Drawn by a Star

New Creative retreats starting in May. Exploring, and using  colour in new ways. A  adventure into colour making.  - destination unknown. For passionate hobby artists and  professionals. Like the idea? Whatever kind of art you make at the moment, the  pledge is that you will go away  inspired to be braver, more curios, bolder, risk taking , and with your inner critic quietened. The retreats will be fun, exciting, unblocking, inspiring you to start using  new techniques ,ideas, and attitudes to your art making whether you’re a passionate hobby artist or a professional.  The idea is to provide a safe non-judgmental  place where you can meet and greet  your most creative self.   Self-sabotage will be used as your inner compass. Your inner critic will lose total control .  I know that’s quite a claim but believe me , it’s possible. I will teach some basic drawing  and colour mixing skills...

Meet and greet your most creative self!  New Creative retreats starting in March 2019.  7 days in Andalucia, small groups, individual tuition and masses of encouragement. For people seeking a new  relationship with their inner artist, for people feeling stuck with their ideas and techniques.  For experienced  artists  wanting to go beyond what they create at the moment. Are  you willing to take risks,  surprise yourself, tame your inner critic, have fun, not judge every brush mark?  A week of experimenting with expressive  arts to  completely loosen you up.   Nuture  your inner artist with sunshine, blue skies, lovely food, in nature in southern Spain. 'Play is the highest form of research.'

Lithuanian Jews or 'Litvaks ' are  Jews born in Lithuanian, Belarus, Latvia, two north eastern regions of Poland, and some border areas of Russia and Ukraine .  Today very few remain.  Those who escaped in 1941 mostly fled to Russia.  My great grandfather Harry Rubin immigrated to Canada around 1910. Thanks to the DNA test I'm  here to discover my Litvak ancestry, in the landscape,  in the collective memory, and in my soul. My mountaineer friend Ken immediately called my journey to Lithuania a  Pilgrimage. And that's what it's  been, all six weeks, and not a single blister. The pilgrimage started in Gdansk in July, drifted over the Polish border to a monastery near Kaunas , and meandered down to the south west of Lithuania to my great grandfathers village, Seirijai. This village was the original goal of my 'pilgrimage.' I believed my fathers family had escaped from Seirijai on foot to Poland (then immigrated to the US), but it turned o...

Russia

Dear loyal multinational followers, Thank you for keeping on visiting while I've been silent for so many weeks. How does anybody manage a daily blog?? I couldn't. At the moment I've got kittens and chickens and a blind cockerel  to feed, as well as drawings to draw, adventures to live, and so much more. Since starting the blog,  thousands of you  in the US have visited (so love these statistics), and more than five thousand Russians and Ukrainians have looked at my paintings here. Why so many visitors from Russia?  I'm thinking you must be 'resonating' with something in my art , but I doubt many of you are  reading the posts. Of course I could be wrong. I've just discovered my Jewish father's ancestors came from your countries -  Russia, Ukraine, Lithuania and also Poland. What a surprise. Oh bliss and double joy to know this at last!   All my life I'd  had a suspicion about Poland.  Maybe it was just  poetic wis...

"For though we may not live a holy life, we live in a world alive with holy moments. We need only take the time to bring these moments into the light." — Kent Nerburn - Small Graces. I've  seriously neglected my blog for  over 3 months.  I honestly don' t know why.   Shelling walnuts this morning in the sunshine. We do not need to be religious to have holy moments. Take a little time to look around?  Like close up around. Not long distance. “Remember to be gentle with yourself and others. We are all children of chance, and none can say while some fields will blossom and others lay brown beneath the August sun. Care for those around you. Look past your differences. Their dreams are no less than yours, their choices in life no more easily made. And give. Give in any way you can, of whatever you possess. To give is to love. To withhold is to wither. Care less for your harvest than how it's shared,...