We Leaped For the Mechanical Things- Digital Art by Baltimore Artist

I think the human race made a big mistake at the beginning of the industrial revolution. 

We leaped for mechanical things, people need the use of their hands to feel creative.

-Andre Norton

Have a terrific Thursday. The weekend is so close I can taste it.

xo

The Shape of My Reality- Digital Art by Tracey Grumbach

About this image: My latest obsession is podcasts. I still have lingering issues resulting from my the Chronic Lyme infection I have been dealing with since about 2011, including auditory oversensitivity. As a result, I rarely listen to music, especially anything louder than spa or classical music, in the car anymore because it feels like someone is grating off my skin with a cheese grater, only in my ear. I know, that makes no sense to most people, but that is the only way I can describe it. Anyway, since I rarely listen to music and I live in a rural area at least 30 minutes drive to any civilization (read: stores), I have started to listen to podcasts. Things like Brains On! Science Podcast for Kids (when the kids are in the car), TED Radio Hour, The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe, REAL Simple Podcasts, The RobCast, and others keep my brain engaged and my perspectives open while driving in my daily life. What does this have to do with this image?  Good question, glad you asked.

So, one of the podcasts I was listening to from TED Radio Hour was all about our five senses and how humans perceive the world. One of the people that the host interviewed is Issac Lidsky (who was on the show Saved By the Bell years ago!), who lost his sight as a young man. One of his quotes that grabbed me was the following:

You see, sight is just one way we shape our reality. We create our own realities in many other ways. Let's take fear as just one example. Your fears distort your reality. Psychologists have a great term for it - awfulizing, right? Fear replaces the unknown with the awful. When I was diagnosed with my blinding disease, I knew blindness was a death sentence for my independence. It was the end of achievement for me. Blindness meant I would live an unremarkable life, small and sad and likely alone. I knew it. This was a fiction borne of my fears, but I believed it. If I had not confronted the reality of my fear, I would have lived it, I am certain of that.

(If interested, here is the transcript of his section of the podcast.) Seriously, how powerful is that statement? SIGHT IS JUST ONE WAY WE SHAPE OUR REALITY. Let that sink in. We are largely, and some would argue completely, in control of our own reality. We shape our reality based on how our brains receive and process information, how our fears shape the truth, how our backgrounds and experiences form unique-to-us connections in our brains.

So, why then, knowing that each of us is so incredibly unique, can we not respect the uniqueness of our fellow man...lately sometimes even those who we called friends or family before the election? What we all feel is REAL TO US. Why do we have to say the way we perceive the world is right and the way you perceive it is wrong? The fact is, none of us sees true reality...it is all just a picture formed in our brains from our senses! Let's all be nice and get along and respect each other' view even if we don't agree with it.

So, this digital collage was born out of these thoughts...that each of us has our own unique human experience here on earth; that each one of us perceives the world slightly (or greatly) different from every other human being on the earth...and yet we are all still so beautiful and loved (if you believe in our Great Creator like I do.)

Have a listen to the full podcast:  It is very engaging:

Let's all try to be just a little bit more tolerant of differing views. There is no need for name calling, putting down, hysteria, and broken friendships because we are different! The End.

Have a beautifully blessed day.

xo

The Lucky Sisters

Diligence is the mother of good luck.

Benjamin Franklin

I don't believe in luck. I believe in hard work, diligence, opportunity, preparedness, and God's plan. I know many cultures have superstitions surrounding luck, both good and bad, and while I respect these beliefs, I don't subscribe to them.

One thing I do remember regarding luck in my own family is my maternal grandmother constantly looking for and finding 4 leaf clovers in the grass. She was amazing at spotting these anomalies from a full standing position. I remember trying and trying to find one on my own as a child, crouched low over the clover patch, hand brushing through the greenness, eyes darting around searching for the telltale extra leaf and never once finding one. When I would walk away from a patch of clover, my grandmother would step up to it right behind me and within seconds locate one. She was something else. I miss her dearly.

As a child I also owned a rabbit's foot. Despite my 4 leaf clover hunting and rabbits-foot owning, I don't ever remember believing either brought me luck. I never believed that the wish I murmured as I saw a falling star would come true. I was never jealous of the u-shaped horseshoe that hung over my brother's bedroom door. I guess I was a boring, non-imaginative child that carried too much logic in her head. Perhaps, then, that is why I think one makes his/her own luck and there is not some mystical force of magic out there that rewards the ones with cut-off rabbits' feet, four-leaf clovers, and that see falling stars. I didn't believe God would let wrath be brought to someone for simply walking under a ladder or accidentally breaking a mirror. I found it all very strange to believe, indeed.

Do you have any traditions surrounding the idea of luck? I'd love to hear them.

Have a wonderful week, y'all.

xo

I Am Reborn

Each night, when I go to sleep, I die.

And the next morning, when I wake up, I am reborn.

~Mahatma Gandhi

It's so refreshing to know that every day is a new day; a new opportunity to become your best self. What a blessing that we get to renew our faith, continue or change our journey, turn a new leaf, and come closer to our authentic self with each rising of the sun. Night is cleansing. Night is quiet and pure. So thankful that I am reborn each and every time my eyes close and then open again.

xo

Adventure of Perception

Imagine an eye unruled by man-made laws of perspective, an eye unprejudiced by compositional logic, an eye which does not respond to the name of everything, but which we must know each object encountered in life through an adventure of perception.

~Stan Brakhage

No Need to Reach High for the Stars

There is no need to reach high for the stars.  

They are already within you--just reach deep within yourself.

~Terri Guillemets

I read this quote and fell in love with its message. We are always being told to look outside of ourselves for success and wisdom when in fact is always inside of us. I made this digital collage to remind all of us, especially women, to look inward.

See below for a series of progressions through this piece of art work.

Step 1: I took two images from my stock of digital ephemera and layered them, using layer styles and masks to get this:

Step 2: Next, I took an image from my photography library, The Sea Calls Tenderly, and layered it to the above image in the multiply mode. I then adjusted the color and contrast to get it where I wanted it.

Step 3: I layered an aura and a moon to give her a more celestial feel.  She still was not glowing from within, so I moved on to the final step.

Step 4: In the final step I added a star light radiating from the stars within her neck and temple.  Last, I tweaked the color and contrast once more. I finally felt she was finished and represented the quote the way I wanted her to.

I hope you enjoyed this rare look into my digital collage process. Since this was a relatively simple one, comparatively, I wanted to give you a sense of the process since many people ask. My larger projects simply are too complicated or involve too many steps to dictate here.

Have a great Tuesday! 

xo

Surely Woman Rose from the Frothy Sea

"...surely woman rose from the frothy sea, as resplendent as Aphrodite on her scalloped chariot."

Margot Datz, A Survival Guide for Landlocked Mermaids

I am yearning again for the whisper of the sea, the call of the waves lapping on the shore. Vacation is still weeks away and yet I can already taste the brine in the air. There is some sort of watery compass inside my soul that starts to turn and pull me toward the ocean, calling me home, calling me to be where the saline in my blood matches the same percentage of saline in the sea. Surely we came from the sea. Surely we did.

Have a wonderful weekend.

xo

In the Sweetness of Friendship

In the Sweetness of Friendship

In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures.

Khalil Gibran

Inspired by the beautiful vintage photo at the bottom of this post, I created this mixed-technique digital painting. There is something so sweet and special about a friendship between girls and women. It isn't easy to find that person or people that totally get you, who celebrate successes as well as take away the pain of failures. So, when you find her, hold her tight for you truly have a gift. I am often envious of women who have a close relationship with her sister/s. Only having a brother, and growing up closely with two of my male cousins, I never experienced the closeness of a sister (but am so glad I had those three boys to grow up with). It is part of the reason why I wanted to have four kids (and hoped for two of each) so that everyone could have a brother AND a sister. As God would have it, I was blessed to have that happen...I have two boys and two girls.

I hope you love this digital painting as much as I enjoyed doing it. It is a mixture of different brush techniques (the sky is different than the buildings, which is different that the pasture, and the girls.) I used acrylic digital brushes as well as watercolor brushes and a sketching technique. Once I started this one, I had to finish and I stayed up late into the night to do that, unable to sleep until it was completed.

Have a blessed and safe weekend, y'all!  I will see you on Monday for another look at these same girls, but painted in a different way. You'll have to tell me which one you like better ;)

Flicker Commons

xo

Nature's Prayer

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.

~John Muir

Finally found time to complete this digital collage painting. I love John Muir quotes and felt this nicely fit with my praying girl. Hope you enjoy her. xo

Heading out on a real estate shoot and a check up with the surgeon who did my jaw surgery. I am hoping he releases me today so I can be finished with that. I feel much better and am not having pain anymore...just mild numbness that is improving week by week.

Construction continues on my office/studio space. The drywall has been hung and now I am waiting for the finisher to begin. Baby steps forward make me want the space more and more. It will not only be an amazing space for my photography/art studio and business office, it will also serve as a great place to homeschool away from the main living area. Hoping by fall we are all settled in!

Have a wonderful day. Hope you find beauty in today and find a place to pray and play in. Love to all. 

In Common With Jellyfish

We have a huge amount of DNA in common with jellyfish. 

At the deepest level, all living things that have ever been looked at have the same DNA code. 

And many of the same genes.

~Richard Dawkins

interview with Bill Moyers on NOW 12.03.04

I am fascinated with the idea of evolution and DNA and all things nature. When I read this quote and sat back to contemplate it, it really struck me that so many living things, particularly animals, contain such huge amounts of similar DNA.  It would seem that we really are interconnected with the living things here on earth.  I do not discount religion at all in the making of the earth and its inhabitants.  I believe religion tells us who and science tells us how.  For me it is not contradictory to say I see God's hand in the world  every day yet I can also see how evolution occurs.  

The kids and I have been studying Piet Mondrian in art for homeschool and we are also talking about color theory (starting with very basic concepts such as primary, secondary, and complimentary colors). So, this piece was not only inspired by the quote above (I started with a vintage portrait of a man whose beard reminded me of a jellyfish's tentacles) but also by our study of Mondrian.  I wanted the man to still be recognizable as a human, but make him more jellyfish-like in shape. I actually used an overlay of a jellyfish to choose details to pull out of the man's portrait as I worked through this piece.  I stayed with a red, yellow, blue in honor of Piet Mondrian (although on my laptop it looks more orange than I'd like...I'll have to work with the printer to make it print exactly how I want the colors to be) and kept it as minimal as possible yet still retain his distinct features.

I hope you all are having a wonderful Thursday...Friday and the holiday weekend are knocking on the door!  xo

Life Is Not a Spectator Sport

Life is not a spectator sport. If you're going to spend your whole life in the grandstand just watching what goes on, in my opinion you are wasting your life.

Jackie Robinson

Saddle up, folks!  For the first time in a long time I feel like I have the reins back on my life and just like this cowboy above, I am gently guiding it along the path I want it to go. While I am not a spectator in my own life, on the contrary, I am actively working to make things happen that I want to happen, I have trusted God that if I am quiet and listen to my heart, my life will take me in exactly direction that is right for me.  I can not wait to see and experience the beauty that is waiting just ahead!

May your day be filled with the light of joy today, and may you saddle up your horse (or fish) and gently guide your life where you want it to be. Trust your inner voice. Trust the whisper of God.

Have an amazing day.

xo

My Significant Other Right Now is Myself

My significant other right now is myself, 

which is what happens when you suffer from multiple personality disorder and self-obsession.  

Joaquin Phoenix

Self-obsession...In this piece I wanted to visually explore that concept.  What if you were your own biggest fan?  What if you wrote love letters to yourself?  What if you thought you had amazing gifts to offer the world and confidently put forth those gifts to serve others?  Sounds lovely and good, doesn't it?  

Yes, but what if that is all you thought about...yourself? What if your needs always took priority over other's needs?  What if you were unable to think with an open mind because you were in love with your own ideas? The dark side of loving one's self is just one step away, one toe across a thin, obscure line. How much is too much?  

Hope you had a wonderful weekend and a great start to the week.  I had a lovely weekend seeing my son off to Senior Week (biting my nails to the nibs in worry), celebrating my daughter's Sweet 16 birthday, and watching my youngest son play in last baseball game of the season.  This week promises to be difficult as I am scheduled for surgery Wednesday afternoon to repair an infection in my jaw and replace the missing bone with a bone graft.  I am a bit nervous, to say the least.  I am placing my worries in God's hands and trying to remain calm on all fronts.  Easier said than done, but I am trying. I'd appreciate any and all prayers, meditations, and good vibrations you can offer. Thank you in advance.  

Love to all.

xo

Embrace Your Uniqueness

I want to encourage women to embrace their own uniqueness. Because just like a rose is beautiful, so is a sunflower, so is a peony. I mean, all flowers are beautiful in their own way, and that's like women too.
Miranda Kerr

And here we are at Friday again.  TGIF!  Another busy day filled with real estate shoots, a quick drop in to The Gallery at 122 Main, and then back to my home office to edit!  This evening I am looking forward to seeing Dirty Dancing live at the Hippodrome Theater in Baltimore.  Perhaps I will take along my camera tonight to shoot a bit before the show.  Maybe not...I might have my fill of cameras by the time I head out tonight.  We'll see.

I loved this quote by Miranda Kerr.  Uniqueness...what makes you stand out from others?  What gives you that certain beauty that no one else seems to have?  I believe it is a difficult question for most women to answer because our society has pigeon-holed beauty into such a tiny almost unattainable list of traits that have nothing to do with real women.   I think it is interesting that when women are interviewed about what beauty is, they normally will answer with physical characteristics. When men are interviewed about what makes a woman beautiful, many often give internal traits, character traits, as it were, as an answer.  Women are so worried about their outside appearances to impress men, yet most men are looking for good values in a woman.  That is not to say that we shouldn't take care of ourselves and care nothing about our appearances.  It just means that we as women need to give ourselves a break and teach our girls that the inside is way more beautiful than the outside.

I am working hard with my two girls to make them see that clothes, make-up, and physical characteristics don't make a woman beautiful.  It is the inner qualities that shine through that make a woman glow and attract others to be in her company.  It is not an easy battle to fight with all the media bombardment they get from society, but it is a worthwhile fight that begins with me.  I had to change how I saw myself before I could teach my girls to judge themselves by their insides, not their outsides.

For this piece, I was first inspired by the above quote and then I found this vintage photograph to begin working with.  

Next, I colorized her arms and hair in photoshop.  Then I took an image of the flower and merged the two into a collage, painting and merging her body into the shape of the flower.  I didn't like the image quality of the face in this original photo, so I found another vintage photo of a woman that had better image quality and used that to paint the features onto the our flower woman's face.  Once I had everything the way I wanted it, I imported the flattened file into Painter and used oil brushes to paint the overall image.  Back in Photoshop, I then layered the painted file with several textures to create the crackled, texturized image in the background.  I also cloned the middle of the flower and replaced the stars in her headband with the center of the flower since it felt a little Wonder Woman to me with stars.  Next, I tweaked colors, shading, and levels and then it was complete.  I hope you all like it!  

Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!

Thin Air

We move forward, not backward, with crises.  When you are surrounded by crises, use it; it presents the opportunity to experience what some call the "thin air."

~Karen W. Royer in Where Women Create magazine

The thin air...in my head the definition of the thin air experience is that light-headed, slightly panicked feeling of super-awareness we achieve during a crisis situation.  Fight or flight in the modern sense.  It is often times during these stressful moments in life that afford us the priceless opportunity to not only grow and change but also be creative.  Creativity comes from being uncomfortable, it is never cultivated in the status-quo.  Creativity is birthed from movement of mind and sometimes of the body.  Just my deep thought for the day, lol.

This piece was inspired by my calendar.  My mother gave me the most wonderful calendar for Christmas this year and as I walked by it the other day, I stopped to really take in the art that was displayed for April.  It is a drawing of a hot air ballon tethered to a sailing ship tethered to a whale flying through the air in a very mystical and magical way.  It sparked my memory of a vintage image I have been hanging on to of a man in a hot air balloon basket and I knew I had the start of an idea.  The idea of the tethering and flying came from my calendar, but the rest, the butterflies, the bees, the hummingbird, and the cage came from things that I love and tend to lean toward in my art.  Flying...I very frequently come back to flying...it reminds me of a reoccurring childhood dream I would have where I could fly like Peter Pan.  I loved the freedom I would feel in these dreams and as an adult I am still attracted to things that fly.

Detail of Thin Air

I also, in this artwork, wanted to convey the idea that sometimes in life we need help from those around us.  A helping hand, a lift, a little wind beneath our wings from those who love and care about us.  Many days I feel like the man in the basket, being carried along with love from my friends and family.  I am so grateful for them!  Sometimes it is a community effort to keep people aloft during difficult times, and that is what I was aiming for here.

When I make a piece, I screw up a hundred times before I get it the way I want it.  I make so many mistakes, but I don't mind.  I learn so much from making mistakes, that often times they lead me to the discovery of a new technique, a new idea, or a new way of seeing something.  With this piece, I wanted to paint it but every time I did, I ended up hating it.  I liked the straight digital collage 100 times better than any of the painted versions I did, so I stuck with this version.  Hope you like it!

Birds of a Feather

I spent a lot of years trying to outrun or outsmart vulnerability by making things certain and definite, black and white, good and bad. My inability to lean into the discomfort of vulnerability limited the fullness of those important experiences that are wrought with uncertainty: Love, belonging, trust, joy, and creativity to name a few.

Brene Brown

This quote rang so true for me when I read it.  This is what I am trying to do now, as I change and grow into my best self...lean into the discomfort of vulnerability so that I can enjoy the fullness of my experiences.  Being vulnerable was never my strong suit.  I loved portraying the strong, confident woman who could maneuver in tight spots and still come out shining.  The one who always was in control and had it together.  The "I don't need anyone else" philosophy that kept most at an arm's length from knowing the real me.  Yeah, I was really good at that scheme.

The only problem is, all of that was a mask.  Through the past year, with the passing of my father and the diagnosis of my illness, I began a journey of self reflection.  Once I admitted that I was NOT always strong and confident, all the walls shattered and my real self was able to shine through.  I don't like feeling uncomfortable...who does?  But I now know growth can only take place when there are growing pains and growing pains are uncomfortable.  This move from photography to art was and still is uncomfortable and I had to be vulnerable in a whole new sense.  But it was worth the risk...it has paid dividends in the awesome feeling I get when I finish a piece of work.  

Vulnerability...I still don't like it, but I have realized it is my friend.  I was, for sure, a black/white type of person but now, as I change, I am finding there is a lot of beauty in the grays.  During this change, I have found myself flocking, so to speak, to those like minded people who are open to vulnerability and spirituality and introspection like I now am.  It feels like home.  It feels like my tribe.  I finally found where I belong.  I had to tear down the walls myself before I could be content and stand in this space, but here I am.  And I am happy with it.  

Birds of a Feather...so glad I have my flock along with me for this winged dance called life.  So glad you are a part of it too.

xo

Govern the Clock

"I must govern the clock, not be governed by it." ~Golda Meir

A question someone asked me the other day sparked the idea for this piece.  An acquaintance and I were talking about my new eating lifestyle for inflammation control due to Chronic Lyme, and she asked how I could afford to eat organic whole foods all of the time.  How could I afford it financially and also afford it time wise as it takes a lot more time to eat this way because you just can't grab processed foods and go.

My answer to her was, "I can't afford not to...both with time and money."

You see, in my mind it is all about choices.  Yes, organic whole foods cost more.  Yes, it is time consuming to create meals that are healthy.  Yes, it takes more time to grocery shop and read labels.  Yes, it is a pain in the nether region to eat out at restaurants.  Yes, avoiding GMO's seems like a monumental task most days.  Yes, I must think ahead, plan, and pack my own food on outings to birthday parties, events, etc.  Yes, yes, yes!

With that said, our time here on this side of forever, walking this earth is limited.  I want to feel the best I can and take care of this body of mine, that I consider a divine gift from my Creator, while I am living in it.  My change of lifestyle when it comes to eating has allowed me to lose 36 pounds, weighing what I weighed before marriage and kids.  I still have symptoms of chronic Lyme and coinfections, but I can't control those little bacteria swimming in my veins.  I can, however, control my eating as not to feed the bacteria even more.  In my head, this change in eating, that began on August 9, 2014, allows me (at least in my head) to govern the clock so to speak.  I am buying myself time on this earth to spend with my loved ones by eating cleanly.  I may not have the final say on how long I get to roam the earth, but I will be trying to make this body work as best it can for me while I am blessed to be here.

So, "I can't afford not to," was not directed toward referencing money, but time as well.  How do you govern your clock...your time here on earth?  I'd love to hear how you take care of yourself and your families.

About the quote:  The quote for this piece of art is from Golda Meir, the first woman prime minister of Israel.  She was quite the remarkable woman.  After reading her short bio, it became clear to me how far behind the U.S. is in electing woman leaders. It really is sad.  If you'd like to learn more about this amazing woman, click through to the wikipedia article.

About the art:  This piece began as a vintage photo of a lady dressed in her finery.  I collaged in the tiger head, the bird, and the hourglass.  I then digitally painted the completed collage using Corel Painter and Adobe Photoshop CS6.  Then, I took the completed painting and added texture layers, the printed background, and adjustment layers in CS6.  I hope you like it!

On a sidenote, I am still accepting reader questions for a future post.  Just send me a message through the sidebar or go to Nine Acres Designs Facebook page and send a private message.  All questions are welcome, both personal (within limits) and professional!  So far the questions have spanned both areas!  Thanks to those who have already sent some in!

Release

"It is not the end of the physical body that should worry us.  Rather, our concern must be to live while we are alive- to release our inner selves from the spiritual death that comes with living behind a facade designed to conform to external definitions of who and what we are."

~Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

Creating makes me feel alive, connected, understood.  It feels like my natural, native language. It took me until my forties to develop and find the ability to speak that language fluently so that I finally felt comfortable in my own skin...like my soul found the correct place to land.  It feels as if I am speaking for the first time and being understood.

I feel comforted and uplifted and excited as I am layering and searching for what I need to include to visually convey the emotion and feeling flooding within me.  When I am not being creative or not in the process of being inspired by reading, listening to the sounds around me, translating emotion in to visual stimulus, I wither.  After a few days, I am compelled to return and create...sometimes digitally and other times with photography, and still other times with poetry or mixed media art.  The process takes me out of my head and into my heart, where I belong.

I wanted to give a shout out to all the incredibly generous artists from many different realms that share their talent and creations with everyone else to use in our creative endeavors.  Digital mixed media and digital collage artists as well as photographers appreciate all the stamps, brushes, vintage printables, vector images, textures, actions, etc. that are shared within the art community as public domain sources for our creations.  Thank you for your generosity and wealth of talent!

Have a wonderful week!