Listen to your Heart and Trust in your decisions.

Everything we have in life comes because of our belief that they are possible.

Yet, believing in yourself sometimes is much easier said than done.

So I have done a little research and come up with list of things that we should all try to do to maintain a healthy belief in ourselves.

1. Make a list of your past accomplishments.
2. Talk to people who love you. 
3. Set realistic goals for each day. 
4. Be persistent.
5. Connect with people. 
6. Build yourself up – practice positive thinking. 
7. Find ways to keep moving forward – never allow yourself to be stuck in a rut.
8. Be proactive – don’t put off to tomorrow what can be done today
9. Focus on the positive
10. Practice speaking up for yourself.

 

If we try and address these ten points each day, we will be unstoppable!

So join me on my journey. then we can all Listen to our hearts and Trust in our decisions.

 

 

Skim over life’s worries like a dragonfly over water, with elegance and beauty.

I created this Inspirational Image to address the fact that many of us worry too much.

They say that a little worry is healthy; it keeps us thinking ahead and helps us prepare to work around unexpected misfortune. However, when you worry too much, you make your whole life miserable and burden yourself with a lot of unnecessary stress.

Why do we worry? At its root, worrying is often a fear of uncertainty. Various studies have ascertained and it was found that worriers agonised about matters that rarely occurred. However, the majority of participants reported they believed ‘ over-thinking’ about a possible negative event had helped prevent it from taking place.

Worry is something that many people experience. It’s not the same as thinking. Thinking leads to solutions. Worrying leads nowhere. Thinking leads to action. Worrying leads to nothing. Thinking leads to relief. Excessive worrying leads only to powerlessness, tiredness and exhaustion.’

Worries have the unpleasant habit of entering your head and not leaving; thoughts go round in circles and in the end make mountains out of molehills.

Exercises to combat excessive worry can include learning to concentrate on an activity such as a hobby, reading, listing to music, daily exercise or simply concentrating on your breathing.

I used the image of dragonflies skimming over water for this inspirational image: Skim over life’s worries like a dragonfly over water, with elegance and beauty.

Dragonflies have been on earth for more than 300 million years. Their flight is so special that it has inspired engineers who dream of making robots that can fly like dragonflies. They hover and skim over water with elegance and dexterity.  Because dragonflies are so fascinating to watch, it is impossible to worry – their beauty calms the viewer and washes away their worries.

I sure this image, nicely framed, on the wall in the bedroom or in the home or office will remind us that we should seize the day and expel unnecessary worry.

Mondays Joke of the Week – How to make a Gold Fish old

Hi again. Here is Monday’s Joke of the Week.to start your week off on a happy note.

 

Inspirational and Positive Posters – new growing trend.

 

 

 

 

In today’s busy world it seems that Inspirational and/or Positive Posters are a new growing trend as a method of self-help. Inspirational posters are very much here to stay as a daily tool for happiness. It makes sense because in today’s non-stop, hyper-active world and it’s often hard to find time to read an inspirational self- help-book — but you can always find time to read an inspirational poster.

There are many ways we can change negative thoughts and self-criticism to more realistic and positive thoughts. Focusing on all of them at once may be overwhelming, but focusing on a few at a time and reminding ourselves of these positive approaches regularly can change our self-esteem.

To this end I have now added Inspirational Quotes superimposed on my art as a downloadable print.  A downloadable print enables people to have their chosen image printed in any size and on any medium – such as heavy-duty watercolour paper, canvas or paper.  They can also print the image more than once.

I list here some Positive Thought Strategies that we should always try to embrace in our daily lives:

Accentuate the positive.

Accept flaws and being human.

Accept imperfections.

Replace criticism with encouragement.

Don’t feel guilty about things beyond your control.

Don’t feel responsible for everything.

Do feel responsible for your feelings.

Treat yourself kindly.

Give yourself a break.

Choose the brighter side of things.

Forgive and forget.

Focus on what you CAN do, not what you can’t.

 

Using just one or two of these strategies on a regular basis can greatly increase your positive self-image and self-esteem.

So please visit https://www.etsy.com/au/shop/ArtiSueBee and browse my Inspirational images.   Let us know what you think of them.

Freddie’s Monday’s joke of the week

My friend Freddie wants to present Monday’s Joke of the Week.

The large sign at the Zoo warned visitors not to scare the ostriches. The floors are concrete!

OUCH!

 

 

 

Dangers of Swimming at Night

I live by the ocean and the inspiration for this poem and painting was an article in the local paper about a tourist to the Gold Coast who went swimming late one night after a celebratory night-out in Surfers Paradise.

It is important to always respect the ocean both during the day and at night.

Dangers of swimming at night.

An ocean is a world of its own

A mystery, an unknown zone

Wonder at its undiscovered depths

Respect and love its strength.

The ocean gives , the ocean takes

Upon shores its endless waves break

We sail upon, we fish, we play

Sun shines on blue throughout  the day.

At night, we swim for fun

No fear,  let  inhibitions run

Who cares what lurks beneath,

Way down, down in the deep.

However danger goes before.

Check who’s watching the shore

Swim in close don’t go too far

Good morning sunshine.

Good morning sunshine

Your radiant rays welcome the day

Orange hues chase night skies away

Your warmth revives life anew

Caress the sky into hues of blue.

Good morning sunshine.

Flowers and buds seek out your light

Morning birds celebrate with songs so bright

Each morning let us praise with voice

Contemplate and reverently rejoice

Giver of life – good morning sunshine.

 

The photograph of this beautiful sunrise was taken this week on my early morning walk.  The photo has been digitally altered to make it an interesting image.

Last 2 Methods in the series 24 Ways to make Art

Writing:  the art of telling stories only with words

Writing is a medium of human communication that represents language through the inscription or recording of signs and symbols. In most languages, writing is a complement to speech or spoken language. Writing is not a language but a form of technology. Within a language system, writing relies on many of the same structures as speech, such as vocabulary, grammar and semantics, with the added dependency of a system of signs or symbols, usually in the form of a formal alphabet. The result of writing is generally called text, and the recipient of text is called a reader. Motivations for writing include publication, storytelling, correspondence and diary. Writing has been instrumental in keeping history, dissemination of knowledge through the media and the formation of legal systems.

As human societies emerged, the development of writing was driven by pragmatic exigencies such as exchanging information, maintaining financial accounts, codifying laws and recording history. Around the 4th millennium BCE, the complexity of trade and administration in Mesopotamia outgrew human memory, and writing became a more dependable method of recording and presenting transactions in a permanent form. In both Ancient Egypt and Mesoamerica writing may have evolved through calendrics and a political necessity for recording historical and environmental events.

Gold-smithery, silver-smithery, and jewellery, the art of creating jewels:

Jewellery or jewelry consists of small decorative items worn for personal adornment, such as brooches, rings, necklaces, earrings, and bracelets. Jewellery may be attached to the body or the clothes, and the term is restricted to durable ornaments, excluding flowers for example. For many centuries metal, often combined with gemstones, has been the normal material for jewellery, but other materials such as shells and other plant materials may be used. It is one of the oldest type of archaeological artefact – with 100,000-year-old beads made from Nassarius shells thought to be the oldest known jewellery. The basic forms of jewellery vary between cultures but are often extremely long-lived; in European cultures the most common forms of jewellery listed above have persisted since ancient times, while other forms such as adornments for the nose or ankle, important in other cultures, are much less common. Historically, the most widespread influence on jewellery in terms of design and style have come from Asia.

Jewellery may be made from a wide range of materials. Gemstones and similar materials such as amber and coral, precious metals, beads, and shells have been widely used, and enamel has often been important. In most cultures jewellery can be understood as a status symbol, for its material properties, its patterns, or for meaningful symbols. Jewellery has been made to adorn nearly every body part, from hairpins to toe rings, and even genital jewellery. The patterns of wearing jewellery between the sexes, and by children and older people can vary greatly between cultures, but adult women have been the most consistent wearers of jewellery; in modern European culture the amount worn by adult males is relatively low compared with other cultures and other periods in European culture.

The word jewellery itself is derived from the word jewel, which was anglicized from the Old French “jouel”, and beyond that, to the Latin word “jocale”, meaning plaything. In British English, New Zealand English, Hiberno-English, Australian English, and South African English it is spelled jewellery, while the spelling is jewelry in American English. Both are used in Canadian English.

In formation sourced from Wikipedia.

Continuing with 15th and 16th ways to Make Art

Body art, which uses the human body for expression as canvas, like tattoos or make-up

Body art is art made on, with, or consisting of, the human body. The most common forms of body art are tattoos and body piercings. Other types include scarification, branding, subdermal implants, scalpelling, shaping (for example tight-lacing of corsets), full body tattoo and body painting.

Body art is also a sub-category of performance art, in which artists use or abuse their own body to make their particular statements. More extreme body art can involve mutilation or pushing the body to its physical limits.

In more recent times, the body has become a subject of much broader discussion and treatment than can be reduced to body art in its common understanding. Important strategies that question the human body are: implants, body in symbiosis with the new technologies, virtual bodies, among others.

Photography, the art of capturing a moment in a film or a computer file
unlike any other visual image, a photograph is not a rendering, an imitation or an interpretation of its subject, but actually a trace of it.  No painting or drawing, however naturalist, belongs to its subject in the way that a photograph does.  It’s a positive way of looking at one of the differences between traditional art and photography. A photograph captures a moment in time in its actuality, whereas something like a painting or drawing, however accurate is essentially a rendering of whatever the artist chooses to see.   But can photography itself ever be described as an art form?

I do believe that some photography can be viewed as art. If you take a close look at landscape and portrait images, you’ll often see the influence of paintings. Photographers often mimic the setup of groups of people in paintings into their own portraiture, along with the interesting expressions and moods that said painters have captured. So, before many of us have even pressed the shutter, the influence of art is apparent in photographic work.

The sort of photography that is viewed as art is the kind of work that has clearly had thought put into it, and in which both technical and artistic skills is evident. The most stunning portrait and landscape shots have clearly not just been ‘snapped’ with a camera phone.

Photographs where time has been taken to get the correct lighting, whereby possibly hours have been spent getting the set up right, a relationship with the subject has been established and is evident in the final result – these images are art.

There is a skill involved in taking images that speak to the viewer and provoke a reaction in them that’s no different to the reactions evoked by art.

So yes, in the right circumstances photography is an art form. And it’s an art form that takes skill, artistic ability and an understanding of technology. It deserves its place on the artistic forum.

Extract from article by: Jo Plumridge http://contrastly.com/photography-art-form/

Method Nine and Ten of 24 ways to create Art

 Comic writing, the art of telling an story with drawings and scripts
A cartoon is a form of two-dimensional illustrated visual art. While the specific definition has changed over time, modern usage refers to a typically non-realistic or semi-realistic drawing or painting intended for satire, caricature, or humor, or to the artistic style of such works. An artist who creates cartoons is called a cartoonist.

The concept originated in the Middle Ages and first described a preparatory drawing for a piece of art, such as a painting, fresco, tapestry, or stained glass window. In the 19th century, it came to refer to humorous illustrations in magazines and newspapers, and in the early 20th century and onward it referred to comic strips and animated films.

Dance, the art of moving, either with music or without it

Dance is the art of movement of the body, usually rhythmically and to music, using prescribed or improvised steps and gestures. “A dance” is any one prescribed sequence of such movements, or the music to which it is performed, or an event at which it takes place. Dance may also be regarded as a form of nonverbal communication recognisable in other animals; in bee dances and behaviour patterns such as mating dances.

Dance can be categorized and described in various ways. It may be analysed purely by its choreography, its repertoire of movements, or it may be classified according to its time or place of origin. Yet study reveals many generic similarities in many different times and places.

Martial arts kata are often compared to dances, and sports such as gymnastics, figure skating and synchronized swimming are generally thought to incorporate dance.

In formation sourced from Wikipedia.