Angela Marie Morton: art & illustration

Snippets: a series of brief summaries describing what I have been working on recently, plus a few personal tidbits. Finished Works Bamboo Stalk Black ink using a sumi-e brush Reeds Black ink using a sumi-e brush Autumn Dream Pen and watercolor pencils Mouse Reading and Having Tea on Stack of Books Graphite pencils Meditation Space with Stone Path Brush pen and Chinese watercolors Works in Progress A new holiday-themed Harold piece Same piece as above, nearly finished The Meditation Space piece from the previous section, about 3/4 finished Pencil outline of the finished piece in the previous section  New in the Shop (Click to purchase) Zen Monk in Autumn with Umbrella Zen Monk Walking up Steps with Autumn Leaves Zen Monking Walking to Meditation Hut Japanese Maple with Torii Gate Parisian Owl in his Art Studio AKA Pierre in his Hip Artist's Loft Mouse on Swing with Butterfly Happy Penguin Projects and Updates    Blog: November's blog post is about the value of taking breaks, e

A few weeks ago, I was feeling disappointed and unsatisfied with everything I drew or painted. The harder I tried to create something “good”, the more unhappy I was with the result. Even sketching was frustrating. I knew I needed to do something to shake myself out of the funk I was in, besides my go-to standards of long walks and extended yoga sessions.     The first step was to acknowledge that whenever I work on an art project when I am lacking inspiration and enthusiasm, I am always disappointed in the end result, and do not enjoy the process of creating. Once I had accepted that, I knew the time had come for the second step: a break. While I live a quiet and simple life, I find taking deliberate breaks and rests difficult. I am better at it than I used to be, but it is still a challenge. For this particular break, I left the time-frame open-ended, because creativity is spontaneous and I wanted to allow for the flexibility to sketch ideas if they came to me. As it turned out, the b