“52 Weeks of Peace” ~ The Book!

Two years ago to the day, I launched a creative series called “52 Weeks of Peace”, posting a new design on my blog each week for a year.

Today, I am so pleased to announce that thanks to my publisher Lightbox Books (a division of Shenanigan Books), the entire collection is now in gorgeous postcard book format, available for sending, framing, or just enjoying. You can order copies here, or by clicking anywhere on the announcement below.

A side note ~ you might find it interesting (I did!) that the book’s release coincides with the 50th anniversary year of the Peace Corps ~ and that a selection from the series is part of an upcoming 9/11 tenth anniversary exhibit. It’s really something how that all lined up ~ maybe the universe had a hand in it!

I thank you all for your support and encouragement, your appreciation of the art, and helping to spread the idea that “peace starts here”, with each individual, in every day ways.

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“where in the world is peace?”…spreading westward

oodles of thanks to the everyday peace ambassadors in Arizona, Indiana, New Jersey, New York, and Ohio… love the sharing of peace! Where to next, I wonder?!

(By the way, all “where in the world is peace?” images are being compiled on a special “where in the world is peace?” page, here. Totes, mugs and things are available here.)

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A Plethora of P’s / #35: Patricia

proactively punctuating life with the plausible, powerful possibilities of positive thought presented through a plethora of “P’s”.

– ♥ –

Just seeing if you’re paying attention. : ) …

Patricia [puh-trish-uh]: a female name of Latin origin, derived from the Latin word patrician, meaning regal or “noble”. It also indicates someone who likes to write, draw, paint, swim, and wear cowboy boots to business meetings.

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A Plethora of P’s / #34: Paper

proactively punctuating life with the plausible, powerful possibilities of positive thought presented through a plethora of “P’s”.

– ♥ –

Paper is a wonderful thing. So practical and so versatile!

Needless to say, paper has been a key player in my life as artist and writer, so my appreciation might be over the top.

You see, paper isn’t just a vehicle for grocery lists or movie tickets or plain paper towels… a crisp, blank piece of paper is a breath of fresh, new air, an open field to run through, a drawing or a story waiting to spring to life between each finely woven fiber. Wonder and possibility lurk on every piece! … I love paper.

Paper, by the way, has been around since dinosaurs first recorded their alphabet on a sturdy, if not leafy paper known as jurassicyrus ~ more commonly called dinopyrus. Dinopyrus preceded the use of the more well-known Egyptian papyrus scrolls by several million years.

After the dinosaurs, history is more clear. Papyrus, a thick paper-like product made from the flower stem of the papyrus plant, pressed together and dried, first appeared in Egypt around 2500 B.C. Papyrus had a good, long run, but was replaced at some point around the 2nd century B.C. by Greek and Roman parchment, a thinner sheet made from calfskin, sheepskin or goatskin. Later, in 105 A.D., Chinese inventor Ts’ai-Lun was credited with the first papermaking process, creating paper by pulping rags, cotton, hemp and and other plant fibers.

It wasn’t until 1838 that paper was made from wood pulp, a discovery by Canadian farmer Charles Fenerty. But Fenerty never patented his process, so that German inventor Fredrich Keller, who did patent a wood-pulp papermaking process around the same time, is often considered the original inventor.

And there you have it. Hope you’ll have a new respect for paper. Don’t waste it ~ but do appreciate it!

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52 Weeks of Peace / Peace Starts Here

Excitement! The “52 Weeks of Peace” book is almost ready…!

In the meantime, we’ve established a 52 Weeks of Peace / Peace Starts Here facebook page ~ please come on over and join in, “like” the page, let your voice be heard, spread some peace, share the love… see you there!

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A Plethora of P’s / #33: Posture

proactively punctuating life with the plausible, powerful possibilities of positive thought presented through a plethora of “P’s”.

– ♥ –

Mom always said to stand up straight. And at some point in the awkward growing up years, I realized she was right (of course). Standing “straight and tall” looks better, it feels better (when you get used to it), and it’s good for you.

Your posture speaks volumes without saying a word ~ not only projecting confidence outwardly, but inwardly. You can stand straight, head high, belly in, shoulders back and relaxed, or you can slouch in varying degrees of slump-dom… just know that how you choose to carry yourself matters to both your physical and mental health, ultimately affecting your general well-being.

And while you’re busy sitting up a little straighter, remember: the same benefits hold true for how you posture your thoughts. Are your thoughts life-affirming or life-diminishing? Do they reach up or look down? Are they strong or limp, flexible or rigid? Are they aligned with your actions? Aligned with your heart?

What we think, and how we think it, has enormous influence in the well-being of a moment, a day, a year, a lifetime.  As Buddha said, “What we think we become.”

And what’s really cool is that the simple act of “standing up straight” helps the positive flow of the thoughts we think ~ and vice versa. So it’s a win-win.

Mom sure was smart.

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A Plethora of P's / #32: Play

proactively punctuating life with the plausible, powerful possibilities of positive thought presented through a plethora of “P’s”.

– ♥ –

“You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.”  ~ Plato

Last year I did a post about the importance of play. And I still couldn’t feel more strongly that play is not only important, but essential for health and happiness of mind, body and soul.

Maybe some of you feel the same ~ I know I’m not alone in working long hours, and feeling some of life’s rather large stresses in a big way. Which, although we may not find the time, is all the more reason to make the time for play.

Doesn’t have to be a week-long affair (although a month would suit me fine right about now!); doesn’t even have to be a whole day or whole night. More might be better, but even a little can go a long way. So have a laugh with a friend, skip down the sidewalk, do a cartwheel, toss a ball, make lemonade ice cubes, sing a silly song, bend yourself into a letter of the alphabet … just for the fun of it. No other reason required. Period!

“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.” ~ George Bernard Shaw

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A Plethora of P's / #31: Ping Pong

proactively punctuating life with the plausible, powerful possibilities of positive thought presented through a plethora of “P’s”.

– ♥ –

Few games are more fun than a battle of ping pong. It’s blood-pumping, spirit-lifting, good old-fashioned fun. And that’s really about all there is to to say ~ except maybe to suggest you find a friend, a table and go play!

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Vector Dreams

Computers are magical. Young designers don’t know how good they have it. Back when the earth’s crust was cooling and dinosaurs roamed freely, there existed the most horrendous, antiquated processes for creating a finished design project.

I worshipped computers the minute they eliminated rubber cement and laborious hand-cut color separations. T-squares and triangles and type galleys. It was a downright primitive experience. The production aspect was neither fun nor a walk in the park, although you did acquire a fairly intimate relationship with the inner workings of color and tone and bandaids (for the exacto blade cuts).

With computers you can take a piece of handmade art and ~ *presto!* ~ it becomes digital, ready for use in a multitude of ways on a multitude of products.

Of course, there are varying levels of *presto!*, so that what looks clean and effortlessly polished is very often laboriously and painstakingly rendered behind the scenes.

I’ve recently been working with a great client on a project that falls precisely into this category. The end result is a pretty picture, but getting to that point is literally a matter of connecting hundreds of little dots, like these:

And a strange thing happens when you get into a groove like that ~ it starts to take over your subconscious mind. It’s kind of like when I draw a lot, I see things in shapes and shadows, lights and darks … except in this case I start seeing things as if they were pieces of vector art**.

Just the other day while driving a winding stretch of road, my mind decided to imagine the curves as they would be drawn on the computer. It was a pretty weird sensation. I wonder if dreaming in vector is next.

Dreams or no dreams, the laborious elements of yesteryear’s graphic design have really only changed in terms of the tools used. Personally, I still adore illustrating classically with a pencil or paintbrush ~ but for design, I remain ever grateful that paste-ups hit the dust long ago.

**in brief, for those who may not know, vector art is the use of computerized lines and anchor points to create shapes that in the dark ages would have been done by hand.

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A Plethora of P's / #30: Pinwheel

proactively punctuating life with the plausible, powerful possibilities of positive thought presented through a plethora of “P’s”.

– ♥ –

Pinwheels serve no purpose other than bringing smiles to children when the wind blows, spinning the wheel in a colorful dance, round and round ~ and that delight is purpose enough.

But there’s more … because the child’s delight brings us delight, so for a moment in time smiles spread like ripples in a pond.

I think we would all do well with more pinwheel moments ~ appreciating the dance of life’s colors, and delighting in other’s delight.

Smiles are sure to follow.

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