Turning a Corner and Climbing Out of that Rut

Sometimes you don't even notice you have fallen into the rut

 until you are just walking along and continuously bumping into it.

 It tends to happen to me every now and then and 

I've learned little tricks to ease myself out of them.

Creative people tend to surround themselves

 with other creative people.

They understand things a little better. 

Less confused looks and high arching eyebrows.

No nagging questions of:

Why would you carry little scraps of paper in your purse

 with a pencil sketch and a word hen-scratched over it in ink?

 What do you mean you lay on your pillow at night and over

 30 painting ideas flash thru your thoughts 

while drifting off to sleep?

 They can look at the multiple cut out doll pattern pieces

 and scraps of fabric thumb tacked to the wall

 and not even blink in confusion. 

Luckily for me, social media forums like Facebook

 have made it even easier to surround myself with other artists. 

You start chatting, talking and sharing photos of your work.
You discuss your art background.

 What medium you like to work in.

 You begin to open up further with each other.

You share what art courses you have taken and

 that you fell madly in love with. 

The courses that left you shaking your head

 in confusion get talked about as well.

By far my best loved aspect of having artistic friends is

 when they share OTHER artistic friends with me.

Have you seen the work of so and so? 

I've been listening to you and think you would really 

enjoy the work of this person I know.

Let me show you this painting that I just bought. 

You are going to be amazed.

Two such artists have been the ones 

pulling me out of my creative rut

 and I can't thank them enough.

They don't even know they have

been working magic within my soul.

I am feeling energized and excited 

like a bolt of lightning has struck me.

A good friend of mine contacted me and

 said you have to see this painting.

I was blown away.

It was a life changing moment for me.

The artist is Misty Mawn.

I had never heard of her work until that painting was shared 

with me and a link to her blog.

Within days, I devoured everything possible I could find on her.

 I read her blog from start to now.

I looked at her Etsy shop.

I was over the moon with happiness when I learned she offered online courses.

Fighting the demons in my head saying we didn't have 

extra money to spend on frivolous self indulging whims,

 I signed up for one of her courses. 

Within days of the first few lessons,

 I signed up for another she offered. 

It's like she has awakened something that

 I didn't even know existed within me.

A side of my creative soul that is so different from

 how I have been creating and yet still very much me.

She also has a book so I ordered that and

 was blessed with 5 prints of her work.

 I can hardly wait to frame and 

hang them in my art studio.

 The little message 

she signed to me inside

 was icing to my cake! ;)

      

 Then I was in the midst of a totally different art course and 

one of the teachers struck such a cord within me.

 Her work makes my jaw drop to the floor.

The artist is Danielle Donaldson.

Once again I found myself consuming every bit of 

information I was able to find on her.

Her website was like no other eye candy I'd discovered.

She too had an Etsy Shop

I found myself sitting at my art table 

surrounded with stacks of watercolor papers

 and tubes of paint. 

Brushes dipped in every 

color of the rainbow.

Playing.

Doodling.

Sketching.

These two amazing artists have opened my

creative soul to new thought processes.

Art mediums that I haven't touched in years

are being dusted off.

I am painting.

I am taking photos.

Poetry is being written.

I have not been this energized about my creative work

in a very long time and I wanted to

say thank you.

THANK YOU

so very much

 for being artists

who share their

 heart and soul

with others.