Out of Routine

I have been meaning to write more often in the blog, but always seem to manage once a week. I would like to write a few more times in the week, I am sure there is no sure and fast rule to it, but I do like to have things set out so I know what is happening and I can keep track of things too. I am getting easily distracted lately and seem to be doing very little art or creating.

Last week I did manage to make some book marks out of felt, just as gifts and to try out into a

plait format. It was easy to do but I must admit that every time I finished one I had no idea how I managed it, it sort of seemed to come together by itself. A sort of intuitive twisting and folding of fibers, it was very calming to make them. Here they are, what do you think?

Some I added beads, some I threaded yarn, some were felted with a felting needle. Like I said they were such fun to make.

The book marks look and feel to me like forms of nature like tree roots and tree limbs twisting and looping like the fibres felted on the felt.

I need to beckon my muse I feel a little uninspired today, but I also have this huge urge to get my paints out, but I have been so busy with the children, this week.

My oldest has a dress up ball to attened and I am trying to finish her butterfly costume or rather her wings need to be glittered and painted.
Also my youngest got into kindy this week and so I needed to sign and fill a gazzillion papers for that, I am so excited for her, she will make friends and learn lots but I am going to miss her so much, it is only for two days.

We have a bit on our plate at the moment so maybe I should allow myself to not create at the moment and let myself to just do what is needed.
We had a lovely weekend with friends over for dinner and a relaxing Sunday watching movies.

I got the movie "Marley and Me"and because we also have a labrador which is what the movie is about, when Marley(the golden labrador)got sick and eventually died, husband and I just couldn't stop crying, my husband really loves his dog.

Poor Nelson(that's our dog) he just looked at us and must of thought what is wrong with these humans, they are always weeping!


Hope you also had a lovely weekend! Angie ox

I've been tagged! and some art

Yeah I have been tagged!

Lovely Bev has tagged me to list 6 things which bring bliss into my life.
Well, they are the simple things in life.........

1. when my daughter falls asleep on my lap



2. slow Sunday mornings when I'm cooking pancakes and the girls are playing outside and we are all listening to Jack Johnson singing in the background



3. walking barefoot on the beach



4. celebrations with friends and family and food is spread out, people talking and laughing and lots of noise



5. quietly sitting in the warm morning sun with a cup of tea and a good book/magazine undisturbed



6. our dinner ritual, every night we all sit together to have dinner and catch up on the days events

So here they are, as you can see nothing too out of the ordinary, but definately bring me joy to know that I have opportunities in daily life to appreciate what I have.

I have no idea who to tag next but if I do come up with someone I will list who they are.

This week I have been finishing off work.
This acrylic painting has been done on brown paper, then with a black marker outlined and textured with some chalk pastels. I did write some words in it but the photo shot hasn't got
enough detail. (click on image to see more detail)The messages are:

"Reach for the stars"

"Create"

"Love Yourself"

They are meant to be like affirmations, to help the viewer achieve the positive thoughts.
The middle picture is a doodle painting, sort of like doodling with a pen except I used a small brush with paints.
What do you think of the idea? I would like to incorporate more of these doodle paintings in my work, once I have figured out which way I am going with my art. I have no style of my own and am feeling a little lost as to what to create sometimes.
But experimenting has been good too, it's allowed me to let go of, no expectations, freeing me up, as Leah in Creative Every Day has said to allow yourself to create ugly work, so I give myself permission to just create, and when the time is right my muse will guide me in the right direction. I feel like I am now gathering the tools, the experiences, to then go forth and create with more of my spirit/identity/personality (not sure what to call it?).

And here is some of my experimenting I did with inks. Love them but not so good with handling them. The first one is an ink blowing exercise , I used burnt umber acrylic ink,which you are meant to make the inks flow into a tree figure then with a brush and some water make some leaves on the branches, to go with the "Nature" theme. I did these on watercolour paper and I think it soaked the inks too quickly and I feel it didn't work.


The other two were just playing around, trying to blend two colours together, and an oil pastel using three different colours, brushed blue ink on top. Once dry I scratched different patterns out.

I had fun playing around with inks, might use them in some drawings in the future, or even in my journalling.

Last week went to an art shop and bought myself a journal, still sitting there looking at me. Once I get started I will be O.K. the ball will start rolling as such, but at the moment the journal in empty, how does one start a brand new journal? What do I put in my first page?Do I do an intro of my self, my goals, the journals purpose? How have you started your journal?

Angie ox

I am back on line and so eager to update on all that has happened.


Last week after my first blog entry husband and I went happily searching and surfing the net that we hadn't realised we downloaded all our down time. So we had to stop using the net. But now we are up and running with extra hours up our sleaves!


Not all was lost though. I did do art and painted and made some crafty things which I had wanted to do in a while. (will post the finished pictures of a doodle painting soon)


For the Creative Every Day Challenge I brainstormed some ideas about how I would express "Nature" in art.

• Draw something in nature
• Draw something using natural materials (thinking red earth?)
• Portray nature using collage of natural things I find (still collecting for this one)
• Draw a portrait of "Mother Nature". (this idea came to me as mother's day approached and the two seemed to have some correlation, mothers give birth and create life. Mother Nature also creates and gives life. I had no preconceived idea of what the picture would be like, just knew it would need a female figure, and show nature. Here I have a tree growing from her head the intuitive area, and the dry barren dessert behind her. She looks sombre and deep in thought like almost willing for the rains to come to nourish the Earth and bring life.

The female figure is made from charcoal, the background is in water paints and tried to get texture on the sand area by putting salt on it when it was still wet.(didn't really work)

This has been my first real painting in a long time and I am so happy that finally that big sleeping part of me is finally waking!

Below is a mixed media painting I made for mother's day for mum and it is a representational only. Words to express what she means to me and images of swirls, flowers, sun and hearts to convey all the beautiful things she is to me. This painting will go in her sewing room where she creates.




I used acrylics to paint the image and gel medium for the first time, loved it! I glued on the tissue paper hearts with it, and the sun out of tissue paper torn strips. The words were written in black ink.

I am so grateful to have this opportunity to share my art, thoughts and wishes with all of you.

Have a great week making art and expressing yourself!

Angie ox