October 2021 Free Wallpaper

Double double toil and trouble!! Welcome to the spookiest month of the year. Hopefully this wallpaper puts you in an October mood! I enjoyed weaving the connections between the imagery – delicate webs, to antique lace, to the glow of a candle, to the sliver of the moon I saw on my walk this morning. I particularly like how the iphone wallpapers coordinate with the desktop this time (that check pattern is very similar to my grandmother’s cloth napkins we used when we were kids!). Makes me feel a little nostalgic. By the way, in case you were wondering, our theme for this month is “Core” – like getting to the heart of things, and staying centered.

Happy Haunting everyone!

April 2021 Free Wallpaper and Playlist

As we make our way out of winter and into the very beginning of spring, our blessing for you is that you begin to “Awaken” – to rise and meet the day that is given to you. Vaccinations, new leadership, breathing easier – the world is waking up again. Take it slowly, but notice the green shoots pushing through, the light coming in the window a little earlier, the strength you have gained from the hardship you have navigated, and walk out into the sunrise of a new day.

I keep thinking about William Blake’s poem – “Awake! awake O sleeper of the land of shadows, wake! expand!
I am in you and you in me, mutual in love divine:”

We are moving into new places, friends. May you walk boldly with eyes open wide.

For the desktop, click on the image above to view the large size image

For the iphone wallpaper, navigate to this page on your phone and then click and hold on the image you want. Select ‘Save image to camera roll’. Then from your camera roll set your home screen/lock screen or both. I make a couple different versions so that you can use what works best for your device.

This month’s playlist is themed “Awaken” – go have a listen!

October 2020 Free Desktop & iPhone Wallpaper

Happy October! Here is a spooky-shadow-silhouette inspired wallpaper for your devices. Vultures, and bats, and spiders, Oh my!

Sorry to be a couple days slow. Had a Candy Land party to throw for a certain now 6-year old. Much love,

Betony

For the desktop, click on the image above to view the large size image

For the iphone wallpaper, navigate to this page on your phone and then click and hold on the image you want. Select ‘Save image to camera roll’. Then from your camera roll set your home screen/lock screen or both. I make a couple different versions so that you can use what works best for your device.

Weld Found: a new podcast

Friends, I’ve started a podcast. It’s called Weld Found and is about belonging in an age of social isolation and disconnection.

Since February I’ve been recording and editing and scoring. And now just this month the first couple episodes are being released.

The work of creating it has been so much fun and very meaningful, too. I’m asking questions like, “What does it mean to connect and truly belong to the area where you live?”

Since I’ve been here in Greeley, CO I’ve lived somewhat in a bubble. I’ve got my friends who all enjoy similar things and believe similar ideals and we’re mainly in similar places in life… along with that comes my Facebook and Twitter where I have great connections, but they are definitely the same types of echo chambers.

So this is a step into getting to know the place where I live. And become a better connected part of my community.

But I’m wanting to tell these stories in such a way that those of you who don’t live in this particular area can still deeply enjoy them. Because I know many of you are asking these same questions of “What does it mean to belong better to where I live?”

You can subscribe and listen in iTunes or Google Podcasts. Or just stream the first episode below. Thanks for listening! I hope you love it.

-Tim Coons
Giants & Pilgrims

A New Children’s Book Illustrated by Betony Coons

Click here to ORDER the BOOK

Gardening is a deeply centering act for me. When spring comes around I am always eager to get outside and begin digging in the dirt.

A little Arlo garden helper inspiration

So when Patricia Long showed me her story about sharing called “Mr. Gibsons Garden”, I was in! I’ve worked with Pat before when I illustrated her story “The Stitches Fairy”, so I knew this would be a well-told tale I could share with my kids and also with people who enjoy my art as well. 

It begins with Mr. Gibson, who is an excellent gardener, but isn’t that great at sharing. Will he learn how to be a better neighbor? 

Here are some pictures from the very long but satisfying process of illustrating a children’s book –

The beginning of the process of illustrating
The books finally in hand!

ORDER your very own copy! Click here!

Also, the first 25 orders will receive autographed copies!

A favorite spread from the book in my own garden

March 2019 Desktop Wallpaper

It snowed another three inches in Colorado today, but I have been getting that gardening itch in my fingers. I am so ready for those first glimpses of green! This month’s wallpaper is inspired by/features antique garden plans from France. I’m hoping to plan out my own tiny garden soon. Happy March!

For the desktop, click on the image below to view the large size image.

For the iphone wallpaper, navigate to this page on your phone and then click and hold on the image you want. Select ‘Save image to camera roll’. Then from your camera roll set your home screen/lock screen or both. I make a couple different ones so that you can use what works best for your device.

iphone wallpapers:

What’s Stopping You from Being You?

As I turn 40 this month I’m writing a few reflective posts. It’s always good to take step back and ask, “What have I been learning and experiencing these last few years… or better yet, decades?”

Here’s the post on the two halves of life where I compare bucket-lists, 7th grade’s and today’s.
And here’s our Top 5 Helpful Things for Creative People!


It was ten years ago and Betony was pregnant with our first child. We were having dinner with some friends who are a bit older than us; people whose wisdom in the music profession I trust.

After dinner we were talking about dreams and songwriting and insecurities.
My friend turned to me and gave me something I’d been looking for a long time: permission.

He told me it was time to take my music career out of the closet and give it some sunshine…
let it breathe. He told me I could do it and essentially to stop wishing it and go be it.

Isn’t it strange how just a bit of encouragement from a trusted source can be all we need?

Before this moment I had played in bands and led worship music and produced demo albums with incredible musicians. But I’d never taken any of it as seriously as I’d liked. When we played a show I rarely invited anyone. When we made an album I wouldn’t invest very much money or even pay to get it mastered. I had this major fear and hinderance in my mind. It’s one I still will wrestle with on bad days. It goes like this:

If I don’t make enough money doing this then I’m not successful.
If this doesn’t lead to a tipping point of notoriety that leads to sustainability then I’m not successful. If I don’t create enough income to arrive at the American dream of a sweet house and some cars, then I’m not successful.
If I can’t make a living doing this, isn’t it just a glorified hobby?

And around and around my mind goes
until I feel embarrassed calling myself a musician. 

We all have a major hangup, don’t we? That main roadblock that’s in our way that we just keep struggling with.
Mine seems to be this definition of success. What’s yours? 


My hangups are still present, but after this eye opening conversation 10 years ago something in me changed. I had a big shift in perspective. 

I probably wasn’t ever going to be a singer-songwriter as a singular career. But that was ok.
I was going to keep being an intentional singer-songwriter because…
when it came down to it, I had been compelled to since I was young.

I had written songs and longed to share them since 2nd grade.

I had a fire in my bones, as a prophet once put it, and I had to create and share.

That sentence reads melodramatic, but I think most creatives know what I’m talking about…
the compulsion to make something meaningful and share it with the people we love;
to connect in deep ways where what’s being sung and experienced becomes a conversation of “me too”;
to make something beautiful that speaks in and over and through the human condition. 


So that year, a decade ago, after that important conversation, I started taking creating seriously. I had another job as a worship leader but I also started dedicating time to songwriting, to having a website, a Facebook page, to setting up a series of house concerts. I put together my first ever tour with the goal to break even (I made $500 and was so thrilled).

I had just turned 30.
And I’ve kept this up the last 10 years.

When people ask what I do for a living I tell them musician
and it’s usually with a great deal of pride.
That title is a juggling of a whole lot of “main jobs” and “side hustles”. I think the most important thing the intentionality over these years has done… it has addressed the compulsion to make and given me space to create.

To put it maybe a better way, it’s helped me be the person I’ve needed to be; the person I’ve felt called to be.

I’ve made work I’m proud of. I’ve had people respond and let me know a song or project or experience meant a great deal to them.
And that truly has felt like the answer to the calling.
And it’s still not been my main source of income.
But it’s not a hobby.
It’s an identity. 

I’m so thankful, grateful that someone came along to give me permission to do this.
I needed the affirmation and encouragement
that even though creating this art is not my sole income, it’s my soul income.
That has personally been my largest hurdle to overcome in being an artist.


So now I say this quite seriously
to those of you with the fire in your bones to make and create and connect,
whatever your hangups are:

You can do this.
You feel deep inside you’re called to it and you HAVE to make.
Do what you need to do.
Be responsible. Live economically. Make it work.
It’s worth it.
Keep on your side hustles and passion projects
and add beauty to this world starved for meaning.
It makes a better us when you are fully you.
Thank you for being bold. It’s we who benefit. 

 

September 2018 Desktop Wallpaper

 

The first of September is one of my favorite moments of the year. There is this subtle but tangible shift from Summer to Autumn. This wallpaper was made by overlaying several antique landscape engravings on top of one another – creating this beautiful but subtle translucent effect. To me it is an illustration of that movement from one season to the next. The delicate folding and unfolding of a year.

For the desktop, click on the image below to view the large size image.

For the iphone wallpaper, navigate to this page on your phone and then click and hold on the image you want. Select ‘Save image to camera roll’. Then from your camera roll set your home screen/lock screen or both.

iphone wallpapers:

 

June 2018 Desktop Wallpaper

Happy June friends!! I just came across this poem shared by one of my friends. I love the feeling it leaves me with. I want June to be full of fun, and freedom, and wild abandon. Jump!

Long enough have you dream’d contemptible dreams,

Now I wash the gum from your eyes,

You must habit yourself to the dazzle of the light and of every moment of your life.

Long have you timidly waded holding a plank by the shore,

Now I will you to be a bold swimmer,

To jump off in the midst of the sea, rise again, nod to me, shout, and laughingly dash with your hair.

Walt Whitman

For the desktop, click on the image below to view the large size image.

For the iphone wallpaper, navigate to this page on your phone and then click and hold on the image you want. Select ‘Save image to camera roll’. Then from your camera roll set your home screen/lock screen or both.

iphone wallpapers:

March 2018 Homeschooling

Two years ago we began homeschooling Lucy (8), Hattie (6), Beatrice (3), and Arlo (1). We’re including this on our Giants & Pilgrims blog as all our family adventures seem to impact our art & music so much! Also, we just like sharing the stories. So we’ll be sharing posts on the themes we’ve been covering each month and calling the adventure “ABACUS”! Our hope is that these posts will help spark creative direction and inspiration for your family as well as giving us somewhere to be document and record our experiences.

Easter Goodness:

I don’t love it when Easter falls so early in the year, because I feel like I haven’t gotten fully into the swing of Spring yet, but it is a great kick off for the season.

Easter morning photos (Tim is missing because he had services to lead at his work)

Dying Ukrainian Easter eggs as part of our “Good Master” Book club. It is such a beautiful layered process – you use very intense dyes paired with layers of beeswax to create really beautiful eggs.

 

We read “The Good Master” for our book club. It is a story about two Hungarian children on a farm – a perfect portrait of spring. Our book club is never complete without lots of literature inspired feasting!

Sneaky little bugger…

Making seed bombs

Lots of fun hunting easter eggs –

 

 

And of course a visit from the Easter Bunny

Art:

We spent a morning studying birds nest and eggs

And wrote bird postcards

Harriet rediscovered her love of hedgehogs

Matisse inspired “backwards color” portraits

Life:

We delivered this art piece to Houston

And we maneuvered a family crisis with a lot of love and help from our friends

Rainbow Science:

We spent a day in rainbow land (including color themed outfits)

Rainbow snack time

Light table fun with magnatiles

Preschool Fun:

Learning about cavities the importance of teeth brushing

Buzzy showtime on our table top theater we made last year!

Engineering Fun:

Fun with ropes and pulleys as part of our Simple Machines exploration

And we made an official inventors kits!

and finally, we built little circuit lanterns with Tinker Crate