Just Mary Designs

Your Worth - Click Here To Purchase

Your Worth Is Never Measured By A Number On The Scale. Isn't that the truth? So many of us measure our very worth by that tricky little number. We give the scale SO much power over us - over our self esteem.  Wouldn't it be nice if we stepped on a scale and what it reported back was that we were AWESOME?  GORGEOUS?  ENOUGH? It's time to stop measuring your worth by what you see on the scale. You are enough. Right now. No matter what the number on the scale is - you are enough! And the first person you need to convince of that is - yourself. Now I'm not saying that being at a healthy weight isn't a good idea.  It is.  You and I both should definitely strive for that for a whole host of reasons.  But I am saying that a healthy weight does not equal what you are worth.  And a healthy weight should never dictate your self esteem, your sense of self worth, and your own believe in your abilities to be awesome.  So take this to heart.  You are Body Fab-YOU-lous! Prints of this piece are available for purchase here.  They look like this!

[caption id="attachment_622" align="aligncenter" width="687"] This IS the Life I Want To Live
Click Here To Purchase Print[/caption] I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about what kind of life I want to have.  Where do I want my company to go?  What do I want my romantic life to look like?  How do I want to guide my kids and my grandson as they grow up?  How do I want to look?  How much do I want to exercise?  What do I want my future to hold?  Where do I want to travel to next? I think the secret to having a joyful life is actually wanting the life you already have. Sometimes the desire for things - material things, relationships, jobs, experiences - makes us feel that our lives are not good enough. Like we somehow are failing because we don't have everything we want right now.  I have come to think that the act of wanting can be good - it can be a driver, a motivator.  It can drive and motivate us in two ways - one positive and one negative.  Wanting can  make us feel small or hopeless, or wanting can make us feel abundant and grateful.  If we want for more out of life from a starting point of wanting what we already have, then I believe that wanting can help his grow in a aura of hope and expansion of the light  in our life. I hope this piece reminds you that the life you want to have starts by wanting the life you DO have! [caption id="attachment_624" align="aligncenter" width="692"] Print Available For Purchase By Clicking Here[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_603" align="alignleft" width="692"] Art Journal Page - I Really Am...[/caption]   Ever have those days where your fears rise up - even if they don't make any logical sense?  I took a class about art journaling and the assignment was to journal about your fears on one side...and your reality on the other side.  I think women tend to universally fear some of the same things.  We fear loosing love...our health...our money...our very lives.  We sometimes even fear looking in the mirror to see how our pants fit today, or fear stepping on the scale to get the same bad news day after day.   I'm done with these fears.  They really don't serve me.  I don't make forward progress with my life when I sit in a puddle of fear.  Or when I anxiously fret about what "could" happen or what "they" might think.  When I think about being bold, embracing my strength and the beauty within me - well it just makes me feel strong.  Like I can conquer the world.  Like I am solidly here and a force to be reckoned with.   So here is what I really am....I'm a damn good business woman.  An emerging artist.  A loving mother.  A doting grandmother.  A pilot with a sense of adventure that goes as far as my airplane will take me.  A classy girl with a little flair and a lot of pluck who intends to live her life on her own terms.   Goodbye silly fears.... hello sweet life!

I'm so excited to tell you about a retreat that not only am I attending - I am teaching at!  The Creatives Celebrating Sisterhood Retreat promises to be an amazing time of art, connection, and learning.  This retreat was created by Linda Barutha of Live, Laugh, Love Retreats. Have you been to an art retreat?  I went to my first one in Portland, Oregon about a year and a half ago.  I had barely even picked up a paintbrush before, but I kept looking at art around me and thinking "I can do that - I just don't really understand HOW to."  But I knew the creativity was inside of me.  So I found a retreat, signed my bad self up for it, and off I went to Portland - paintbrush in one hand, blank canvas in the other - not knowing a soul there. What I found there was the artist inside of me.  What I learned there is that mixed media art was the home I didn't even know I had been longing for.  What I took home with me was the knowledge of how to do all those cool techniques that make me stop and want to TOUCH a piece of art.  The texture, the colors, the layering, the beauty....I learned how to do it all.  Going to that retreat might have been the best gift I have ever given myself. The Creatives Celebrating Sisterhood Retreat will be special for another reason too.  I took an online class with several hundred amazingly creative women last summer.  We have stayed in close contact, supporting each other in our creative and artistic endeavors.  Many of them will be attending this retreat.  And I am DYING to meet these women who have become my creative sisters!! I am going to be teaching a mixed media class on how to create the painting below.  It's called Believe In Your Beauty and is part of my Body Fab-YOU-lous line.  I will show you how to do the layering of paints, ink and papers.  We will learn how to do collage and incorporate an awesome transfer technique.  Plus, you will learn all about creating hidden messages inside of a painting for yourself.  While things dry I will share with my class what I have learned about finding peace in the body you inhabit - right now.  That is what Body Fab-YOU-lous is all about! I hope you join us at the retreat - we would love to have you there!!

I can't decide if this looks more like hanging swirls, flowers on a vine, or delicious lollipops!  After many, many layers this is what has emerged in my latest painting!  I really like the bold pop of the turquoise circles with the multi-colored background behind it.  But what is this painting really about for me?  Lately my life has been a swirl of change.  Sometimes change can make you feel like you are barely hanging on, twisting in the wind.  Sometimes change makes you feel that you are softly swaying, attached by the roots and vines in your life that connects you to others.  Change usually makes me feel that I have to spiral inward, reconnect with my own soul, and then I can shine outwards again.  I believe this is what I have tried to capture in this painting. Here is where it started!  In my Flora Bowley Bloom True e-course the challenge was to blindfold yourself and paint with your hands.  Seriously.  It was AWESOME.  Very freeing.  So I squeezed some paint out onto my palette, loaded up my i-pod, and fingerprinted blindfold!  Can you see the finger swipes!?! Time to add some cool colors - an explosion of blues and greens.  I have no idea where this canvas is heading....but throwing color down with wild abandon makes me feel like a child at play.  I can see the energy in this - the bold marks, the aliveness of the paintbrush moves. Adding more layers, covering things up, letting things shine through.  As I was painting this, relationships around me were starting to shift and change.  From my family, to my friends, to my boyfriend....what I knew one day was different the next.  Just like this canvas, the direction before was not the direction it went next. Adding blacks and whites immediately creates depth.  I can  see anger coming out in this.  I can see footprints of pain in the sea of change I was experiencing.  I can see this canvas begin to take on a life of its own, responding to the intuitive emotion pouring out of me.  I can also see the white fighting the black....as my hope and internal sunshine was fighting the hurt and betrayal I was feeling. Adding layers, turning the canvas upside down and right side up.  On its side.  Backover again.  Trying to find the right way to proceed, trying to find the right way to paint.  The swirls of pistachio color seemed to leap from my paintbrush onto the canvas.  A swirl of emotion, but the color feeling hopeful and light.  Grounding the swirls with the dark vines.  Giving the hope roots to cling to.  Seeing a picture of growth begin to emerge. And finally finishing it up.  Adding the lollipop like flowers.  Letting bursts of color in the background shine through.  Blending areas to draw my eye towards harmony rather than discord.  Want to know something funny?  I decided that this was the direction I liked it best...the flowers hanging upside down.  Then when I grabbed it to sign it, I signed it the wrong way!  So now my signature is in the upper left hand corner and upside down.  I think that is kind of ironic!  When change happens, things feel upside down.  I guess my signature even wanted to carry that theme through!  Makes me giggle.

You know how sometimes a picture just catches your eye?  Sometimes it is the composition.  Sometimes it is the focal point.  Most often or me it is the colors. I've always been attracted to bright colors.  My long time favorite color has been red.  Some say that is a power color.  Or an angry color.  I think it is a bold color....and I am kind of a bold girl!  I have now had 2 houses and an office building in which I have painted one wall in a room red! In Module 1 of The Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design we learned how to make these nifty little color palettes.  The instructor Rachael Taylor showed us how to take a picture with colors that spoke to us and pull out the palette.  It is then easy as an artist to create your own work using that blend of colors.  I have had a lot of fun experimenting with it. I hope you enjoy these two fun color palettes that both caught my eye!!

I can't get enough of learning about painting....mixed media....the art business.....did I mention painting?  One of the best things I am learning in the Flora Bowley e-course Bloom True is to just paint with wild abandon.  It really doesn't matter what the layers look like, it just matters that you are layering.  Eventually it will matter what they morph into, but for now its just a free flow of color from my heart right onto the canvas.  Here are my first 4 layers....I can't wait to learn what the next 4 will look like!!!!

I thought it would be a good idea to practice faces.  I am not really good yet at the noses....or lips....or eyes....lol I am pretty sure that covers most of the face!  I don't want all of the people I paint to be faceless.  So I turned to my art journal and started doodling.  Some features up close.  Some in a small face.  Some in a larger face.  I have found it is pretty hard to capture any type of real expression in a small face.  I think that means I need to practice more!! As I was doodling I was thinking about faces, about facing things, and it morphed into facing your future.  Everyone has things in their future - things looming ahead - that bring them angst and anxiety.  Sometimes it is about a change that is coming.  Sometimes it is because we long for change.  But whatever looms ahead I have learned is best handled by walking straight into it - boldly facing what is coming your way.  We can get through anything - the hardest part is really just taking the steps to get started.  So go - go boldly face your own future.  You can do it!!

Art.  I love it.  I love making it.  Love looking at it.  Love reading art books.  Love reading art blogs.  Love trying new techniques and finding new supplies that delight me. I love creating in my studio....such a place of peace and therapy for me.  When the world starts to feel like it's closing in I can escape to my little art studio and paint out all of my frustrations, angers and overwhelm.  When I have something to celebrate it's a place of private haven where I can relax, bask in my joy and paint brightly colored pieces expressing my love and radiant life. The funny thing about my love of art is that it is all about exploring.  I can explore with a new medium.  A new class.  A new photoshop trick.  A new color.  A new friend.  A new style.  I can constantly invent and reinvent.  If I don't like it I can paint over it.  I can shade it.  I can chuck it and start something new.  Then come back to it later and breathe new life into it. And I love, love, love the art supplies.  I'm like a kid in the candy store when I walk into a Hobby Lobby or a Michaels.  I want to have one of everything....and two of the things that sparkle!! Right now, apparently I am obsessed with learning everything I can about not just making art, but the business of art.  I am taking three e-classes - Hello Business Hello Soul, The Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design, and Bloom True by Flora Bowley.  I am finding my way as I learn new things about WHY art is speaking to me - heck its not just speaking to me - it is shouting at me to pay attention!!!  And I am loving it!  Loving it all!!!

Towards the end of last year I started an e-course called the Art & Business of Surface Pattern Design.  This was put on by the very talented Rachael Taylor and Beth Nicholls.  One of the key things we focused on was really zeroing in on what your signature style is.  I must admit I was kind of skeptical at first - mostly not believing I actually HAD as signature style.  Turns out I do! One of the exercises that really helped me define it was creating a Pattern Love Board.  What I learned was that my style generally has elements of 4 things - Swirls, Curvy Silhouettes, Floral, or Brightly Colored Symmetrical patterns.  Below is my board - I hope you have as much fun looking at it as I did creating it!