The Creek Spirit Fairy goes to the place in her heart where the beauty of the soul resides and all is eternally peaceful. There lies the source of her strength. It is eternally invulnerable. She offers a prayer for relief from the tears shed by so many people suffering from loss in its many forms. Death of loved ones, devastation from floods and other natural disasters, illness and disease, broken relationships, financial trouble, the list goes on and on.

It is said that when we commune with the Divine during the rising and the
setting of the sun and ask anything, and it will be granted. As the Creek Fairy sends out her prayers, she is completely assured that her highest hopes and fondest wishes for the relief from suffering, an Awakening for all of humanity, will be granted.

She emerges from the creek every day during the rising and setting of the sun. To outsiders, it appears that she is only sitting there on the stream bank, but she goes within to a secret place. Within to the Sacred Heart, where she communes and laughs and meets with her Divine. No matter what else happens to her in the external world.

No matter what else appears to be happening, she feels the causeless joy as it is restored to its rightful place in our lives. The tears of her strength and all her senses painlessly feed us her ojas*. A sense of renewal is restored for us, a sense of hope not lost, but left unattended. Then she returns the next day to begin the cycle again, continually until the end of time. Always taking up our burdens and cares, converting them for us back to causeless joy, food for us made from the substance of our own Eternal Selves.

This is a Work in Progress. I started it as a pencil sketch. Then I put a digital photo of it in Photoshop where I can try out various colors in Layers. It's a fun way to work out the colors for a future painting. If they don't work out they can be deleted or a Layer can be removed. After I work out the optimal color hues and combinations, I'll print an enlargement of it in a grayscale version. I'll transfer that to a piece of Bristol paper where I'll create a colored pencil, watercolor paint & pencil version of it. It really makes painting more fun by eliminating a lot of the guesswork on color choices and compatibility.
-Joyce

*Ojas is a Sanskrit word meaning “vigor." It is a pure and subtle substance. A story from an acquaintance of mine who specializes in ayurvedic medicine is that Beings in the higher spiritual realms allow their ojas to be drunk by those in need. It heals and restores those who drink it, but does not deplete the higher beings, who willingly and gladly give it to others in this way. Maybe that's an explanation for why Jesus is quoted in the scriptures as saying something like, "He who drinks from my mouth will be restored." If anyone has the exact words, you can post them in comments below.

Changes after making smooth curves in Photoshop. Something I had to learn. Not very easy to do in Photoshop, but worth the trouble finding out.

Using the Tursion tablet (essentially the same as the Monoprice tablet) to sketch has been a great asset. The jitter is a little bit of a challenge, even with it set to 0% in Photoship. One artist said this is the main difference between high-price Wacoms and the lower priced tablets. He said he can't draw straight lines without getting a little too much jitter using the Monoprice tablet. But someone else said they gave away their Wacom and only use their inexpensive Monoprice tablet because they like it so much. Who to believe? I don't know, but for now, this is good enough and I still love it!

This started as a crude sketch, my first entry in Ellen Million's Sketch Fest. It still needs a lot of work. I colored it in somewhat with colored pencils. Creating the knots and making the over and under weave appearance takes time.

Since working on this entirely in Photoshop, I've developed the knotwork for the legs and wing. I've sponged in some colors and reduced the size of the shamrock. I'll erase out the graphite gray background, although I do kind of like the gray. I might put it back in or keep it in some areas. Wherever it was erased, the white background shows through. More is still to be done on other areas as I proceed.

Any of the artwork here can be made into a print, greeting card, or ACEO. Just send a request. Pricing will be the same as for all my other artwork.

A sample of my Works in Progress - WIP's. Everything is hand drawn with pencils, working from my imagination. Produced on paper with graphite and colored pencil, then photographed and edited in Photoshop. I might give her a raven to hold instead of the crystal and Light circle. Still thinking it over. This is part of a series of Fairies that will illustrate bank checks. They will be sold by a company that produces and sells checks. Details coming soon.

A rough graphite and colored pencil sketch of my second work in the Indian Fairy series for artist illustrated bank checks. I kind of like the look with only one wing. But I'll add the other one. It's just a matter of being satisfied with how this one looks, then reversing it to make the one for the other side.

A very early stage of what will be the first dragon in my Dragons series for artwork on bank checks. Much refining still to do. This is the result after I entered it in the Ellen Million Sketch Fest today. Only one hour is allowed for artists to create a sketch based on a Prompt someone posts. The Prompt for this was Celtic Dragon. Thus the name, Adh Mór Dragun which are the pieced-together Celtic words for "Good Luck Dragon". A nice way to celebrate St. Patrick's day.

I'm looking forward to receiving my first tablet for drawing and graphics. I ordered it last week and expect it to arrive next week. Crossing my fingers that installation of the driver goes well and that there won't be any compatibility issues with my computer and software. If it all comes together nicely, I know I'll enjoy how much it will speed up my creatiion process without sacrificing the originality of all my non-sculptural artwork.

I get to a scary stage with my paintings in progress. Sometimes this causes the stall factor. You procrastinate because you're afraid that if you touch what you've created so far, you'll ruin it.

Maybe it comes with fascination over what you achieve if you've surprised yourself by how well things are coming along. Whatever the reason, if you want to get things done, you need to find a way to overcome this. 

One solution to this that I find is very helpful is to use Photoshop, aka PS.
Once I have a photo of the painting at whatever stage it's at, I can add and
remove elements easily in PS using layers. That way, I try them out but they're not a permanent part of them and they can easily be left omitted.

My paintings are usually too large to scan into my computer before working on them in PS. I just take a digital photo of them and fix up the dimensions and color levels in PS.

After I decide what I like and want to keep, I go back to the painting and paint it in. I may do this several times before I decided that the painting is
finished.

Here's my first pencil sketch of my most current work in progress:

Here's how it looked after I added a few colors to try them out.  I didn't add these colors in Photoshop.  I added them directly to the painting.  I was feeling pretty focused and didn't think I needed to try out anything in PS before making it permanent.
After I did this much, I used PS to see how the dragon fairy at left of center dragon would look in a blue green blouse instead of the red color I gave her with colored pencil in my prelim sketch.  Unfortunately, I didn't want to keep it, didn't save it and don't have it to show you.  But now you get the idea.  The picture has progressed further since I took these 2 pics.  More may follow as soon as I get pictures to show you.