I am really enjoying blogging, bloggers and Facebook at the moment. Who would’ve thought technology and basic writing & connection could turn into such a powerful way to connect humans around the world? I guess that’s really what it’s all for. Hearing of various other seasons moving along, tasting foods made using recipes from other worlds, seeing families in different places doing similar things, reading about fellow mothers, and artists, and people who get things done, and people with special gifts, and who try to be their best, and who are doing amazing work to help others and save our excellent planet… is so inspiring. Thank you for sharing your pathways.

First I have a picture of the routine, but strangely satisfying, task I am currently in the midst of: going through my Art Cards, sorting and counting, making sure I know what’s there. To the right you can see my prize, The Guerilla Art Kit, from Jodi and Emme and Joyful Girls. (I told the first of those stories here. By the way, I have plans for my next guerilla art act. Will tell you all about it another time, dearly beloveds). I have spared you the sight of the rotting capsicums which are now in no way edible for humans.

To do a bit of a catch up, specially for some of the newer ‘likers’, I would like to show you some of my previous writing, does that sound ok? I’ll be surprised if anyone, even from earlier on, has read every single one of these posts.

One time I wrote about when I made an animation for the SALA (South Australian Living Artists) Festival, and a shining silver toilet building got built right where I was planning for it to be projected from (the whole saga is there) and then came to terms with it, and bloomed where I was planted!

I discovered there are quite a few posts in which I philosophise and extrapolate. Like recently when I was sick and sluggish and confused and got some help and changed my diet and had lots of epiphanies, or when I mulled over the benefits of having birds almost strip the trees of fruit last summer. I still like this one in which I totally philosophise about stilt walking as a metaphor for life. There is a post about pink things and one with what lino printing teaches me about life. There were some mid-length posts like the one in which I describe the various false starts of an apparently simple knitting project.

Along the way I have had a couple of Mothers Day competitions, shared some linky love and written some very short posts. Like the ones in which I thanked my customers for being green, pondered over a scrawled note with a surprise message, wrote a short list of new resolves or had a very short green rant with a red tomato. A short piece in which I philosophise about birds, compare their actions to ours, and survival on earth, is here.

Hope this gave you an idea of where I’ve been, and I look forward to getting to know you guys, too.

Have a wonderful week, being you,
Meg x o

I hope you have had a beautiful week of life since we last spoke Here are some snippets that I got a kick out of, maybe you will too!

Live Bold List 17: 6 Favourite Moments of the Week

1. Proprioception Moment of the Week. I can do a handstand for a micro second. I am getting to know the feeling of being in the right place. While up-side-down, obviously. Freaky, huh? (In truth this was dozens of proprioception moments over several sessions.)
2. Concert Laugh Moment of the Week. I went to a wonderful concert, by Thirsty Merc. Here’s a song of theirs, called Someday Someday; this is an acoustic style version, the concert was with amplification. Imagine, if you will, the entire crowd singing along perfectly to not only the catchy chorus, but the deliciously insistent wordiness of the verses of this song! Classic.
   
   It was a brilliant concert. I would go again in a flash. (Also see item 4).
3. 2 Parcels Arriving Moment of the Week. Mmmm… parcels! My Guerilla Art Kit (a book by Keri Smith) arrived from The Joyful Girls – happeee! Lots of spreading of art and fun shall ensue. (Also see item 5). The other parcel was… new art cards! Hooray! My new artwork has been printed onto greeting cards. (See item 6). It’s always exciting to see how a new picture looks on a card. The same, but different.
4. Favourite Attitude Comment of the Week: I mentioned to a friend about the Thirsty Merc concert (see item 2). She replied: “OMG! I love that guy! He is so himself!” What better comment could you possible make about anybody. I smiled all day.
5. First Guerilla Art Act Moment of the Week. (Also see item 3).
6. Large Amount of Behind the Scenes Work Comes to Fruition Moment of the Week. My Greeting Card page is now up to date. (See item 3). This took a while, but it is done Wanna see?

Have a week of being as ‘you’ as you can. Have fun. Talk to me in the comments or on my Facebook page if you want
Love Meg x o

Above: Another potential use for Tupperware containers - it's my pallette!

I would love to introduce some additions to my blogroll! Yey, new friends!

Check out Juli Cady Ryan’s art blog, Finding your Inner Butterfly. She showcases her own dreamy illustrative artwork, and also shows work of some of her own favourite artists from various places around the web. Here is a link to Juli’s blog displaying another artist whose work I like, Erika Husselmann.

The Found Art Project blog by Emme. What a beautiful, positive idea: people offer art, quotes, poems and small stories suitable to print onto A4 size paper. We all download and print the artworks, and spread the joy by distributing, guerilla style… on a community pin up board, tucked into a park bench or bus stop seat, in a borrowed book, or somewhere else harmless and unexpected. Here’s a really cool recent Found Art Project post, with lots of numbers in it.

If you go on Facebook, visit the Joyful Girls; I came across them via the Found Art Project. They were doing a give-away together. Did I mention I won a give-away prize? To enter we left comments with Random Acts of Kindness and I won a Guerrilla Art Kit. I will totally tell you about that/show you pictures when it arrives in the mail.

Lisa King is a multi-talented human, to whom I was also introduced through the Joyful Girls. She plays music, is recording her adventures with vegan eating and even has an etsy shop: Sew Lucky.

Fellow cat fanciers… the Simon’s Cat films are animated short films that perfectly capture feline wiles and manners. Thanks Desba for the name, it enabled me to source this. This is part of the introduction from the British Comic Show, where the creator will be a guest speaker:

Simon’s Cat is an animated cartoon series created by English animator Simon Tofield. Best known for its humorous observations of cat behaviour and simple black and white presentation, the series has now amassed over 65 million views on YouTube alone.

A favourite among cat-lovers, the series differentiates itself from many previous cartoon cats by having no dialogue, relying purely on visual comedy and situational familiarity to engage and entertain.

Free stuff – sweet!

If you are after simple quick recipes, in fact 5 ingredients and merely 10 minutes, you can download a free recipe book from Stone Soup. Go to the blog post and scroll down to the download link.

Nathalie Lussier is a living example and very informed expert on eating completely raw foods, or just converting some of your diet to raw. You can sign up for ‘feeds’ (haha) and info, ‘like’ on Facebook, or get various downloads. Visit Raw Foods Witch and scroll down to Raw Vegan Dessert Recipes and click on the download link for “28 Desserts You Can Eat Everyday”. Lots of good ideas there!

Incidentally, do you like the new flowery background here at the blog?

I hope you have a wonderful, warm, creative week,
Meg x o

How are you? I hope you have had a colourful, comfortable, happy, productive, delicious week!

Just look who has been watching over me whilst I do the artwork for the new Rock and Roll Music Lesson Plans!

None other than Princess Leia playing a one sixth (not to be confused with a one Sith-th) Elvis guitar. She seems a relevantly qualified guardian angel for the job, don’t you think? If you are a Music Teacher of around Junior High level, or know one, perhaps you could link them up with my wonderful friends Kevin and Janice at the Fun Music Company site, Music Teachers blog or on Facebook. Or with the Rock and Roll Music Lesson plans themselves? This is a great series of lesson plans, and builds on the Instruments of the Orchestra and Great Composers modules, as well as lots of other great downloadable music teaching resources, including theory books and tons of printable games. I have learned a great deal being involved with the development of these games/resources and their graphics. Full disclosure: Yes, I do benefit it you buy the items!

In other news, my lovely husband has shown me a website associated with the hilarious TV show The Big Bang Theory, called Sheldon’s Shirts, that offers links for shirts, belt buckles and other cool, nerdy-type stuff similar to what they wear/use on the show. There is even now a page of officially licensed shirts made FROM the show – go check it out if you are a fan. SheldonShirts are on Facebook, too. We’ve been watching The Big Bang Theory lately and I can’t wait for the new season/s.

Write to me in the comments section or on my Tangerine Meg Visual Artist page if you are a Big Bang Theory fan. I would love to know I have company!

Have a week so happy it’s as if it were your birthday!
Lots o love,
Meg

Much chaos this week at my place, with one family member now being sans appendix.

I have nevertheless somehow managed to start the Super Art-Scanning Fest I mentioned… and I bring you 2 new art Tshirts! The fancy hippy necklaces are not included. Rather, they are brought to you as invented accessorising suggestions by me, with the help of ‘Photoshop’ and ‘Illustrator’ magic! To buy, click the photo, which will take you to the preview page where you can try out different colour and style shirts.

The Green Leaf ‘T’
Note: Not, in this case, green leaf Tea – another wonderful thing, but different!

Whilst out running, I retrieved some fallen autumn leaves from the ground to try to paint -yoink! I am not really sure why this one fell, as the tree hadn’t gotten around to taking the chlorophyll back yet! I love the fresh green, it seems to enliven a lot of flattering Tshirt colours.

Four leaves, no weddings and no funerals

I composed this layout in my head as I continued my run, thinking it could make a good greeting card design. After previewing that the outcome is: hmm, not so much… BUT I think it looks pretty good for a unisex Tshirt design – this would look cool on its own, or under a jacket or a waistcoat, and clearly goes well with hippy jewellery too!

If you would like to put some more thought into things with four leaves, like lucky clovers, here’s a link to a new blog post by Christine Kane, which meant a lot to me this week when I was learning how best to be helpful to the member of my family who needed to be in hospital. My favourite part is:

… it is imperative that we learn to inhale deeply, to allow praise, to be special, to nourish ourselves, to feed ourselves, to absorb the abundance of love that is out there for the taking.

Often we are so busy giving and coaching and befriending and serving – that we lose sight of the simple truth that energy is meant to flow.

Big sigh. Smile. Did anybody else need a reminder?

Take care of yourself, and also accept care that is offered to you.
Have a wonderful week,
Love Meg x o

I hope you have had a wonderful week (or several weeks as the case may be!). After a technical hiccup that turned into 2 weeks of down-time, I have been happily busy. It’s time to write an appreciative list of Things that are Stripey and fun. This list is going to need to be abundant with pictures, isn’t it? WARNING: Images to follow may induce visual overload!

Live Bold List 16: For the Love of Stripes

1. Black and white striped leggings. My new happy pants An instant mood lift ensues upon donning. How do you like the beautiful matching World Wildlife Fund Tshirt that I found to go with them? I am pretty sure that zebra is smiling.
2. Tops. Oh so many stripey tops. Op Shops are often great places to find them. As with the leggings, wearing stripes is a good way to enliven a drab autumny-wintery day.
   
3. Stripey Cat. I finished painting another 2 prints of him today. Soon his Edition (note: on the Even Better Paper) will be ready for sale – hooray!
4. Scarves. The soft gorgeous stripes of knitted wool.
5. Bowls and plates. Stripes around a circle. If you look into the bowl at the reflections, you can see me taking the photo against the blue sky of this afternoon
   
6. Stripey Socks. Of course! Somedays with sparkly flower sandals and somedays not.
   
7. The song Straight Lines by Silverchair. I am not sure what it’s about – stripes? – but I love having it in my iPod when I go for a run!

This next week I will be having a massive Scanning Fest, so I will get to show you the latest art I have been working on! There are leaves, trees, colour, colour, colour and guess what else …? STRIPES Hooray!

I would like to leave you with my favourite quote of the week (it’s probably last week now, with all that delay due to technology trouble) from Bridget Pilloud (in her post Steppin Out of the Wierdo Box):

… normal stopped existing about the second day on this planet

Whew! That’s a relief, isn’t it?

May your world be enriched with lots of lovely stripes,
Tangerine-striped Meg x o