For my friend Wendy’s birthday I was feeling artsy and wanted to make her a card instead of buying one.

A little background about Wendy: I met her when I first moved to New York and over the past year our friendship has grown and I have come to really adore her great fashion sense, corky humor and kindhearted spirit. And when I found out that we shared a mutual passion for Oprah and Flamin' Hot Cheetos I was convinced that I found my soul mate. No, I am not kidding.

Well, Wendy and a few of our friends regularly get their auras read. I have yet to do an aura reading myself so am not 100% sure what it entails but to my understanding a photo is taken of you, and what is revealed is an image of yourself accompanied by different colors that correspond to the energy fields that you are emanating. What is going on your life will determine what colors will appear in your reading.

Color Meanings: Red (vital), orange (optimistic), yellow (creative), green (healing), blue (tranquil), purple (magical)

Knowing that Wendy was going through a transitional time in her life I wanted to create something that was vibrant and incorporated as many colors as possible – to shower her with as many positive energies via a birthday card. During this time I was also feeling a bit fatigued with using only the color black with my floral illustrations so I was really relieved to ‘paint’ the rainbow. In addition, I was reminded of these beautiful embroidery paintings by Sabatina Leccia I had pinned awhile ago. They are just so lovely in their texture, color and fluidity.

PAINTing OUTSIDe THE LINES…the lines that sometimes don’t exist.

I will say I am the type of person who colors inside the lines but in this instance I had the paints guide me to where ever they wanted to go. In between each brush stroke of acrylic paint, I would add water droplets and rotate the paper up and down and side to side so that the wet liquids would roll and bleed into each other. Then I stippled dots with the pointed end of a skewer stick to mimic the embroidery in Sabatina’s work.

I was quite happy with how this little piece came out. I knew I wanted to incorporate the colors of the rainbow in an organic and fluid way that would celebrate all the vibrancies of life that would serve as a small reminder for Wendy that life has its ups and downs but that we are all constant ‘works in progress’ and that the important thing is continuously strive to grow and elevate ourselves.

Happy birthday to my friend Wendy. I wish all good things for her in 2019 and that this random card brings her the same bit of serenity and joy that I felt while painting it.

And I cannot think of a more appropriate way to end this post then with an Oprah quote:

“The biggest adventure you can ever take is to live the life of your dreams.”