ImagineandCreate

**Wintery**

Playing shop

I've been busy playing shop, getting ready for the local craft sales coming up soon. It's been our tradition for the past few years to go and we always have a fun time. There are native Alaskan artists, jewelry makers, painters, photographers, seamstresses, even ethnic foods for sale like pad thai, spring rolls, baked goods. This year I made card packs and had fun designing the little wrappers for them. I'll also be selling prints, originals, bookmarks, and anything else I come up with between now and then. 

Gratitude today:

Baby shoulders

Christmas tree decorating with Isabelle, watching her 3 year old eyes light up as we hang the ornaments

My husband's steak tacos with home- made salsa

Cupcake, anyone?

Made special for you by the blue cupcake fairy!

Gratitude:

Baby falling asleep in my arms while we dance, watching our shadows on the wall.

Turkey dinner spent with my dear family.

Our sweet doggie sprawled out at my feet as I type this.

This 4 day weekend!

Soft snow piling up on the front porch, making things look soft and storybook-like.

Reading books together.

We had a carbon monoxide scare last night- I'm so thankful that our trusty little detector worked and went off. It saved our lives! Big time gratitude for our amazing emergency responders, too.

letter fairy

Little green fairy is delivering a letter! I am so enjoying painting these little bug fairies! She started as a doodle the other day and now I cant seem to get her out of my mind. 

Gratitude List 2

'Library Fairy is grateful for her garden of books' 2.5" x 3.5" ACEO watercolor

I think that trying to post my gratitude list every day might be too much- I already missed the second day. As I was falling asleep last night trying to put the babies to sleep, I was thinking 'I've still got to post my list...' And I can see that happening alot- so I will instead try to keep the lists written down somewhere and then try to post them as often as I can. Here's today's list.

1. People who read my blog and leave me the most encouraging, warm hearted comments

2. My own garden of books

3. Hot cups of coffee in the morning, with honey and milk

4. Teachers who encouraged me in art throughout my school years, especially my 6th grade teacher who liked how I drew pictures next to my spelling test words, and two art teachers when I was a teenager that were especially encouraging.

5. My dream last night that my grandmother was standing in her kitchen, frosting the cupcakes I made in real life a couple days ago that we couldn't frost because I had no powdered sugar. It was fun to see her frosting colorful cupcakes, even if in a dream.

Gratitude

I am going to start a new experiment. I heard about the concept of a gratitude diary, and how listing just a few things a day that you are grateful for, or happy about, can really offset negative thinking and actually change the way our minds work. Maybe I can do this on the blog every day. I will try. I dont like to post without an image so that means I will have to try and make some sort of little artwork too.

This is a good thing! So, my first gratitude list!

1. Being the first person that my daughter looks for when she wakes up in the morning

2. My son's smile when he sees me walk in the door 

3. Being able to still call my dear 94 year old grandmother and hear her laugh

4. My kind husband
5. My mom always being just a phone call or email away

6. My dad living just down the street

I've been loving light lavender colors lately. Just had to incorporate that into this painting.

bookmarks!

I have been busy the last few days, making bookmarks in my spare time (?) for an order that I just finished this afternoon. I love, love, love playing with these soft, colorful fibers- and matching them to my artwork is so much fun! As I was working today, I thought, 'I'm standing in the middle of a blog post.'...so I took some photos and here we are!

Arctic Ocean Today

The delicate colors of the sky, along with the return of the ice pack inspired me to take some photos today! I would need a wide angle to even come close to how pretty it was, standing on a cliff over the beach. But these will have to do. See the ducks? See how huge they look in the far away pics? I thought they were seals at first. Does anyone (Teresa, your son??) know what kind they are? They seem to come around every year when the water is getting really cold, and I always wonder how they can stand it. They were diving, also. There must be some yummies in that freezin water for them.

hello mr. 5 months old!

Ian is wearing his new animal ears hat from this etsy shop!

goose in watercolor

I've been working on this goose study this weekend. The actual size is about 6 x 8 inches. Still working on it, just wanted to show it so far! I found the perfect feather out in the grass long after they had flown south. I love finding feathers!

New Lisbeth Zwerger book!

Lisbeth Zwerger is my favorite contemporary illustrator, so I'm always thrilled when she has something new out. This latest book-The Pied Piper of Hamelin, is only available on the amazon.com German site. I have waited a few months for it to come out in English here in the US but it still hasn't so I just ordered it from Germany! I cant read it, but I really just want to see her paintings anyway. Here are my favorites:

i love the shadows in this last one.

greater white fronted geese and fall time tundra

Ahhh it felt good to get this done! I started at 10 pm last night after children were sleeping. I can see myself painting more in this style - it is relatively fast and i didn't get bogged down with details- which fits my free time challenged life style right now. I want to do at least 2 more to go with it of a snowy owl- and a snow bunting.

beautiful beach - arctic ocean

I love the colors of the beach today! The sun was out- the gulls were swooping- the ocean was loud- it was fabulous!