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Saturday, March 12, 2011

A Magic Dinosaur


We've been inundated with busyness the last few weeks.  It's overwhelming to me at times to try to balance a graduate internship, mommy duties, house work, while getting even a tiny bit of time for myself and to do art.  My husband's different worlds have also recently shifted into full gear, and so we both struggle to find moments of peace and silence together or with our son to just be together with no agenda or tasks needing to be completed.  Is it just this time of year?  My internship is a part time position as a Family Counselor with families with at risk youth, and it has almost completely taken over my world right now.  Kids are getting restless and acting out more at school, which in turn fills up my client load to the hilt.  I've been doing this since the beginning of the semester and am still learning to let go of my expectations for myself in my other parts of life.  My son goes to less play dates at parks and more play times in the backyard, dishes arent done everyday, laundry will pile up until I can get to it on the weekend, I have neglected my friendships, and my paints... well they sit still and beg me to ignore everything else and just spend time alone with them.   I know that this season of fullness will pass and space and time to stretch and breathe will come soon, but sometimes I just want to walk away and say "who needs a graduate degree to be an artist anyway?"  But sometimes, little windows of joy peek through the overbooked schedule and magic happens.  Like what happened last Wednesday when I was home with my son for the morning and he held up a pencil and asked if I could make a dinosaur picture for him.  "Oh yes!" I said, "and we can do better than just a silly old pencil."  I pulled out lots of art supplies and piled them onto his old plastic picnic table, and we covered our arms, hands, (a bit of our faces) with paint as we created together.


How do you get your art fix during your busy schedule?

11 comments:

  1. Aw, I love this so much! The dinosaur is adoreable. and it sounds like a lovely morning. My architecture class has been keeping me on my toes this quarter. It's rather creative itself, but sometimes to escape from it I get my "art fix" by taking time to write, no matter how many drawings and models I have hanging over my head.

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  2. This is just beyond precious!
    Orin and I are painting together more frequently. It is such a sweet time.
    When the day has been stressful and I know I will be falling in bed shortly after the kids, there won't be any paint-time. I will pull out my fabric markers and scribble something. I recently finished a pair of shoes for a friend and loved it! I can just re-cap markers and it's all cleaned up. :)

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  3. i am gobbling up these images. those colors and
    your style just make me smile.

    finding that routine is so hard. it is something
    i never seem to get worked out.

    i am just trying to allow for the weekends to be that.
    weekend

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  4. I did this not too long ago with my munchkins. It hangs above our couch :)

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  5. I usually sit on our "play matt" surrounded by art supplies and my 17 month old daughter, open my art book, let her "do her thing" and then I do mine. We're both happy creating and I end up with a piece of art we both contributed to ;)

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  6. Aw,the end result was so adorable and creative!

    I don't have any kids yet (phew!), but I do have a serious boyfriend and am in college. I hardly have time to draw anymore, so I just take old doodles and edit them on the computer. I'm very excited about how those have been turning out.

    Best of luck! Love your blog :]

    http://zanniplainjanefashion.blogspot.com (I do have an art section!)

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  7. The dinosaur is wonderful. What a lucky child to have creative you! I am a retired art teacher, and I see the wonderful artistic environment you are raising your child in. It is a priceless gift to him!
    On the other hand, I can feel your obsessive drive to create, and your continual struggle to find the time. I was a teacher raising a child, etc. I had this same issue for many years. Good luck to you and all the artists out there with this frustrating issue. I am retired now, with no child at home, and NOW, finally, I feel like I am truly being me. It will get easier. I promise. Keep stealing away moments to create in the meantime. I sense that you need it just as you need air to breathe. Don't let let anyone ever tell you that the dishes, etc. are more important than 'air'. You need to create and your happiness depends on it. (But you must know this by now.)
    I would love to share with you my story and show you what I am creating. Please stop by http://kbartdesigns.com/index.php

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  8. Your blog has inspired me! I've shared your blog with my readers. Thanks for making beautiful art that I could only DREAM of creating!

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  9. that looks like so much fun!!

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  10. Hi there! I just found your blog through A Beautiful Mess. I love your work, and I'm always happy to find other Christian artists/bloggers. :)
    I've been thinking about this question a lot- trying to squeeze in art with my full time job. I'm working on making a space for my art and on making a (flexible) schedule for art- ie. Monday night is Art Night, rather than just Watch TV Night!

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  11. Hey! This is a great post and I love your blog. Would you mind if I featured you in a round-up of links in a post on my blog?

    I'm at http://fashionmoriarty.blogspot.com/

    :)

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