Wednesday, October 21, 2009

CLOSE UPS OF THE BIG PICTURE


Hi Bloggers.
Today I was busy with my camera capturing some interesting textures I found lying around my home. I love to get up close to things and capture just a small bit of the whole picture. Don't you think it's that way in life? We tend to only capture just a small bit of the big picture. I was listening to a podcast the other day and they were talking about truth. The speaker said that Truth comes with time. We tend to draw conclusions about things before we know all of the story...and then with time, the rest of the details come to light and then we know the real truth.





The speaker told a story about a man on the train who was with his two kids. The children were quite young and very disruptive. The surrounding passengers were getting increasingly annoyed. Soon the children were running up and down the isle, bumping into people and yelling. Their Father just sat there ingnoring their behavior. The woman sitting behind him had had enough and decided it was time to tell the Father a thing or two about how his children should be conducting themselves...





The woman squeezed out of the isle she was sitting in and walked up next to the man and said "Excuse me sir! Do you not realize what a disruption your children are causing?! Don't you think you should have better control of them? After all...you are in a public place and all of these people seem to be more concerned about your children than you are!"



The man sat up quickly as if he had been in some trance and suddenly realized the situation. He looked at the woman and said " Miss I am so sorry... you see we have spent the last two days at the hospital with my wife. She had been in a terrible car accident and this afternoon... we lost her. I guess I haven't been able to face my children with the news yet. I'm sorry for all the disruption."






Well...after a good session with a box of kleenex... I thought this was such a good lesson. Times are so tough right now and who knows what people are going through. I hope that after hearing that story I will think twice before drawing conclusions too quickly.  I also hope and pray that these times aren't too difficult for any of you.

Blessings to all of you,

Meagan
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Sunday, October 18, 2009

MARTHA...WE LOVE YOU!

Hi Bloggers,

Hope you have all been doing well.  This week I made the greatest lanterns from a pattern and clipart that I found on...you guessed it...the Martha Stewart website.  We love you Martha!  Sometimes she (her staff) come up with the cutest projects and this was one of them that I had to make.



After that I was wondering if Martha ever stacks her clean dishes as artistically as I did this morning...




Or if she has ever made this yummy dessert that I found on the cutest blog that my SIL told me about and I just put on my favorites list...







I also was wondering if Martha would approve of some of my fall decorations...











Hard to know what Martha would think but I had fun with it all. 
Take care!

Meagan






Sunday, October 11, 2009

The Heart of the Artist


I have been reading a book by Rory Noland called "the Heart of the Artist" and in this book he quoted Ken Gire from his book "Windows of the Soul".  I had to share this quote with you...all of you artistic types that see the world just a little differently than most.  Before Noland shared Gires' quote he says:

"Artists respond differently to things than nonartists do.  For one thing, we tend to be more sensitive.  And that's okay.  That's how God made us.  In Ephesians Paul talks about us having the eyes of our hearts enlightened (1:18).  Sensitive people have a lot of heart.  We might see things differently because we feel deeply."

Then he quotes Gire...

"We learn from the artists, from those who work in paint or words, or musical notes, from those who have eyes to see and ears that hear and hearts that feel deeply and passionately about all that is sacred and dear to God."

Then Noland goes on to say...

"For this reason artists very often speak out against injustice, inequality, and hypocrisy.  They take up the cause of those who are suffering.  They make us more sensitive to the lost and lonely and to the plight of the downtrodden.  Everyone with an artistic temperament has been told at some point in his or her life to develop a thicker skin.  That's nonsense!  The world doesn't need more thick-skinned people.  It needs more people who are sensitive and tender.  Have you ever been moved to tears by a powerful piece of music or held spellbound by a beautiful work  of art?  Have you ever been moved by a scene from a film?  It's because an artist felt deeply about something and communicated in such a powerful way that your heart and soul were touched."

I loved this...I struggle with being thick skinned.  I know we have to put on the thick skin at times but these words spoke to my heart and I wanted to share.

Blessings,
Meagan

Friday, October 9, 2009

PUMPKIN PITCH

Hi bloggers,


I found this picture of an event that took place in our old neighborhood.  I'll call it the PUMPKIN PITCH.  All the kids in the neighborhood would gather all the pumpkins from Halloween, usually on the first weekend day following Halloween, and stack them into a pyramid type formation.  It was always during baseball playoffs so baseball fever was in the air.  I'm not really sure how it all started but once it did it stuck around.  Anyway, baseball and pumpkins made the natural progression to stack the pumpkins and pitch baseballs at them until they were pretty much destroyed.  Of course you would try to smash everyone elses pumpkin and not your own.  It was so much fun.  Here are some more pictures of the great PUMPKIN PITCH.

Enjoy!







Tuesday, October 6, 2009

FALLING FOR PUMPKINS


Good morning...
Yes, it's very early in the morning, not quite 5:00am.  For some reason my brain decided it was time to get up.  So I decided it would be a great opportunity to share some of my fall images that I photographed on Saturday morning.  Right off of Day road on Bainbridge Island is this great pumpkin patch nestled right behind a vinyard.  The landscape is breathtaking!  Hubby and I decided to get up early and head out for a photo shoot before all the peeps started coming to take their pictures too.  Karen and Carol farm this land and plant so many varieties of pumpkins all growing side by side.  It's like eye candy.


(you can see the vinyard in the background)


(These guys were huge!)


(And these had an awesome stalk on them...really fat and sturdy)


(The deep red-orange on these cinderella pumpkins was beautiful).





(Let's not forget the corn~aren't the colors great!)

Watching over the pumpkins are the faithful friends Lucy and Ricky.  They are quite a team.




                                                (Lucy on the left and Ricky on the right guarding the pumpkins...or is that drinking from the pumpkins!)

Needless to say, it was a fun morning.  Lots of great image for future paintings.  I hope you have a great week.  I am going to be very busy painting for 2 events that I (Talking Brush Studio) have coming up.  The first is in the middle of November at the Bainbridge Athletic Club, it's a Holiday Bazaar that should be a lot of fun.  And the next is in the beginning of December, The Winter Studio Tour.  Looking forward to both and will write more on each of them in later posts.  Hope you are all having a great week and look forward to the next post!

Blessings to you all!

Meagan

Saturday, October 3, 2009

Dr. Seuss, Orange Creamsicles and a Wedding

Hello Blogger friends,


(The Dr. Seuss car)


I've been out of touch for quite some time.  Busy with life, life and more life.  My Niece got married last weekend and my sister Larinda and I helpped with the flowers for the wedding.  It was fun be a part of the celebration.  My Nieces new husband has really great family and friends that came to help and it was so fun getting to know them.  Several of them are really into restoring old cars, one of which was the greatest pick-up truck painted like an orange creamsicle.  They used this truck to drive away from the wedding with.  It was adorable.  The other car was this great yellow plymouth that was restored the year Dr. Seuss died, so they dedicated it to him.  My Sister whose daughter got married is married to a wheat farmer and they used a lot of wheat to decorate the wedding
with.  The reception was in an awesome barn that has been redone to host events like this.  It was such a refreshing wedding...not everything was perfect but it was beautiful and the focus was to be together and have fun...and we did.  I had a great time driving over to the wedding a few days early with my sister Larinda and her hubby.  We laughed and talked the whole way over...maybe I was the one talking...way too much...they couldn't shut me up.  What a hoot.  Anyway it's good to be back and hope that you enjoy the photos.

Take care,

Meagan

(My Niece and the groomsmen)

(The Creamsicle Truck)


( Isn't this the cutest!)

(Yellow ghost flames)

(The beautiful dashboard )


(In honor of Dr. Seuss...apparently there is a matching yellow trailer too!)