“Within the lines of black on white is all potential. That is how I feel when I draw these pictures. Potential is seen in and interpreted by the viewer, as much as it is for me. Introducing colour brings interpretation and emotion for a particular moment in time. It finds the story and points the way to a feeling or an idea….” These are the words I wrote for the back of my book that happen for me every time I draw. I used the present tense when I referred to the act of making these pictures even though it has past. I wondered if I should correct it but then, the present tense is true. I am still living the intent I found in the pictures and finding the heart of what I was trying to see within myself….

Four years ago on my birthday I drew a picture looking between two trees into a quiet vista beside flowing water. the morning star was in the sky. The image is in the book, third one in, at that time it was my hope. A portal of sorts but that is what hope is. Hope exists when what you see or experience around you is heavy or heart wrenching. It was not by chance it was the last thing to fly out of Pandora’s box in the story. Hope is the dream that might be; the options that can be explored; perhaps the thing that will happen. My portal metaphorically called me to green pastures and still waters. At times it was a teasing light in the present that didn’t seem to be changing. Adding colour the time would have limited the picture for me to a particular memory. I like that now, it is free to be seen in so many other ways and open my inner being to other options that I couldn’t see back then. Like this!

The portal space between the trees appears in my pictures for me and you will find them as you journey through the pages. I didn’t draw so the images would find themselves in an adult colouring book in an already overflowing market. I drew so i could tell my story to myself. Life is experience we turn into communication. Drawing has never been an internal conversation like those ones that go on in the mind. It has simply been a language for me to let my inner self have a voice. (for those that know what I mean….my soul’s voice) I am sitting here simply smiling at writing these words. There is no way to explain to you what creating in black on white is for me, that is why I create in images because words fail so often to hold what we really want to say.

The other weekend I held my book inside my hands as I visualised letting it go. I had to do that when I let a marketplace call it colouring in. I am honoured that people find such joy in that act and within my images. The letting go is about trusting the heart of the Journey to Beautiful will be found by open people and embraced. It is about trusting that others will be inspired to buy it and share it and others will buy it. To colour, to look at, to find words bubbling up within as meditation happens within the pictures….that those that want to see will find their own journey to the beautiful space within them and smile. The letting go is trusting that people will avoid pigeonholing and be open to all the potential in the black on white images to communicate big ideas about life that begin with a feeling rather than a word.

And so it is here my life communicated in all potential….black on white….well: a small part of my life that is blessed and expansive. I know that I know deeply within: My life is a gift and I get to live it, and then if I want to…i can savour it in image.

Happy Day, please buy my book and explore what Journey to Beautiful might be to you….

http://www.boolarongpress.com.au/content/bookstore/bookDetails.asp?bookid=922