Happy New Blog!

Swept up in all that new year – new decade – new beginnings energy I suddenly got it in my head to begin a new blog.

My colorful adventures are moving to Mixy.Art.Blog

Do come on over, we’ve got another TWELVTY going on 😉

Swept up in all that new year – new decade – new beginnings energy (and even a new moon today) I suddenly got it in my head to begin a new blog.

As you good folks who’ve been with me since the early days know, Ephemeral Gecko began as a place I documented my early mixed media experiments. I never expected anyone to read it, let alone follow along with me over these last eight (crikey!) years.

For a start, would I have chosen such a peculiar name?

(maybe I would)

Anyhoozles.

Having meandered to where I am now, I’m ready to be more purposeful in my online voice. I’m in no rush to remove or delete anything over here, but will be retiring this site.

So join me, will you —

My colorful adventures are moving to Mixy.Art.Blog

This is where I’ll be sharing all my makings and doings in my colorful world.

Beginning with a new year full of color.

YES! TWELVTY is back!!

This year I’m not running it as a formal course, but as an open invitation to anyone who would like to play along. No cost, no commitment – the more the merrier – so do spread the word!

If you get my newsletter you’ll have already seen the TWELVTY Guide (and if you join up here you can get it delivered straight to your inbox now!)

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I look forward to seeing you over at Mixy.Art.Blog where our colorful adventures continue!

Help me make space for art!

Folks, I’m making space to make more weird and wonderful art!

Help me to clear a bit of studio space by offering a home to one of the pieces in my Etsy store. Go on, you know you want to! Everything is 15% off this week, and I can send it to you wherever you are in the world.

15% off all week!

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2018 looked like…

“The thoughts we choose to think
are the tools we use to paint the canvas of our lives.” – Louse Hay

2018’s been a soupy sort of year, it feels like all the days and weeks swirled up together, undefined and drifty. It’s fun to go back and look at these memories I caught as they floated by. It feels like a reset: Ready to begin again.

New year: new art journal. Finding connections, exploring rabbit-holes.

“What the caterpillar calls the end, the rest of the world calls a butterfly.”

– Lao Tzu

Inspired by……………….
Ali Brown
Hali Karla
Michele Theberge
Following the White Rabbit

Re-exploring Watercolor, Birthday weekend in Barcelona. Beginnings.

“You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.”

– Mark Twain

Studio spring-clean, surprise snow, finally spring.

“The chief enemy of creativity is good sense.”

― Pablo Picasso

listening to……………..

“Start Where You Are” – Pema Chödrön
“The Butterfly Effect” – Jon Ronson
“What is the Bible…” – Rob Bell
Reply All Podcast

The start of the 100 Day Project (still a work in progress – watch this space!)

listening to……………..

The Sketchbook Project 2018 (planning 2019’s book already). Painty Paws.

“What if the question is not why am I so infrequently the person I really want to be, but why do I so infrequently want to be the person I really am?”

~ Oriah Mountain Dreamer

Heatwave, Human Design, Resistance, Repeating patterns, Reminders.

“Our job in this life is not to shape ourselves into some ideal we imagine we ought to be, but to find out who we already are and become it.”

― Steven Pressfield, “The War of Art”

listening to……………..

listening to……………..

“Your life is your life.
Know it while you have it.
You are marvellous.
The gods wait to delight in you”

― Charles Bukowski

listening to……………..

The Tiny Book Collaboration, Dying Paper & Fabrics

“The thoughts we choose to think
are the tools we use to paint the canvas of our lives.”

― Louise Hay

listening to……………..

“Do the Work” – Steven Pressfield
“The Untethered Soul” – Michael A Singer
Peak Human Podcast
The Mormon and the Meth-head Podcast

Gustav Klimt in Paris, piles of pebbles in Cyprus. Shavasana.

“Just for now,without asking how, let yourself sink into stillness.
…
Just for now, be boundless, free, with awakened energy tingling in your hands and feet. Drink in the possibility of being who and what you really are – so fully alive that the world looks different, newly born and vibrant, just for now..”

― Danna Faulds

Inspired by……………….
Stasia Savsuk “Change your pants, change your life”
A Small Wardrobe
Frank James
Katwise
Susannah Conway

listening to……………..

Accidental art from my desk, Deliberate art on Etsy. Full circle.

“We’re all just walking each other home”

― Ram Das

Whatever 2018 has brought to you, I wish you a shiny bright new start today. X

You can be first to see what I’m making & what’s inspiring me in 2019 by signing up to my monthly-ish newsletter 🙂

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Dawn

This morning I launched my newest project – a year full of color – “TWELVTY” All as scheduled, 9am my time, so the early wee hours for the cross-pond recipients.

Each month this year has it’s own color: January is yellow, and it’s flooding my thoughts.

It’s the sunrise of a new project.

01yellow-33-copy — each month I’ll be making art in just one color for TWELVTY: yellows gathered in readiness!

The idea came to me just a couple of months ago when I was on holiday. Bumbling about taking photos… as one does.

I notice color everywhere.

I had a moment of profound realisation when I found myself taking photos of a group of tourists emerging from their (red & blue) coach, just because almost all of them seemed to be dressed to match in some shades of red & blue….

I had one of those moments: Do other people see this too?

Like the fish who doesn’t know it’s swimming in water, my ideas have only swum in my mind, I’ve got no comparison unless I step away and try to look in from outside.

I mentioned the tourists & matching coach to someone a few days later – with gushing enthusiasm – but was met with blank nothingness. Not even the edge of a WTF? response I sometimes get when I share arty revelations like this, just a totally empty, disinterested blankness.

That was the moment I knew: I need to connect up with others who see & appreciate what I see & appreciate. My tribe. We need each other.

We need each other in a world of unknown areas of empty, disinterested blankness, a world with WTF? reactions to gushing arty revelations.

We need to reflect back to each other the magic of seeing some crazy spontaneous colour synchronicity, of seeing some beautifully matched chance happening, some little something somewhere that gets overlooked by most but makes our hearts sing just because of its orangeness, or blueness, or purpleypink, or whateverness.

I love how the idea is resonating among the folks who’ve joined already, the excitement bubbling up, and most of all the anticipation of what will emerge from this group as the year unfolds.

12in12in12

It’s going to be bright and glorious and I love it!

Want to make your 2017 brighter and more colorful?

Sign up below for more news on my doings & makings through the year, and get a lovingly hand crafted ebook all about color

…oh, and you can join TWELVTY too !

yearfullofcolorbypenngregory_page_01

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Be well, my friends, Much love to you all X

**********************************

(Your email is absolutely safe with me, I’ll just pop by and check up on it time to time, feed it biscuits, plump up its cushions, that sort of thing.)

Wednesday to Wednesday: phase two.

Imagine. Just imagine… being able to make up your own rules.

Sure, some of the old ones still have to apply: do as you would be done by, two wrongs don’t make a right, gravity, etc. But what about the rest of them? Why ever would we allow anyone else to dictate the hows and the whys beyond these fundamentals?

This morning I was pondering this question.

So much is programmed into our thinking, our knowing, when we’re way too small to offer up much objection. Of if we try to we’re dismissed as not having enough understanding of the bigger picture. Right – like anyone has a mind broad and deep enough to encompass all of that. Our programmers – our significant care-givers, parents, family, teachers, and preferred celebrity heroes (real and fictional) – they’re still too little to get it all too. Everyone is. Even the oldests and the wisests. All of them!

Tomorrow is my birthday, my personal New Year, less arbitrary than January 1st (for those of us born on one of the other days of the year). As I was born on a Wednesday I’m attaching something to the fact it’s a Wednesday again this time round. Although this happens every 5-6 years, I just hadn’t given it much thought until this time.

To celebrate this turn of number, I’m considering making some new rules, some new truths, for this next phase of being me. I haven’t fine-tuned the details yet, but I think that being me is going to be different. Less limited. More fun.

I’m going out for a walk and a think, I’ll tell you more when I’ve mulled over the finer details.

new traditions: on letting go

Happy Solstice

In cultivating something new from something old, today I set some time aside to look back and to look forward.

I’m most especially grateful to Susannah Conway for her Unraveling the Year which has inspired this practice. I first found her online workshop to find a word for the year one year ago (my word for this year was Focus – I have my word for next year, but that’s for another conversation).

Today was a bit of balance in the midst of the mayhem.

a corner of my home, my retreat from the world.

The end/beginning of a year,

all these holidays associated with all these belief groups,

the altogether headfucking climax of consumerism and consumption,

the magic and
the glitter and
the feasts,
the feelings and
tensions and
releases.

All that stuff.

All of it.

All the tradition.

tradition

[truh–dish–uh n]

noun

the handing down of statements, beliefs legends, customs, information, etc., from generation to generation, especially by word of mouth by practice: a story that has come down to us by popular tradition.

something that is handed down.

a long-established or inherited way of thinking or acting.

a continuing pattern of culture beliefs or practices.

a customary or characteristic method or >manner.

blah etc blah ….

So much is ingrained at a young age end passed on by generations.
For so many people.

Not me, not any more, I’ve made some adjustments to my ways, and that’s what I came here to tell you about today.

I don’t hark back to happy sparkly memories of childhood holiday fun. The people I was with at the time are all gone. This isn’t the place for detail – this isn’t a rabbithole of self pity – it’s just the context for what I’m writing about. And a nod to those who feel the same way. We know we aren’t alone, and we know we aren’t supposed to talk about it – it’s something like the emperor’s new clothes thing – if we begin to question why everyone is getting so tangled up in a frenzy of guilt induced consumption and confusion it all could just fall apart before us.

Here’s what I’m doing: I’m making my own traditions.

They are just for me. I don’t have kids, so these aren’t the foundation for any future other than my own. I started this a year ago, and in repeating them they’re evolving into my new traditions. They have meaning. They are a framework and a structure in an otherwise fairly arbitrary layout of days and free-floating lifestyle.

These short days and long nights at the turn of the year are my retreat. Amongst the usual duties of the days, amid the outside chaos, I’m squeezing in some extra time. Time in my home in candle glow, with my books and my music and my thoughts.

Balancing on today’s apex I look out in both directions: Reflecting & Consolidating; Planning & Wishing. Taking time to just soak in my life, look at what I’ve done and felt and learnt since the last time.

Since this time last year I’ve been blessed to meet and share time with some wonderful people who’ve brought me new understanding and genuine heartfelt joy. I’ve uncovered new music, new ideas, new strategies and new wisdoms.

I’ve begun to take better care of this body and soul. Forgiven her indiscretions and daftnesses. Appreciated her well meaning and abilities. Accepted her doings and goings as the best she could have done given what she had and knew at the time. Acknowledged she needs time, she needs peace and she needs rest, I realised no-one but me can allow this.

I’m trying to show her more kindness.

I’ve released a bunch of judgments.

I’m learning to reframe.

Wherever you are in this season, I wish you and your dearests an abundance of wellness and peace. Go gently, dear friends, be love. X

jumping across

I’m not rushing or hustling the old year out, I’m not one to wish my days away, but I am dipping newest thoughts into next month already.

Next month – Next year – Next incarnation of being me in this life.

While I’m indifferent to the big new years fuss that happens around midnight on 31 December, I do love the clean freshness of 1 January every time it comes round.

So much so, I don’t want to guzzle it all in one day, I want to savour it.

My routine, such that it’s becoming, begins toward the end of November and by Winter Solstice it’s up to full speed. Those last 10 days of the year represent the closing up of the old year. Loose ends neatly bundled, filed under the past.

As 2015’s page a week book winds up I’m already sewing the seeds for 2016’s year-sized art challenge.

To kick off I’m going to take on Belinda Fireman’s #selflove365 adventure of a daily 1″ square drawing.

PSWA5CT

I bought a concertina sketch book way back – I think with the intention to take it away on a trip – but either it didn’t go with me, or I didn’t find the time to fill the pages. Either way, it’s fresh and ripe and raw!

It’s already ready to be 2016-ed!

New Wishes for the New Year

Happy New Day folks!

Yesterday (last year) I had a little rant about New Year’s Jumblings. Cos I don’t really understand a lot of it. Cos it doesn’t make sense.

But that was Then. This is Now!

And as I promised, here are the New Wishes I’m beginning my version of 2015 with:

To double the weight I can lift now.

I began weight training 3 months ago. It’s been damned hard, I hurt and ache more of the time than I don’t.

But I get the biggest buzz from it, and have squashed so many mental blocks and phobias along the way already. And I quietly amuse myself with thoughts of how absurd this seems in comparison to my first 4 decades on this planet.

If the previous version of me heard me wish this (even earlier last year), she would have fallen off the sofa laughing. Then asked me what I was on, and could she have some 😉

So, I’m small and flimsy, but I’m doing my best. And my best is (gradually) getting better. (For the record, I’m dead lifting 1/2 my OBW now. Just!)

And in turn my yoga practice is getting stronger and a whole lot less fally-over with my new found sense of balance!

To Live my Art.

Art has always been at my core.

It’s the centre of my being. It’s my purpose. I always knew this.

And for all that long time I dismissed it as frills and extras – when space and time permitted – to getting on with the serious job of not enjoying of life. WTF? Yes, old thinking, bad programming, obsolete life plan.

So if you’ve read my previous witterings you’ll know I embarked on the art school adventure just a few short years ago, and I now plan to move on from art student (my highest ideal when I began) to actual real live artist!

I’m joining the Dirty Footprints 21 Secrets in the Spring. Meanwhile I’ve got my Newest Sketchbook Project to begin today!

Let Go.

Whatever it is, FFS, just let it go!

The tension in my shoulders, the stupid things I did and said, the wanting things to be different from how they are, the wishing those wasted years back, the constant want of approval, congratulation, praise and ego bolstering.

Let it all go.

The need to make everyone laugh. Or think differently from how they are. Or be other than they are. All those judgements, the blame, the remorse, all that past – the whole darned lot of it!

There’s stuff I don’t know if I need to let go of, or persevere with – y’know that quandary? Yup, let that needing to know go too.

If it matters, it won’t go far.

So that’s the essence of my Three Big Wishes.

I also wish you well, as well. Be well, lovely folks! X

Resolutions or Wishes

NY Resolutions with a subtext: I must try harder, be this-er or that-er. I’ll do more of the things I don’t want to and less of the things I enjoy. All those unrealistic, unwanted demands pinned to a future version of self. So often they’re rolled out – same every year – safe in the understanding it’s just empty words that can be consigned to oblivion by the time you go back to the usual routines next week. Do you do this?

Fuck it, yeh? Never really meant it anyway.

And we begin this dramatically different, new phase of life with indigestion, a banging hangover, the tormentful regrets of the hazily recalled night before….

‘did I really say/do that? did that happen? what did happen? …..?’

Cos that makes sense, doesn’t it?

….so it’s just another Wednesday night in my world, then?

Heck NO!

Like the New Moon on the Winter Solstice just 10 days ago, like every New Moon, New Month, Birthday (personal New Year) I like to set New Wishes. It’s punctuation in my life: a pause for consolidation, review, and rev up for the next phase.

Tomorrow I’ll share with you my first Wishes of the New Year.

Meanwhile I wish you all, dearest digital friends, the happiest of beginnings to this new phase. May it bring you abundance and joy beyond you expectations. Love to you all X

2015 in words

I often find I have a word in mind for a period of time – I’ll jot it in amongst diary scribblings. Earlier this year was a period I called transition – it named the phase I was finishing up my studies and also handing over a bunch of my work to someone else. A release of the old and opening to the next – in sure and safe knowledge I had no idea at all what that next would entail! I named other months consolidation, transform, and flow.

Recently I fell across Susannah Conway’s Find Your Word for 2015 which seemed to pick up on this theme I’d unconsciously begun.

The process sets out to imagining and exploring possibilities, dreams, aspirations and desires for the next 12 months. What’s the overarching feel for this year? What’s the biggest wish that will help the smaller wishes come to pass? What’s the magic guidance to hold my hand into the coming year?

Like a few others in the group, no single word that expressed the exact what-I-wanted-ness of it showed up. It was a bit like Stretch, or kinda like Explore, or something…something… that sounds like horizon but not so literal and feels like limitless but phrased in a positive way. So I settled (for now) on the two words: Reach Beyond.

I’ve got ideas, I’ve got aims and targets and goals to strive for and stretch toward but not to be limited by, I want to Reach Beyond them.

Part of the process is using a Pinterest board to gather imagery, memes and themes, words and whatnot, that embody the essence of the word(s) for the new year.

I don’t know where this will go – it might just sit here forever or it might add something to the way the months pan out, I can let you in a year!

It’s a fun and harmonising process – if it sounds like your kinda thing I heartily encourage you to spare some thought, if time allows, what will your 2015 feel like?