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Water In Parallel (part 5)

The ongoing story of the two paintings about Water bumbles on… collage on top of painting on top of collage.

Next? Next came more painting!

I love the stuff that going on here, it’s expressing the watery vibe I want it too. But there’s a lot of it with no central focus. It’s uncoordinated jazz that needs summoning together into something more melodious.

Blocking out bigger areas in white was the best way I could find to start this stage of the process.

Then I got thinking about ripples….

I’m really nearly done on this now. I’ve got some more pulling together to do – and I know just what (I’ll show you next post). This came to me in place of sleep last night. Insomnia is a double edged phenomena: it leads to tiredness and inconvenience, but it also provides the space for thoughts that just don’t seem to have room to surface in the bustle of daytime.

Shadow Monkeys (8/52 cont/d)

Week eight of 2015: a busy page that’s warranted 2 posts…

And that’s without any mention of the butterflies.

Or Steve Jobs. But that’s all for another day…

The thing I wanted to tell you about now is monkey related:
Since I spent a weekend in conversation with my daemons, they’ve been magicking themselves into apparency here, there & all over. This week they’ve manifested in a semi-Cubist, heavy handed biro scrawl, merged, their tribal Día de Muertos faces peering out from the recesses of the page.

We’ve been sharing the available space in this mind for a few decades. It’s refreshing to shift the power balance between ‘them’ and ‘us’ (for want of better terms).

So when I read the post from Danny Gregory this week, asking for tales from our Monkeys, another bunch of dots connected: Monkey minded me, the battles with my daemons, and all the reasons it took me so long to go to art school.

I dedicated a corner of a page to the Monkeys (they were chief trouser-wearers and direction-choosers in my life for way too long. They get a corner to play in now. I get the rest of the page. That is ALL) A place to start unscrambling some thoughts:

These are the bare bones of those thoughts:

My monkeys bewilder me with their faultlessly formed logic.

They have faith only in the opinions and the hard-hearted snipes of the the hardcore cynics. They know why I can’t and what I can’t and all the reasons why.

They will poke at me with pointy sticks if I turn my back on them for long. They stand in my way. They say: don’t show yourself, not your real self, cos then the haters aren’t hating the real you. You tricked the haters, the mean kids, the ones who know. You win. See?

The monkey’s logic is flawed at a level so deep I sometimes forget : Do not trust the monkeys.

It was the Monkey’s determination that as art isn’t a real job, and work isn’t supposed to be fun, and all the associated hooey, that defined my existence until quite recently. A large part of life (by my reckoning) is unpicking the knots that we spend the preceding years tying ourselves up in. Unattended monkeys will continue tying knots.

What if….

Of all the things we cling to, I find expected outcomes are hard to drop. Some hope of sense of stability or control… That desire to know what’s next, where I’m steering towards and what it’ll look like when I get there. Which I know isn’t real.

Just imagine the possibilities that could show themselves.

I’ve been giving this a lot of thought lately.

Last night I was listening to Darryl Anka. He’s one of those people who has a wonderfully down-to-earth quality offsetting some totally out there ideas. Some of which I know are hard to entertain for a lot of folks… but I was particularly fascinated by this talk. (It’s a loooong talk, this bit is around 58 mins in if you wanna cut to the chase!)

He’s saying the same — the key to the magic in life:
Do what you love, what excites and enriches you
Do it to the absolute utmost of your ability
Do it with no attachment to the outcome.

So I’ll persevere …

Sometimes..

Sometimes you got to hold out your soul in both hands, offer it up to the world, and hope.

Gaping Void

I love Hugh McLeod’s drawings, and his very succinct way with words.

This cartoon of his is a favorite of mine, those three words speak so much to me. They describe so much.

He wrote a fantastic article on creativity (I looked it up just now to link you to it, to find it’s over 10 years old. It’s stuck with me all that while!)

If you’re a creative (in any field) with a creativity block – artistically constipated – this is a great resource of timeless advice, and a place to go and cogitate on the nature of making.

More Focus & Trust 1/52

So last night I polished off the first week of my 2015 week by week art journal. Little tweaks and changes…. more emphasis on Trust – I gotta trust in this process,

and more focus on the word Focus. Got me thinking about focusing on what this week has meant to me.

The big silvery full moon (which kept me awake Sunday & Monday nights) is now shining from the top of the page. Full moons symbolise the stage of a cycle which is full on, full volume: intensity. As the peak of night brightness passes and the moon wanes the power subsides but I feel like it’s added strength to my convictions and spirited up my wishes.

Y’know I told you about my goals for 2015… I’ve been working on weight training and this week I upped my eek-I-can-just-about-lift-it weight by another 5kg. Little by little I’m realising that dream! The incentive behind my desire to get stronger is to improve my yoga practice. I’d so love to be able to do this. (and so much more… but this would make me happy for a start!)

Thanks to the darling Adriene, of ‘Yoga with Adriene‘, from this week I’ve been practicing with a new found daily discipline. I love her gentle, easy going style, she’s doing this wonderful 30 day program on YouTube. If you’re even a little bit interested in yoga, go check this out, it’s so lovely!

So that’s where I’m at for now; Now onto week 2/52!

Three Colour Challenge

Nuvofelt’s challenge was just what I needed this evening.

After a day of getting on with some long put off jobs about the nest, my reward for myself was an hour or so of de-rusting my painting skills.

The three colours I chose (without a lot of thought) were Magenta, Gold Ochre & Purple. Which for someone who has been in a rut of bluey greens for a loooong time, was probably a well balanced choice.

One at a time, on with the colour!

The artificial light doesn’t do the colour justice. It might be a work in progress or maybe a done thing, I’ll review it in the cold light of morning. Either way it was fun to do, I recommend it as a way to break colour habits!

Unstuckness

Do you guys know Jane Davies? I’ve just watched this video of hers. Really simple black and white mark making, so vibrant and lively and really ‘in the moment’. It made me think how great this would be as a kick-start when I can’t get going. A reminder: don’t try and make something just do.

I was reminded of the stuckness all us artistfolk get somewhile.

It’s a bitch: that art-void head space. Can’t think, can’t make, creatively constipated.

It’s tiresome, it’s draining, it’s vexacious, and until you’ve gotten through it a few times, it can scare the pants off you: “What if it’s all gone? Dried up? Never coming back?…”
When I finished school last June I got struck down by it big time, and it didn’t let up for AGES. Months.

I tried to to coax my mojo back into being by sorting out my art making space. I tidied and reshuffled and organised… I even had a fantastic commission to get on with, but I was stubbornly standing in my own way and refusing to budge.

So I waited it out, I lined up ideas in my head and on paper and physically in little heaps about the place. (I think the 2 years of intensive study and practice running in parallel with some big life shifts in my personal world had just run the tank dry and I needed this long while to regroup.) So I used the time to seek out and absorb new influences. I played more with words than colors. I began to enjoy the world outside the confines of my head.

I haven’t entirely got back in the art-swing still yet. Doesn’t seem to be an ON / OFF, more a growing appetite. But everyday I’m feeding the spirit with the nourishing goodness on tap here in the online community and in the books I’ve acquired over the years; The simple beauties around and about in nature and people-made-stuff.

Today I’m beginning a new year long project – a page a week art journal/sketchbook. I feel sore and rusty in the art-muscles, but it’s coming back. (I also bought a bunch of new colours to play with in the sales!)

New Wishes for the New Year

Happy New Day folks!

Yesterday (last year) I had a little rant about New Year’s Jumblings. Cos I don’t really understand a lot of it. Cos it doesn’t make sense.

But that was Then. This is Now!

And as I promised, here are the New Wishes I’m beginning my version of 2015 with:

To double the weight I can lift now.

I began weight training 3 months ago. It’s been damned hard, I hurt and ache more of the time than I don’t.

But I get the biggest buzz from it, and have squashed so many mental blocks and phobias along the way already. And I quietly amuse myself with thoughts of how absurd this seems in comparison to my first 4 decades on this planet.

If the previous version of me heard me wish this (even earlier last year), she would have fallen off the sofa laughing. Then asked me what I was on, and could she have some 😉

So, I’m small and flimsy, but I’m doing my best. And my best is (gradually) getting better. (For the record, I’m dead lifting 1/2 my OBW now. Just!)

And in turn my yoga practice is getting stronger and a whole lot less fally-over with my new found sense of balance!

To Live my Art.

Art has always been at my core.

It’s the centre of my being. It’s my purpose. I always knew this.

And for all that long time I dismissed it as frills and extras – when space and time permitted – to getting on with the serious job of not enjoying of life. WTF? Yes, old thinking, bad programming, obsolete life plan.

So if you’ve read my previous witterings you’ll know I embarked on the art school adventure just a few short years ago, and I now plan to move on from art student (my highest ideal when I began) to actual real live artist!

I’m joining the Dirty Footprints 21 Secrets in the Spring. Meanwhile I’ve got my Newest Sketchbook Project to begin today!

Let Go.

Whatever it is, FFS, just let it go!

The tension in my shoulders, the stupid things I did and said, the wanting things to be different from how they are, the wishing those wasted years back, the constant want of approval, congratulation, praise and ego bolstering.

Let it all go.

The need to make everyone laugh. Or think differently from how they are. Or be other than they are. All those judgements, the blame, the remorse, all that past – the whole darned lot of it!

There’s stuff I don’t know if I need to let go of, or persevere with – y’know that quandary? Yup, let that needing to know go too.

If it matters, it won’t go far.

So that’s the essence of my Three Big Wishes.

I also wish you well, as well. Be well, lovely folks! X

More Than The Sum Of Its Parts – Part 3

If it’s all looking a bit disparate with uncongealed ideas; If you’re still following, I commend you! And I forewarn you – it’s maybe gonna seem more scattered before it starts coming together – but bear with me…

Yester-post I was explaining how the combined doodles that emerged from the Zak Smith – Dominic McGill ideas were the raw ingredients for my silk screen design.

Next step was to dismember and re-member them into new shapes and surprises. Photographed and scanned, reduced to monochrome, printed, chopped, rearranged, photocopied, resized, rechopped, glued back together. Began to look like this: