Happy Christmas everyone!

I hope you're having a lovely relaxing day. This is our most laid back christmas day since kids! most of my teenagers didn't get out of bed til 10, so I did some quiet sewing to start the day and listened to classic fm! Just a quick post before I get stuck into the afternoon's cooking.

This is the xmas card I sent out to family and friends, a new lino-cut based on an old sketchbook drawing I came across at the right moment! I realised it's the first lino cut I've done since January, so that will be a plan for next year to do a new lino each month. Not really a resolution but something for me to think about. Bye for now and have a wonderful time over xmas and new year :)

Have you read Big Magic?

Have you read Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert? I bought it for myself back in September as soon as it came out. I'm a sucker for anything on creativity!!! I heard her interviewed about it on the radio a few months ago and was hanging out for it to come out.

I really enjoyed the book, I galloped through it really fast, and since then I've been re-reading it slowly with a pencil in hand, to underline the bits that resonate for me. It's interesting because it's very much her experience of the creative process along with anecdotes about people she knows. Some chapters have a big scribbled YES next to them, others got me thinking - oh that's interesting, my experience was a bit more like this... It's set me off thinking about people in my art class at school and college, people I haven't thought about in years. It's even got me doing a bit of writing after a couple of years drought! Here are a couple of the things I've written. The first is in response to how Liz Gilbert writes about loving our work even the failures, the second is in response to her writing about the lottery of success.

Myth #1

Nicky
not Nicola
17
long black hair
but boyish.
She purged her record collection
to make way for Slade.
( I got Kate Bush
and the Boomtown Rats.)

She painted in oils
a lifesize Noddy Holder,
rendered the reflections
of his lacquered guitar,
the textures of his craggy face
and rocker hair.
Centre stage in the art room
everyone admired it.

Until the morning it was discovered
smashed in half.
Nicky wasn't satisfied.

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The one to watch

Not up in the light filled studio,
he and a friend were in the basement
across the road, under the dark room.

A spotty teenager, with paint
on his clothes, on his face,
rumor he ate it too.

I remember seeing a sketchbook
with drab colour mixes, greys and browns
and notes scribbled beside.

He was not the one the girls chased
he hung out with the lads
a bit intense a bit wild.

Was I missing something?
Did anyone realise
he was the one to watch?

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I'd love to hear if you've read Big Magic and whether you liked it or not :)