imagination
Today I am resting and I’m thinking about what matters most...
When the whirlwind of life threatens to take me away... my studio is my sanctuary.
I can gaze out the window and watch the busy world go by, but inside it's quiet and still.
To create you first must be inspired. But inspiration doesn’t come from busy-ness. It doesn’t come from pushing hard to reach goals or left-brain thinking, planning and analysing...
Read MoreLife isn’t always pretty.
It isn’t always fun, exciting or even comfortable...
So thank goodness for the imagination!
The second step in the creative process is to imagine the details...
Read MoreWhen I begin a painting, I've already created it in my mind. The painting is complete and hanging on my wall. This is what imagination is. It's tapping into the universal mind, or spirit, and visualising what already exists in essence, and then bringing it into the physical plane.
Read MoreEvery painting is an experiment. I never quite know how it will turn out...
With my most recent painting I delved deeper into the abstract. Working from a photo I took of the early morning sun shining through autumn leaves, I played with the shapes and colours until the abstraction became a whole new image...
I'm working on a new painting. It's a little abstract...
It's fun. It's playful.
It's an adventure into the imagination.
With each shape is the hint or suggestion of a figure, a face, a story...
‘The only way to change our lives is by changing our minds.’ ~ Ross Cooper
A memory is just a memory. The past and future exist only in the imagination...
The imagination is powerful.
‘I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination.’ ~ Albert Einstein
Now this is my life...
Just imagine...
If you could be, do or have the life of your dreams ~ What would you create?
What can you imagine?...
If you can imagine it, you can create it. If you can dream it, you can become it. ~ William Arthur Ward
Are you ready to start living the life you've imagined? Click here for your 21 Day Dream Journey and bring your dreams to life.
When I begin a painting, I've already created it in my mind. The painting is complete and hanging on my wall. 
This is what imagination is. It is tapping into the universal mind, or spirit, and visualizing what already exists in essence, and then bringing it into the physical plane.
It is easy to understand this when you think of making dinner. You first think of what you want to eat. Perhaps you picture the entire meal laid out beautifully on the table, with candles and wine... you imagine if you are sharing the meal with someone... you imagine what it looks like on the table and on the plates; the smell of the food, the taste...
All of this can happen in a flash when you think, "What should I make for dinner?"
Once you know what you want to create, you get out your recipe book, head off to the store for the ingredients, and then you make dinner. Within a few hours you are enjoying your creation!
It is the same when I paint. I create an image in my mind, perhaps as an idea that I want to express.
I'll picture the size and shape of the canvas, the colours, shapes and images that will express this idea and feeling that I want to create on canvas.
I keep the finished painting in mind, but of course, there are little surprises along the way... I let go of the outcome and allow it to unfold and come to life as it is meant to.
Like giving birth - when the baby is born there is joy and surprise, yet you also feel that you knew this person all along.... everything is exactly as it is meant to be. 
Right now I have a few paintings in mind. They are there, just hanging in my mind, until I'm ready to give birth. This is the joy of creating; having a vision and then experiencing the coming into being...
It's time to seriously get playful!
‘Heaven lies about us in our infancy,
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing Boy,
But he beholds the light, and whence it flows,
He sees it in his joy.’ ~ William Wordsworth
‘To stimulate creativity, one must develop the childlike inclination for play.' ~ Albert Einstein
Here are seven suggestions to ignite your creative spirit:
I remember calling friends after school and saying, "Can you play?" (I'd wait while they asked their mom)... then off we'd go to build a fort, play Snow Queen or Ice Capades... or maybe just hang-out in the back garden and talk about what we were going to be when we grew up.
‘When I grow up I want to be a little boy.’ ~ Joseph Heller
What do you want to be when you grow up? Can you play?
