Days 1 to 16 ICAD2022

 

Days 1 to 9

Days 1 and 2. It's funny where inspiration comes from, something that's just at hand sitting in front of me on my art bench, an image from an art calendar. In a way it doesn't matter what the subject is, but just to be getting my paints or pencils out and making a little time in the evening for art.

Days 3 and 4. Again loosely based on images on an art calendar.

Days 5 and 6. These are much more like my usual paintings, based on my walks at the water gardens and the beach, I work from memory sketches and bad photos! Very happy that the one on the right then inspired a proper painting which would never have happened without icad bringing up ideas!

Days 7 and 8. Again these ones are of the nightcliff foreshore, the bike path through the trees and looking out across the mouth of rapid creek, the same composition as day 6 but trying more muted colours.

Day 9 was back to the art calendar!

Days 10 to 16. I felt like I floundered around for subject matter this week, and wasn't that happy with what I produced, on the last 2 days I worked from an episode of gardening australia pausing the video on interesting compositions and sketching from that. The figure in a garden is definitely a subject I'm interested in, and I have continued on this theme through days 17 to 22, and possibly beyond! I'll share those next time!

Best wishes to all, and if you're having a go at ICAD I hope you're having fun with it.

ICAD 2022

 It's been a long time between posts! If you follow me on instagram you'll know I've been painting pretty steadily for the last year and a half. 

When I started this blog my kids were still little,  I had one free morning a week with no work and no kids and that was my painting morning which inspired my blog name - what I did on Friday! 

Over the years I've sometimes had more time, but found it didn't equate to more creativity, in fact it usually meant more procrastination. For the last year or so I've set aside Sunday morning for painting, and I get my paints out no matter what, often I only have an hour or so before I have to drive someone somewhere, but it's enough time to get a little painting done. I also try to go out walking and sketching through the week, tiny fast 5 minute sketches help me to really look and give me subjects for my paintings. 

And now to ICAD!

ICAD is an index card a day challenge which runs through June and July it's the idea of @gypsy999 (on instagram or daisy yellow blog) you can find out more info there including daily and weekly prompts...which I will probably ignore and go my own way. I'm excited to be carving out a little bit of time in the evenings to do my icad a time of day when I'm low energy and usually in front of the tv. 

 

These are my warm up cards done before the 1st June, I will post again soon with my icads from the first week.

Lots and lots of little paintings

 Since the xmas craft fair at the end of November I have tried to make time for painting every Sunday morning, even if it's only for an hour or so. I work small - on 4x4 inch canvas boards, now and again expanding onto 5x7, which feels huge in comparison. Over the 4 months - December through March - I've done a lot of little paintings.... they are all painted at my verandah table at home. When I'm out walking I often take (bad) photos or do little sketches that I use for inspiration for the paintings, but I haven't been brave enough to paint outdoors.

So a bunch of the paintings are of the place where I sit when I go for my walk at the beach. The view out to sea across the rocky shore off sunset park at Nightcliff - it's wonderful to see storm clouds and dramatic skies at this time of year,  the wet season, and I've tried to capture some of that, the same view in different weather.

A couple of the paintings are of sunset park, the shady trees and glise of the sea beyond, and people enjoying it someone reading, someone walking their dog.

A Nightcliff landmark is the jetty, and It has made an appearance in a couple of paintings!

Another group of paintings are still life's, which I do paint from life - a twig of gumtree flowers I picked up at the park, a new pot plant...

The best painting sessions have been when I knew what I wanted to paint, if I don't have a clear idea the painting doesn't go well. That seems to be the opposite of the nugget of wisdom about not waiting for inspiration to strike, to just get on with it.

I feel like this wave of painting is coming to an end - perhaps it's the change of season. The dry season is approaching, I feel the urge to get out walking more often and get back into the garden. These things will 'fill the well' and inspire the next wave of painting. (The idea of filling the well is from Julia Cameron's book The Artist's Way.) 

Also the first craft fair of the year is coming up at the beginning of May, so I need to get prepared for that. I feel very lucky that these events can go ahead almost as normal in Darwin, while so many other parts of the world are still in lockdown. For those in the northern hemisphere I hope that spring and the easing of restrictions is bringing a little joy :)

The thing that made me do lifebook this year!

 I've taken lifebook before in 2017 and 2018 and I enjoyed it, but also missed a lot of classes, I probably only did a third of what was on offer, and felt that it was aimed at someone with less experience than me... I've been paintin and drawing pretty consistently for the last 40 years!

But back in late November I think, there were some taster lessons that ran for 2 weeks. It's a busy time of year so I only watched 4 of the short classes and only attempted 2 of them. 

One was this wonderful art journalling lesson with Pia Rom - combining paint, collage and words to find a story. It felt like such an interesting and easy way to build an image. (By easy I think I mean sidestepping the inner critic) It seemed to open doors in my mind for how I might approach artmaking and journalling. That one lesson convinced me to try lifebook again, that there are new things there for me to learn and new inspiration.

Do take a look @piaromsart on instagram, her journal pages are stunning and now she's playing with little clay figures too.... looking forward to doing her full lifebook lesson!

Happy new year and Lifebook 2021

 I have treated myself to the online art and wellbeing course Lifebook for this year. I have tried it befor in 2017 and 2018, and enjoyed being introduced to so many different artists/teachers and new approaches and techniques. I also remember being overwhelmed by so many lessons, usually 2 a week (plus other bonus material) there can be hours of video which I don't have enough time for. So I'm doing it my way, as much as I can manage on a smaller scale than they suggest - I'm doing mine in an A5 journal , not loose sheets to be bound at the end. Also I'm not taking part in the facebook group, I don't enjoy facebook (to put it mildly) and don't want to waste time there or be too overwhelmed or influenced by other people's work.

Here's my first piece for the year! A warm up, I followed the instructions fairly closely and enjoyed the layering, stencilling and markmaking. It includes my word of the year - renaissance- along with the dictionary meaning "cultural or artistic revival." That's what I'm really hoping for this year, after beibg so focused on the kids finishing school for the last couple of years, now it's my turn!!

The other week one lesson was called Goddess of Light, I didn't watch all the videos for this one but used it as inspiration, a jumping off point for this journal page which is still in progress. Both these lessons were with Tamara Laporte. (You can find out more about lifebook at her website willowing.org or Instagram @willowing). I will skip week 2 for now as the week 3 lessons will be out on Tuesday.

Happy new year and best wishes to you, take care of yourselves especially those back in lockdown, hoping things improve as the year goes on and vaccines are rolled out.

Back from a looong break!

 It's been a very long time between posts, mainly because I stopped making art for a big chunk of the year...from May to October really. 

When the pandemic arrived and exhibitions and craft fairs stopped, there was little motivation to make work, and then I discovered that I liked the peace in my mind without that critical voice that always questions whether my art is any good, whether there is any point in doing this. 

So I enjoyed my time gardening, I got good at growing basil from seed! And I focused on my twins in their final year of school, driving them here and there, being around to talk to and make snacks!!

We're very lucky in Darwin, we've had very few cases of coronavirus, we had a brief, lockdown in April/May after that life gradually returned to fairly normal except for restrictions on travel. So the thing that got me started again art making was the xmas craft fair. I decided in October to take part, and then had 6 weeks of madly getting prepared! The craft fair was at the end of November, here's the paintings I took along.

Since then I've set aside some time on Sunday mornings to paint. I hope I can stick with it and enjoy it without getting into that critical headspace again. I've also treated myself to the online art course Lifebook 2021 to keep me playing and trying new things. If you're curious about lifebook there are some taster sessions which I think have been reopened to try for a week, go to visit willowing.org to find out more.

Sending my best wishes to you, I'm sorry if you've had a hard year and I hope 2021 will be better.

A strange time for a digital detox

Hello, I hope you're safe and well where ever you are. We are living through strange and unexpected times, and because everyone's experience is quite different I thought that there's value in writing down how it's been for me.

I want to acknowledge that I'm very lucky, I didn't lose my job. I live with my partner and 3 kids so I haven't been lonely! We are homebodies, so it wasn't a big change to stay mostly at home. In the NT we've had only 30 cases of coronavirus and no deaths (so far, who knows what will happen when the borders re-open).

But I've been worried about my mum who lives alone in England, and I wonder how long it will be until I can visit her. I've been worried for my twins who are in their final year of school, how much harder it's going to be for them to find a job at the end of the year.

I don't usually look at the news, but as the situation blew up through March and into April I started checking the news several times a day. As soon as I realised the May craft fair wouldn't go ahead I dropped all the things I was working on for that - stopped making art altogether for a while. I spent more time than ever on instagram and felt a bit jealous of people in lockdown who were producing beautiful artwork, baking, crafting, and more. And I felt overwhelmed by all the free online content that was suddenly on offer, I didn't have time for any of it.

By good luck I reread Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport in April, and decided to have a digital detox in May. No more looking at news apps, no instagram except for half an hour at the weekends. I checked my emails morning and evening and tried to keep off other than that - only going on to check specific things, how to get somewhere on google maps, how to deal with ants on the veggie plants, etc. I don't do facebook, pinterest, or twitter, so they weren't a problem.

Overall, I stuck to it pretty well and it made a huge difference to how much I could get done on my days off - more gardening, more baking and more art. The pictures in this blogpost are artworks I made in May.

In the last week I've been less strict and have been going on YouTube and listening to some podcasts. I think I get bored of the same stuff that goes round and round in my head, and sometimes I do need a distraction and to just chill out and watch an art or gardening video!

I noticed that spending time clicking about online makes my energy and motivation drop. If I get up in the morning and have my brekkie and then get on with something, whether it's gardening or getting the paints out, I'll get so much more done with my day than if I get up and go online. I think to myself I'll just go on instagram for 5 minutes, and an hour later I'm still there checking somebody's blog, or some course that I'm never going to do. And then I feel bad that I've wasted the best bit of the day, and everything goes downhill from there...

So even though it's June tomorrow I won't be going back to my old habits. I think restricting my time online is a way I can take care of myself through the stresses of the coming months.

I hope you're finding ways to be kind to yourself. Best wishes everyone and stay safe.