My dad has a Model A that was given to him by his dad. I remember growing up and playing in the rusted out body of this car. I remember boxes of pieces; the rear view mirror, a door handle, the top of the gear shifter. For 30 years, my dad carried around the pieces of this car and then one day...

Inspiration strikes like lightening without warning or reason: a sudden flash, often accompanied by a delayed booming of mental thunder. It often overtakes me. When it strikes I can't stop imagining this thing that has inspired me. I become obsessed with the curves of the image, the color,...

This turtle I know I've seen him before, floating in the Caribbean Sea. He made an impression on me then, but as it is with such a sensitive soul, it took me years to be able to see it, years to hear the calling to create. I brushed the discovery aside, buried it under business, always too...

I start with a sketch. I tape two pieces of paper together, and clip it to the hangers on the wall. Then, I pull the sea turtle's form onto the page with light strokes of pencil. I don't worry about which curves might be right - for the final ink is really what sets the image - I just sweep...

The workspace has to be clean and organized to proceed. I mount the inked over sketch on some cardboard with masking tape. The fabric is stretched tight; the ink lines barely show through. Those ink lines are my guide, my pattern, but as you will soon see or feel, the wax has a mind of its...

And, there it is: the wax skeleton of the green sea turtle. He is starting to come to life. I can see a tiny twinkle in his eye; I see a purpose, a path. This turtle is migrating many miles across the open sea, and amazingly, so amazingly, it knows exactly where it is going and why. But this...

There is more to painting than one might think. It is again a liquid with a mind of its own, and it creates its own flow, its own light. I like to paint in layers, first the base color, the background; then more and more detail. I like to look around me at the colors I see and imagine the...

The turtle is there in all the green glory! All those paint lines are there, the colors, the ragged edges, the light, the dark, the accidents and the intentions. And, now it’s time to wax over all that paint. It seems reckless in a way, after all the care and joy and freedom of the painting,...

I often wait a long time after the batiks have been waxed over to dye them. This is the moment of completion, when it all comes together, and often those are the moments where I have the most fear. What if I mess it up? What if I just wasted all those hours? What if what I dream, what I...

My heart is so full of gratitude tonight. It is as if my heart is coming out of my body, as if it is swelling and swelling, and then swelling some more. Not like the quick, booming reaction Roger Rabbit has when he first meets Jessica, it isn't like the big red heart pounding outside of the...

The best results in batik are achieved when you find a balance between dyeing and cracking. It is after all those little crack lines that give batik its unique magic, but if left unattended or for too long too much of the dye seeps through. Of course, different dye colors also seem to have...

It feels like spring on the Oregon Coast! The sun is shining and the garden has made its way out of the ground. Time to plant seeds, make new things, and finish old projects. Today was the day to dye a batch in Peacock Blue. In 2006, I wrote an instruction manual for dyeing that outlines the...

Here's a close up of the first sturgeon final batik. It is done on linen with a navy-sapphire blue mix for the dye bath. I like the expression and the crack lines. I think it could be improved with more contrast along the wax line outlines.

It's no time to quit now. Look deep, deep down into your heart up to and through the complicated hyperbolic layers of your mind into the dark marrow of your bones and out to the embodied spirit you carry with the thousands of lives lived by your soul before; look inside to find the energy you...

The space where something isn't, the shape of the space around the something, instead of a focus on the thing, a focus on the nothing. It goes best with background noise of Morgan Freeman talking about the Big Bang, the improbability of everything coming from nothing, the thoughts on nothing,...

Ah, here we are with the first official project for Draw Your Imagination, a batiked white sturgeon on t-shirts. This is the final sketch. The batiking will begin shortly. This sturgeon celebrates an ongoing sturgeon research project occurring in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta in California....

It has been almost three years. Three years of working, three years of finding, three years of wondering, wandering and watching. Time does fly, as they say so often. I like to believe moving faster makes time fly slower, but that truly only works near the speed of light, a speed I never...

I always try to remember: anything is possible. Somehow I find it so powerful to believe, that at any moment, in any instance, everything can change. The potential for discovery exists in every moment. Possibility blooms like a flower, or springtime, just in one sudden moment when finally,...

I hosted a batiking party at my house on year, and all my friends came to make their own batiks. This is a batik I made from the design Katia made that day. She said she was inspired by the thought of Japanese art and the tsunami waves. I loved it and wanted to make one of my own.

The Draw Your Imagination blog is intended to follow the effort of one, not so young, scientist, artist, adventurer (sorta) as she continues her endeavor to make art and tell stories for children. The art is coming along nicely; the stories a little slower, but she is here to share as they both...

There have been some silent days of wondering where to begin, of what to say, of how to say it. There is so much. I can see it all so fully formed in my head, but I just can’t see every detail, or hear every word. It’s like all the drama I see and internalize and actually feel, but can’t...

This guy is just so damn cute. There has to be a song or something about Tisbe. Oh Tisbe, Tisbe, Busy Tisbe; What is it you do all day long? Do you shoot about? Do you scream and shout? Why are you oh so yellow on the inside? Are you the envy of all those small? Do you swim out at night...

It is now time to dye this ultra large, breakthrough eelgrass batik on bamboo. I’d like to dedicate this dye bath to the Tide to-Go Pen, the hero of this piece of art. I’d also like to thank my sister for introducing me to the magnificent pen. It keeps those pesky paint leaks, due to the all...

As I finished some batiks in need of the dyeing stage, I pondered about bleeding hearts as the welcomers of spring. And about how they are both the flower and the tragic soul who finds themselves enveloped in the agony of others. Bleeding hearts are one of the first flowers to emerge in the...

First official day at my new job, CEO of the Draw Your Imagination company. I had an excellent day filled with day dreaming (maybe we should call that ‘brainstorming’) and real business development. I drafted the company mission and included an outline of products. I let it flow freely,...