I’ve been thinking about tons lately. Lots of it, not blog worthy. One day it will be. Just thinkin’ dreamin’ and steawin’.

One of the things I do, when I am thinkin’ away, is to have worship music playing on my computer. Then I get lost inside the photographic beauty of the flickr community. So much to see, and learn and be inspired by. Here are some of my favorite groups, if you want to get lost too:-)

• Bokeh Wednesday
• Shoot Wide Open
• Negative Space
• Nikon Girls Rock!
• Shutter Sisters

One thing I do know, is I need some knew worship music. Any recommendations? I love Rita Springer and cut my teeth on Vineyard Worship Music. Do you know any with that vibe? Singing to Jesus and not about him, is my biggest requirement.

• building my Etsy shop for some of our photographic images. This has been on my “to do” list for almost a year now. So I am gettin’ it done!
• Meeting with some fellow artistic creative followers of Jesus and exploring what it may look like to start an artist co-op in our local area. Lots of ideas there!
• building my design portfolio and booking paying clients. I have done tons of free creative work, up until now. I am making the leap and beginning to charge for my time. People have no idea how much time editing and post production work it takes to make a brilliant image.

• writing out a plan, that keeps me centered and not working too much on being creative. I don’t want the tail wagging the dog so to speak. Just slow, steady consistent exploration. Some people watch tv in their free time, I run and create.

So - I will keep you people posted with links and other brilliant goodies as they are ready for the world to see! Until then, I will post one of my favorite images of recent.

Peace to all artists today!

I would love the Nikon version however,  I don’t have $1500.00 just laying around.  I guess I will settle for saving my pennies for the Sigma EX - Zoom lens - 24 mm - 70 mm - f/2.8 at about $400.00  .  Donations gladly accepted:-)  If you want to see what this lens can do, check out one of my favorite Flickr pools.

Did you know I am raising an artist?  She just had to change the screen saver.  This is what she picked.

She has a good eye. Is a 5 year old supposed to want to play with pictures on the computer cropping them?

Peace to all photographic artists and those working on being one today~

Okay people I am in a cold play phase. I don’t know about you, but whenever I hear this song, I wanna worship. Isn’t that what good art does? God is speaking and moving and using the arts to call out to a broken world. This is one is calling out to me! Enjoy!

for Chloe

whenever I see a red hibiscus in bloom I think of our dear daughter. Yes, she loves them and is forever picking them, but that is not why I think of her. Her name means “blooming and verdant faith” I was praying for her one day, and this was almost exactly the picture God gave me in my minds eye. So I painted it for her and it now hangs in her room. The only problem is, I love this picture so much more than my painting. I paint so much better with my camera then I do with my hands. Alas, this is why I love it so much, Sigh!

I am still working on my garden post. I am still thinking, soaking and reading -be patient dear friends - they say it is a virtue:-)

I will send you a Star bucks coffee card if you know what that is without using Google to find it:-)

I am working on that right now. OK I will save you the trouble and give it to you here.

Trouble is, with my short lens, I don’t seem to get killer bokeh. I tricked my camera a bit and shot in macro and got a little, but I need to keep working on it. It gives me good reason to share something else we have been up to. Right after we got back from Peru we started sprouting an avocado pit.

This little baby drinks water like there is no tomorrow. I need to get it in a pot soon, but it is so fun watching it here on my window sill. The kids love it. I think it will take 5 years to bear any fruit, but hey, most things are like that.

Grabbed a fairly good silhouette shot here.

I can’t believe how many leaves this thing has so quickly. Before I know it, it will have limbs. It is crazy how God causes things to grow. It really has me mind boggled right now. Now, what to do with it once it outgrows the pot? Currently we are working on sprouting a peach pit. I will keep you posted.

I am dreaming of several new lenses even as I type. Anyone have an extra grand laying around that they want to donate to my artistic cause?

Peace to all Bokeh enthusiast today!

This is a posted response to Amanda’s question about an exercise prescribed in The Artists Way. Because of its length, I posted it here. All you artists, join the conversation if you feel inclined.

I have really enjoyed working through this book even though it isn’t written with a Christian perspective (even though JC believes in God) I have grown immensely through it. With many things, I choose to take the meat and spit out the bones and her book is no exception. I believe God is speaking out in all manner of art and literature, and using all sorts of things to call people back to him. Expressing yourself through creativity is, I believe, an essential part of a Christian’s formation into Christ likeness. So I say all of that to say, I think that this exercise is a both/and sort of thing. If you need it, do it, and in the process Jesus will speak to you healing and affirming words.

Someone with a Christian perspective, that allows Jesus to be their center and their compass, are able to come to this exercise with that grid and really gain a ton from it, while keeping it in the right perspective. I think, it is generally true, that people have a very hard time really grasping who they are in Christ. Because of emotional and often traumatic, early child hood experience, people are ether overly codependent or obsessively people pleasing as adults. Driven by need for approval and love or fearful of rejection and isolation, people don’t understand how precious they are and rarely set healthy boundaries in that direction. We rarely take time for ourselves, over extending and over committing as a way of being “there” for others, without ever realizing that if we haven’t really come to grasp who we are as beautiful creations ourselves, we can’t ever really be who we are supposed to be for others. All of these are little clues that ultimately signal that we like to be in control…of ourselves and others.

Recently, I have been in a season of understanding who I am and that taking care of myself really allows me to be open to what God is doing and saying to me. I like to call it soul care, others say having good boundaries. It is really a spiritual practice. I know deeply at my core, that the more I can be present to the process that God has me in( and not in others process), it allows me to stay weak or humble before what God is doing and what he is calling me to do and be for the sake of the world. I am not the source of anything, even my own healing and artistic process. It is all an outflow of my relationship with the Father, and He is the source of all of my healing and my creativity.

I had a few issues with her language, so I didn’t plug into it in the way she prescribed. Although if I were in a different place, doing it may have been helpful, I just didn’t feel like it was helpful for me at this point. I, however, do have a deep awareness that the more I am aware of where I am at in my own formation or treating myself as “precious” in her language (which takes time and intentionality) the more I am able to be present to the Father which is a weak and humble place. Ironically, as Christians, the weaker we are (which really means we know we are not in control) the stronger and more healthy we become.

So those are my lengthy 2 cents. I am interested to hear your thoughts!

Grace and Peace to you,
Amber

This week, I will be doing a media fast.   This week is spring break for us, I celebrate my 34th birthday and I hope to finish cleaning up the garage.  I say hope because I hope it will happen, but I don’t really want to do anything about it. hmmmm, we will see how that goes. This is a time to slow down, listen to what is bubbling in me, pray, create.

The point is, to not be pushing away what is going on with you with outside stimulation.  I’ve done media fasts before off and on over the years and they always prove to be fruitful.  So, no emails, no blogs, no reading just waiting and listening.

So, here I go, I am shutting the computer off and hope to see you next Sunday night with all the new things God has brought up in me.

Peace to you and all you love!

I am so excited.  They are in the mail:-)  I’ve been wanting to create a “calling card” for our family.  I meet so many Moms in the neighborhood, that I thought it would be good to have a quick card to give them then the typical rummage through your bag or whatever and print it on a napkin routine. Not to mention, I like to throw neighborhood parties and it is easy to use this as a way to get the word out! 

I combined my recent photo exploration with moo mini cards and have the perfectly unique and artsy calling card.  I get to leave a little bit of me with whoever I meet.  Any Diva needs to have some of these in her bag of tricks. I am off to drop them off!  Make some of your own.

Last Jan. about 15 months ago, God was gently leading me to lay down my striving and trust Him in a deeper way. The last 15 months have been an amazing, beautiful and hard process of dying to what I think is important and waking up to what He says is important for me and my discipleship to Him.

Yes, I love being home with our children and homeschooling them but it does not define who I am. I want to make sure I continue to work on me outside of our kids, because there will be a day that they are building their own life and if I haven’t spent time on me, then it will be tough sledding.

I can say I would not trade any of it. One of the unique things about me learning to rest and be still, has been deep, deep bubbling in me. Isn’t that a product of learning to rest, the real you can come out and play? One of those things is my artistic development. If I had to do it all over again, I would of gone in a completely different route in regards to where I put my energies, with high-school and college. So, I am working through the book The Artists Way.

I feel like for the first time in my life, outside of my call to ministry, I am discovering who I was made to be, what I love and what feeds me. It is funny, that it is almost as far away from what I had been working towards as imaginable. So I am putting together my Etsy page, thinking through what I want to paint and photograph and will spend the next 15-18 months digging into that. I am deeply excited. Kind of like a kid in a candy shop.

More to come.

Our new friend Tracey Howe is an amazingly talented artist.  It has been a special treat to get to know her before I really knew her music.  Now, I am buying it as fast as I can download it….and you should too!  Look out Peeps, we are bringing her to South Florida!

Peace to all Rockin’ Diva’s in the house tonight!

Bella est Bonissimo!

Last night, I had the rare opportunity to see a movie by myself.  Literally, I was the only one in the theater. It is a great story, within a story, within a story.  None of the usual violence, language or tacky sex scenes.  You may like it too! 

This morning we went to another children’s theatrical production.  This time we  enjoyed seeing the Velveteen Rabbit.  At the end of the show, the performer showed us all how she made her puppets and some little tricks she used.   She said she used cereal boxes to create shadow puppets.  That was all it took to inspire  the kids to make their own puppets and tell a story.  The ceral boxes are being cut as we speak.

I will keep you posted on their progress.  A good friend suggested starting with Aesop Fables, so we will get a few stories together to present to family at Christmas.  Oh - what fun!  I can’t wait:-)

Now I must go because my 6 year old is begging me continuously to read another chapter in The Indian in the Cupboard . This is a good one!:-)

Peace to all~

Yesterday, I took our 6 year old to the Theater.  We saw an hour long production of The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.  They took a wonderful, classic piece of rich children’s literature and crammed it into an hour and set it all to music.  You make your own decision about it.

After the performance was over, I asked Jackson “What did you think?”  He said “I didn’t really like it.”  I asked why and he said “It didn’t match up with my imagination. The chapter book was much better.” 

I had to force myself not to laugh out loud because I understood what he meant.  It felt just like when you see the movie of a book you have loved.  It never matches up.  We will see other things and look to go to theater that hasn’t been “dumbed” down for kids.   

I read out-loud the first chapter of Genesis.  I asked the children to listen once.  Then we read it again and I asked them what day they would like to paint.  I then let them draw what the “saw” in their minds eye on the boards and then we let the paints fly.  They really seemed to enjoy mixing the colors the most.  I understand, I like that too.

They wondered how big God was.  Chloe asked if he is very fat.  I was silent and let her explain.  She said if he is all around the world he must be very big.  I then got to explain the vastness of God. (Here is my humble, yet God inspired attempt. I was wondering how I would explain this to them and praying about it one day and this is what God lead me to.)

I said, you know when you go swimming, and when you dive down deep and enjoy how the water holds you? How it is all around you?  They all said yes…they love swimming.  I explained that this is how God is.  He is the water we swim in, he gently holds us in all of our comings and goings. We can never go anywhere that he is not there.  I could tell this struck a chord with them, especially Chloe.  I will tell you where this conversation lead to at the dinner table in another post.  For now enjoy their handy work. 

 ”land & plants” ~ Chloe 4 years old

“water” ~ Hudson 3 years old

“sky” ~ Jackson 6 years old

Step 1:  Be prepared.  It is a lot more fun if you do.

Step2:  We light a white candle.  It is a symbol.  It reminds us that Jesus is the light of the world and no man can come to the Father except through him.

Step 3:  We play classical music in the background.  The more senses we bring into play the more deeply the brain holds what ever information they are learning.

Step 4: We read the Bible out loud.  The King of kings moves among them, meeting them where they are at, teaching them his mysterious ways and sparking their imagination.

Step 5:  After I read out loud, Mommy stays quiet.  Shhhhh Holy work is being done.

More to come. Enjoy your day~

This term we have been studying De Vinci and 6 of his famous paintings.  Over the term, I have put one of his works as the screen saver on our computer.  I would change the picture without telling the children and see if they caught it.  They always did.  Then, thanks to the Homeschooling Diva’s over at Ambleside Online, we printed out all of the works twice and made a matching or gold fish game out of them.  They love playing it and our three year old even yells out “SELF PORTRAIT” when he gets the correct match and our 4 year old asked if it was a picture of God.  I smiled thinking, “Why is it that children imagine God to be an old man with long hair and a beard?”.

A good friend of mine lent me a great book that helped to tie de Vinci’s life together.  It is called Leonardo’s Horse and Jackson loved it. It tells the tale of de Vinci’s one work that never was finished.  Jackson wistfully said at the end of the book “If only Leonardo could of seen it”. We liked it so much we will be adding it to our family library.  I can purchased a gently used one for about 5 bucks on amazon.   Yikes~I can’t even buy junk at Wal-Mart for that price!

Go read a good book today~ Preferably out loud with your kids all snuggled up on the couch.  Not that I am telling you what to do or anything, but I promise it is lots of fun!

We have secured our tickets for this years Nutcracker performed by our local Classical Ballet Studio. Our communities Theatrical Center has some special performances for children as well, so we have slated those for the school year. 

I remember being in 6th or 7th grade and one of the boys in my grade had seen tons of artistic performances. I remember thinking right then  that when I grew up I wanted to see good artistic performances.  Mike and I try to go to one or 2 good pieces every year from theater to musical performances and we want our kids to get in on that habit too.  So go see what you can take in in your area.

Peace to all~