My Lizard Brain Is In Control!!

Go watch this video. I love this. He's speaking directly to me. I am too afraid to finish a piece, and therefore I'm in the run I'm in. Super good advice here.  Seth Godin's Quieting the Lizard Brain.

Happy Birthday

I made a card for my friend's birthday. We've sort of fallen out of touch over the years, but I love her dearly. I facebooked her this digi-card today. It's a picture of the tree in my back yard, which I'm convinced has a door to Fae in it.

And this one I made for the world:

Use it or Lose it

I found an article today on brain plasticity. Which is a complicated term that means "the brain can change." The thing that stuck out the most to me is that our brains are "use it or lose it." This is why we may have talents when we are young, but after a while of non-use of said talent, it's gone. This would be why my charcoals now are not as good as my charcoals in college. I'm not using the talent as often.

It also talks about chronic pain, and how there's a wiring in the brain that's off and sends signals of pain. And these neurologists think that there may be a way to re-train the brain to heal the pain sensory malfunction. They used exercise in their informative video, and how exercise helps increase the size of the hippocampus, which in turn helps with memory, cognitive, and creative function.

Which basically said to me: Get off your butt and go exercise. Then maybe you'll get some painting done. I may have to re-train my brain, but I think it's worth it.

Here's the link if you want to check it out.:  Rewiring the Brain

Craft day with kids

 Quinn was mixing colors really well! Look at how nice her "Pallette" plate looks!

 Sir Wil was just having fun using a brush with paint

 Mina was practicing her washes

Ms. Quinn with the butterflies she traced with sharpie and cut out all by herself.

Finishing the Quote series

Rob picked the quote and pic for me. The picture I found for Rob was... well, the best one I could find. I need to take more pictures. I'm not sure I consider any of this awesome design, but I have to admit that it felt refreshing to do it. I love to play with type. And if nothing else, it's experience working with kearning, leading, and matching various typefaces together. I do not like Verdana at all. So it's what I used for boring. It was a toss-up between Times New Roman and Verdana. I remember the people at school really really really considered Papyrus "Of the Devil" but it seemed so appropriate for age-old wisdom for Rob's quote. On another typeface note, I would have used "Fairies Wear Boots" for the "madness is genius" bit of the quote, but it really wasn't readable. /sadface.

Sir Wil

Here's Wil!

Quinn's Turn

Being sick forced some time off from playing, but here is my homage to my one and only blue-eyed baby!