paint, butterflies & magical moments

any art, when you love it, can be magical

painting with watercolour is like that for me

here is a whimsical scene I've been playing with 

I could endlessly add little details

{it is one of the funnest parts}

{I hope you can get magically lost in something you love}

Silvia

tiny landscapes

One of my all-time favourite words is

'serendipity'

It's fun to say,

it makes me feel happy,

and I love that is speaks of unpredictability.

I love to go on serendipitous vacations with my family

{where we don't have every detail planned out.}

I love to discover new things together,

especially when it was unexpected,

unplanned.

Here is my connection to art:

I love watercolours.

I love how they move across the page,

I love their unpredictability

I love that they can take me on a 

serendipitous journey.

This week, I saw an artist post about how she used watercolour paintings

that didn't work out very well

to make new artwork.
{check out: Elvie Studio}

So, I gave it a try with my own twist...

I masked a few little areas for fun. 

{Masking fluid shields the paper from the paint until it is removed}.

And then I just played with streaks and blobs of colour:

After that, I cut out a 1" square, 

a 1 1/2" square and a 1"x2" rectangle 

from another sheet of paper

and I used them as frames

to see what I could find in my painting:

My mind is often on nature a lot these days

and I couldn't help but see it through that filter. 

Do you see as many landscapes as I did?
{I loved elvis studio's frames, 
so borrowed them for my mini pics}

This was fun little serendipitous project.

It forced me to look beyond the streaks and blobs

to find art.

Silvia

you cannot keep spring from coming

Around here we haven't seen too many signs of spring.  This is pretty much how things look in eastern Ontario:

Piles of dirty, brown-grey snow. We even had 6" of snowfall this past  Sunday. 

{Nooooo!}

This is not the scene we all expect 

{and desire} 

to see when April finally enters the scene!

I'm going to share a funny little bit about myself:

I have a daily reminder on my iPhone to "Notice Nature."

Yup. I remind myself each day to look up, look out, to see. 

I remind myself each day to 

notice 

the glory of creation.

It is a soul-soothing discipline/habit/love.

However, I have to admit that lately it has felt like there isn't too much to notice.

Today, with the weather above freezing, I took my two youngest kids out, 

and we out to look for

spring.

Amidst all that grey-brown, dirty snow, this is what we found:

  

 

 

 

Budding trees, dirty puddles of melting dirty snow, gooey, squishy mud, bits of grass trying to awaken, flowers pushing their way up through the snow 

... beautiful, hopeful signs of spring.

{Welcome Spring. We have all been waiting for you}

 Pablo Neruda once said, "You can cut the flowers, but you cannot keep spring from coming."

After last Sunday's six inches of snow, 

I used my sketchbook to remind myself that spring was indeed 

still coming...

Happy Spring to you!

Silvia
follow me on instagram at silviaklassen 

Studying under the Masters - a shoutout to Jeanne Oliver

All I can say is, "Wow, wow, wow!"  

I have been taking Jeanne Oliver's course, 

Studying Under the Masters 

for the past 8 weeks and it has been wonderfully challenging!  

There has been a lot of course content, 

and I really haven't been able to keep up, 

but I am plugging along, 

working through the lessons and projects. 

{Read: why I haven't blogged very often lately!}

The course is 9 weeks long, 

but I have access to it for 2 years. 

For each week, Jeanne invited an modern day artist to study a master of their choice, 

and teach on that master, 

creating several projects for the students to complete. 

The basic idea, is that we can learn SO much by copying the works of the Masters. 

They have so much to teach us, 

and we have a wonderful opportunity to make ourselves their students!

Oh my goodness!!!!

The projects have been so engaging and interesting! 

The teachers have been fabulous, openly sharing their wealth of knowledge and the Facebook group a huge source of encouragement and inspiration!  

I can't recommend this course enough!

Beginner or experienced artist, 

this course will benefit you, 

and you can still register!  

Jump in on this week, or start at the beginning ... 

just do it! 

You won't regret it!

Here are a few examples of my projects 

~ they are not meant to be exact replications.

but my take on them, 

{with much influence from the class teachers}

Cezanne's Mountains in Provence, followed by my acrylic paint version...

A white flower, followed by my white flower in water colour, Georgia O'Keeffe-ish style...

Francoise De Felice's The Tail of Elodie, followed by my unfinished, acrylic paint version

{we are going away on vacation tomorrow and I have to stop for now to finish packing!!!}

Thank you, thank you Jeanne! I am so loving this course!!

Silvia

Many reasons to Love

Valentine's Day ... sigh.  I have so much love in my life. 

Today's post is dedicated to the man I love,

The one who has been with me through thick and thin. 

The one who is my best friend.

The one who loves me for who I am.

I take no credit for this idea, 

It was fully brought to me by Pinterest. 

But I made it my own, 

for the one I love. 

(find it and a few other Valentine ideas here)

There are many reasons to love 

the special people in your life.

Look for those reasons today. 

And may the love of God,

Which will truly never fail you,

Overwhelm you 

Today. 

Happy Valentines Day!

Silvia

I never thought I'd steal, but I do...

I admit it, I cry easily. Just ask my kids - they will tell you the truth:

I leak from my eyes ~ often. 

I am moved by love, compassion, joy, suffering, 

you name the tear-jerking emotion and I likely beat you to it, 

tissue in hand, wiping off my make-up 

once again.

So, to tell you that a book brought me to tears might not impress you, 

or cause you to run out and and buy it.

But if I tell you the book is called 

"Steal like an Artist" {by Austin Kleon}

you may be a little bit perplexed. 

As an artist 

{and sometimes I struggle calling myself that} 

I battle with the blank canvas demon... 

"What if I ruin that beautiful white canvas with something ugly?" 

"What if I have nothing to say?"

 "What if there is no inspiration when I sit down to my journal?" 

"Do I have any original ideas?"  

I look at my work and often remember 

the painting, the Pin, the photo or the artist that inspired it, 

and I sometimes feel shame:

Did I copy? 

Am I unique? 

Am I a fake?  

I think of the inspiration I felt when I saw the initial work ... 

how my heart lept, 

how I wanted to run to my studio and do something like it, 

how I wanted to feel about my work what I felt in that moment.

This book is for anyone who battles the battle of 

"finding your own voice" in your creative work.  

It has released me to steal:

 to grab what I see and love 

and bring it into my personal storehouse of creativity. 

Unashamedly. 

This book reminds us of the age-old tradition of learning an art:

 Steal an idea here, borrow another there. 

Mesh all those all together and you get you. 

We used to call that being an apprentice. 

All artists do it. 

It is how we learn.

And somehow through that process,

we find our own artistic, unique voice.

I've had the question asked of me: 

"Is this your idea, or did you see it somewhere and copy it?" 

What is the correct answer to that question?  

It's," Yes!  I copied it, and it was my idea."

 I'm learning, I'm drawing out the things I like 

and I'm adding them to my library of inspiring ideas. 

And in that process

I'm finding my voice, my signature, me. 

So yes, "Steal Like an Artist" made me cry. 

It showed me that I am on the same journey that 

artist after artist 

has taken throughout time. 

It released me, 

and gave me wings 

to keep learning from others. 

{please note: this is not talking about plagiarism which is copying something that belongs to another and claiming it as yours ... it's about copying to learn, grow and add your bit of you into it. 

Kleon explains that part well.}

Incidentally, I heard of this book through 

an on-line course I'm taking called, 

"Studying Under the Masters", 

hosted by Jeanne Oliver 

{check her amazing blog and classes out here}. 

Thank you to both Austin and Jeanne 

for knowing that we all want to be original 

and reminding us that well worn path the originality 

is to learn from those who know what they are doing!  

Here it is: Steal Like an Artist, by Austin Kleon

{you can find out more about him out here}.

Go on now, in this case, it's okay to steal.

Silvia

inspired by passion

Hi Friends,

I'll start with the aside...

I'm working on a new look for my blog, 
but it is still in process, 
so stay tuned for {hopefully} a few more changes!
After a year of blogging
{my 1 year anniversary  is Jan 21st}
I am still very much a learner
in the blogging world!

Onto the good stuff now ...

Lately I have been doing a lot of my reading 
from a new translation of the Bible called, 
"The Passion Translation".  
The whole translation isn't complete yet; 
it is a work in progress. 
I have "The Psalms: Poetry on Fire" 
and nearly everytime I read it, 

I am undone.

The "Passion Translation" is 
a very good title for it.

I thought I'd share with you 
a few pages out of my sketch book, 

inspired by Poetry on Fire:

 

What is inspiring you these days? I'd love to hear!

Silvia

unleash your expectations (with video this time)

Excitement is in the air, 

expectation is high,

hope springs eternal,

a new year is here!

Twenty13 is history and Twenty14 has arrived.

Unleash your expectations,

imagine,

play,

experiment

hope all over again.

In reality, every day is a new beginning, 

but the onset of a new year impacts us more intensely doesn't it?

Some make resolutions, but we don't.

We welcome the new year as a family by listening -  

 listening to the whispers of heaven.  

This morning we did just that.

 We now have a large paper posted in our kitchen 

full of all the delicious things God said and showed 

to our family.

And we ended up dancing ~ enjoying the glow of heaven on us,

 delighted by the sweet words He spoke to us.

{Its going to be a good year!}

I believe that this new year is a year of wonder, adventure and joy.

Unleash your expectations and dream!

Dreaming ... another other thing we do together.

I am taking some time today to respond to a prophetic word I heard in December ... I am going to dream with God about my future today and pour out the desires of my heart for this upcoming year ... 

a kind of co-creating with God.  

He loves to hear your heart's desires...

Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart. (Ps 37:4)

It begins with being rapturously caught up in joy with Him.

I saw want to share this video with you today as you enter your new year.

May you find yourself dancing on God's dance floor every day of twenty14.

Happy, happy 2014!

Silvia

seeking beauty

The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.

Albert Einstein

Beauty is something I regularly seek.  It moves my soul, stirs up longings and calls deeply to me, drawing me into a place of creativity ~ a place where I can somehow add a part of me into the beauty that presents itself all around me.

Winter in Ontario has a beauty of its own ~ sometimes it fully presents itself in all its shimmering glory, and sometimes we must hunt for it, training our eyes to truly see what is around us.  Recently, on a rather cold day, I spent some time outside with my iphone, searching for some if its everyday loveliness.

 

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and had a chance to stop and see the beauty that continually surrounds us!

Silvia
follow me on instagram at silviaklassen