Today, it's a...

Hey out there!  To all my fellow Vancouver Islanders, specifically my Cowichan peeps...hoping you are all safe and warm and WITH POWER! Woah, what a wind storm we had!
Crazy town.
My daughter is home from school today because her school is still without power.  Those lucky little rats get a FIVE DAY weekend due to the Rembrance Day holiday next week.

Anyway, due to the wind storm, I did not post my art share yesterday.  My internet was out, my phone was dead and, well, there's just something sacred and awesome about having NO POWER AND NO DISTRACTIONS.
Hanging out with your family in candlelight with nothing but conversation to occupy you is a pretty special thing, so I decided to put it off and take a moment to remember.

That just means that you lucky rats get a DOUBLE SHOT of art, which I would always say is an awesome way to recover from a scary storm.  Whew (phew?)
That's cool, yo.

Here we are with DOUBLE SHOT #1:

QUOTE BY RUMI

I created this piece by hand-lettering the words with a marker in my sketch book.  I then scanned them into Photoshop and made them white.  The background is a cropped photo of a painting I am working on.  The colours didn't come through exact but I like them all the same.  In Photoshop I played with the brightness and contrast as well as the levels to achieve a cohesive light to the background.  Then I pasted the letters onto the background layer and added a few illustrations of feathers that I did in black ink (turned white).

I like it.  I think the painted background adds depth and I love the poet Rumi.  His words written so long ago are still succinctly relevant today.

DOUBLE SHOT #2:

This is a second version of the same.  Instead with this piece, I left the feathers out and used a differently coloured part of the same painting as the background.  Basically though, the creative process was the same.  I like this one too.  It feels more mysterious and a bit more relevant to the words.

What do you think?  #1 OR #2?

I find it interesting that this was the art I planned to share on a day that we got spun into a fury by a highly intense windstorm.  Actually, this week feels like it's been a five day long whirlwind of crazy.  That crunchy Taurus moon has created some interesting tension and pushed stuff to the surface, casting doubt and confusion to the cosmos, leaving it to float around like feathers in the wind.  Whoa.
I'm learning in these moments, these crunchy-hard-confusion moments to brace myself with calm, to root my feet firmly to what I hold sacred and to grip hard to the truth of what I know to be right. And so I stay grounded while I spin, scattering stars like dust.

Sometimes, anyway.

Hey, you know what?  Last night while my family and I hunkered down, my girl and I spent time drawing by candlelight.  I think as a little bonus to the DOUBLE SHOT, I will post that piece as well later on.  We'll see how much I can accomplish today between kid-at-home and work-out-of-home and house chores.  We'll see.

Stay warm.  Stay safe.  Do good.  Spread joy.
Peace.