Meanwhile, I Keep Dancing

It is finished! And  Desiderata  is right: I will enjoy this success, but I will also enjoy the act of making more plans for the future. The fact that this 30 day drawing challenge is over doesn't mean I stop. Onward!

Travel is something I want to do a great deal of, and for starters I really really want to go to Ghana, Africa. At this point it isn't so much that I need to go there, specifically, but as it is my intended trip this summer, I very much want to see it through, financially, physically, and emotionally. I need to complete this goal I have. Because I am not very good at completing things. I lose focus if I am working on something for an extended period. The "Ooo, shiny!" mentality. And also a fear of change, and an insecurity of my skills and talents. I want to back out now, even with the $200 already deposited, but I know I can't. I know I must move forward with this plan. I think I have the strength for this trip. This is my second to last day of this challenge, and that is fantastic. So, one step at a time I will get to you, Ghana. I will get there.

I have been Desiring and Coveting this item for some time now. Can you guess what it is? A fire pit!  I am burning (ha, pun) with desire for a fire pit of my own! Sadly, because of my renting situation, I cannot put one in (unless I am very sly with an old wok and some bricks). Really, though, I want this time at college to not end. I want to stay in my mid twenties, hanging round a campfire at night with my friends drinking a beer or eating a hot dog, wrapped up in blankets and just watching the fire. I want to capture it in a glass bottle and hold onto it, a happy moment, a fleeting memory for when I'm old. Dear Santa...

I had a conversation with a teacher, who is also a good friend, about that inner light or spark that some people have. And we both agreed that we need to keep our eyes out for such people and encourage them to be fully themselves. Well, one of my best friends and roommate has that light. Which is hard to describe, but its the glint in her eye, and a sense of energy and optimism and soul . Since living with her I have come to love her more and more. She is a very dear friend now. And I hope she knows that she is a talented writer, an amazing dancer (so fun to watch her break out with some blues!), and her knowledge of music amazes me. She has a sense of adventure and still carries within her a fighter's spirit, even when life gets her down. She is beautiful in this etherial way that makes me want to grab my camera and capture her natural beauty among swirling autumn leaves. She is a good friend. Dear Dana, You are fantastic. Change nothing. Love, Ash

I don't like the duel quality of my personality, the bickering of heart and head that goes on constantly. I don't like that I get in my own way, creating little worries and then like a wad of gum they get stuck in my hair, my head, my heart. Worries of: "Am I messed up? Can I be loved?" "why am I not where I should be?" "And where the hell should I be? I don't like my blindness to my own talents, though I can pick out my faults easily enough. I don't like it. Not at all.

I may have cheated a bit in the drawing aspect of the challenge, but I had fun with this, and that's all that matters, right? It's a bit darker than what I usually do. For some reason the holidays can do that to a person. I kept thinking of doing some sort of view. And I didn't want to do a pretty outdoor scenic. Ha, I just thought now that I could have some some sort of theatre scenery piece. My mind never seems to wander very far from theatre, I guess. But here is my mental view of the future, and I had to step back quite a ways to encompass it. All the way into outer space. Earth looks a bit crowded from here, huh? Maybe I'm scared of the future right now. Especially my immediate future; what comes next after graduation. Finding work, finding a city and a place that I fit into, finding an identity in an ever filling, jam-packed, cacophony of a world.

Not feeling very inspired tonight. This has more humor and writing than art in it. But anyway... I was thinking about what "couple" means nowadays, how facebook is how one validates their relationship with someone. How great drama erupts from facebook updates. I really had no reason to choose Santa and Mrs. Claus and their relationship, other than for the fact that it is Christmas Eve. I'm not making any sarcastic comments about religion or Christmas or whatever. So, not very deep. I guess what I did learn from this particular day is that not every day can be fabulous, or creative, or inspired, and it's okay to have days where life is just there . Have a wonderful evening everyone! See you tomorrow for Christmas!

My Space! Not the website, sillies, but the cry, that claim for existence! I got this from a movie called Happy Go Lucky, when the heroine goes to a Flamenco class. At the class the teacher gives a speech about what Flamenco is: “Remember that this dance comes from the pain, from the suffering, of los gitanos...erm... what you say, "the gypsies". I know this word not politically correct,but these guys they been squashed down by society for centuries, centuries, and they say,"We don't need this. We got pride. We got dignity. We got heart. We got flamenco. " They say, "This... my space. "   My space.   My space!" That fire that is in Flamenco, that claiming of the self. That is what I need. I need to stand my ground, be the person I am in the moment I am in it.  No apologies. No doubts. Stomp stomp! My Space! Stomp stomp! My Body! Stomp Stomp! My life!

I've always wanted a tree house. Somewhere up high, secret, preferably nested among leaves, is something that I know I will never grow out of. It feels so special to be up high. I'd even make do with an apartment, if it had an amazing view. I've had one tree house in my life. It was our old cherry tree at my old house, and my dad had taken rope and wound it around the thickest branches creating a platform, and then he took a sturdy squarish piece of wood and put it on top. And that was my treehouse. It wasn't up very high, nor was it very fancy, but sitting up there (especially in summer time, towels laid out, draping over the edge to create rooms below) it was my impenetrable fort. My secret lair. Then I got too big. Too heavy to sit on that little platform of rope and wood. And now I'm too old for it to be acceptable for me to play in trees (unless there is a child present). Maybe what I miss more is being that age that could sit in a simple tree house

Pretty straightforward, right? I would like to say that what I want most right now is to finish school, to find a good job, to go to Ghana even. I would like to say that what I want most is to create something amazing. Or have an adventure. Or have a really awesome night on the town (though, that sounds rather tempting...) But it all comes down to love, doesn't it? And finding the person that fits you, right? Anyway, I don't want this to be sappy. I know, as an only child, I need to work on my ability to be okay by myself. It's alright to be alone. Tanya Davis has a wonderful poem called How to Be Alone , something I stole from another blogger. Read it. It's fantastic. And really, it's when you can find solace and contentment with yourself, that moment when you are open to the world (but not grasping at it) when love happens. At least, I hope that's how it works. So far my old techniques have not been working. Like forcing my email on a guy I'v

Honestly, orange used to be last on the list of my favorite colors, that and yellow. I was young and liked strong passionate colors, like red and green, and cynical and sophisticated colors like black. I may have gone though a short stint of being Emo. Who doesn't in high school though? What I couldn't stand about orange was how warm it was (like pink, but that just has a sick sweet quality to it). It felt bland. I think I felt the same way about apricots.  But time roles on... Look look! Apricots for my "something orange."  As far as a fruit can be cute, I think apricots may have managed it. They can nestle in your palm, warm and fuzzy. And the color is very inviting. Juicy too, sweet and tangy.  Orange = Yummy

Boots! And not just any boots, but knee-high and piratey! My dad just got them for me today, and he is so happy to have found my Christmas present, and I'm rather happy to be wearing them. I don't know why, but clothing, and especially shoes, can change how you move, how you think about yourself. And how you feel about yourself. It's like you put on new skin, or a shiny cocoon (and I know we shouldn't covet material things...but...) and feeling new and reborn, an inner part of us comes out. So, with my new boots I will walk (stride) across continents, win hearts and walk away from heartbreakers, and boldly go where I have not gone before.

When left to my own devices to draw whatever I want, and then have access to a laptop camera, this is often the result. When I was first thinking of what should be attached or coming out of my head, the idea of birds nesting in my hair really appealed. I have a few things on my mind right now, why not a full family of birds?

I refuse to accept it as a weed. I don't like my lawn completely green and nicely clipped, like a Marine's haircut. I like it wild, with long grass and sprouting little burst of joy every which way! Yes, the dandelion my friends! Its name comes from medieval latin,  Dents Lioness, which translates to "tooth of the lion." True, not the most beautiful of flowers, and it is not coveted by flower enthusiasts or collected or sold for great amounts of money. I'll tell you what though, here is a list of things you can do with a dandelion: - Make dandelion wine from the flower - Eat the young leaves in a salad - Make a crown or necklace - Wish on the seeds - Roots can make a non-caffeinated like coffee substitute.  They are also high in calcium, potassium, vitamin A and C, and they are useful as a diuretic and for treating urinary tract infections . Take that, orchids! And they are hardy little guys. Between the cracks of humanity's empires they have wedged th

Here's something about inspiration; the second part of it's definition, the one we don't often think about is "the drawing in of breath." I've been taught in my theatre program that by breathing fully the actor can connect to their true intentions and the creative impulses within the lines. Stage fright, take a deep breath. Speaking poetry, get your breath down deep. Once you settle your breath, your mind clears. It's in meditation. It's in yoga. I will take it one step further. Breathing, truly and sincerely taking in air deep to your core and then letting all of it out, is an act of living (living sincerely) and in living inspiration can be found. Because inspiration hits  you from thin air and ignites your neurons. Where does it come from? The second part of this is where I find inspiration. Life inspires me. Other's ideas, or art, or realizations, which I find in conversation or in the case of my current drawing, the internet (Stumbleupon

I come from a small but very tight knit family. Many holidays I've spent was just with my mom and dad. On both of my mother's and father's side I have quite a lot of celtic heritage. Irish especially (where the curly hair comes from...?). Which I felt made a celtic knot appropriate for this portrait. My parents have been married for nearly 30 years, and they are my base, they are why I feel as confident in myself as I do. But while they support me, I do sometimes feel like I get tied up with them, and that is because I'm 24 and I'm ready to live on my own. 

I'm a fan of strong women in my fairy tales, which is hard to find since most of the women are princess' under spells, or they are a grand prize after the hero vanquishes the monster or completes the quest. There are a few that really stuck with me. Especially the Scandinavian folktale The Prince Lindworm . The story goes like this; a Queen wants a child, and she is told that if she eats two onions she will have twin sons. She does so, but the first onion she is so greedy to eat that she doesn't remove the outside skin. Soon she gives birth to two sons, but the first born was a monster, half snake and half boy. The boys grow up, and the second born prince wants to get married. But his terror of an older brother won't let him until he gets married first. Course, no one wants to marry a half-man half-snake creature who keeps eating his prospective brides. Finally, a peasant girl comes forward and volunteers to marry the elder brother. She goes to him, wearing all of

It's amazing how challenging a one word prompt can be. Comic? WTF. I didn't know. Finally this... It's more than just sad clown. I hope whoever is reading this can get beyond the fact that I chose a clown as my protagonist of this piece. I rather like clowns. Or rather, I like the essence of clowns. How I remember it described to me was that clowns live in the moment. And the reason why we laugh at them is because they are intensely human, and when they deal with pain and embarrassment and anger, it's really a reflection of ourselves. A person with serious balls will get up in front of strangers, find the tenderest truest part of themselves as a human, and then blow it out of proportion for the masses to laugh at. This revealing quality of clowning is something I've been trying to learn as an actor. Perhaps this challenge is my first step of that. In fact, there is an exercise in my basic acting class and it goes like this; choose one aspect of yourself that is

As the days go on, I've noticed the quality of my art has decreased. Or rather, it's gotten more cartoony. Something I shall work on for the coming days...reinvigorate the creative juices! Accomplishments. Most of them have been small ones, day by day, things that I say "I need to do that" and rather than putting it off for MONTHS, I get it done. It feels good. Just getting the small things done. There are a few big ones in there. Something that I've always taken for granted is finishing and passing my classes at the end of the quarter. For 3 years now I've worked my butt off, passed classes, but never let myself fully enjoy the accolades at the end. I just move onto the next thing. Well, now I'm going to pause, and pat myself on the back. So, for this Fall Quarter's end, my last Fall Quarter at CWU (and perhaps for the rest of my life) I say I'M DONE! And I did well. I survived the stress, fulfilled my responsibilities, got A's, had f

The funny thing about turning points in life, it's usually in retrospect that we recognize them for what they are. At the time of them happening, when we either decide yay or nay, choose one road or the other, it just seems like a choice. It doesn't feel like the fulcrum on which your life will spin. But sometimes a choice that you make, one that is so different from anything you have done before, then you  know. I've made one of those. It was when I decided to send in my $200 to ProWorld and reserved my place as a volunteer going to Ghana. Traveling hasn't been a big part of my life. I've done it in little spurts, but nothing for this length of time (a month) and this far away( Cape Coast, Ghana, Africa). In my picture I've created the future that once I travel there, I'll be traveling everywhere else next. I don't know if I will for sure. Heck, I don't know at all what direction my future will take. But I do know it will change.

So. Candy. Everyone has their go to. And I like my skittles. :-) Good for late night energy at work, and good with a wheat beer.

Such a hard prompt! Finally it is done! I don't have much to say, the picture, hopefully speaks for itself... I love both of these shows. The characters are inventors and explorers. I want to be that too. :-) Thats all. Enjoy!

While doing this particular day I realized that I love animated films, but I had no particular connection to any of them. The closest I could come to was Cinderella, which was my favorite movie when I was little.  As you can see from my picture, it definitely is not Cinderella. While she is a great gal, I can't say the woman that I am now feels particularly close to her. Betty Boop caught my attention for a bit, but she soon tiptoed back into the depths of my mind.  Then out flew Kiki's Delivery Service. For those not familiar with the movie, it is a sweet coming of age story of a 13 year old witch named Kiki, who follows the tradition of going to another city and living for a year by herself. She doesn't have many skills (she can barely fly) and the villain she must conquer is her own insecurities.  I took this bit from Wikipedia: " According to Miyazaki the movie touches on the gulf that exists between independence and reliance in Japanese teenage girls

The word that you are thinking this represents is not so easily deduced. :-) I love words, so picking one was a struggle. I've always liked whimsy, but I overuse it. I was looking through Google at "beautiful words" waiting for one to strike me and give me an idea. But none of them seemed quite right. Then I remembered this one word, which a good friend, who I love dearly, once tricked me into believing meant something else. The word was afton , and he told me that it was the softy, dreamy fuzz seeds that puff off of a dandelion. This description I fell in love with. Sadly, Afton actually is the name of a river in Scotland, which is nice, but does not live up to the romantic attachment I had with the first definition. And why am I picking a word that I'm changing the definition to? Because afton will always mean dandelion wishes to me.  P.S. Dandelions are my favorite flower

Going back to my young adult book days, were adventure and magic ran as rampant through me as my changing hormones. :-p Some of the best stories I have found are for young adult. The worlds that are created by these authors are fantastic, and one of my favorite for high adventure and fantasy is Tamora Pierce, and her world of Tortall. What I love about her books is that she writes strong women characters. And my favorite of all is Keladry of Mindelan. She is the Protector of the Small! A very mortal heroine, who does not have magic powers, or influential parents, or the protection of a goddess.  She has only her convictions, her will, and her sense of fair-play. She makes friends because she is such a badass of a character! For those that have not read the books, in the land of Tortall it is frowned on for a woman to be a knight. But she does it. And the reader gets to follower her from age 10 to 18 as she struggles to fit in with a castle of boys and teachers that hate her for bei

I haven't had too many people in my life that I could say were my best friends. People that I truly love. But there are enough of them. Which made this my most hated day to do. I didn't want to decide! Finally, I had someone in mind. My friend that I have known the longest of all, someone I hope I will know the rest of my life. Here it is, in all it's cheesy glory.... This picture is actually based off of a real photo that popped up into my mind. My good friend Lana and I, probably aged about 11, going bowling. I actually made myself look much better in this version than in the original. You can't see, but I'm wearing socks, pulled up, with those long shorts, and I'm bright rosy cheeked and shiny, grinning for all I'm worth. My lovely friend is shyly standing by (she has become a much more confident woman since then) and we are about to go bowling. I wanted to do a polaroid because this moment in time is very telling. We both are no longer those girl

Another difficult one! It's actually the word "favorite" that is throwing me. You know how it goes, someone asks you what your favorite movie/book/song is and you go suddenly blank. I have several places that make me happy. But I'm most happy snuggled down in a good book. Can you guess which book I'm referencing in my picture? And perhaps I'm twisting the idea of the "drawing" challenge. :-) Art breaks rules. And it was really fun creating the hands to hold the book!

I had problems figuring out what I wanted to do. Chinese was the first pick for a while, but then I got to thinking about what kind of food gave me the best experience. And I couldn't say no to the blackberry. Especially the sun-warmed blackberries in august, when you get a big milk gallon and cut it up so it becomes your pail. And fighting through all the brambles to find that one, juicy, deep red delicious morsel. And how it takes forever to fill the pail, because at least half of what you picked went right into your mouth. Yes, the simple blackberry. Lessons of the Old Blackberry Picker Move slowly unrushed unhurried between the thorny bars  to claim your sweet prize within Less time than you think my child with eager eyes and stained lips your bowl  will fill This will be your triumph among the blackberries; More of their juices will be within you and less of your red sweetness will be on them

Here it is, finally. Wow, I am getting into a bad habit of "I'll just post it the next day." I love crows. I don't know why exactly, since they are scavengers, and they aren't very pretty, but something about them I really like. Crows are smart. They are inventive. They have this attitude of "yeah, we're here, deal with it." And the fact that a grouping of them is called a Murder, a Murder of Crows, is just very very cool. Is this my emo side coming out? My inner Edger Allen Poe revealing itself? Hard to say. I did not intend this to be as geometrical as it turned out to be. I wanted to do something flowing, something in flight. But fluid motion is something I do quite a lot in my art, so I think a little geometric cartoony was a challenge. I may have been inspired by M. C. Escher at the time, though the repeating pattern didn't really happen. Overall, I was surprised but pleased with what I got.

My first piece for this 30 day challenge! To draw myself. I'm getting it in a little later than I intended (after midnight, so technically I should be working on my next one now) but I hope the viewer will forgive me. I spent the evening well; drinking coronas and then watching The Blues Brothers with my roommate. :-) An evening very well spent! I honestly had a hard time at first deciding how I wanted to portray myself. Lately I've felt unclear of who I am, sketchy and not quite settled. It seemed appropriate to put my pen to paper and draw what I saw in the mirror without picking my pen up. The masks and the crow just come from the air. And I love trees. And doodling.  I at first thought that this piece would be more monochromatic, with only a touch of color in the eyes and a smattering on the background. But as anyone who has worked with watercolor knows, it has a mind of it's own. A good reminder for me that I actually have very little control over things in my li

Probably not the most creative title, but I figure it accurately describes what I will be doing with my good friend Heather for the month of December. Take a gander below! That's right! Every day a new piece of artwork. Easy, right? This is part of my newly created regiment of "Just do it!" which I hope will lead to a more creative, fulfilled, happy me. It's my last year at college, and I want to fill it with something other than mindless, joyless struggle, and homework. I want it to have color. I want it to be inspired.  So, on your mark, get set, GO!