Claudia Horsey

I love farmers market
last Saturday Dani and I went to the Bellingham Farmers Market, and I wanted to share some of the pictures I took. I got inspired for my latest post for Illustration Friday, you can see it here

I would love to shower with these ones they look like candy!

Lots of people and beautiful things…

Lovely music played by a lovely girl…

And the veggies of course

What inspires you?

I’m going to start doing some creative explorations to open up creativity. This isn’t really the first time I do this exploration, but I’ll call this one # 1 to start a series of explorations, to see the progress of my creative process starting here. This is also a way of inviting you to participate and share your explorations.

Feel free to use this ideas as an exercise for your own creative process.

Exploration instructions:

Make 10 mini paintings (including drawings, collages, or anything else) with the first thing that crosses your mind. So you sit down with all your materials on hand, a glass of water, music, and maybe some snack, and hands on work!

Note: don’t stop until you finish the 10 paintings, maybe a 10 minute break after the 5th one

Suggestion: make mini paintings, so you can work fast and ideas can flow easily.

Another Note: feel free to change, modify or ignore this exploration and make something else.

Here are my 10 mini paints

Just wanted to share this video with you.
Now when I go to the store and I see the plastic bags, I think of what I saw on this video.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDBtCb61Sd4?fs=1]

Inspired by the Farmers Market, I decided to make this Illo.

I would like to share the breve process for his one:

First the drawing

Then one layer of pencil color (and by this moment I thought”Oh no!, I don’t know if I’m going to like it”)

So I applied one, 2 and 3 more layers…

… and it ended up like this now I like it. I try to give a few chances to my drawings before deciding. In the end, I almost always end up liking it.

The way I’ll celebrate Mabon this year will start by making a list of at least 10 things I’m grateful for today. Maybe later I’ll make some homemade bread to share with dani, and meditate before going to bed. But I think it’s a good way to start my day by listing the things I’m grateful for at the moment. So here it is:

I’m grateful for…

1. My life with Dani, full of joy and abundance;

2. Having amazing people I call my family, including my blood family and in law family;

3. Have a roof to live under, a space to create love, art and to share with my dearest;

4. all the experiences I’ve had, that have helped me become what I am today,

5. the Nature I’m surrounded by,

6. my basil plant,

7. Autumn, and the change of seasons,

8. the freedom I have,

9. food I get to eat, and

10. being alive

What are you grateful for TODAY? want to share?

I drew this illustration while I was waiting for the bus to go to Seattle to visit family, last Friday. I did it scratching this special black paper, that reveals color once scratched
Improvised illustration. It reminds me of my last post about zoom out, and I guess the metaphor of being an acrobat applies to life too.

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about how to keep a balanced life. I have so many interests and things that I want to do (and some of them are things I have to do) that sometimes I feel like I can only focus on One thing at a time.

For example: last winter I was so focused on working on my illustrations, that I completely abandoned the gym and the mountains, and I didn’t work out at all. Then summer came and I focused on working out and outdoors activities, but I abandoned my illustrations almost completely. I’ve realized that it has also happend with other many things that I have to deal dayly, like cleaning the house, laundry, taking care of my hair, and hanging out with friends, oh… and cooking too!

I was talking to Dani about it and he said: “you just have to zoom out, you’re focusing too much, zooming in too much”

I work mostly visually, so this metaphor is not so much a metaphor when I think about it. I do focus too much on things, I can tend to be quite intense. So I’m going to start exercising zooming out, trying to see the whole picture, and open space for all the things I want in my life.

Conclusion: Zoom out = Open space and time

Do you feel like this sometimes? …

Last weekend a couple of friends came to visit us and stay for a few days with their lovely dog, Porter. And I didn’t know Porter could sit on my lap, like a kid, and stay!

I didn’t know that the bar we go to sometimes has elephants as decoration… interesting…

I didn’t know there were such cool mushroom flowers growing in our front yard… (click on the pic to see it better)

…or that I love abandoned places and rusty things so much!

…or that you can find patters almost everywhere you look…

…or that the rocks by the water look like carved and sculpted by someone, naturally!

…or that my friends would wait for me when I stay behind taking pictures,

This was a great weekend, I learned a lot

I love you so much I’d never eat you…
I love animals, nature, life. I know you do too, but I could not go to the store and get a “product” that involves so much suffering, greed, and then go home and eat it. But I understand why some people do it, and I respect that.

I’m working on a new collection, “Sea Monsters” and this is my first creation. It’s also the first wood block covered in gesso from last week, remember?
One of my biggest fears, is hidding under the water, in the deep, so I decided to face my fear by starting this collection. I scared myself a little bit while making this little creature, but whn I was done, I actually think it’s pretty cute! hahaha
Anyways, I put it with my basil plant to keep him company