It's raining here in southern California and I hear that's unusual but since we just moved to the west coast a few months ago I have nothing to compare it to. So I am taking advantage of this gray Sunday to formulate my plans for blogging.

I had considered starting a whole new blog based only on poetry and calling myself the Zen Poet but that presented a few problems. First of all I would lose all the art I've posted here and second it would limit what I could include. So I've decided to stick with this blog because I can write about poetry and art and just sort of follow my heart. I hope to have more informative posts and to blog more frequently.

Today's post is about stepping out of my comfort zone in relation to art. I typically have a simple style with soft colors or neutrals and not too many layers on my pages. Doing many layers in one piece just never appealed to me. But I began taking some online courses with Mimi Bondi, an Australia based artist whose book "No Shenanigans" inspired me to get creatively uncomfortable. There are e-classes that match each chapter of the book and Mimi is an amazing teacher. Her free youtube videos are amazing and very accessible and I recommend them.

These are two new journal pages that I created with guidance and inspiration from Mimi. I'm not totally pleased with them but I am pleased with the stretch I made to work in new ways with paint and ideas. I even managed to let my fingers do the painting and get pretty messy in the process!

I encourage you all to step outside of your comfort zone and create something using new materials or techniques and if you have't made an art journal page or painted the way you did when you were a child I certainly encourage you to try it out. It's lots of fun and it makes a rainy Sunday brighter and more colorful.