Where are you now and what do you love?

Over on Kat McNally's blog she is hosting August Moon a fortnight of writing prompts. This post is in response to two of those...

The second prompt is what are you doing right now? Maybe to record what you do through the days so you can see patterns emerging, habits, see things you can change maybe. I feel like I need to spend time on this prompt, particularly to keep track of what I do on my 3 days off (I don't feel there's much room to move on my work days...)

It's already made me consider ... We've been on economy drive this year, I've been baking more so that we don't spend so much on biscuits, treats, museli bars that seem to take up half my trolley. BUT if I'm spending prime time Saturday morning baking muffins instead of painting, or catching up with a friend for a cuppa, or dragging the kids out of the house somewhere, is it really the best use of my time? Could I be slotting the baking in somewhere else? It will be interesting to see what else comes up from this exercise.

some of the sketchbooks I have on the go

The third prompt asks what do you love? I love books, I buy poetry books and don't read them, I have such a backlog, I get a poem a day in my inbox and struggle to get to them... I love art supplies, I'm addicted to sketchbooks and journals - there's so much potential in a blank sketchbook or notebook - all the things I might fill it with, the projects I might start, they are hard to resist.

I love music, love going to choir, but don't listen to much at all anymore, the kids have their music on and they drag me to watch some you tube video or other, and my partner plays guitar, practicing a lot at the moment and sounding good, so there is music around me all the time. What I love is to listen to radio national while I'm painting or doing housework, I listen to books and arts daily the music show, science show... anything except politics!! on my old school portable radio.  I love the idea of gardening, but don't do that much, it's something I need to make time for.

What we have around the house is too much stuff!! We're a household of hoarders, and could do with a good cleanup and chuck out, but who's got time for that?

making time

My intention this year was to make more time for art. I cut back my work days to 3 a week... but then life intervened, my workmate left, I worked full time for a couple of months, and now I'm back at my traditional 4 days work with Friday for art and the weekends for family, errands and snatches of art...

To be honest, working 3 days I felt guilty, lazy, flabby. I wasted a lot of time in my head justifying my 'slackness', instead of embracing the time and getting on with it. I'm probably making more art in a busy 3 days than I was in a lazy 4 days.

So nothing has changed, my intention is to live creatively, to give myself time for art - no matter what else is going on, I can spare 10 minutes to sketch or play with gouache or write each day.

This post is in response to the first prompt íntention' - in Kit McNally's August Moon writing challenge, you can find out more about it here.

 

pain and pleasure of painting

There hasn't been much evidence of painting on my blog this year, and I guess that's because I haven't been doing much! I've been really dissatisfied with most of the paintings I've started, and ended up discarding them or painting over them. It got to the point where I was avoiding the studio, going for a walk or baking muffins instead!!

I had a chat about all this with a friend who was visiting Darwin last month. Marita is an amazing painter, her work is exuberant, colouful, wild, playful....and she's prolific!! Her advice was to stop worrying about the end result, to set aside some time each week to paint for the fun of it, just to see what happens, not to censor it before it's started, to play!...

I've tried to hold onto this idea of play as I've started these garden paintings over the last month. I'm still dissatisfied, they fall a long way short of what's in my head! But at least I have something to show you, and a beginning to work on, or develop further in the next painting... and something to show in an exhibition coming up at the end of the month.

These are small 6x6 inch canvases, inspired by things I glimpse in gardens on my walks around the suburbs!
Best wishes to blogland, xxx