Gosh, I have really been taken with the PBS Masterpiece Theater miniseries production of Downton Abbey. I am so loving this British period piece drama. I love the visuals, the dresses, the hats, the writing, the acting, the music! It’s all so heavenly!

The series is set in a fictional place called Downton Abbey at the Yorkshire country house (filmed at the real life Highclere Castle) of the Earl and Countess of Grantham. It’s a fictional story about the lives of the aristocratic Crawley family and their servants during the reign of King George V. And though I’ve had to look up words like entailed, dowager and valet (equivalent to a Lady’s maid, not valet parking), I just love the story and drama of it all.

The series begins in the year 1912 and the sinking of the Titanic taking with it, the two heirs to Downton Abbey. They were cousins to the Earl of Grantham, one of which was betrothed to Lady Mary, the eldest of Lord Grantham’s three daughters. Lady Mary cannot inherit Downton because she is a woman. (Geez… seriously) So they have to find a new heir so as to not break the “entail” and so a distant male cousin is found. And then the drama begins…

This is Lord Granthan played by the British actor Hugh Bonneville.

And this is the new heir to Downton Abbey, Matthew Crawley (I want to marry him).

These are the Crawley sisters, Lady Edith, Lady Sybil and Lady Mary.

Matthew and Mary are smitten with each other, but she’s undecided about marriage… so he bolts.

This was a scene from the “garden party”. Don’t you just LOVE the dresses, the hats, the gloves! They even have a historical advisor on the set.

You can view some of the other characters here. This miniseries is written by Julian Fellowes of Gosford Park fame. Loved that movie too. Great NY Times article about him here.

You can watch episodes online at PBS for free. Nothing like a British drama for a Winter distraction! Season 2 started a couple of weeks ago and they have brought World War 1 in the drama. Hysterical to watch the aristocrats trying to cope with their dinners when many of the servants are going off to war.

Hope you enjoyed my Downton Abbey post. Sorry I have my comments closed because of bad malware attacks… grrrrr.  Happy January!

xoxo Valerie

All photos copyright PBS.

I let out a painful moan when I saw this news online that Steve Jobs had passed. Like everyone I knew he was ill and had stepped down from Apple a few months ago. But it was still a shock. You hope and pray that people are going to be able to overcome their illness. I have been using apple computers my entire career. I’ve always jokingly said that Apple is not just a computer… it’s a religion! What an incredible contribution one man made to the world and technology. He was be missed. And who knows what other contributions he would have made to the world if he had lived longer…

I love this inspiring quote of Steve’s that has been circulating online. It is from his commencement speech given at Stanford University in 2005.

He really was a living legend. I cannot even imagine my life without my apple computers. The first computer on the market was the Macintosh Classic. And I remember it. Do you?

I love these cartoons in response to Steve’s passing. The only problem is that Steve Jobs was a Buddhist and not a Christian. I think they are entertaining none the less. You can find more over here.

Thank you for all of it Steve! I miss you already.

Steve Jobs: images

Steve Jobs: cartoons

Hello all and Happy October!  Geez… I have been away tooooo long on my sweet blog here! I am going to try to catch up and post and share some things from the past few months over the Summer. How was your Summer? Mine was just awesome and I already miss it. Though I do love the Fall season! Pumpkins, autumn leaves, apple cider and Halloween!

I have been working on some paintings, but nothing to show you just yet. I really just had to do a post to get back into this blogging habit! I miss all my blogging friends and my tribe! Last month I decided to take this very cool online class! We’re halfway through and it was been really good. I’ve been wanting to do this one for awhile and I needed some inspiration and motivation. So I decided to jump into this dreaming challenge… and I’m dreaming big!

Also, I have been struggling on my blog over the past several months with this problem! I had no idea this existed until I was spammed, phished and my blog was hijacked by it. Fortunately my web guy Jared was able to get the malicious software out of my blog. The downside is that I am turning off comments for now. Seems like that’s how they got access to my blog. Even though I had the Captcha security code, spammers were still taking the time to submit a comment. Ugh! I wish people would try do good in the world instead of evil…sigh. Anyway, I’m back. I hope you are well and life is being good to you!

Can’t wait to share pics of my new art with you soon!

Happy Easter everyone! Just wanted to send some Easter wishes your way to you and your family and hope that you’ve got your Easter eggs and jelly beans ready. I use to LOVE coloring Easter eggs when I was a kid! Obviously the artist in me… any opportunity to create and use color.

My newest obsession continues to distract me… though I have started a couple new paintings. I am loving these new painting ideas and I can’t wait to share them with you when I am finished.

In the meantime I would like to share some images from this site because there is such “visual goodness” over there, that I could honestly just sit and look at photos all-day-long…  You’ll find…

lots of images of dreamy… romantic bedrooms…

and bathrooms…

inspirational images…

lovely words of wisdom…

magical places to visit…

home offices to swoon over…

and lot’s of cleaver ideas!

I just love the “sharing” and the pure inspiration — of it all on this site. You can build up your own inspiration boards and keep so many lovely images in one spot. Like I said… all-day-long!  LOL!

Happy painting… happy creating.. and Happy Easter!

all images: here

So I’ve come across the name of this blog?…group?… practice?.. a few times now but could not seem to follow through with finding out who was behind it and what it’s all about. Then this morning, I saw my Flying Friend, Elizabeth mention it here. It’s a blog called The Blue Chair Dairy by Sophia and she calls today Sunday Sketches… and it’s exactly what I need right now. I’m feeling so overwhelmed with work, commuting in this traffic, some family things going on and efforts to clear some clutter out of my home and life. I talked about my whole clutter cleanse here!

I just absolutely LOVE Sunday mornings… and I always keep my sketchbook on my coffee table… so I’m going to try to make it a practice to just sketch something every week to share. This feels so much more manageable than trying to complete a whole painting right now. Which honestly feels like trying to paint the Mona Lisa. Which by the way, took Leo — 4 years to paint… not to mention that he didn’t finish it and oh ya by the way he died while painting it…  OK, that all seems a little too dramatic, so back to sketching…

Just quiet, Sunday morning sketching, no pressure, make it fun… watch the birdies… have some coffee… r-e-l-a-x! Geez why do we put so much pressure on ourselves with this whole art thing? It’s suppose to be fun isn’t it!

So the sketch above was actually done many months ago but I wanted to share it anyway. Mostly because I don’t have anything new yet. Also, so you can see that artists “sometimes” have a plan with what we paint…  And I already finished the painting, which is below. When I am in the “painting zone” I often get words that come with my art. I think this developed from my years of concepting ad campaigns and creating headlines with the visuals.

The words say:  ”She Loved the Sea. But she dreamed of butterflies and daisies.” The final painting is 20″ x 20″ and I still think I may do some tweaks to it like putting a starfish or shell in her hands and adding some yellow fish in the background. This was one of my first paintings that I was really happy with and finally seeing “my style” starting to emerge.

So what are you sketching today?

I came across this quote recently by Winston Churchill and I just LOVE it! It says it all doesn’t it… all this dreaming and doing! Just when I was feeling kinda spent with so much working, commuting, shoveling [more] snow and …feeling like my dream left the building and went to Cancun for an extended Spring Break, I came across this quote.

It felt like the universe just laid it on my path…in front of me, to give me a little boost from where my thoughts were going. I don’t know about you, but all of this blogging, posting, tweeting and now my newest obsession “pinning” has me completely tuckered out. I can’t keep up with all of my friends in cyberspace… sigh! Add in working and commuting and all of the normal house chores and… arrruuugghhh!

How do we do it all? And when do we find time to create? I’ve got get this —>  book to help me with my new work schedule. And mommies! How the heck do they do it all with little ones…? Yikes!

So my new plan is to get completely organized and cleaned… as in Spring cleaning! I am clearing out the c-l-u-t-t-e-r and anything that distracts me. I may have to buy this book above, Lighten Up by Peter Walsh for some continued inspiration! I’m having the need to have things completely neat and organized. So I have been going thru closets and boxes and bookcases… purging. Keep  - Donate – Throw is my new mantra! If I don’t love it, it’s not staying in my space. I haven’t had a good purge like this in years!

And truth be told… I am a bit of a hoarder. OK I said it out loud. When I watched that show Hoarders on A&E… well that was something that seemed to cross-over into mental illness. Though I “could relate” to some of the people and how they rationalized wanting to keep things…LOL!

The last time I did this kind of a purge, I was reading the book, Creating Sacred Space with Fung Shui by Karen Kingston. I remember I even did the incense burning and bell ringing to clear the energy.

So as the April showers start upon us and hopefully warmer days allow us to open the windows for some fresh air… I’ll be the busy bee dragging boxes and bags to Salvation Army this Spring!

Won’t you join me?

Oh my… finally… finally Spring! Just the word fills me with such glee! And even though it wasn’t that warm out today in New England and my front lawn is still covered in snow… I am so happy for warmer weather and flowers and birds and trees blooming and sunshine! This was a tough winter here in the northeast, but we made it thru without any power outages like the last couple of years….whew. Record snowfall amounts, so it was a lot of shoveling.

Had a wonderful get together with my Dream Circle group of women on Saturday at a delightful Bed and Breakfast in Massachusetts called Charlotte’s House. Lyn and her husband Paul run this B&B and totally rehabbed the entire house. There was a lot of dream sharing, good food, laughs, some tears and a lovely Spring basket of tulips and other goodies to go home with. There is just something about women getting together and sharing their hearts and dreams that is so special. We took a pause to look at the beautiful full moon that came up. This was a super full “perigree moon”  — the largest in almost 20 years.

I also got to watch Sandy debut her new logo that I designed for her! She has a business doing animal reiki and communication. Her specialty is cats, but she will do other animals too. The name of her business is, Wings & Purrs. Isn’t that so adorable! And her tag line is: Using Winged Guidance To Help Purrfect Friends. I’m so happy that I got to brand her new business. And the logo design seems to fit so well with what she does. Logo design is one of my loves. I’ve been doing them my whole career as a graphic designer in the advertising world.

I got to share my newest painting LOVE Angel and I mocked up a journal titled Angel Whispers with my new artwork. I had some samples of the LOVE Notes but have not finished the complete set yet. Now that I have money flowing in again I am going to get these things printed and into my Etsy store. I think I may take them around to some of the local gift shops as well and see how they are received. Any Spring projects you are working on? Do tell…

I finished this new painting titled “LOVE Angel” just about two weeks ago. I had actually finished it a couple of months ago, but I didn’t like the expression on her face so I didn’t post it. Then between the holidays and starting a new job I just didn’t have the time to redo it. But I kept sitting with her and looking at her face to see what was bothering me. Initially I changed the right eye and lowered it, but that didn’t resolve it for me. Then I changed the proportions of the nose and the mouth and that did it! They were too small compared to her large expressive eyes. I’m so happy with her now and I love how the wings and the color palette came out! And the background too with the blue and the burnt orange color.

So I’ve had this idea for awhile to make an angel painting into a journal cover with the title “Angel Whispers”. I love the name and I titled my first angel painting with this name. I think we all get “whispers” from our soul and our intuitive self that we don’t always honor or even hear. You have to spend some time being quite with yourself… to hear these whispers. I thought that having a jounal to jot down these “angel whispers” would be great! So I designed the type with block letters and a lovely script font called Dear Joe and this is how it came out! I think the design goes perfect with the angel painting and the title! I just love it! I am getting pricing on having them printed with a wire bound edge and putting them for sale in my Esty store! Stay tuned…

And this is another idea I had when I was struggling with myself and my progress as an artist… I wrote about some of these feeling here in this post titled “Feeling Stuck These Days.” I went through some of my files and found pictures of myself when I was younger and I starting writing “positive affirmations” on them to my “self”. The self that needs the encouragement to keep moving forward, “your doing great”, “I believe in you…” all the stuff you want to hear from your “self” instead of the negative, critical comments that seem to come up when your create. I wrote a whole post on it here and What I Wished To Step Into.  So these evolved into what I’ve named as:  ”LOVE Notes”. They are really “creative dream positive affirmations notes” in a card deck of 26 sayings when you need that little boost of encouragement. I just love how this whole product evolved and how is has manifested! I am also working on print pricing and getting these into my Etsy store. I know you will love them too! And again… stay tuned and I will announce when they will be for sale. Happy Spring forward weekend and thanks so much for your support!  xoxo Valerie

Last Saturday I got a package in the mail from my sister Tracey. She lives in the beautiful state of Colorado. She sent me presents! When I opened them, there was a large book titled: Peter Rabbit’s Giant Storybook by Beatrix Potter and a DVD of the movie Miss Potter. These were late Christmas presents from her and I could not have been more excited. I fell “in love” with Beatrix Potter’s work in my late teens and early 20′s. I found her art style inspiring, so engaging and whimsical. I remember buying books and collecting figurines back then that I still have in my studio today. I rented the movie Miss Potter, with Renee Zellweger and Ewan McGregor back in 2007 when it came out. I’m a fan. And I can’t tell you how good it makes me feel that my sister “get’s me” and would send me such sweet, meaningful gifts!

So for the past week I have been immersed in all things Beatrix Potter. I read through her stories in the book and watched the Miss Potter movie again. So much about her story I can identify with; from her struggles to be an artist and be taken seriously — to wanting to be an independent woman who could take care of herself financially. I did not realize how tragic her life story was until I saw this biopic, Miss Potter, in all it’s hollywoodized magic. I loved her art studio too, in the upstairs section of her parent’s house. Just magical…

She was born Helen Beatrix Potter on July 28, 1866 and died on December 28, 1943 at the age of 77. She was an author, illustrator, mycologist and an early conservationist. She self-published her first book, The Tale of Peter Rabbit in 1901 after 6 publishers had rejected it. She wrote and illustrated a total of 23 small format children’s books. Her books were extremely popular because of her beautiful illustration style and her anthropomorphic characters.

With the proceeds from her books, she became a financially independent woman and was able to buy a beautiful 34 acre estate named Hill Top Farm in the rural Lake District area of England. Upon her death, almost all of her property, 4,000 acres of land, cottages and 15 farms, were left to the National Trust. Hill Top Farm was opened to visitors in 1946 and is now maintained as a museum by the National Trust. I would LOVE to visit there some day. And also visit the Beatrix Potter Gallery which now exhibits many of her original book illustrations, sketches and watercolors.

Her parents discouraged her higher education efforts and she longed to lead a life independent from them. She was not married. She was considering Mycology as a career and even had an uncle introduce her as a student at the Royal Botanic Gardens, but she was rejected because she was a woman…sigh. I think we forget sometimes how hard it must have been for women back then. She made numerous drawings of her observations of lichens and fungi and she was widely respected throughout England as an expert mycologist. Her completed set of 270 detailed, watercolor illustrations of fungi are on display at the Armitt Library and Museum. You can see more of her artwork in the book, The Art of Beatrix Potter, published in 1955.

I’m sure you can tell, if your still with me, that I am really smitten with Beatrix Potter. It has been such a treat learning more about her and researching the accomplishments of this remarkable woman. I’m going to give you a few more links to check out!

This wonderful website is the publishing home of Peter Rabbit, and they own the copyright to Peter Rabbit. Lots of great info on Beatix and a nicely designed site as well.

You can find this biography: Beatrix Potter, A Life in Nature, written by Linda Lear.

I also bought this book: Beatrix Potter: A Journal, after seeing the Miss Potter movie a few years ago. And I’m leaving you with a lovely quote of hers that I came across that will ring true for all of us, if we heed the advice…

“Believe there is a great power

silently working

all things for good,

behave yourself and

never mind the rest.”

Beatrix Potter

.

Miss Potter images © Momentum Pictures
Peter Rabbit illustrations © Frederick Warne & Co.
Botanical illustrations © Armitt Library & Museum

The winner of my One World One Heart drawing is Jennifer of Just Jingle! I will be sending along a print of my “Be True To Your Heart” lavender girl painting. I did my drawing using the Ramdom.org generator. Which was a lot easier than writing all those names on slips of paper like I did for my Crazy Zen Cat giveaway.

Jennifer is an artist and paper crafter and has been blogging since September 2007! I hope you have a chance to visit her blog! Click on her blog image below to get to Just Jingle:

Thank you so much to all the bloggers who entered my drawing! What a blast this event has been… though I did not get to as many blogs to visit as I wanted to…sigh. Just not enough hours in the day. I will keep working on that blog list though… So many lovely bloggers from all over the world!  Thank you Lisa!

Ahhhh the groundhog… good old Puxatauny Phil. On February 2nd every year he holds the dubious honor of predicting an early Spring or six more weeks of Winter. And an early Spring sounds quite heavenly right now after recent back to back snow storms on the east coast.

If the groundhog sees his shadow, he is startled by it and runs back into his hole for six more weeks. If it’s a cloudy day, no shadow and it’s going to be an early spring.

But he slumbers in his burrow, blissfully unaware of the record snowfall amounts and the vigil of newscasters and fans that await his arrival at Gobbler’s Knob near Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. The good news is… Phil didn’t see his shadow and it’s going to be an early Spring!

I can not think of Groundhog Day without remembering the 1993 film of the same name, with Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell. A jaded Pittsburgh weatherman named Phil Connors (Bill Murray) is forced to repeat Groundhog Day over and over again in the tiny town of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. It’s only when Phil learns the true lessons of life that he escapes from the never-ending time loop of living Groundhog Day over and over again.

And I had to share this 2009 Groundhog Day cartoon by Mike Luckovich. So cleaver how a little illustration and a few words can say so much about the state of a nation. This was two years ago just after the whole Bernie Madoff melt down and when the #@!% was hitting the fan, so to speak.

Though we still have a way to go in our economic recovery… I for one, am counting every one of my blessings this Groundhog Day.

groundhog: photo
cartoon: image

Hello, Bonjour, Bon Giorno, Guten, Ni hao, Dia Duit, Namaste, Zdravstvuite! And welcome to my One World One Heart blog post and giveaway! I’m {number 304!} on the list.

One World One Heart is a world wide event for bloggers to visit other blogs, meet and greet and have a chance to win prizes too! It is hosted by the lovely Lisa Swika of A Whimsical Bohemian.

This is my first year participating in this event and over the past four years it has grown to over 1,000 participants! That’s a lot of blogs! The blogging world is a great way to connect and see what other people are creating and sharing.

I am Valerie Hart, an artist living in New England, USA. I am on the path to developing more of my art and designs and living the creative life of my dreams. I also work full-time at an advertising agency to pay the bills until my art supports me. I have been in marketing and advertising my whole career and have designed everything from logos, brochures, catalogs, websites, billboards…etc. You can see more of my graphic design work here.

My give away for this One World One Heart event is a color print of my original painting “Be {TRUE} To Your Heart.“ This is one of my favorite paintings! Just leave a comment and I will draw the winning name on February 17, 2011 with that Ramdom thingy!  Good luck and thanks so much for stopping by!

xoxo Valerie