Micro- movements, stillness and inspiration

In the past few weeks I have made more progress in my art than I have the whole year. Instead of sitting for big chunks of time, I have been taking snippets of it and quickly working away, stealing five minutes here and there depending on what is happening.
Moving slowly on each project, then working some more as time allows.
I always thought that doing it this way would lack passion or focus, but I have surprised myself that it actually makes more fun, and less pressure. I have made lots of journal backgrounds, with left over paints, fibre, materials what ever I had at hand. Soon I will fill these pages with collage, words, journaling, doodling and more paint! Fun-fun-fun!
Which brings me to my new years resolution! Fun being the operative word. When I did the art course I had to learn so much in such a short period, and a lot of focus on skill and technique, and for me it took away the fun of art and the spontaneity it can have when you are excited and exploring new mediums or projects. If I can find a different art course which encourages these values and beliefs I will enroll straight away!

This is a drawing of a girl from my imagination, (I have been enjoying drawing and sketching faces) I will transfer her image on to a painted canvas and then I will doodle some shapes around her. This idea was taken from Milliande's Channel on You Tube called "Mixed Media Painting Canvas - Combining Art" Lots of exploring and playing, so much fun!

A few weeks ago I met with Crissy at the Northey Street Markets, she is a wonderful inspiring artist who is involved in community and environmental art work. I went with my girls to one of her workshops, we made planter pots and covered it with recycled materials, Chrissy then gave us sunflower seeds to grow in our pots. The seedlings are growing beautifully, when they flower I will post a picture, we are all very excited to see them. Maybe I will be inspired to sketch them!

The new year will bring with it many exciting challenges. I will be starting work, after 7 years of being a stay at home mum (ohh my!). In late January I will be teaching as a Relief for the first few years as I am new to Queensland Education, I am originally from Darwin Northern Territory. So I need to make up points till I become permanent and then I can find work at a school, this is where I have come up with my wonderful idea, to make an Art Club in school time and do some sort of journal art, or canvas painting with kids that are interested in creative arts. Another idea I have been thinking of strongly is about doing more studies in Art Therapy, as you can see from most of my posts I believe art can heal us and bring peace and joy to our lives by allowing us to free our worries or burdens through expressing ourselves. But we will see what the year brings.

I wanted to thank you all for supporting and sharing your art and your hearts with me throughout the year, this journey has given me so much, a real belief that life can give you what you need at the right time. It has helped me grow and realise that we truly all are wonderful special human creative beings.

Merry Christmas to you all, love Angie. :D

Owl Mania

The school holidays have started and the kids are home for the next 6 weeks. I have been looking forward to this for a while, no more school pick up or drop off. Phew!! But it will mean that I have to get 'crafty' (giggle) about managing my time to do some art. So far so good, have been squeezing in time to doodle and play around with drawing cartoon owls. I don't know why or what has possessed me to draw owls but I love them, they are wise and spiritual animals and they like to read! Some of the owl drawings I googled, some are from a cartoon my kids like to watch and others are from the imagination. Hope you like them.

This is a new journal entry (apologies for the fuzzyness of picture). Again very play related, do you remember making butterfly prints at school by sqeezing paint inthe middle of the page and then squishing it all up, to then open it and each time the butterfly would be different. After the paint dried I doodled around the butterfly.

Do you let yourself play some times? Give it a go, it's so much fun, maybe you can squish some paint and make butterflies!

Oil Painting

The first image above is of my first ever oil painting, taken from a photo from our recent holidays in Byron Bay, this is one of the gorgeous views which we enjoyed daily on our stay there.

The painting isn't finished yet, so far this is my second coat, few more to go till I am happy with it, needs more detail and 3 dimensional effect on the front in particular. I really enjoyed painting with oils wet on wet, particularly when I make a mistake I can easily wipe it off! The paints are bright and strong too.

This is our last art piece of the art course which finished last week, and sadly I couldn't go to all my classes, so now will try to finish this at home in time for the Exhibition in February. We can enter any piece and I will enter the oil painting.

Promise to show the other paintings in the following week.

I have been U tubing (is that even a word?) and finding lots of fun arty painting activities to do at home, loving Miliande a lot and have started to do a piece from her in acrylics and mixed media. I really enjoy doing experimental pieces where there are no rules as such and just let the play come into it, where my art classes felt very different very structured and informative. Don't get me wrong I enjoyed my art classes but at times I did question whether this is where I wanted to go with my art, but Kim, the teacher, said you need to know the theory of each medium and explore them, and you need to be able to know what each medium can do.

What I was also wondering was whether art could have another vocation, to use a word. What I am getting at is can art also be used to free your spirit more, heal and find those parts of us we feel are lost sometimes? Mmmm, something to contemplate....

Hope your art whether you paint or write or sing fills those places for you and brings you joy!

Angie x

On Leave...

Hello everyone,
I really wanted to catch up with all, just really busy painting! (I am so happy creating and learning lots), I have been involved in my art classes, which I have been attending these last few months, we are approaching the last three weeks till the "Art Exhibition"! I am sooo excited and a little nervous, my first ever exhibition, and the other students have all been so wonderful and supportive we have really bonded over the weeks as the pressure is on to finish our pieces. I am at the moment doing two lessons per week and with school run and house stuff , doing x-mas shopping/organising, I am feeling a little inundated with errands and finishing work off, so I will be absent for a few more weeks, but will return hopefully with lots of pictures of work to share...Also I would like to keep in touch and see what everyone else have been up to!
Hope your days are also filled with creative endeavours...see you all soon Angie ox

Away On Vacation

Have been away for a week and seems for ever. Visiting friends and family in Sydney for two weeks (I just love Sydney). We have been doing so much that we are a little tired, but are looking forward to a well earned rest for two nights in Byron Bay, haven't been there before so am really looking forward to going.

Will be back soon, sharing some art work and reconnecting with you all, my creative gorgeous friends :)

Wishing you all a lovely time where ever you are! Angie ox

Creativity!

This weeks chapter I have found hard and grueling.
I had sooo many questions come up and sooo many possible answers, I felt swamped and stuck, wasn't really sure how to tackle some of my truths, yes I seem to back and forth, and the 'nothing' time has been hard to do this week too, but I have felt a reall need for it, quite space to put it all in order in my mind....
But journaling has really helped with letting it all out no bars held!
Some of the questions that came up this week were...

1. I want to become an artist, how can I make this possible?
2. Why don't I see myself as an artist already?
3. How can I make art as part of my life more?
4. What is it that I don't value about what I am doing now?
5. Why do I create?

The answers that came after all this questioning was, I don't see myself as an artist because.... I don't sell art, I don't do art daily, other people (family) don't see doing art as of value, feeling like I am waisting my time on too much hobbying. ( then the child in me softly speaks out, but I want to live a life of my own creation - happy, messy stuff, full of quiet, noise, busy, colourfull stuff!)

Rather than seeing the value in what I am trying to achieve....transforming my being into what my life's purpose is, allowing myself to express and grow, exploring and making soul connections, connecting to the authentic self, not being afraid to show my authentic self, even when others may not like it.

So all of these questions swirling in my head for days, but then as I was mopping the floor I realised that yes I am an artist because I create daily, maybe not painting daily, but when I bake a cake the same yearning to create comes in my centre and I have this great urge to want to bake. That urge, that feeling never really leaves me, I always feel it and I love that, because when I first had my daughters I felt like I lost it, but a very good friend of mine did remind me that creating a human being in your body, was 'creative ' enough! Yeah!!! (Must remind myself to be more compassionate with self)

I really loved the idea of doing one thing different daily, changing what I did, so I jumped on our trampoline and sang children's nursery rhymes, sang out loud in the lounge room to "Mamma Mia!" and wrote everything with my left hand for one day (this was a hard one!) Want to do art on my bed, go for a moon lit walk, leave love notes for friends and family to find mysteriously, maybe walk backwards around the house! Hehehe.

What are you trying differently today? Let your creative side out to play, have some fun! All the best with next weeks chapter "Risk", I don't know about you but it feels like its getting harder each week as we get more into this, just need to be more compassionate with self, its o.k. still learning the ropes of how to bring more joy in! Angie ox

Desire

This weeks chapter is on desire.

What is it that I desire?

I have many desires small and big, which I am not sure if any of them will ever be fulfilled. But by golly I will try!

Martha advices us to work towards our desire daily by sitting in stillness with it, listening to the desire see if it brings with it a taste of love, and spend some time on it daily, to make the desire reall.

For me my biggest desire is to become an artist. Even saying it exillerates me,"I am an artist!". Some of you may know that I have started an art course and last week we had a watercolourist come and introduce watercolours, he is a retired 70 year old man who started painting at 65 and has since then won awards, published a few books and is now a resident artist in a school, and as I was listening to him I was thinking, yes it can be done if you really want it you can go for it and make your self! The whole course has exposed us to so many talented artists that have made it through their desires, just from pure love and wanting to do so. This course has really enspired me!

Some days my focus is so strong and I get a reall connection with that energy and things really seem to flow, but other times I can't even pick up a pencil, this is when I doubt myself and wonder wether I have the right focus/desire.

I had an Aha! moment just recently about this, about how just because its something you are meant to do it doesn't mean it comes easily everytime, their is struggle, doubts and rejection. Just look at the great artists of our century, most were struggling artists, who were rejected by the art world, yet they still painted and continued on their journey of their destiny!

Do you sometimes find this struggle, yet you continue on? What do you do to help yourself out of this struggle?

Need to find sometime for stillness and ask more questions, Angie :)