Enzo the Ink Dabber :)

I'm very proud that my son Enzo loves to draw.  I believe he can draw even better than I do, way, way better.  I hope to be able to nourish this ability he has because I see that this is his passion.  I was so inspired by what Gennine did (she was our inspiration for Itinerary #2 of the Art Journal Caravan), she created an illustration blog to showcase her children's work, check it out here. Boy, these children are as gifted as their momma! How wonderful to be able to live that kind of creative life.  Kudos to Gennine, she makes it all look so effortless.  Go visit her site and look at her pretty birdies and lovely art.  Ah, my heart and soul are really meant to be on this journey....

Taking my cue from her site, I created a blogsite just for me to be able to post my son's drawings...and just so he knows - I truly believe in his talent.  Its called The Ink Dabber (he loves drawing with ink at the moment and maybe just maybe he will grow into the site and learn to handle it himself when he is a little older.)  I haven't put anything in it yet but I'll be posting a link on my sidebar once I've done so.

This is what he's into at the moment, he came to me yesterday saying "Mom, I have a drawing for you and I'm sure you will like it." By golly, for sure I do! 

An image I drew for a wedding album I just finished creating, the art was inspired from an image I saw, gosh I went through all my bookmarks looking for the specific site and artist but it escapes me now - she draws doodles on shadows and I love, love, love the effect.  So created my own shadow looking girl - more like those main street silhouettes and doodled on her skirt and bodice to look like a wedding gown, with silver glitter gel pen.  This composition though is not how I used it for the album because I made it my own here with the journaling.

Journaling: I feel the little changes going click click click inside of me...they are even louder than they used to be.  It always feels this way when I am more in touch with my artistic soul.  Like so many windows are opening up inside me allowing my spirit to fly freely in and out.

Art Journal Pages #3 & #4

I haven't got much time to post but I'd like to share with you my two new art journal pages.

P.S. Just found out that my layout was featured in Gallery Standouts! Whoohooo! What an honor! Thank you Sandra :)

Happy 2010 to All!

Hello 2010, so glad to meet you!

I joined the Art Journal Caravan hosted by Tangie Baxter over at Scrapbookgraphics.com - finally had the guts to try creating my own art journals using collage and mixed media. I love it! This art has always appealed to me and I am having a really grand time creating. I wish I could spend each and everyday creating stuff like these and learning new techniques and approaches to this art.

We were asked to think of one word to focus on for the whole year - I chose "LIVE". It seems to me that to have all that I wished for, I needed to stop telling myself I can't do it because of this and that reason and to just live! Live the dreams...live creatively...live without fear, live masterfully, live without regret....and embrace life to the fullest.

I decided that since I have been wanting to learn how to do collage and mixed media art, I would create my pages on paper. Here are my first two journal entries:

You can find them at the scrapbookgraphics.com gallery too ;)

A LITTLE UPDATE

First and foremost, thank you my friends for your concern - my cousin has been finally rescued from the 2nd floor of the house she was trapped in. Thank God! This is how high the water was in the house she was stuck in:





And although I have relief from the concern and worry over family's safety, a majority of my countrymen's plight sits foremost on my mind. It is so heart-wrenching to witness all the destruction and its accompanying despair.

Today, we sit on the cusp of another impending Category 5 storm rushing to seek even more damage than its predecessor. It is said this super typhoon "Parma" is even stronger that Katrina with sustained winds of 195 kph and gusts of up to 230 kph and is expected to make landfall by Saturday noon. This in the midst of relentless and heroic rescue and relief efforts from the ravages of Typhoon Ondoy (Ketsana). The work is unending and yet, to see the resilience of my countrymen and the "bayanihan" spirit makes my heart swell with pride. Truly, I am proud to say I am a Filipino. The country has come together - Filipinos here and abroad giving, going out of their way to make time to volunteer, to send boxes of relief goods. Giving even when sometimes there is nothing to give but time.

I am proud of my family - as usual no calamity is left unnoticed, they have come together once again to do their share. My aunt did a family text brigade to ask pledges for monetary help and time to repack and make care packages to be distributed to areas not reached by those giving the packages. A lot of our own help have been affected and we have made it a priority to help them and their neighbors.






My cousin overheard a woman in the supermarket while buying the goods, "Because we were spared, we now have the responsibility to take care of those who weren't." How true, how right.

We are still humbly soliciting from friends to add to these and create more bags to be given away. And I would like to humbly ask you, my readers if you would like to help our efforts, please do by clicking on the donate button on my sidebar. Your contributions will go to make more care packages for those people in the places where not much help has been given. Or if you wish, you may donate directly to the Red Cross.

After all that is being done and after all that we are still trying to do, we must rely on our God and place our faith in His hands. "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can and wisdom to know the difference."

Indy

Huh? I tagged my blog?? What???

Ok, I'm quite perplexed, I open my blog today to show my cousin and I can't find the navbar on top of my site - the one that looks like this:



What I get is this message: "You tagged this blog as having objectionable content". Here is what it looks like - my nav bar is missing.



What???? Why will I tag my blog as having inappropriate content? Can anyone tell me if you have had this problem before and what you have done to fix it? I can't seem to find any inappropriate content (please tell me I am not wrong).

Can anyone help me? This just happened today since I just posted yesterday. Is posting about my experiences and showing photos and links about the Typhoon that just happened in my country and trying to solicit some help for my countrymen inappropriate? There are hundreds and thousands of people whose medium is to use their blogs and social networking sites to show support and encourage others to make small donations to cause. I do not seek to represent any agency but am only passing on information and links to sites where interested parties may go and show support. One of those places is my own blog where I have made a pledge to help in whatever way I can - and my most powerful tool is my blog.

I have posted at the Blogger forum and am awaiting their response. If anyone has any idea what to do, your suggestions and comments would be appreciated.

Indy :)

WHERE'S MY MOJO?

I woke up one day and my MOJO was gone....who stole my MOJO? I have go to get it back, SOON!

It seems like I've been away for ages although my last post was just a little more than a month ago. If your trying to build a scrap design career and a following, being away for that long IS considered ages. Although I would want to call this my life, real life does get in the way and is imminently more important when children and family are concerned. When the quest to make ends meet, the daily rigors of running a household, impending projects, and trying to keep a child from flunking his subjects in school mix in with trying to design - I suddenly feel I am being fed a gorgeous mixed salad with the wrong type of dressing. No matter how hard I try to enjoy and eat it, it suddenly has lost its palatability. It still looks gorgeous and enticing and I always want to try it hoping it will start to taste better but no matter how hard I try, I can't get myself to finish it. That in a nutshell is how I've been feeling about designing. I have reached an impasse and no matter how hard I try (and I've got lots of great ideas floating around) all I can do is sit and stare at that blank sheet and nothing seems to come up right to my standards.

I hope I get over this soon and my so called MOJO is returned to me.

I have still to finish that kit I'm making, oh how I wish some fairy would sprinkle some pixie dust on me and I can be super woman and do all these with lots of time to spare. Sigh! No such luck huh? Oh, and guess what, my new 300 gb external hard drive stopped working again on me, all my new files can not be accessed - and all the files I bought from the sale of Royanna and Wetfish Designs (literally days of download!) GONE! What a disaster! I try not to think of it because I want to cry just losing all those files. Does anyone know how I can recover them? I know of one place here that does it but I just can't afford their fees. So if anyone knows or has any suggestions of an affordable hard disc recovery company, then I will love you forever!!! LOL! Seriously, I do need to recover those files, even some of my design work is in there, boo hoo!

Until next post, I just had to drop by to let you know where I'm at and what's happening.

Now on to my quest to recover that MOJO!

Indy