Art with Edie…Again!

I had an amazing day! I was able to guest-host on Edie’s show again today. Click here for the replay: Life By the Seat of my Pants – Positive Message STOP Sign. Edie also has a phenomenal blog with the same name: Life by the Seat of my Pants.

Today I demonstrated how to doodle using patterns inspired by Mother Nature. I started by explaining the 5 basic element families of shapes. Every shape is made from dots, circles, lines, curved lines and/or angled lines. This is instruction that comes from Mona Brookes’ book Art With Children. (For more information go to this link: Art Makes Kids Smart) Then, I started a doodle (in Zentangle style) on a 4-by-6 blank index card.  I shared a couple of objects from nature, a seashell and a whelk egg case on the show to show how patterns can be found in them. This inspired the spiral pattern and a repeated irregular rectangular pattern in the doodles I demonstrated on Edie’s show today. I then started a larger art pieces, a portrait with doodling around it.

Edie demonstrated creating a “You are AMAZING just the way you Are” sign as inspired by www.operationbeautiful .com that she plans to post on her neighborhood corner stop sign. The purpose of this Operation Beautiful campaign is to remind people how wonderful, beautiful and amazing they are by placing sticky notes and/or signs in conspicuous places that would grab people’s attentions. It is a fabulous idea; furthermore, it helps promote positive thinking. (Picture below shows the sign Edie made on the stop sign in her neighborhood.)

Sadly enough, too many of us put our own selves down daily with negative self-talk from the moment we get up and look in the mirror to start our daily routines. Instead of saying or thinking, “oh, gee! I look like “poop” this morning”; how about having a sticky note to remind us of how amazing, wonderful, beautiful and even sexy we are! Why not! Getting up in the morning would be a zillion times more fun if we greeted ourselves with “HEL-LO, sexy!” or “good morning  sunshine / bright eyes/beautiful!” I have a tickle in my heart just thinking about it. I love this idea Edie found and it has me thinking now of creative ways to bring positive attention to people. How about you, does this inspire some ideas? I would love to hear some feedback on this!

Related articles

• Art Day with Edie (akissofbliss.wordpress.com)
• Doodle (akissofbliss.wordpress.com)