NATURE SPINS MANDALAS

So what's been up this week? NATURE! And scoping out the Central Florida State Parks and Trails. I simply had to stop several times yesterday to take photos and make a mandala. This spiderweb was high up and the late afternoon sun caught it just right. Look how perfect and intricate it is. Now that is EnviroArt!

SPIDER WEB MANDALA :)

Remember Thursday After-work Enviro Art Trail Walks begin this week at 5:30. Meet at the parking area of Bourlay Historic Nature Park and bring a camera. We'll have fun and learn a few thongs too.

This post is short and sweet. I am sliding off the laptop now as it is way too beautiful a day to be indoors. Lunch is digested and "I'm outta here".

GETTING YOUR PAINT ON

What an amazing Leesburg Art Fest this year. So FULL. I designed a PAINT LIKE POLLOCK Create Station for the kids. It was superbly messy, educational and FUN!

I awoke today body sore therefore I simply had to keep moving. I needed to catch up in the garden, make tentative designs for a new fiber art Create Staton for BoHo Fest in September and actually (can you believe it) paint a damaged table. One would think I had quite enough paint but priming is meditative. It's GOOD FOR YOU.

Here are some pics from the Art Fest's Saturday. I still haven't edited Sunday's. Today was for quietly balancing with my own creations at my own pace - alone in space.

Until soon - back to priming

OM :)

FA-BLUE-OUS BUDDHA

I'd rather be blue thinking of you, I'd rather be blue over you, Than be happy with somebody else.


Another short post because I have been rocking the garden redesign. My 200 lb solid cement (ok I am exaggerating but it takes 2 full sized people to budge him) Buddha has been in my garden for over a year. Last week I was given an arch arbor kit to paint and build to place over him. Somehow the gray concrete called out to become BLUE. Today I stained dear Buddha and he looks pretty darn good. I think he is happy. I know when the  hanging planter and vining plants get in he will look blue but feel FA-BLUE-OUS!

Another short blog post this week. Two pairs of gloves failed in the dying process and now I have smurf hands. It will be wierd at dinner out tonight so I best go fix it. :)

Chau 4 now.....

IT'S A MATTER OF BALANCE

Oh my goodness, I have been a bad little blogger. I haven't posted since mid November and here it is the new year. My Bad. Year-end was so busy. So is this beginning to the new year but... big but, all seems so much more in balance. Why? Because I am diligently taking care of me. This week I am simply going to post some photos of nature and get off the computer.

I was off grid Saturday night and Sunday morning. I didn't even have cell service. Friends took me to the coast. I was fully present. :)

These are terns on New Smyrna Beach. We also went to Blue Springs to visit with some manatees. Lovely.

I love the "do" on thee terns!

I have vowed to myself to BE out in nature at least five times a week. I am continuing my morning meditations before I get out of bed. Starting EACH DAY with deep focused and meditation makes an enormous difference in life quality. I believe it opens up your energy for good things to enter. Who needs valium?

The other thing that I am doing is eliminating or cutting down severly on some things in my diet and reducing computer time (that one is hard as I work as a graphic designer). More on that another time. Beach, Biking, Bed, Bonfires...It is a matter of balance.

Well - I leave you there. Happy 2019. See you soon.

Chau 4 now!

PAINT NIGHT WAS A GAS!

Mandala on Canvas Paint Nite was a gas! Such a brilliant group of women! We will definitely repeat with another design later this year or in early 2019.

Sorry - a short post but I am designing a new catalog for the Leesburg Center for the Arts and my desktop (laptop) is a fright. It needs tidying before I go to bed. I am a neat freak. I admit it. That's probably why I gravitate to mandalas. Oder out of chaos. They ease my busy mind.

Here are a few photos from Paint Nite, then night night for Patt.

Next week I am teaching High School Level Summer Art Camp which will be so fun. I am not planning any mandalas but will be sure to share the super cool projects that I have planned. We are UPCYCLING!

I hope to get a post up on Monday. We'll see........

Have a great week!

WINE, INSPIRATION & ART

We had a full house for my Mandala Drawing workshop at Mt Dora's Modernism Museum this last weekend. Wine, Inspiration & Art abounded. Here are a few photos of the fun.

Although we did not have time enough to add too much detailing over the color, all the participants could take their artwork home and continue to embellish. One woman said she was going to teach this to her seniors at her center. I laughed, "You are stealing my job." All in good fun. In fact, I suggested for her seniors she should take note of their dexterity. Many seniors with arthritis in their hands would find the compass difficult to use. While still utilizing the mandala design concept she could switch it up for them and provide a template. Or she could have them create circular designs in many colors using watercolors and sponging. The ideas are limitless. The most important part is getting people to participate happily in the art process.

And as for stealing my job...(insert smile) I have more mandala workshops coming up this summer. One of which will be painting Mandalas on Canvas at the Leesburg Center for the Arts in July. I will be announcing registration details in my next blog post.

Chau 4 now!

PS: David Bowie's Memphis Collection is currently at the Modernism Museum. Why not head over there next Saturday and check it out.

YOU NEVER KNOW UNTIL YOU TRY

I have been playing around with record albums. Sunday I came across a bag of old broken crayons, the really cheap poor quality DollarTree kind. I decided to make some use of them and play around combining them with heat and vinyl. It was a hot cloudy day here in Central Florida. Perhaps I should have saved this experiment for the winter months when I need to heat up but alas, inspiration comes when inspiration comes.

Although not happy with the result it gave me some more ideas. That is what the artistic process is about. Many of us hold on to the finished result not realizing the result is the process. Experimentation is vital to art. From experimentation new techniques are discovered.

Besides I can always re-purpose this again into ?????  Any suggestions? It is covered in cheap crayon wax. :)

Short process video below.

Hasta Pronto!

GO GROW SOME ART

If you are new to this blog you may not know that a little under a year ago I found my little Florida nest. I had wanted a resting place - wait - not a FINAL resting place, just a little artist cottage to call my own. I will still travel but most likely not as a full time nomad. My first year in Central Florida came with a high heat drought, then a major hurricane, followed but a extremely cold winter with several nights below freezing. We all survived. Unfortunately the few plants that I had gotten started had some fatalities. Live and learn. The first year or two is a learning curve.

As a mandala artist I of course wanted a living mandala. And it is coming along just fine this spring.

And Buddha's corner is really shaping up too.

And just to give a little perspective, what I started with was dismal. I gave myself a $200 cash budget and "permission" to work as hard and long as I loved. And I do love it. I am so happy that it is spring. This will only get better.

The front of the MoHo? Of course I painted a card table top and put it up in the first few weeks of purchasing the cottage. Last week I found a free bowling ball and "HIPPAFIED" that. It is in the style of Hungarian-French Op Artist Victor Vasarely.  I think it goes quite nicely on the upside-down vase that I also found in the free pile at the thrift store.

So there ya go - A spring filled post. Now go grow some art!

Chau 4 now.

STEAL IT IF YOU HAVE TO

So many things happening - ALL GOOD - but it seems to leave little time to STOP and BREATHE. Which is EXACTLY what is needed or you will burn out.  "But I don't have time to mediate." You don't have time not to. Coffee is not an answer - though it sure tastes good.

TIME - Find it, Take it, Steal it if you have to, but take a break. Make it a moving mediation if you must. Create some art, listen to relaxing instrumental music, walk by the lake, slow down that busy brain. The anxiety will quell and time, which is a perception, will slow down for you. It is the anxiousness, the pressure that makes it seem so tight.

Decorate your Buddha space even if it is in your mind.

LOOKING WHO IS TALKING! It is my day off! And it is 5:00 already. Did I take a real break yet? Eating leftover pizza and meatloaf for lunch and talking to a friend up north on the phone for an hour is not a break. I even wrote Take a Break at the top of my TO DO list this morning. Further down the page I wrote Relax - Love Self - Smile. OK I checked that last one off (SMILE). I am not done smiling for the day. :) It makes everything feel better.

Did I get to the Automobile Association today - NOPE. It can wait. More important to me and my soul was the Prime Coats on "Canvas" Let's see where it goes. I am not anywhere near to revealing what I am expereimenting with but I think it is going to be BRILLIANT!

And Buddha's new scarf....

Below are photos from last night's event with Flag Across the World, Rotary, Apa Sherpa Foundation and the Leesburg Center For the Arts just to name just of few of the wonderful folks and organizations involved in helping the kids in Nepal rebuild their school.

It was a privilege to attend and a be a part. Perhaps I will expound later but for now

... I AM STEALING SOME TIME!

Chau 4 Now

IT'S HAPPENING - EXPERIENCE IT

Good Mandala Monday to you. IT'S HAPPENING THIS SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 24 @ 10AM.

Have you registered yet? The link is at the bottom of this post. Check out what we will be doing...

The the day goes like this... We meet at the location at 10:00. There is a short orientation then we go on a very slow paced trail walk to gather "nature paint". Nature paints are items found on the ground along our path. They may be fronds, pods, sticks, leaves, moss, feathers, etc. It all depends on what Mother Nature has provided. I will be point out some "good stuff" for making mandalas as we go along. We end the trail walk at a meeting space where we each pick out a spot of our own to CREATE A PERSONAL EARTH MANDALA from our foraged treasures.

At this time you will be required to shut those cell phones off and leave them in a pile on the picnic table. You'll get to use them later to document your art but they should not be in your pocket while we go on to the next part of the experience. I will be doing a very special energy demonstration. It may surprise you. You will see why you need to separate yourself from your electronics at this time.

Next I will guide everyone through some focus and centering exercises including a mediation/guided imagery session. Yes we are getting into the ZEN CREATION ZONE. Now we will be in silence as each person lets nature create through them. Leave behind any plan. Just let it happen. Listen to your intuitive whispers. This is not simply a mental experience. Your movements make you part of the art. Your peaceful spirit infuses it.

When our creations are complete we will have a short TALKING STICK CEREMONY to verbally share our experience(s). Then you can have your cell phones back. You need photos! You need to document your art!

Earth Mandalas are temporary. Made in this way, with silence, in peacefulness and with reverence for the earth, they become prayers of gratitude and appreciation for our precious natural environment. The wind and rain will take away the designs but the energy will move out into the planet with each breeze and drop of rain..

Here is the EVENTBRITE registration page - https://www.eventbrite.com/e/mandalas-in-the-wild-tickets-41434891877

And the facebook event link. Listen - I can only take a limited amount of people so if you say you are going honor your RSVP - prepayment is required. Be responsible.  

   https://www.facebook.com/events/1059633510840074/

I am looking forward to seeing you and exposing you to a new experience. 

**********

And next week I will be speaking at the Leesburg Public Library, at 2pm on Tuesday February 27th. I am facilitating an interactive acupressure workshop to help people stay off more medications and exercise their own personal power. The 1.5 hours workshops is... 

Drug-Free Relief at Your Finger Tips for Seniors

Module 1 - Memory, Mental Clarity and Countering Negative Emotions.

Free and Open to the Public. You do not have to be a senior to benefit from this workshop. Everyone needs help focusing these days.

Chau 4 Now

COLOR YOUR WORLD WITH CHALK

A few weeks ago I challenged Leesburg, Florida to PICK UP THE CHALK. The challenge went out via Meetup and Facebook, the local papers and more and guess what..... (insert smiling face here) LEESBURG PICKED UP THE CHALK BIG TIME!

What a great day thanks to the Leesburg Center For the Arts and the Saturday Morning Market organizers. We got there to set the stage with several baskets of chalk and some basic templates. Chalk lines were snapped and art flourished. It was a fabulous colorful day of chalk mandalas and design. Thanks to all my helpers from small to large, kid to teen to adult.

We will be doing it again during the Leesburg Art Fest so grab some knee pads and come on over March 10th and 11th.  In the meantime, KEEP COLORING YOUR WORLD!

ENVIRO ART PLUS A HEALTHY TIP

I am trying this post as a direct share link from my getin2nature youtube channel so I don't know what it will look like until after I hit the publish button. Ohhhhh - such adventure.

So in this video not only am I making a part of a land art installation, I am also teaching you about a great acupunture/acupressure point for fighting off getting sick or coughing from allergies. How fun! I get to do two of my most favorite things in one video. :)

Enjoy!

getin2nature.com - check it out - join the meetup group and take a workshop.

LEAD YOUR CHILDREN

As you know I am passionate about connecting people back into nature. I am especially concerned about adults. That right, ADULTS. Adults are the leaders of the community and the teachers in our schools, the parents and caregivers of our children, the heads of the family. You can enroll kids in programs which is wonderful (if they exist in your community) but becoming the personal leader and role model for your own children or grandchildren is even better. First you need to reconnect. The rest will follow naturally (no pun intended). When was the last time you played and made art in the woods? Let me guide you.

When you get back out foraging and creating in the woods or beachcombing on the shores you will become revitalized and more alive. Creating art in nature is energizing, therapeutic and gives you a huge healthy dose of VITAMIN "N".

AN ENCHANTING PATH @ BORDERLAND

Here is a wonderful interview with Richard Louv, author of The Nature Principle, Last Child in the Woods, The Web of Life and other books. Louv shares a hopeful message for every area of life from more productive workplaces, to better classroom learning and healing of our nature-starved spirits..

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Check back often and LET'S GET GOING >>> OUTSIDE.

Don't delay. New England schedules are being created NOW.