Searching for Center

A did this great drawing with pastels of two zebras drinking in her art class last week. She has always loved art and pastels are a special favorite of hers.

 It always amazes me that while a love of art may be passed down, the choice of medium can vary. My mom is great with ceramics, sewing and crochet. She also enjoys silversmithing. I have dabbled in those mediums but they don't appeal to me and quite honestly my natural abilities are not strongest in any of them. A loves to use pastels and they are probably one of the last choice in drawing materials for me.

I love to draw, paint and paper-crafts of all kinds. I love the colors, textures, what you can do with it by folding it, bending, wetting, dyeing, printing on it, etc. It's a ongoing experiment. I'm enjoy reading books and articles about art and techniques.  Painting especially relaxes me.

However, I'm still searching for my center. A couple of New Year's resolutions were to make more time to be creative and create art. To make deliberate scheduled time for painting. To make deliberate schedule time for blogging. The long-term goal was to be more balanced, less-stressed and hopefully there would be the delightful by product of being a better wife and mother. One who isn't frazzled and wondering if the real her is still in there somewhere.

Well here we are at June, halfway through the year. How am I doing? Let's check in:
Well it took me until March but I'm finally finding my rhythm with blogging. Although this post is inexcusably long!

Now on to the painting...not so well. I made a schedule on a dry-erase calendar. It's still on January.
My office is a wreck. Not really very conducive to painting at all. I cleaned it, I did create one painting. I'll post that later (it was pre-blogging). Then it became the catch-all space again for furniture and mail as it always tends to do.

Let me take you on a visual journey. :

Wow! That's a lot of dust!

Yes, it says simplify...can you read it in the middle of all the clutter?

Are you sure? Have you looked around lately?

From the doorway, You have to hold your breath and wiggle to get in...and not eat dessert

The view from the desk, Umm, that's a drafting table back there. That's where I paint...

Needless to say, I have some work to do to find my balance. I'm still spending too much time on the computer, at work and working on work projects. It's halfway through the year and I'm still seeking to find my happy balance to responsibilities, emotional well-being and physical fitness. I don't want my kids to grow up to have a crazy woman as a role-model!