Today seemed like a good day to deliver to you some lush rainforest wonderment.

Something to refresh you after the piles of shopping madness that has been thrown at you.

The leaf in the bottom middle of this picture was about 20 feet tall.

This does not mean that I do not want you to buy from me.

When one buys from me they are creating more color, goodness, and love.

Do you want to see more color, goodness, and love?

Thank you for being here with me.

Taking the time to read.
To say hello.
Thank you for investing in art that nourishes.

Thank you for forgiving yourself.
Thank you for being wherever you have to be.
For blazing your trail.
Doing what you must do, whatever that is.
Thank you for having the courage to continue.

Thank you for carrying that pain so gracefully or not.
Thank you for being all put together or not.
Thank you for agreeing or not.
Thank you for believing or not.
Thank you for feeling rage or not.
Thank you for letting go or not.
Thank you for feeling joy or not.
Thank you for sharing or not.
Thank you for crying or not.
Thank you for being wealthy or not.

Thank you for going to the dark places.
And then coming back to teach me what you learned there.
Or not.

Thank you for being exactly you.
Right now.
I couldn’t do it without you.

Happy Thanksgiving.

After receiving some questions and comments from my you, here are a few more details about yesterday’s post – ‘One of Each’.

‘One of Each’ was created for pure fun and love.

I used every writing implement I own.
Actually, there were some I realized I missed after I was done, but it was MOST of them.
Here is a picture of all of them.

Starting with one mug of pencils, etc., I drew.
Sometimes this was simply a dot all the way to a defined shape.
When I finished with a color, I did not pick up that writing implement again.

Repeat.
300+ times.

It took around seven hours.
A reader was talking about how they could not see the image well.

I post low resolution images online. This…

1. Encourages investment in a high resolution prints and originals, and thus investment in your continued supply of delight.

2. Keeps people with limited cell phone data from beating me up.

3. Protects my art from ‘pirates’ in a prettier way rather than putting a big ugly watermark on there.

Here are some details of  One of Each for you.

Snail Shepherd

Little Bird

It was necessary for my spirit to go freestyle today.

To do some drawing that was just for the sake of creating.

Nothing was planned or meant to be ‘perfect’, ‘correct’, or ‘right’.
Simply having fun.
Drawing shapes and lines and seeing what came next.
Dancing with my creative muses.

If you look at it for a while, there are a lot of things in there that I did not aim to have there.
Kind of magical.

It has been on my list for a while to do a sketch using each and every one of my writing implements.

So, here you go…
Over 300 markers, pens, pencils, colored pencils, etc., later.
Who do you dance with?

My friend Mary threw a party awhile back.

She throws good parties.

At this party, she put up this giant chalk board and wrote
“Before I die I would like to…”

The things that people wrote were great.
That is me sitting and drawing.

You know what I wrote?

“effectively share – all that I have learned and my incredibly beautiful soul…with as many people as possible.”

Even if we look only at this newsletter, that has come true.

Before you die, what would you like to do?

(Photo by Mary Bohan Sather)

I am a leaf and I am falling for you.

Letting go.

Falling.

Flying.

To become something else.

To nourish the earth who nourishes you.

On some fall days you can put the camera just about anywhere and get a good picture.

I see the light.

Do you see the light?
Where?

Time to cool down and drink some water.

This was painted while in the Peruvian rainforest.
I was watching this bird sit and peacefully drink from a flower.
When I finished this painting, a flock of these birds flew over my head as if they were very happy that I was finishing it.
Yes. These things really happen.

Sometimes the crows yell at the hawks.

This hawk didn’t seem to mind all that much.

He just sits patiently.

Patience.

There are certain things that I am very patient with.
Others not at all.

What about you?

This was created on the iPad using an app called ArtRage.

The app mixes paint like the real world.

I painted this using digital oils.

In the morning, when the sun is shining, rainbows appear on the walls of my studio.

Rainbows represent…

New hope.

Pots of gold at the end of them.

Leprechauns.

Sometimes unicorns come in on them.

Why do we love rainbows so?

Here are some images from a Day of the Dead Celebration that I attended.
It is a holiday celebrated throughout Mexico and acknowledged around the world.
This holiday focuses on gatherings of family and friends to pray for and remember friends and family members who have died, and help support their spiritual journey.

We would not be us without our ancestors.

The place where this was at was warm, interesting, and inviting.
The embedded tile in the walls is especially nifty.

They had whales on their reception desk.
Wouldn’t it be cool to see more whales on reception desks?

A detail of the table decorated.

The table with the ancestors’ pictures.

Thank you Don, Grandma, Grandpa, Grandma, Grandpa, Tootie, and everybody.

What have your ancestor’s done for you?

Have you sent a thank you to your ancestors today?

A reader responds to the ‘Change the World Anyone?‘ newsletter…

The question was:
In what way has my art changed your world?

Their Response:

Your art has always excited me!

…Over the years you have sculpted and built with many different media, drew with pencil, painted with water color and acrylic and mysterious media on every surface imaginable.
Created amazing computer animation, videos and artwork on the computer.

Your work is beautiful, talented, amazing, well thought out, professional, often imaginative, helpful, inspiring and uplifting.
I know you have shared many bits and pieces of yourself through your artwork.
It inspires me to keep up with my art too too.
Thank you Christine for sharing your talent with the world.
Don’t ever stop.

The above is a tiny sampling of photography, scratch art, watercolor, digital, acrylic, sculpture, rock, sketch, and body paint art I have created.

Now, I am going to talk about DABBLING.

Some people say it is not good for an artist to dabble.
That you should only do one medium for your whole life and only focus on that in order to be successful.

My web site and marketing plan IS primarily focusing on my acrylic painting and prints.
But, I can do just about everything else.

There is absolutely NO WAY that I could paint with acrylic paint as I do if I had never explored these other avenues.
My whole life would not be the same.
Not nearly as amazing as it has been.

From a MARKETING standpoint, you probably should not dabble.
Market one thing that you do.
If you have to do more than one thing, then, have separate web sites/locations.
But, depending on multiple factors, this is also not always true.

How about some of the greats (and my favorites) Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo?
They did everything.
They were writers, inventors, sculptors, painters, architects, business men, sketchers, and on and on.
Great at everything they did.
Every thing they did added to the other technique they used.

That is who I model my art and life after.

What are you dabbling with today?

Thanksgiving is coming.

Here is a beautiful new tradition to add.
Click here to download the PDF (e-book) about it.

The Thanksgiving Reader

It contains short readings and suggestions to make your Thanksgiving.
Every day.
And the world even better than it already is.

It was created by Seth Godin and friends.
Seth Godin has made a rainbow difference in my life and the world.

Click here for the link to Seth’s original post about it.

Thank you for being here with me.

What are you thankful for?
Would you like to share this with those you think would benefit?

Can art change the world?

Heal it?

Hurt it?

How?

In what way/s has my art changed your life?

(Photo – Deposit Photos)

Are you born an artist or is it a skill that can be taught?

You know, when I look at what food to buy, I tend to shy away from the super perfect looking stuff.
This came to me while I was picking which bulk raisins to buy today.
This one bin of raisins was so perfect.
They all looked exactly like each other.
It was creepy.

It just seems to me like it is not quite real.
When something looks all perfect like that.
What had to happen to make it that way?
Probably chemicals and processes that I do not want to become a part of my body.

When it comes to art, sure, I could spend more time on a creation and make it more ‘perfect’.

But, it would lose something in that perfection and become less authentic.

Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.

~ Marilyn Monroe

A reader responds to the Write a 20 Line Poem... post.

Silly symphony aboard ship with

sassy saxophone

singing serendipitous song at sunset amid

shining sharks swimming alongside,

all the while  sharing summer shrimp on the sparkling shore.

Ha ha ha!!!

You know, I would have never done this if you hadn’t suggested it!