be friends with failure.

Do it. NOW. 

This.

This is how i want to live each day. This is why i love my Lord. This is why i love clouds. :)

an...idea

i think i have a semi-interesting-maybe-exciting-and-workable idea for a series of paintings.

lemme tell ya...it's been a while since i've had a semi-interesting-maybe-exciting idea. and i'm putting it out there, in writing, to make it SO.

now to overcome the fear-of-failure-crippling-anxiety-mental-monster-of-lameness. 

"arrrgh you're gonna make nothing but crap!!"

also, i need to buy a bunch of new paints. 

so, ask me about it when you see me, would you? keep me on task? thanks. you're the best! :)

hello, conviction.

"Where there is no vision, the people cast off restraint." Proverbs 29:18

Today's "My Utmost" kind of...well...stabbed me right in the gut, to be so graphic!

"There is a difference between an ideal and a vision. An ideal has no moral inspiration; a vision has. The people who give themselves over to ideals rarely do anything. 

A man's conception of Deity may be used to justify his deliberate neglect of his duty. Jonah argued that because God was a God of justice and of mercy, therefore everything would be all right. 

I may have a right conception of God, and that may be the very reason why I do not do my duty. 

But wherever there is vision, there is also a life of rectitude because the vision imparts moral incentive. Ideals may lull to ruin. Take stock of yourself spiritually and see whether you have ideals only or if you have vision."

~Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, May 9th

How much of my life, my goals, my yearnings, are based solely in ideal? 

How much of my walk and duty to God have i unknowingly justified in neglecting...even in the light of having a right conception of Him?

"Are we expecting God to do greater things than He has ever done?"

arts mountains advents

current pinspiration

create

can i go?

lovely advent calendar

this haircut. and the dress.

i am so proud of my bestest friend

Doodles Homme, a clothing line featuring PIP's art, is officially arrived at Fred Segal in West Hollywood! 

~

CLICK HERE ... and check out the look book!

ah, yes.

"Art is never finished, only abandoned."
~Leonardo DaVinci 

Addison's Walk

I'm sick (again), so i slept in late today. I woke staring out my window, lost in thought, pondering the infinite wonder of this world that God made.
My thoughts led me consider how there is nothing mankind can invent that will ever be truly original, since all we can fathom are things somehow bound by the rules in which we ourselves are created. As fantastical, bizarre and abstract as man can be...everything still utilizes, directly or indirectly, gravitational laws (by use or manipulation), existing colors, biology, senses, engineering, philosophy, and even spirituality...

Just now i was reading a biography called "The Inklings", and read this poem written by J.R.R. Tolkien for C.S. Lewis...

Man, Sub-creator, the refracted Light
through whom is splintered from a single White
to many hues, and endlessly combined
in living shapes that move from mind to mind.
Though all the crannies of the world we filled
With Elves and Goblins, though we dared to build
Gods and their houses out of dark and light,
and sowed the seed of dragons--'twas our right
(used or misused). That right was decayed:
we make still by the law in which we're made.

I read it again.
And smiled in peaceful happiness.

oh yeah...

a good post about being a worthwhile artist (writer, painter, musician, &c...)

it inspired me, anyway.
(especially 3, 9 & 10)

enjoy!

details

my friend carole, over at worked out wrote an inspired post today about comfort in discontentment (i regrettably know far too much about this) i encourage you to read what she has to say...and find some hope in it.
i did :)

perspicacity

i am finding inspiration in the landscape paintings of the 19th century artist George Inness--particularly his later work. these are the kind of paintings i would like to make if i ever really try my hand at plein air. he was quoted saying: "The true use of art is, first, to cultivate the artist's own spiritual nature." i relate a great deal to that. i believe he was a man who knew God and knew that nature was glorious because it was made by God...and i find such joy in that!!

formerly known as the pendletones

i've been reading brian wilson's autobiography, and it feels like ever since i started it, i've been seeing and hearing beach boys related stuff everywhere--even more than usual. (or maybe it's just that thing that happens when, for instance, you discover something you've never really given much mind to before and suddenly it's in your face wherever you go...and was it always like that and you just weren't paying attention...? you may never know...)
anyway, that doesn't really have much do do with the point of this post...just thought it was interesting.

i found these youtube links through a friend and they kind of made my week--they are beach boys tracks stripped down to only the vocals.
it's like a dream come true to hear them...as a lover of voices and harmony and, well, awesomeness...
check them out. :)

god only knows
wouldn't it be nice
sloop john b

sigh

one of my dreams...

to someday own a book full of edmund dulac illustrations.

arthur rackham and jc leyendecker would be rad, too.
but, you know, one thing at a time :)

just thinkin

"i learn that my feelings about art and my feelings about the Creator of the Universe are inseperable. to try to talk about art and about Christianity is for me one and the same thing, and it means attempting to share the meaning of my life, what gives it, for me, its tragedy and its glory."

~madeleine l'engle

200

200th post, people...woot!

and i would like to take this oppertunity to point out a new addition to my blogroll..."worked out" by carole holliday. a woman who is daily becoming more and more of an inspiration to me in her striving to be a better woman for the Lord, and therefore just a better woman, servant and friend. take a look...maybe you will be inspired, too :)

awe

just got back from a fantastic group art show called mod melange...it was comprised of illustration and fine art majors that i went to LCAD with.
i came a way with two very distinct feelings:

1~inspiration~these people are my contemporaries, they work just as hard, and most likely much harder than i do trying to make a living these days, and still are wonderfully and amazingly productive...so what's stopping me?

2~conviction~these people are my contemporaries, they work just as hard, and most likely much harder than i do trying to make a living these days, and still are wonderfully and amazingly productive...so what the hell is stopping me???

"resting"

i'll never forget discovering this painting in the art institute of chicago a few years ago. i hadn't gone to art school, i had never figure painted, i had never even heard of antonio mancini before. but i was in love with it all the same...and i hope i get to go back and see it someday.

mermaid

by edmund dulac