French Toast Girl

Rings

Labels: coffee, drawing, nature, painting

french toast girl

Earth Day wishes from the fairies

Iris and Lily, the woodland fairies (and their brother) wish you a glorious EARTH DAY!

(There's a story behind these photos, which will hopefully be shared before long. And yes, I made the wings.)

Labels: fairies, nature

french toast girl

amaryllis

Just in time (I think?!) for Fashion Week. Or at least for the new season of ANTM.

Labels: art, coffee, nature, painting, watercolour

french toast girl

How to save the world, 20% at a time

We interrupt this glitter-and-coffee-fest to bring you the following:

I was all set to post another new painting this morning, when I saw this and needed to share it instead. I've written before about how I feel about how the choices you make at the grocery store can change the world; how I think everyone should pick up a copy of John Robbins' amazing book Food Revolution, because you will never eat the same way again ... but please read on, die-hard meat-eaters, and tell me this doesn't change your thinking a little bit:

From Mark Bittman's article in the New York Times:

Growing meat (it’s hard to use the word “raising” when applied to animals in factory farms) uses so many resources that it’s a challenge to enumerate them all. But consider: an estimated 30 percent of the earth’s ice-free land is directly or indirectly involved in livestock production, according to the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization, which also estimates that livestock production generates nearly a fifth of the world’s greenhouse gases — more than transportation.

To put the energy-using demand of meat production into easy-to-understand terms, Gidon Eshel, a geophysicist at the Bard Center, and Pamela A. Martin, an assistant professor of geophysics at the University of Chicago, calculated that if Americans were to reduce meat consumption by just 20 percent it would be as if we all switched from a standard sedan — a Camry, say — to the ultra-efficient Prius. Similarly, a study last year by the National Institute of Livestock and Grassland Science in Japan estimated that 2.2 pounds of beef is responsible for the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide emitted by the average European car every 155 miles, and burns enough energy to light a 100-watt bulb for nearly 20 days.

20 percent - suppose you ate one more pasta dinner a week, hold the meatballs. Or had a pizza with just veggies instead of pepperoni. Or at breakfast, skip the bacon and sausage. If you knew that making a simple choice like what you were having for dinner could make that much of a difference, wouldn't you do it today?

Read the entire article here (it's free).

Labels: food, nature

french toast girl

dryad

More coffee, more glitter, more watercolour. The inspiration for this dryad was the creative totem/fertility goddess I created last year in clay - she sits in my studio and just makes me smile. Although I have once been called a dark-eyed naiad, I have a real connection with trees, and I've been looking for more ways to bring nature inside in the cold weather. And what I really need to do is bundle up, go outside more, and BE among the trees.

Labels: art, creativity, inspirations, nature

french toast girl

day 30

One of my most favorite songs, ever. I've enjoyed the 30 days of posting, but now I'm off to spend more time enjoying the Little Things in my life. Enjoy.

Labels: muppets, NaBloPoMo, nature

french toast girl

In which I go for a walk

I was walking under an bright blue open sky, on top of a hill. My hand rested on the back of a unicorn who walked along at my side. With a flourish and a swirl of color, a dragon uncurled himself from the sky and invited me for a ride. Naturally, I climbed on and we whirled around in the clouds, looking down at the green hills below us.

He touched down and I slid off his back, thanking him with a pat and a hug. The unicorn had left, and he did too. I continued my walk alone down the hill into the woods, where the trees grew thick and it was dark between them. I saw small, wild faces among the branches, and soon felt fingers clutching at my dress. Folk of all shapes and sizes, some winged, some green, some bark-colored, soon surrounded me and laughing, urged me to follow them. We walked down the hill through the woods, where it grew ever darker, but something (will-o-wisps? lightning bugs?) lit our way and danced in front of us. We made a very joyful bunch.

As we walked, worries came to mind, and then actually formed themselves into my hands. One trouble was rough and wooly and tied with red yarn. I let it go from me, and dropped it away from the path. Others crumbled into dust when I let them go. One in particular was a shining heavy ball, a trouble that has been weighing on me for almost a year now. "I'm sorry," I said to it wordlessly, "But you really have to go now." I tossed it away and it rolled off quickly under its own steam off into the darkness of the woods.

Finally, we came to what passed for a table: a huge flat rock ringed with smaller boulders and stumps. I sat down and was presented with tea in a bowl carved from stone, rough to the touch, and heavy. It was filled with steaming tea of some sort, reddish-colored and smelling strongly of mint and fennel and lemon. I drank it all. Tiny cakes and nuts were brought out for everyone. What they were exactly I don't recall, only that they were light and incredibly delicious. The fairy folk and I never spoke words to each other, but communicated with gestures and smiles.

Tea done, they pulled me to my feet, and clearly it was time to move on. It was fully night now, and a full moon lit our path. We walked a short way through the woods to a clearing where a pond of water reflected the moon shining overhead. Everyone jumped into the pool; I got out of my dress and jumped in for a swim too, hearing the splashing of the water and the night sounds of insects and forest animals around me.

And then the yoga instructor told us it was time to start coming out of our meditation, and that we had been laying still for FIFTY MINUTES. I have never been able to stay still and quiet for that long before, and I most definitely had not been sleeping. If that was a meditation, it was the most alive and joyous meditation I've ever experienced (and one I didn't particularly want to leave!) I thanked God for giving me my overabundant imagination, and prepared myself to join the rest of the world again.

(Starting tomorrow, I'll be posting every day for NaPoBloMo. See you then!)

Labels: fairies, inspirations, nature

french toast girl

I paint on bark

When I go on my morning walks, sometimes some bit of nature calls out to me - a handful of acorns, a smooth rock for my pocket, or the blank canvas of a piece of bark.

Labels: art, drawing, nature

french toast girl

ART, iNSPiRATiON, AND WHY LiFE iS LiKE FRENCH TOAST.