, stepped more lightly and breathed more deeply.

There was a palpable reverence about them.

I'd have been sick if I'd toppled one while tiptoeing about to photograph their beauty.

Last year I didn't notice the ones set in water . . . I think they were new.

And others that I remember, now were gone.

The impermanence of them is part of the beauty.

Nothing lasts forever.

Cairns are reminders to stay present and to notice what's around us. 

This pile was particularly impressive.

You cannot really gage the size of these three stones below,

but they are large boulders. 

Definitely the largest we'd seen....many of us talked about them

even after leaving the site. 

They inspired this painting below.

I call it "Sedona Glow".

To me, they look like little worlds piled upon one another.

I'm framing it today and will hang it in our home to remind me of

those small intentional moments - which I want more of in my life.

But oh . . .

Last week, I returned from my annual pilgrimage to Sedona AZ.

I go there to attend the Total Alignment Body + Soul + Paintbrush Retreat

held by Connie of Dirty Footprints Studio.

Last year, I remember being so taken . . . 

and so incredibly inspired by the natural beauty of Sedona.  

The landscape changes quickly as the light glows golden one moment and pink the next.

Clouds move swiftly through the valleys, threatening thunderstorms, then clearing within minutes.

The desert is so powerful and so clean.

It's truly breathtaking to hike those hills and 

paint in the shadows of the famous Red Rocks.

That was true again this year, for sure.

However, I was, this time, more taken by the smaller things.

My camera's eye was drawn to the close, to the tiny.

Textures.  Shapes.  Symbols.  Spices.  Customs.

Natives.

Vessels.

Offerings.

Desert blooms.










Ledges of stones.

Parched red Earth.

Saffron mosses.

Rivers of smooth rock.

Beds of kindling.

Circles of spikes.

Fissures and flowers.

Eggplant buildings.






Cairns in the river.

Signs on the trail.

Copper and water.

Mauves and oranges on green.

Tiny homes underfoot.

Wood and Turquoise.

Towers of trees.

Torn down fences.












Slanted ladders.

Discarded beauty.

Painted sponges.

Shrines and Milagros.

Wind chimes and charms.

Feathers and hoards of beaded treasure.

Painted Crosses.

Jangles of bangles.

Snacks, cushy colorful places to sit.

Baskets and baubles.

Chimineas.

Vessels of clay.

MORE crosses and circles.

Weathered woods.

*****

But oh . . . those Sedona Smiles!