Native American

Copyright © 2007 by Adam Stuart

Like Father, Like Son

Working at the same school where my children go to school is great. My son's class had Artyfacts at the same time my class did. Brosden and I got to sit next to each other and do our project together.

These were done using wicky sticks.

The Original Version of Swiper?

Who knows? Maybe this fox will turn up as a character in one of my books. I wonder if Swiper from Dora started this way?

Copyright © 2007 by Adam Stuart
All Rights Reserved

The Priceless Flow

What started as a nice thing to do for Mother's Day


became a good experience between father and daughter.

It took her awhile to get into it, but once she did it was fun.

I taught her how to run her hands over the pieces of chalk until she "felt" which color to use next.

That's what I like about art; it just comes to you, because it's inside of you. There are many ways to feel good.

Chalk drawing is best done without thought; letting it just flow from your soul to your heart to your hand.

Go pick up a bucket of colored chalk at the dollar store. It costs.......a dollar.

The time spent doing it for you and your children........truly priceless!


Click here for the slide show

Creating Our Lives

They say creativity keeps you young. As I approach my 40th birthday this week I have to say in many ways I'm feeling younger and younger. I attribute much of this to allowing myself to be creative, knowing each time I do, I get better and better at it.

This morning I was adding to my vision board, or treasure map, of what I want in my life. Using my computer's "paint" program, I began playing with an idea for the cover art for the Once Upon a Tree books I'm writing. Although it's only the second time I've used this, I allowed myself to have fun doing it, totally envisioning it as the real cover for the books that will bring so much enjoyment to their readers.

Since we are creating our lives with our every day thoughts and actions, why not have fun doing it? The day may not turn out to be the masterpiece we intended, but it does move us closer to learning how. "Groundhog Day" (1993) with Bill Murray is as good a movie as any for seeing how to do this.

After all, if we created the circumstances we are experiencing today by our "creations" of the past (thoughts, actions and choices), then we can create our futures exactly as we want it with our new creations today. This happens by focusing on what we want it to look like. If all we do is focus on the "what is" of our lives today, we only produce more tomorrows that look exactly like our todays.

Man, no wonder we get bored.

"How ya doin'?"

"Same old, same old."

Yuck! Let's take the time to appreciate what we like in our todays, and learn to turn what we don't like into what we do, by creating it in our thoughts and actions and choices.

"Make good choices, Honey."

As irritating and embarrassing as that was for us to hear when our mothers said it to us in front of our friends, nonetheless it is still true.

Just for today, let's all deliberately choose better thoughts and better actions. Let's give that big beautiful plant that wants to grow inside of us some real sunshine.

Then my friend,
in the end

You'll be delighted and surprised,
to find

At looking in the mirror,
and seeing

Not a picture of forgotten dreams,
and frowning

At all the things your heart knows you could have been,
but smiling

At the masterpiece shining brightly back at you
and seeing

Your biggest and best self,
has come true




"We are what we think.
All that we are arises
With our thoughts.
With our thoughts,
We make our world."
- The Buddha

Copyright © 2007 by Adam Stuart
All Rights Reserved

GREEN MARKER MAN

I like to draw.



I like to watch my sleeping children.


It only makes sense that I would like to draw on my sleeping children.......

It's time for the return of the GREEN MARKER MAN!

The children LOVE waking up and seeing what this crazy creature-of-the-night has drawn on them. It started with Brosden and I drawing two dots for eyes and a one-line smiley face on his sisters' toes. It grew from there.

Their mothers finally asked me to stop because once they got home the kids didn't want to wash the drawings off. But alas! Nothing can stop the madness of Marker Man! He hath returned on his childrens' final night.


Actually this "art" is much, much harder than it looks.

Bella jerks her shoulder at the tiniest attempt to make features darker.

Each darkened area you see is from one line being drawn on top of another, one at a time.






Brosden is much easier. Even his sisters' gave him a full cat-face one night. No wonder no one wants to be the first to fall asleep at Dad's house.

Last night I went for a challenge; drawing on his super ticklish feet.

Things were going well until I tried to turn his toes into a pair of jeans.

His natural reaction is to strike out when startled. I finally stopped after nearly being kicked in the face for the ump-teenth time.


It is like 'Mission Impossible" to draw on Sofia. I have to save her for last. Not only is her skin hyper-sensitive to the slightest touch, once she does waken she lures me in with those open arms, then traps me in an unbreakable hug. I become a prisoner of her love.

Her drawing was the simplest but took the longest. I had to lay flat on the floor several times while she half-awakened, paying attention to the smallest indication Marker Man was there.

And then, just as I was about take the picture, she rolled over onto her other side, covering my "masterpiece"! As I tried to roll her back over.....arms, hug, prison. Trying to take the picture with her wrapped around me proved more difficult than doing the drawing.

As Sofia now likes to imitate Brosden who likes to imitate Cosmo from "The Fairly Odd Parents"......................."Ahhhh, Good Times!"

The New Dawn is Life's Eraser

I'm not the best artist in the world...






But I do like to draw.






It's fun and pleasurable and allows me to express my feelings.






This drawing is from a scene in "Meet Joe Black" that moves me every time I see it (click "Saying I Like You So Much" and look at the first picture).







I know I'm not the best artist now that I can be in the future with practice.




The only problem is that I make lots of mistakes now.







Some of which make what I'm trying to draw look terrible.






That's why I make sure I have an eraser...and always have it near me...




........making my children laugh because I have to put it in my bandanna so I won't lose it.








So I make a lot of changes.....sometimes having to close my eyes and remind myself of Thomas Edison's 10,000 mistakes in trying to invent the light bulb.







The point is to not give up.







And the same is true in life.


Every dawn of every new day is life's way of giving us an eraser.





Even when some of our mistakes look so bad they us the "Hee-bed-a-geebies" (as King Julian from Madagascar would say).




We always have the choice when we wake up to see the mistakes of the yesterdays before,



and choose to not make the same mistakes in our new todays.










We do this picture-by-picture.....







... day-by-day.....








...dream-by-dream.....



.....erasing the mistakes of the past......

.....making small improvements every day....





...believing in ourselves...









...until we create the masterpiece in our lives we dream of...








(As much fun as my children have taking pictures of me and I have hamming for them, I can see them all growing up to be either professional photographers or professional paparazzi; sorry future celebrities :-)