Felix Culpa

I have been so delinquent in posting to this blog. It isn't that I'm not producing art; it's that most of what I'm doing now is in my journal, and feels too personal to post online. There are some pages that feel safe enough, though. Below is a random page from my homemade travelers notebook.

I drew this back in June, right after we went to hear Audrey Assad in concert. I became intrigued by her album, Fortunate Fall. All the songs circle around the theme of felix culpa: felix meaning happy or fortunate and culpa meaning fall or fault. I love the incongruity. Who is happy when they fail? Who feels fortunate when they fall? The idea is not original with Audrey, of course. It comes from the Easter liturgy, and it would be familiar to her because she is Catholic.

I love it! "Oh happy fault that gained for us so great a Redeemer." Here's to all our happy failures and our so great Redeemer!

This page has lots of shiny highlights from Sakura gel pens, but they don't really come through in the picture. Add the shine in your mind!

Fine black pen and opaque white pen on the most ordinary paper!

I'm going to try to post more so that my blog doesn't look so sad and neglected. There never seems to be enough hours in the day....

Snow Day Fun

Life has been so busy that it took a snow day, compliments of Blizzard Jonas, to get me back to drawing and painting. There's so much white everywhere that I just want to paint with COLOR!

Love in the Service of Creativity

I have a mild addiction affliction, but it could be worse. I could be merely hoarding all these markers, which, of course, would be sick. Instead, I am using them and caring for them and just generally giving them a nice place to live out their days. It's kind of marker foster care, really.

I have been afflicted with a love of markers since I was very young. I really did used to hoard them and not use them. I was afraid of using them up on something frivolous. Eventually they would dry up from neglect, and I'd throw them away. Very sad! I've come to understand that fear does not serve creativity. I'm over the fear of wasting my supplies. I'm using them happily. Every day. And, when I go to a store that sells markers I don't already have, I feel that other affliction: marker envy. Sigh!

Marker Love

Homage to Long Weekends

This is just an excerpt from one of my private journal pages. I was obsessed with threes, because it was the beginning of a three-day weekend. I love how the bees turned out--the three bees, each with three stripes and three dots on each wing. It was out of hand!

Homage to Three; patterned paper embellished with marker in Moleskine Cahier

Well Done!

I love getting to draw on the table at Bonefish Grill, and it's craft paper! I'm tempted to take all my markers sometime and show them what it COULD be! :)

This was a celebration dinner for my husband's last day at what was a very challenging and stressful job before he headed on to the job he has now. If only I'd had more time to make this great, but the bread came to the table, and it was on to the business of...you know...the good stuff.

Drawing on the Table "Cloth" at Bonefish Grill

Another Acrylic Face

Still learning faces with acrylics from Jane Davenport's book. I'm sure I could work on it more, but I'm moving on. I still can't say that I love acrylics. They dry too quickly!

Face in Acrylic; acrylic & watercolor

iPhone Photo Filter Fun

Once your phone can do this, there really is no going back. I got this effect with my iPhone 6 and with the app called Snapseed. It's not exactly Photoshop, but for a phone app, it's pretty cool!

iPhone Photo Filter Fun; photograph edited with Snapseed