Imagination is the eye of the soul.
~ Joseph Joubert
It’s easy to get distracted by daily life. To let the chores, meetings, errands, and other tasks (no matter how important) take over your days and forget to pause. We have to be intentional about building margin into our lives – to schedule extra time between appointments for travel (or stopping to take in the view). Maybe we should make room in the overflowing bag that we carry for a pencil/pen and a bit of paper to doodle on when inspiration strikes. After all, the things that make up our days are what make up our lives. Take the time to take inspiration from daily life and let it feed your work.
- This week’s artist is Allison Leigh Smith. The short version is go check out her work. The longer thought is that it’s fun to see how Allison’s work has progressed over time – how the textile designs are included in her current animal paintings and how her sense of humor is shown when you expand the smaller images to see the entire composition. She also dives deeper into the lessons learned while researching her subjects.
- The Durango Arts Center has children’s Summer Art camps coming up soon. Whether they’re interested in theater or visual art – sign up soon!
- If nature nourishes your spirit, join the Durango Botanical Society for a free guided tour on Saturday mornings from 8:30-10!
- The 48th Annual Iron Horse Bicycle Classic is this weekend (if you managed to not be aware). Join in the festivities, or watch out for the crowds!
- Interested in quick knowledge? Skip the internet and head to the children’s section at the library or bookstore. My favorite line is, “books tailored to make things interesting for uninterested readers.“
- Feel like the world’s a phooey place? Find an alternate world.
- Here’s some advice from David Bowie. It’s directed to aspiring artists but I think it’s a great reminder for all of us.
- And as another reminder – Attention is the beginning of devotion.
- One way to paint water, mountains, and trees (video or photos and text).
- Notebooks bend, don’t require batteries, and have no boot time.
- Paper is a wonderful technology. (And here’s part II.)
- Need an external art project? Here’s one coming up in June.
- Our third art contest is under way. More details are available here.
- This week’s featured item is the variety of little pocket-sized notebooks that we recently brought in. Whether you want to take notes, jot down ideas, sketch designs, or just have something on hand for impromptu origami sessions, we have a notebook for you! (You might think it would be all of the canvas that’s on sale, but we’re more excited about the notebooks at the moment. 😀 )
Monday afternoon I sat in a Local Health Care Forum to see what the possibilities are for us, as a community, to improve our health care options. As exciting as an afternoon of speakers sounds… I rather enjoyed the experience. I learned a lot and also used the opportunity to test out a new sketchbook and some markers. As always, my pages of notes are surrounded by sketches of the speakers and other attendees. It’s not quite an afternoon of focused drawing that I would prefer, but it was a fabulous opportunity to let a routine part of my daily life feed my work. Sometimes it takes a little imagination to figure out what you can squeeze in, but don’t let those little opportunities pass you by!
Cheers!
Matthew & the Art Supply House crew
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