Balance

So much news from the Studio!  In case you have not seen or heard by one of the various means of communication I've used, it was a busy summer!  I taught Plein Air and Beginning Watercolor at the MAC in Worthington, Sketchbook Journaling and Flowers in Watercolor at the Columbus Cultural Arts Center downtown as well as a summer series in the Studio. 

New also this summer, I began writing for two online art Magazines: Empty Easel and Senior Artist.  I will be contributing every few weeks to Empty Easel with articles that began a several weeks ago on the basics of watercolor. (Click here to read the article.) At Senior Artist I have been writing about Sketchbook Journaling (Click here for the first article, here to read the second, click here to read the third in the series.) and will not be writing for them quite as regularly as with Empty Easel.  A girls got to sleep! 

I published a Facebook Page for my art this summer.  Look for it on Facebook at Michelle Morris Art.  If you LIKE the page it will show in your feed when I post.  The other day I reached and went over the 300 LIKE mark.  Very nice to have so many who are interested in seeing what I do.  Also on Facebook I opened a Daily Sketchworks group.  This is an open group where you can share and see what other sketchers are doing.  Facebook is a fun way to share art with others!  

All this activity has been awesome and new opportunities are a great way to take your creativity to another level.   But all this activity has taught me something.  This girl has learned that even though an opportunity knocks, you don't have to answer the door.  The knock may come again and it may not.  That's the risk.  But I think if I've learned anything from all this new and exciting activity, it's that the art can turn into a by product and not the main reason I do what I do.  To be so busy that I'm not doing MY art makes me unbalanced!  It is only by feeding my own creative spirit that I have the energy and creative life to share with others!

Its pretty basic, so why do I share it?  Because I believe in balance.  I believe that by not honoring what art does for my soul, it's calming quieting effects, the joy and balance the simple act of even drawing a sketch brings to my life, by not honoring that in my life as a part of who I am as a person, well, I cheat myself.  My life is fuller and so much richer with that little sketch today than if I wrote or taught about it forty times.  Don't get me wrong.  Writing and teaching feed my creative side as well and I love them both.  But I think I relearned that you can get lost in good things that take you away from the best thing!  If this blog is for anything, I want it to encourage you to do your ART.  To do it for the love of it.  To do it for you.  Until it becomes such a part of you that you find yourself unbalanced without it!  Go make some art!