she sells seashells by the seashore

I love the title! LOL, but I would be happier if that was originally mine!

Mini canvas is rather difficult to work on, ironcally considering the little space that an artist can work on, there shouldn't be much problem. Lesser painting, lesser creative arrangement, lesser work, but lesser space to fit in the composition if you have a large imagination.

I had no idea what was going to happen with this painting initially. I like the feeling of getting into the creative flow where one thing leads to another. I started off working with patterned napkins and was stucked from there. The thing was I had a butterfly that I made with the same patterned napkins before and I was trying very desperately to fit the creature on the canvas. I'd atetmpted various angles and nothing works. In the end, I decided I'd do it without the butterfly.

It's difficult to let go of something when you want to use them so badly. But releasing is a good learning process.

Once I painted the blue background the painting seems to take on a life of its own. I remembered I have a collection of stickers of images connecting to the ocean, and I digged into the tin that the CCC volunteers kept for the children and found buttons. Plus a feather I picked up quite some time ago. Together they contribute to this piece of creative work.

I'd always wanted to do something like that, something that brings the ocean close to me because since I can't go to it... It's a piece that brings me serenity and tranquility. Right now I felt like I have a piece of the ocean and seaside in my bedroom, will attempt another one on a bigger canvas. But for now, this will have to do to give me peace.

Mademoiselle's Birthday

I took a day to complete this. By far my quickest attempt on painting and my first on mixed media art. Am loving it, I felt reluctant to give it away but decided that this will make someone happy. I've always wanted to make my mum something for her birthday, she was smiling from ear to ear when she receives this yesterday.

I love the composition, I was inspired by the Paris Vintage paper and from there, the painting seems to take on a life of its own and everything flows beautifully. Maybe this is my inner voice telling me to imagine myself on a coffee break, sipping from a cup seated outdoors of a French cafe.

Oh, life would be complete. I am aspiring to this kind of luxuries.

Living Art

Marcelina Martin spoke of her art in these words:

"The roots of art are in shamanism. The shaman was a healer in her/his community that worked with the individual and collective psyche through art. Many artists work directly with this knowledge of the power of imagery. This is the focus and drive behind their art. I am one of these artists. My dear friend poet Elsa Gidlow believed that we were all artists. Definitely there are cultures like Bali where most people express themselves through art. I do not believe that we are all artists. I do believe we can all live life through our creativity, but the artist, however, is called to art with a compelling force that draws her/his creativity into existence. There is no choice but to create. I believe passionately in art as a healing force and that art arises from well-being or from the innate force within all life to move towards wholeness."

I have always been drawn to the mystical side of life in my attempt to discover myself deeper. I believe our souls crave for self-actualization, which in the metaphysical language it is what they call realizing your soul purpose. Art is therefore a very intimate process where I communicate myself to the world, of me being engaged in the world and of the world. Sometimes I write to understand myself better, and many times when words are insufficient to convey the message of my inner voice I resort to painting. The movements of colours and shapes and images are my way of expressing my invididuality, my ideas and my beliefs about what it meant being in this world. I believe the line between art and life is very fine, I live my life like an artwork, trying to see beauty and blessings in every situation, being immerse with living, I live my life passionately, intensely for always remembering to come back to the here and now. I paint my art with the realizations and discoveries about how I live my life, the roles I play, my hopes, dreams and desires whisper to the viewers' unconscious with every stroke of my brush.

The Universe is my canvas and I am an artist, getting the best of my surrounding beauty. Beauty and truth lies in us being fully engaged in life at the moment, breathing its profound love in the rays of the sun, the shades of the leaves, a smile from a stranger, a touch from a loved one. It's a matter of being totally present and seeing them, knowing that beauty and truth has always been around, you just have to open your eyes, see, unburden your heart, feel, unclose your ears, listen.

I am still finding myself as a painter, just like how I am searching for myself in the ebb and flow of life. It is not an easy journey I can tell surely and humbly, there are often more questions than answers and knowing things by theories is different from living life in its brilliant immediacy. This journey grounds me, I am forced to surrender to experiences, to allow myself the space to have doubts, to know that sometimes being in the unknown is the safest place to be, albeit an uncomfortable one. This journey of answering the BIG question of "who am I?" and "why am I here?" is one that requires courage, inner strength and faith that cannot be compromised by anything else. It is not for the faint hearted, the weak willed and the vulnerable, but often times, these are exactly our shadows that we must come to embrace and love in this seemingly calamitous path meant for the spiritual warrior in us. It is a journey for everyone if we're ready. Despite the challenges that no doubt will conquer many nights where our souls lie in darkness, the are promise of the glimpse of light and once you have touch it, there is no going back.

The person who has a glow of light in his or her being is one who have come to understand the truth about humanity and the humble wisdom that "only love is real". For love does heal, but it must come from the total and unconditional acceptance of oneself, then such loving kindness will be spread to others. The other facet of love is fear, of losing love, so the journey of self-discovery is a journey of healing. Healing our false beliefs, healing our broken heart and past traumas, and waking up to the ultimate truth about living life that is aligned with thoughts of love, compassion and peace. The world is indeed a beautiful place once we grasped that because everything will be shed with a new light, that there is never a separatedness between you and me because we all want the same thing in the end. To love and be loved.

A simple and beautiful truth.

I will be posting some more soon because I naturally love conveying my thoughts in words. So long my lovely people. =>

luna i, moon goddess

phoenix-goddess

luna ii, moon goddess

earth angel

color of freedom