1st March

What Next?


Trying things out from a different starting point is a great way to stop getting too stuffy! Here I have cut up some discarded work and woven them into a new piece. This is a great way to recycle stuff, maybe it is a follow on from going fossicking through the local recycling places with Sarah at the end of the week. There is something very satisfying about finding 'treasures' amongst discarded items, so why not apply it to the bits and pieces I have cast away with some dissatisfaction and making something else that pleases me? An interesting way to start the new month, and who knows where it will lead!

28th February

Don't Forget

Don't forget the child you carry inside your self. The simple pleasures that you enjoyed when things were less complicated and your body less restricted. I used to love swinging, kicking up your feet and flying higher and higher, or swinging out over water and letting go with a shriek and an almighty splash as you landed in the river. All that changed after I got chicken pox as a 12 year old, and suddenly swings, lifts and doing rolls over a bar in the gym gave me motion sickness. Nothing fixed it, I didn't grow out of it, and I still succumb if reckless enough to try my luck! I can still imagine it though, the air rushing past and the excitement as I wondered if the swing would rotate all the way around its support if I went too high. It is great fun to revisit being a child and making my more sober adult part smile!

27th February

Beautiful Flowers

I have an enormous bunch of gorgeous hydrangeas on the kitchen table which just cried out to be drawn this morning. They are like insane, old ladies hats(the hats not the ladies!), and I love them. Exuberant blues and purples and big, curly leaves that remind me of my grandmother's garden, and my mother's garden when they lived at Chertsey and had a row of hydrangeas down the shady side of the house. These come from my friend's back door where they almost take over the footpath! Beautiful.

26th February

A Big Day


Yesterday was a big day with lots of lovely people and things happening! Here is the Birthday Bird of Paradise with all her little blessing birds. (I didn't say that it was a serious moment! - maybe I am allowed to get more batty as I advance into the second half century of my life). Anyhow it was a good day, too much good food, yummy cake, hilarity round the table, wine, a minty fruity cocktail, lunch in the sunshine, friends dropping in.. I am so lucky to have such a good bunch of people around me. It was lovely to have Sarah here orchestrating the evening meal and baking a wonderful banana cake to boot!
So, may the Bird of Paradise also grace you with her presence and shower you with good things in your life too!

February 25th

Another Warm Day in Canterbury

I feel cooler just looking at this! It would be very pleasant to be submerged in cool water but our bath is too short to be able to loll about like this!! In my next incarnation I will be looking for a nice big bath, inside or out. I love the idea of sitting under the starry night sky in a nice warm bath too, something else to aim for before time runs out. Anyhow, despite the distance from her natural environment things look pretty good for this mermaid. I wonder what the rest of her abode might look like? Maybe the little mermaid might have liked a retreat to spend time in her original form in. Her true self every now and then. Time to be in your full, authentic self are essential - just yourself, no needs to respond to, no comments, and nothing being demanded of you. An inner sanctuary maybe.

24-2-10

Hot, Hot, Hot

It is so hot the house is slowly collapsing under the unrelenting sun. We have hit 30degreesC and it is a pleasure to be in a cool house with shady windows. Even the cat has finally collapsed in a shady spot and is breathing very lightly. We are not complaining about the heat, merely leaning back into it and enjoying the dozy, languid sensation it brings.

I am liking my new paper! It lets my ink pen draw nice, black lines without catching on the fibres and splattering so much - yummy!

23rd February

Summer, Finally


At last, a run of warm, sunny weather! Temperatures in the late 20s, and in some cases, 30s. Bliss! Just right for a pleasant visit to the beach to enjoy a cooling sea breeze in the afternoon, complete with sun shielding hats and umbrellas that look like huge, colourful halos. Sitting on the sea wall in brilliant colours seems like a great idea to me.
I am trying out some different paper with a smooth surface, so far so good. It will be interesting to see how things go with different media.

22nd February

Cows

What can be said about these creatures? There are so many current issues around cows and the Canterbury Plains, the use of our water, and the sheer numbers of cows for dairy production here. We are a dry place, and cows need water, and lots of it. It is purely monetary gain that motivates this mass farming in an unsuitable environment. Poor creatures, they are pawns in an unscrupulous game, which we are all going to pay for in the long run. 

In the back of my mind I have memories of a house cow that was kept where I stayed for a while. She was a lovely creature, warm, gentle, smelling grassy and of the summer fields. I remember leaning against her side as I took a turn to milk her by hand and the pleasure of the milk slowly filling the bucket, as she allowed me to handle her. It was one of the best moments I have had as a human being working with an animal. Companionable, soothing, and somehow timeless.

This is a long way from the sight of many animals trudging to the milking shed and endless irrigation sprinklers as you drive through the country. It looks so mechanical, without any sense of the cows as creatures, just another resource to be exploited.  A slower, kinder, co-operative relationship with cows would be so much more desirable, even if it meant milk was less available and became something we enjoyed as a treat rather than a right.

21st February

Speaking of 'Furries'...


Here she is, our particular furry person, asleep on the green sofa in my studio. Actually, we are hers since she insinuated her way into our lives a few years ago. We are her retirement plan, and I think things are working out pretty well for her! They don't sit still for long, even when sleeping after a meal, so this is a group of very quick sketches. I love the way they wrap their paws and tail over each other to make a little platform for their chin. So content in the late afternoon sunshine. 

20th February

Fairies at the Bottom of the Garden


Maybe that should be 'furries'! There are often cats, other than our one, sunning themselves at the bottom of our garden! I love this time of year when everything has gone past its main growing and has become unruly! I have a big old grape vine with lots of grapes this year and self seeded nasturtiums, runner beans, and the odd escaped convolvulous that are flowering madly at the moment. The autumn has started with its cooler mornings and fine hot afternoons too, so the flowers all glow in the light. There are also a few butterflies about and the evenings are still and warm. All very attractive to fairies and furries alike as we all soak up the warmth and fruits that will see us into the winter!

19th February

Steve's Lilies


Gorgeous flowers with a beautiful scent. Nutmeggy and sweet all at once and making beautiful patterns against the light on the kitchen table. A quick sketch to capture a moment hardly does them justice and my skills aren't what I'd like them to be, but then if I wanted photo-realism I would take a photo! The lilies remind me of my great grandmother's garden where she grew tiger lilies taller than I was at the time. Spotted orange flowers in multiples on each stem, and their pointy leaves all the way round for what seemed feet at a time. Beautiful.

18th February

Lots of Little Pictures

I have been working on creating a collection of little engravings to make into pendants. I am quite pleased with the general effect, a bit like scrimshaw- but without the sacrifice of a whale! They feel nice in your hand and allow me to play with lots of little doodles. I do enjoy the different atmosphere you get using black and white alone, it is quite different from coloured drawings, cooler in temperature somehow. 

17th February

Here Be Dragons

A scaly creature in a sky full of spirals - I must be feeling active! Actually I have been rushing about a fair bit of late, there are  lots of calls on my time and a high energy level is exactly what is required! I'm a little bit nervous about the expression on this dragon's face - is he about to swoop or is he drawing back in horror? Whatever he is up to I feel is is a friendly soul and I enjoyed conjuring him up on the page. I shall keep an eye out for him during the next full moon! Wouldn't it be wonderful if such creatures, (benign of course), could be seen in our skies?

16th February

The People All Around You


There are so many people in our lives that we don't notice until something out of the ordinary happens. The people you pass on the street, the person who lets you into a traffic queue, the person who looks up and smiles at you in a hospital corridor, people who are also going about their day to day lives and take a moment to make contact with you. Family and friends, old and new, make up the main fabric of our lives, and are an essential part of who we are, but the unexpected moments where a stranger touches our lives with kindness are a real celebration of what it means to be human too. I am so glad to be part of a bigger existence than my own small life, and will continue to participate in random acts of kindness and senseless creations of beauty!

15th February

Serenity

A serene face, gazing into the middle distance, with a sense of introspection. Just resting in the moment without any thoughts of action or decision. It's a quiet place I need to visit more often where there is relief from the tyrannies of day to day life, and my particular distractions of colour and sound. 

February 14th

Give me Coffee

I love a good cup of coffee, indeed there are times I just have to have a cup right now! It smells so good, promises such pleasure, and warms both hands and face. Delicious. I find myself going back to places where the coffee was good last time, and  I remembering which brands I prefer. When did this happen? The outrage and disappointment when the coffee is not up to scratch - I used to be so relaxed about things. So, until the next cup look out!

13th February

Savour the Moment

Life is a mixed bag of good times and not so great moments. Why is it the difficult times seem to have such a lasting impact? Those memories seem so much sharper and more real than the soft, sunny times where everything is easy. We need to spend some of those moments of comfort and beauty really focussing on the particular details, scents, sounds, and emotions, until we can recall each aspect in perfect focus. This will build a bank of wonderful moments to bring to mind when things are difficult, memories that reassure and remind us that all is not bad and better times are not so far away, just as close as we can hold them in our minds.

12th February

Barefoot through the Grass


Do you remember the exhilaration of running down a hillside with bare feet? It is a slightly dangerous feeling with the possibility of ending up head over heels if you take a bad step, but worth the breathless, laughing rush! I like the way this drawing makes the girl take up the maximum amount of space available but still manages to convey a sense of space beyond the page. Like life, there is so much beyond what you can take in in any one given moment.

11th February

Juggling Some More

All dressed up and in full flight with balls in all directions! I love having to do these drawings - today it is an unmitigated pleasure. I can't really juggle, but everything is possible in your mind's eye. I read somewhere that when a gymnast has a tricky new move to learn, they spend a lot of time imagining the entire event before they attempt it. Somehow this teaches their body what is expected of it, and maybe the body thinks the imagined event was a real happening and it can perform the movement because, after all, it has done it before successfully. It is a wonderful idea that probably is worth testing in other circumstances instead of going over the worse case scenarios I often review before some dreaded event!

10th February

February's First Mermaid

The first mermaid for the month! Mermaids seem to be one of my enduring interests. There is something about being able to manage to live both under and above water and yet being unable to get beyond the edges where the sea and dry land meet, that captures my imagination. There are so many stories around mermaids too. The beautiful but treacherous mermaids that lure sailors to their deaths, the little mermaid who forsakes so much for the love of her prince, the poor creatures paraded at freak shows in the circus sideshows of yore. There are flesh eating creatures with pointy teeth and nasty appetites, and beautiful undersea princesses with mother of pearl palaces and magical powers. Mine are creatures of the outdoors, decorative, pensive, and very tactile. All that water streaming past their skin and wind blowing in their hair, sometimes free in the ocean, and sometimes dreaming on the shore. Creatures of warmth and coolness, night and day, air and water, soft skin and scaly, shiny tails. Creatures full of contradictions and beauty, movement and calm. There will be more of them! 

9th February

Breezes

A lovely breezy, summer day, trying to hang up the washing with your hair whipping about in the wind. I love the energy that a summery day with a fresh wind blowing gives me. I am not so keen on a howling nor'wester, they leave me exhausted and feeling shriveled up with all the moisture sucked out of my skin - great for drying the washing if you can keep it on the line. There is something good about the smell of clean cotton that has dried in the sunshine - no amount of washing additives can compensate for it!

8th February

What Sort of House?

I saw a prompt somewhere which asked what sort of house would your brain be! It was such a good question to get my mind moving. This doesn't really do the idea justice, but I find myself unable to limit myself to one style of house - there's a surprise!!  I definitely have a multitude of aspects. I also just had to have plants somewhere, and a flag blowing in the breeze, and turrets, and a dome..... It was good fun thinking about it, and I haven't exhausted the possibilities by a long run. So what does your brain look like?

7th February

Sunny Days

We are having a few sunny days in a row - that is supposed to come to an end tomorrow but maybe we will be lucky and we'll have another great day. It is amazing how much the weather affects my mood. This is the beginnings of an idea I am working on for a prop for some jewellery I want to display. Of course the prop will be a solid colour but at the moment I have enjoyed thinking around some of the requirements as far as shapes go, and playing a bit with the summery feeling that this selection of colours evokes.

6th February

Wear some Flowers!

Ways to cheer yourself up. I wish I could do this with my hair, I have to make do with a flower or two pinned to my shirt. Perhaps I just haven't quite got the technique right. Speaking of which, I am struggling with my materials, I think the paper I am using isn't helping, but I am also doing battle with getting the structure of my drawings to work properly. I think more time would help - I seem to be rushing about getting other things done and am really rather nervous about managing a picture every day once I get back to school next week. Planning is going to be tricky. I did say some of these pictures might end up being design scrawls for my jewellery, and/or doodles as I think around my ideas. Perfectionist tendencies begone! Give some room to yourself for playfulness, fun even.

5th February

Childhood Favourites

We are having a short run of warm days, one of a very few this summer, and I have a hankering for something summery and cold! I remember my favourite ice-cream flavours when I was at school. None of the ice cream on a stick varieties back then! Everything was in a cone, and we knew which shops had the most generous hand on the icecream scoop. My particular favourites were blue lagoon - what did that taste like, certainly nothing I had come across natural - and hokeypokey. Little nuggets of crunchey sweetness in vanilla, yum. If I was especially flush with pocket money, I asked for a brown derby, which meant the icecream cone was inverted and dipped into a pot of melted chocolate topping, and sometimes then into chopped nuts. Such decadence! 

4th February

Abracadabra


Magical events take place in my life from time to time. I always look forward to some unexpected thing popping up and making me metaphorically squeal and jump up and down! This is a visual attempt to create the right circumstances for a bit of magic, not just the expected rabbit in a hat, but something a little different. Now I just have to keep my eyes open so I don't miss it!

3rd February

Addressing a Gender Imbalance


I have noticed that almost all my characters have been decidedly female, so have had an attempt to draw somebody who looks more male - he doesn't look particularly amused does he? So, here he is, arms folded, and I feel as if I "Could do better." Hopefully things will improve as I keep going. I think perhaps I will appoint him as guardian against my inner critic - he looks as if he could send a critic packing!

2nd February

Where Have the Unicorns Gone?

What little girl didn't have a longing for a pony, or dreams of meeting a unicorn and having a magical friendship with something beautiful? I have become aware how easy it is to loose touch with the dreams we once held, magical or otherwise. As time goes by life seems to impinge on our day to day progress through life, with all the things that need to be done, can't be done any more, or seem impossible to reach any more, it is easy to become defeated and make our minds small and timorous. I am going to indulge myself in a little wild imagining and refuse to be completely focussed on the practical, real world. Who cares for the voices that tell us how things have to be, there isn't anyone who can limit where your mind can take you apart from yourself. Smile a little and dream some of those dreams from the time when you didn't know better.