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

Drawing Yourself Into Peace

You aren't always going to wake up feeling good and thinking great thoughts to start your day off right.

This morning was one of those mornings. Up till 5:30 am working on illustrating a new book; two hours later woken up with loud whispers of "Sofia, don't wake up Daddy!" by her older sister Bella.

Instead of focusing on Bella's good intentions (Thank you, Honey), I immediately thought of how tired I was and how much work I still had to do (versus how much I accomplished).

Thoughts are indeed very powerful; powerfully uplifting or heavily overwhelming. As Sofia rolled off my back, I rolled out of bed feeling like Atlas, with the weight of the world on my shoulders, instead of feeling uplifted by the beautiful love a child has for her father.

My equally wonderful son brought the cup o' joe he made for me, and thanks to the three spoonfuls of coffee versus one, I was soon wildly wide awake and wired, but entirely stressed, from the hair on my head to the bottoms of my feet.

All the little things were bothering me, and with Brosden and Bella leaving early, everything was bothering me even more.

If we can't think or feel ourselves into it, sometimes it helps just to DO ourselves into it. So outside we went to draw and play ourselves into a state of peace, appreciation and happiness.

This didn't go as well as planned, as somebody accidentally hit his sister with a whiffle ball he got as a pre-birthday present from our neighbor (Thanx TJ).

The good thing about this is it forced me to stop feeling sorry for myself and focus on the feelings of the hitter and the hit-tee. The hitter felt so bad that I probably shouldn't mention his name (See buddy, I didn't mention it was you. All is good. Oh! Happy Birthday by the way on Wednesday.)

By focusing on giving them both good love and energy, I was able to continue it with Sofia after they left. We finished the Yin and Yang symbols Bella and I started, and drew ourselves into a better state of peace (Sofia wanted her puppy Spikey to help me draw).

Of course, having a great sense of humor helps too :-)

Sometimes just taking action and focusing on others is the only way to turn our thinking around and improve how we're feeling. I'm feeling I could draw about a billion more of these symbols with all the coffee in me.

By the way, my neighbor, TJ Jones, was the Open Doubles winner, A category, at this year's Orange Blossom Tennis Championship. He and his doubles partner Clint are repeating champions, this year coming out on top of over 200 other players. Congrats Champ!

Peace Slideshow

The Artist in Me.....and On Me

I've put up these pictures of Bella, for her to do her second post (her first was "my big cheer").








She came up with the title, which you can see the reason for by looking at the pictures.

I am very proud of her for moving past "I'd like to write and draw like you do Dad", to actually doing it. A lesson for us adults, too.

While watching her I became mesmerized, taking picture after picture.

Then I couldn't decide which ones I liked best so posted as many as the page would allow.

I had the same trouble deciding on her name, so created Iszabella-Esperanza as her first name.

It's a total joy watching her now create who she is and everything she sees herself capable of becoming.


I'll let her take over, as soon as she's done with the puppet show downstairs.

The first person i did
was a puple gal.

The next gal i did
was ablue gal.
Then i decided to
talk to talk to them





i gootta lil dirty

Oh fine look at the art on and in me!