Spring

You can smell it in the air

Tiny green buds appear on each branch of every tree along my walk – evidence that a blooming is about to take place. Yet I find myself impatient. As much as I love those first signs of spring, the green that begins to break through the ground and on the trees in my village, I long to see the full bloom of the flowers in my garden.  Too long have I looked at dried up stems and wilted brown leaves. Too long has snow covered up what I know will be beauty come summer in my garden.

But the ground will not be rushed. It will be what it was created to be – but in its own time.

So as I wait with the impatience of an artist, I create my own beauty, my own blooms, to get me through this time that is needed for the real thing to make its appearance.

Maybe you would like to create a blooming garden too?

Here are 5 flowers that you can make “bloom” right now, to get you through the anticipation of color coming back into your little part of the world:

Flower Doodles: doodle yourself a garden. Use pictures of real flowers from a magazine or other reference to give you ideas of shape, form and variety. They don’t have to look real, only give a suggestion of color and joy, like that of a truly blooming patch of flowers. Use simple lines, and in lieu of coloring them in, use patterns to fill the spaces, creating texture and depth. doodling your flowers can open up a whole new genus to fill your “garden” (do you like this doodle?  It is available in my etsy store as a download 🙂

Collage Garden: What a great way to create something unique and colorful than by gathering a stack of colorful papers and cutting them into flower shapes. Try cutting circles and triangle, ovals and squares. Arrange them into groupings that suggest a blooming patch of flora. Choose colors that make you happy. Vary the types of patterns utilizing both geometric and floral filled. Put them together in a pleasing way that suggests the presence of order and purpose. You can even add a few inspirational words to your “painting”. Then sit back and enjoy!

Watercolor Blooms: I love the light washes that give only the impression of flowers. The colors flow from one right into the next, insinuating that where one ends another begins with no end to the blooming colors. Each flower is unique in its own right, yet they are all flowers. There is a certain symmetry and synchronicity to them all, and watercolor blooms are the perfect way to exhibit that conformity in a way that doesn’t conform to any rules.

3 Color Monoprint Flora: Have you ever tried monoprinting? Not only is it easy, but beautiful as well. There are a few specific tools that you need to engage in this creative practice, but it is well worth the investment as the possibilities of what you can do with these incredible prints are endless. It is one of my favorite things to do when I simply want to be creative yet don’t have a specific project in mind.  I’ve created hundreds of prints using just a few of my favorite colors, stencils, cardstock and my gelli plate. I’m sure to have a future tutorial on this amazingly satisfying practice. Today I used my hand cut flower stencils and my favorite cool color palette. Use whatever you like to create your garden, after all, it’s yours!

Mixed-Media Bouquet: Combining different mediums into the same piece of art serves to create depth, texture and vivid color-combinations that would not otherwise be possible. I just love the combinations of paint, paper, fabrics and even pieces of metal or string, that make their way into some of the projects I’ve created. The process of working them into my art enhances my problem solving abilities and keeps my mind fresh. It helps me to think beyond what I see or even know. What a wonderful way to be able to look at the world! I like to start by gathering all of the mediums I have that are within a specific range of color.  I usually limit the colors to two or three  similar with an addition of 1 complimentary color to give the piece “pop”. As I add them all in, the fact that they have something similar about them helps to unify the otherwise opposing mediums. Creating in this way has changed my view of what it means to create, and makes me feel freer in other areas of my life as well.

I hope you have enjoyed this walk through my “garden”. I would love to see what you have come up with to help your little corner of the world bloom with color! ~lisa

I have a devotional running today on a beautiful life about how to look past the lack of fertile ground in your life,  and anticipate a blooming anyway. We all have those periods where we lack inspiration and become stagnant. Getting past that is tough, but doable if we keep just one thing in mind – Jesus!  Read that here: “blooming even in infertile ground”

Or if you like short stories, I have a story posting this morning on my personal page (lisaevola.com). It is called “Eglantine” I would love for you to stop by and give it a read, then let me know what you think!  I look forward to meeting you there!