No Fear

Be not afraid of growing slowly, be afraid of only standing still.
-- Chinese Proverb

I just realized that this piece and the previous one that I posted are very similar. The girl with the outstretched arms seems to be calling to me. I'm exploring this in my art journal,too. I didn't intentionally set out to create two such similar pieces. The Muse is at work...

I loved the look of this water/sky background. Tuesday I participated in a Webinar on Photoshop actions. I always thought they were too complex to try. I probably will never have the expertise to create my own but I was thrilled to learn that there are tons available on the internet free for downloading. I am so new with this tool that I had to manually write down how to download and then use them. But the results are worth the extra time. I used this image of the dock going out into the water and hit the "play" button on the action. After prompts to adjust certain settings and choose different themes I ended up with the background I wanted. I added the girl later and that's when I realized that I'd just used a similar motif.

So I'm thinking about the young girl in the first piece and the older one in this piece and what my Muse is telling me. Don't be afraid to let go ... have no fear ... these are big issues for me and I wrestle with different fears all of the time. I'm deliberately stopping myself when I hear the words, "I'm afraid..." in my head. Stop! I'm so accustomed to writing things off out of fear and I guess I've finally gotten tired of it.

I am expanding my art, my knowledge, my circle of friends...and I want to keep growing in all of those areas. If I fear anything, it would be as the proverb says: be afraid of standing still. I think I've done that too long!