Be Brave, Love Life

I started this year with a new motto. I even put it on our Christmas cards. It rang so true with where I am in my life right now. I have lived in fear my entire life. I fear everything - making mistakes, not doing the right thing, worrying something bad will happen, not being perfect. After my mother-in-law died, I realized I wasn't really living life. And this was because of my fear of not living it the way I think I should. So everything I have done this year has been an effort to counter that and live my new motto.

I took a fantastic workshop for watercolor and illustration with Kristen Doty this spring. She is a fabulous teacher. However, I haven't done a whole lot since then in terms of using the skills she taught us. Once this summer in Maine, I tried to sketch some blueberries in our wild patch and also to sketch my uncle's boat in the bay. I didn't have the right colors for blueberries and the boat kept changing as the wind was shifting back and forth. I ended up more frustrated than practiced.

Last night I decided to just start again. I found a nice illustration in Botanical Illustration Course by Rosie Martin and Meriel Thurstan. I didn't have my watercolors out so I decided to just use the colored pencils we had just aquired for "back to school."

Initially it went great. I was enjoying it, relaxed, and having fun. I was nearly done with the flower and went to draw the leaf. This was the result...

Since I don't practice much (read "ever") I didn't test the pencil before going to town. It doesn't look as garish on the web but the color was sooo wrong! This is where I have the problem with playing. I don't like making mistakes. I look at it and think, 'all that hard work is wasted.' But I realized I learned two things from this.

First, ALWAYS test your tools on scrap before going to the work! This seems like such a logical idea so why didn't I think of it before. Second, you have to make mistakes to learn and improve! Wow - what a concept. Making a mistake is so far outside my comfort zone I've held back in creating because I didn't want to fail. Anybody else?

But you can't have success without failure. You have to be brave and take those chances. I once dreamt of this beautiful piece of artwork. It was a new "style" - one I hadn't seen anyone else do. In my dream I was so happy because I felt like everything has already been done before and I had created something unique. When I woke up, I tried desparately to grasp at the image in my dream of what I had created and it was gone.

I asked myself, 'Why can't I create that in my awake world?!' Well, how would I ever create something without playing ... without taking a risk. I couldn't. Some people are naturally creative and the ideas and a "style" come naturally to them. I'm not one of them! I have to work at being creative - which sounds like a complete oxymoron but let's face it - only a tiny select few are born with a natural art talent. So if I never try, if I never just play, and if I never make mistakes, I will never unearth the original creativity which lies within me.

Life isn't about perfection. You have to love it all. Ahhh... I'm over the green leaf now. I encourage you all, to not worry about making mistakes. Be brave, love life. 

(Not) Wishing the Days Away

Yesterday the kiddos went back to school. This used to be my absolute favoritest time of year. I *loved* back to school. New clothes, new shoes, new office supplies! Who doesn't LOVE office supplies?! But now that I have three kids, I'm a little sad when this time of year rolls around.

We had a great summer but I am sorry to see it come to an end. My youngest turned 6 and that means (to me), I no longer have "little ones" at home - just big kids. So I'm moving forward into this next chapter of our lives. While the past 10 years have been so incredibly awesome in so many ways, it also has had the most traumatic and difficult times of my life so far. So I'm hoping this next chapter is less stressful and more blissful (don't we all).

It just makes every day more grander and every moment more precious. I thank God daily for all our wonderful blessings. I wish I could go back in time to all those days I just wished away and put them back in my lifetime for another chance. But since I can't I can only vow to make every day count going forward.

Ah yes, moving forward. So it's also been 10 years since I left my HR career to launch Paperwhite Studio. This has been one of the greatest things I've ever done for myself. I *love* lettering and I love creating and to be able to do it for a living has been one of my life's greatest blessings.

The past few years it has been very difficult to maintain my business while also caring for the family. So this year, I really hope to make the best of my time and create as much as I can. Who says the New Year starts January 1? It really starts when the school bell rings in the fall! So I'm making my resolutions now - one of which is to try to create something new every day.

I've been really beating myself up about my "block" and realized if I don't just start "doing" I'll never bust past it. So yesterday instead of just gazing at one of my lettering books, I decided to give something new a try.

I created a new birthday card based on a style called, "clothesline alphabet." This is from the book, "Hand Lettering: Simple, Creative Styles for Cards, Scrapbooks, and More" by Marci Donley and Deann Singh. This is a great book full of fun lettering styles for anyone to try.  I had so much fun doing this and look forward to the next "creative block buster" I can tackle!

Back from another planet...

So it seems I fell off the planet again. Sorry about that. I thought about waiting a couple more months and then it would have been a whole year since I posted. UGH! That's terrible. Time has a way of getting away from me. I've been stuck in this creative rut for at least a year. I can still create - it is just incredibly painful! It is like torture. But I've done some fun things during this time and when I look back on it, I think not so bad.

I've done many lettering jobs over the past year but I've spent most of my time doing other more 3D creating like knitting, drawing, and sewing. I'll post some going forward.

But since this is essentially a lettering blog, I'll post a couple recent (and not so recent) lettering jobs. I had so much fun doing this lettering for the Symphony of Southeast Texas. My favorite style of lettering...flourished.

And it was actually relaxing to design this logo for a custom wedding studio. The flourish just flowed. Aneeta J.

I also designed a logo for our favorite homeopath. This was the first time I tried my hand at Illustrator. I've been busy trying to learn Illustrator. UGH! Not an intuitive program. Anyway, I was happy with what I came up with...especially since the art direction was, "think spiral, vortex; the matrix of creation is sacred geometry which is not fixed in anything but truth....as above so below...." [what?] Anyway, this was my interpretation of that:



That's all for now. Three more days and the kiddos are back to school! Hooray and boo - means more time to post!

Truly,

Erica

Happy Birthday Mom!

I'm on a roll ... sort of! My mom's birthday was this week and we're heading off to her party this afternoon. I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to try another flourish. I really had fun doing this. I started with a banner from Ames Compendium and then just wung it.

I got a little carried away on the upper part of the banner when my husband came in and offered me a lick of chocolate frosting (since I haven't had any goodies since I've been on WW for 6+ weeks). I nearly fell off my drafting stool and then blobbed the card! So I tried to cover the goof by adding some thicker leaves. (It's was worth the lick of chocolate by the way).

I obviously still need to work on overall shape and getting down the stroke shapes. Looking forward to having something new to practice. I did the original with walnut ink on Fabriano Medioevalis. The web version is scanned and reversed. I'm including a photo of the original, too.

Thanks all for the great encouragement! Spark is lit again!!! :-)
Truly,

Erica

Something new...flourishing

I had a request to create a flourished banner for our guild's newsletter. Since I was unable to attend IAMPETH this summer, I missed Heather Held's flourishing class (much to my dismay!) and I have never done any kind of off-hand flourishing other than flourished lettering.

I was tempted to say I can't. Lately it seems I can't do calligraphy all that well. (And in my head I hear my husband saying, "Can't lives on Won't Street. :-) It must be lack of practice but some days it just feels like the paper is too scratchy, the nibs all skip, and the ink constantly bleeds. Nothing seems to flow. When this happens, I think the best thing to do is get back down to fundamentals. So I thought I would teach myself how to do the flourishing. Why not try, now is as good a time as any, right?!

So I dug out my binder with Heather's instructions and pulled out my Ames Compendium and had a go as they say. It was *really* fun! It's as addicting as zentangle that is for sure. They are very much the same process. You continue to build on the design using different patterns.

This is my first attempt so no laughing. Everyone has to start somewhere! Hopefully a year from now I'll be sharing some better attempts! :-)

Truly,
Erica
P.S. This was done with McCaffrey's black and a Nikko G nib on copy paper, scanned and then reversed. Also, I borrowed the banner design from Ames' Compendium and then wung the rest. I can see some gaps now where I could have filled in more. But I reached a point where I was fearful to screw it up!

Introducing Zentangles

I was asked to introduce Zentangles to the Coastal Calligraphers Guild during our last meeting. I had soooo much fun! I am not a certified zentangle teacher so I did the best I could using the information from the zentangle's website. Thankfully Maria Thomas and Rick Roberts, the creators of zentangle, encourage others to share about zentangles.

We reviewed several patterns and then did a few projects. The first project was a tag necklace which can be used as a name tag, necklace, or gift tag or... For our second project, we tangled a copper colored leaf. I drew the leaf pattern and cut out the shapes, used black eyelets, and put black string through for hanging. Being from New England, I'm missing all the beautiful fall colors right now so I thought this would be a fun way to bring them to Florida!

I figured out why I love zentangles so much and why I think they are so popular. There is a youtube video which shows a vibration table and each time salt is thrown on the table, a pattern is created from the vibration the frequency creates. It's amazing to see all the different patterns created and they look just like a zentangle pattern.

Many of you know I am also a homeopath and homeopathy is vibrational medicine. Each remedy is a vibration/energy of a substance such as a plant or mineral. People also have a vibration. The vibration of the remedy is matched to the vibration of the person (based on symptoms) so that healing can occur. So zentangles is like homeopathic medicine in a way since people are resonating with certain patterns.

Fascinating to me - perhaps boring to others! But I think it's wonderful! Now if I could just figure out how to determine the pattern of each remedy to the pattern of each person, I could heal the world! But for now, I'll just have to be happy tangling!
Truly,
Erica

Using the chalkboard to demonstrate zentangles.

Loving using stencils!

The blank silver rimmed tags before the class. I glued charms to the bottom of each one to weight.

Our copper leaf!

Wishing for snow!

My tag examples.

From the class - they did beautiful work!

We worked through the same patterns - love how they all come out different!

Fall-ing behind.

Dear Friends:

It's been so long since my last post. This summer was simultaneously altogether too short and the longest I've known. My family and I went home to Maine this June. It had been three years since we had been able to visit. We spent three glorious weeks with our family, creating memories that will last a lifetime. We roasted marshmallows indoors at the fireplace. We picked blueberries and made pancakes. We visited the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens and enjoyed the splendor of stepping inside some of our favorite story books like Blueberries for Sal, Fairy Houses, and Miss Rumphius.

This would have been the most glorious summer I've ever experienced spending time with my children, my husband's family, and my extended family except for one thing. My mother-in-law, Val, passed away shortly after we returned home. She was only 63. To have had that time with her is priceless. But I never expected the magnitude of the grief and how it hits you when you least expect it. Almost two months out,  I thought I would be over the sobbing part. But no. It still manages to catch in my throat and well up in my eyes even right now as I sit here typing.

The week before she died, my husband flew back home to be with her and I was suddenly presented with a few mother's day greeting cards to design. To sit and create a mother's day card while your mother-in-law is dying is either the cruelest irony or the most cathartic gift - I haven't quite decided which yet. But in any event, I was struck by one of the assignments as it reminded me so much of Val.

I had taken a photograph of the daisies in one of her gardens. Her mother (who has also passed away) had planted them. I used this to draw 5 daisies for the card - one for each of her children. My husband was able to show her a copy before she passed on. It was a gift, I've decided.

Val was an extraordinary woman. She welcomed me into the family and treated me like her own. At her funeral, I shared some memories of her and I'll leave you with my final sentiment: Thank you Val, for raising the best man I know, for unreservedly sharing him with me, and for loving me like your own.