Rawwwr

Some days I wake up and I'm five years old.  I lose my weariness and find the pure joy of just being.  The simple enchantment of creation and play remind me.  This is why I art {yes, I'm using that as a verb.  I'm five, and when you're so young you get to make up vocabulary, it's one of those unwritten-yet-irrefutable Laws of the Universe that apply solely to children.  Duh}.

[Found him here.  Alternate color-it-yourself version here.]

Wings & Words

More watercolor sketching (though I did use some pencil under this one).  The background is a pale green wash that doesn't show up in photos.

 "All art is always created from a base of someone else’s work. There is no 'new.' No one invents art. You always have a base of someone you’re—I can’t think of any other word to use—you’re *copying* them even if you don’t remember it. It might be Picasso, it might be Michelangelo’s finger, it might be Da Vinci’s earlobe…but you’ll remember it. That’s the creative process: you look at things and you’re impressed by it, and your job then is to show it to others and say, 'I like this, look at this.' Or, 'I hate this, look at this.' That’s what the artistic
life is all about."
Ed Emberley

Sharing Sparks

I love sharing.  I thrive on creative collaboration and the exchange of ideas.  That's part of why I'm here, on the world w i d e web, to connect with you in the way that stirs me up, and I hope at the very least someone somewhere finds even the tiniest spark of inspiration among my offerings.  In that vein, here are just a few of the people who share things that creatively inspire me, and maybe you too:

One Letter at a Time

Heard this today, connected it almost immediately to my "Letters"; still hazy about the direction of that story.  I'm certain I'll find it, one letter at a time.  Anyways, this song is going on my inspiration list for it.

From their blog:

"Civil Twilight; When the center of the Sun is geometrically 6 degrees below the horizon. This is the limit at which twilight illumination is sufficient, under good weather conditions, for terrestrial objects to be clearly distinguished; at the beginning of morning civil twilight, or end of evening civil twilight the horizon is clearly defined and the brightest stars are visible under good atmospheric conditions in the absence of moonlight or other illumination."

A Sense of Wonder

"The dignity of the artist lies in his duty of keeping awake the sense of wonder in the world."
- G.K. Chesterton

"I have been interested in the imagery of fantasy since early childhood and all my artwork is, at its most fundamental level, about creating a "sense of wonder". In my illustration, my primary concern has been to create a window into the themes and story elements of a particular book. My non-commissioned work, on the other hand, is concerned with more personal themes. Stylistically my art is best described as "Imaginative Realism". Most closely allied to the scope and feeling of what is referred to as contemporary "Visionary Art", my non-illustrative art is intentionally imbued with a strong sense of the mystical or dreamlike, and is suffused with symbolic content. There is a deliberate attempt to invest the image with layers of meaning while having an immediate initial subjective or emotional impression. The majority of my work falls into one or another series of related paintings, which share common themes and symbols. In general terms, my "Faded Star" series deal with the struggle against despair and hopelessness, humanity's instinctive striving against what Barbara Tuchman calls the "burdens of modern man": loss of faith in religion, progress and the perfectibility of the human species. My "Passage" series is concerned with a personal investigation into metaphysics, religion, and near death experiences. My "Lumen" paintings are about the quest for inner revelation and meaning, of finding one's true self, among other concerns. Other series of works in progress (e.g., "Virtues", "Meditations", or "End of Nature" series) are about various other issues both subjective and objective."
- Michael Whelan

No Rules in Faery Tale Magic

From Naomi Bardoff's Artist Statement:

My work is about fairy tale magic. In fairy tales, unlike the more narratively familiar and internally consistent fantasy magic, there are no rules; this is the point of magic, and possibly the capriciousness of fairies. In fairy tale magic, things simply happen. Eating a magic talking fish causes a woman to give birth to triplets, her dog and horse to have triplets, and a large tree to sprout from where the fish's bones are cast...
In drawing a world of fairy tale magic, animals are characters, the tongues of dragons must be collected, drawings cast magic spells, animals and people are friends, dresses fit in walnut shells, and visual and poetic logic overrides formal logic.

Once Upon a Dream

Swimmer

My mother found me in an abandoned rowboat, washed up on the beach. They didn't know I'd been born in the ocean.

A man, a single fin on his feet, swimming across the television screen as a voice announces him as the longest-breath-holder in the world. Only a moment of my attention. Instant inspiration. An idea forms and will not let me go. Here I lay a fragment of it; but it is the strongest fragment, the piece that stays in my mind and tells me "Here, look here!".