Normality returns

Well, Midwinter has been celebrated,

Christmas is past,

Boxing day as well,

and things are returning to normal* here.

The Reiki room has been restored to it's usual full glory,

rather than a junk room.

The decorations are stowed,

and the art stuff is out of storage!

So to celebrate,

here's a quick pencil sketch.

Back to the grind tomorrow,

so I'll take this chance to wish you all

a Happy New Year.

* your definition of normal may not match!

City

I've been challenged by my granddaughter to write poems that she can use as inspiration for her university course.

The first one is an adaptation of an older poem,

The second is a rough draft that may be expanded on.

Merry Christmas to one and all

Clouds scud swiftly in a leaden sky,

streetlight and aerials bend and bow,

paper swirls in the air,

whilst tin cans clatter along the concrete

and pigeons shelter in town hall eaves;

Yet all the while,

above the city roofs,

the crows dance and gambol

and ride the wild wind

Light and dark

Stark shadows on grey concrete

Blinding sun reflects from acres of glass

Mirrored, reflected

Casting impossible shadows

 

Wandering, and wondering

This started life during last month's AEDM.

Since then I've added more paint,

and a couple of chipboard pieces,

with text from a 1930's exploration journal.

Nothing deep and wondrous,

just a random piece of art.

There's also the words below,

which I call The Mórrígan's Tears.

It was inspired by something which appeared in a dream,

but which I've yet to figure out.

Lady, Lady,
Weep for me
for I am blind,
too blind to see.
A linen square
black as night,
with silver moonlight
lace adorned

AEDM 2014 - The end!

Woohoo, I made it.

30 continuous days of creativity.

Sometimes easy,

sometimes not so.

But before I go any further,

I'd like to say a big thank you

to Leah for organising it again.

This is still very much a work in progress,

but I think the dress is about finished. 

Today was spent applying a couple of coats

of broken china to tone down the blueness.

I still need to finish the face, hands, hair and wings.

And maybe do something with the background.

But it will be finished.

One day....

AEDM Day 29

Industriana clock workshop today

at the Cubby Hole.

This is the result.

It's the first workshop I've done in a long while,

and it wiped me out.

Early night methinks.

AEDM Day 28

The artists lament

Brush in hand,

paints are ready

acrylic smell

is just so heady

Had a head full of ideas,

wondrous images

now it's like a book

full of blank pages

Here I sit,

broken hearted

Nice blank canvas,

can't get started.

AEDM Day 27

Just scraping some paint around

and added a couple of bits of paper.

No idea where this is going,

possibly something to do with journeys

or travels

AEDM Day 25 & 26

I tried to post yesterday from my phone, but it didn't work.

So you get two day's worth today,

you lucky people!

 So here we are.

Another two evenings of tissue, glue, paint,

and watching things dry!

Not sure who this is for yet.

AEDM Day 24

Decided to give the painting a rest for today,

and get messy with paper instead.

Added a fabric spine to the book covers,

and bound an insert from some nice writing paper.

Now waiting for everything to dry.

AEDM Day 23

Added more detail to the dress and tidied up the area around the hands.

Still thinking about using some diluted blue acrylic

over the dress to soften the folds a bit.

Then I just need to finish the hands,

face,

hair,

wings......

I'm sure she'll be finished by AEDM 2015 ;)

AEDM Day 22

First stage of the dress/gown is complete.

It's darker than intended, so I'll need to find a lighter blue.

And I've come to the conclusion that I need bigger brushes

for laying down that much paint in one go!

AEDM Day 21

I write
I draw
I paint
I stitch

I create

I doubt
I worry
I falter
I hesitate
I criticise

but still I create

 I am an artist

AEDM Day 20

No angelic update today.

I've started on the gown/dress, 

but it's just a big patch of blue at the moment 

so there's not much to show.

So instead i'll show you something that I finished a few weeks ago, 

that I actually started at the end of the last AEDM!

 It went well initially,

but then ground to a halt 

(along with many other things).

But eventually I managed to get myself into gear and finished it,

(and I'm even happy with the face!)

just in time for the annual diversity exhibition, 

so at the moment it's on display in our local art shop/gallery.

This is my second work for Brigid,

in a more a more traditional style,

rather than the modern images of my Goddesses that I've done previously.

The Morrígan

Brigid

AEDM day 19

I'm still working on the face,

but I can't seem to get rid of 'the stare'.

At least it's an improvement over the flat look from last time.

AEDM Day 18

I wonder what this could be?

The start of a  handmade book perhaps?

AEDM Day 17

Here's something I haven't done for a while,

a card.

Or two cards to be exact.

It looks like I may be moving to a new job soon,

so these are for two people who I'll really miss working with.

AEDM Day 16

Believe it or not I've spent quite a bit of time on this today,

and the face is still a long way from finished.

But it's got to the stage now where I'm just making it worse,

as even acrylics need to really dry after a while,

hence the patchy look to her face

(and the flat expression).

No worries, there's still 2 weeks to go.

AEDM Day 15

Wings are coming along nicely.

Now for the scary part;

the face!

And for some reasson I have a hankering to listen to Hawkwind!

AEDM Day 14

I am a rock,
I stand alone,
Time comes and goes,
Events unfold, and flow
Over me, around me,
Leaving their mark
Some deep
Some barely noticed

I am a rock,
I stand alone,
Others pass by,
Together
Or apart
And sometimes they stop,
And look,
And lean, and rest,
Before continuing on

I am a rock.
I stand;
Alone

Written in about 2 minutes. Unedited, just a brain dump. Read into it what you will.

AEDM Day 13

First wing is starting to take shape,

although the pic isn't brilliant.

In other news,
Dizz is back in the land of blog.
Enter at your own risk!

AEDM Day 12

Starting to add colour,
Still a long way to go.

AEDM Day 11

Nothing spectacular going on at the moment,

It's been a busy week so far with a Creative Crewe committee meeting

and updating the Creative Crewe website,

but managed to start a poem yesterday,

and a preliminary sketch today.

AEDM day 10

Blackbird, crow and darkening clouds
Guardian and messenger
Portents to tell
From The lady perhaps,
The light or the dark?
Or both?

AEDM Day 9

Rememberance

We are the dead,
We are the ones who went before.
Once, like you, we were alive,
But that life was gone, in a flash.
The flash of a cannon
Or maybe the crack of a rifle.
We went to battle
Not with pride and hatred,
But with fear and sorrow.
Yet still we went.
And now, we watch from beyond the veil.

We are the dead.
We died for freedom,
For Ours and yours
And now, we say
Live your lives
But don’t forget what we did
And please,
Don’t let the donkeys lead again

AEDM Day 8

Another from the recent past.

This stems from an idea I came across when I was convalescing last year,

but never got round to using.

Until recently.

It's all to do with friends and family,

who's close and who's connected and so-on,

but instead of just following your heart

or who you think should be part of the inner circle because they're family,

you take a long hard look at things and actually score them.

It was an interesting exercise,

and it turns out my heart and my head are pretty much in agreement.

The background is a canvas that I'd randomly painted,

and recycled to be the 'scoreboard'.

And then the whole thing was painted over,

to give just a couple of peeks into what I know lies beneath. 

Just to keep people guessing :)

AEDM Day 7

One sock off, one sock on
He sits, quietly,
Motionless, 

Staring
A song plays in the background
Unheard
Time passes, a red glow in the corner
10.....
11.....
Minutes slowly passing
Clouds drift by
The magpies come and go
12....
13....
He moves
Another sock
A shoe
15....
16....
One shoe off, one shoe on
He sits, quietly

An ode to anaemia

AEDM Day 6

No wise words,

they're in the image.

AEDM Day 5

1st update pic for the Scary Canvas.

Still a long way to go and it's slow going at the moment.

Hopefully there'll be some real progress at the weekend.

AEDM Day 4

I've started on the background for the Scary Canvas™ 

but again it's nothing exciting to show, 

so I'm digging out some more images from earlier in the year when I wasn't blogging.

These were some small 4x4 canvas/canvas boards I did for the Gathering.

We had a mini-market where people could bring along some of their art and craft work to sell. Nothing overly commercial, just a chance to showcase your work and maybe sell a couple of bits.I managed to sell 6 pieces and trade one for a bottle of home-made mead so not a bad showing, and there's something satisfying about people who aren't family or close friends wanting to buy your work.

There were more - Valknut, Mjölnir, Triple Moon etc.,

but they sold quite quickly :)

AEDM Day 3

I don't have anything to show from today, or at least nothing interesting.

I've enlarged the sketch and started transferring it onto the canvas,

but it's nothing for you to feast your eyes on.

So instead I'm going to show one of few the pieces that I managed to create during the creative dry spell.

Aside from a lack of creativity, there's also been a lack of travelling this year,

I only made it to a couple small get-togethers and one camp.

That camp was The Pagan Clan Gathering, which celebrated it's 10th year,

and one of the things I loved were the meditation workshops

run by Charlotte from Infinite Dimensions.

This piece came about from one of those workshops,

which encouraged us to find our own mantra.

Mine started as "I can and I will" which morphed into this,

inspired by the Brigid,

goddess of Healers and Artists

AEDM Day 2

Here's today's contribution, and the start of my AEDM project.

Over the past couple of AEDMs I've worked on things that take more than a day. I don't work on them every day, usually over a week or so. This one is probably going to take all month, if not longer, due to the size. The canvas that I'm using is 36x12, a scary size for somebody who normally works on 8x8 or A5.

The drawing is on a sheet of scrap paper, and my next job will be to scale it up so I have a full size image to work from. 2x A3 should do it.

A strange figure emerges........

shambling into the daylight of creativity once again.

It's been a while since my last post, several months in fact,

and although there has been sporadic creativity and the urge to blog,

I haven't had the energy or inclination. 

I'm still struggling with low energy and fatigue,

but it's November, and it's AEDM,

so there WILL be creativity,

and there WILL be blogging.

Having said that, there's not going to be much today as I'm off to a wedding;

an Alice themed wedding, so today's creativity is me.

Pics will follow, but for now I'll leave you with the guest book I was asked to create.

It's A5, stab-bound, and yes, it is the right way round in the picture.

It's an Alice theme, so of course it's upside-down or back-to-front, 

depending which way you look at it :)

Parental Advisory

Warning!

 Contains nudity!

But that comes a bit later ;)

First up we have this.

This came from a meditation session a couple of weeks ago.

I had the urge to do this straight away, so borrowed an envelope and a pen to quickly sketch it out.

Unfortunately the envelope turned out to be a bank statement,
so I had to leave it behind; but by sketching it out, it had kind of fixed it in my mind.

I'm quite happy with it, apart from the face (as usual).

Ok, time to move on.

Those of a nervous disposition may be advised to look away now!

Still here?

Don't say you weren't warned....

This was inspired by some of the art being created in the Creative Fire group.

I've drawn or painted figures before, but never tried a nude.

It's not bad for a first attempt, and by using a view from behind I didn't have to worry about the face :)

Unfortunately, it has left me scarred for life.

Not having a volunteer who was willing to pose
I decided to look for a suitable image on Google*.

 Bad move!

There are some things which, once seen, cannot be unseen.

Pass the mind bleach!

*other search engines are available:)

Some things aren't meant to be

Remember this from my last post?

Well, no matter what I did it just got worse,

and it still looked like a bloke in drag.

In the end I dug out the gesso,

but couldn't really hide the underlying ugliness,

and the fineliner kept bleeding through.

So really there was only one option,

and that was to go to the dark side!

What emerged from the black and red was this

Much better :)

Make Art Not War is by Shepard Fairey

And the whole thing was inspired by

Spandau Ballet

Through the barricades

Miscellania

I figured it was time to post up some of the stuff I've done recently,

most of which has been part of Tara's course,

and outside my usual comfort zone!

First up is this one.

 Painted with an old membership card and some clingfilm.

I did use a brush for the words though.

More card painting,
and some stuck on wordy bits this time.

And then there's this.

 This is the biggest canvas I've ever worked on,

3' x 2'

which was a little daunting to start with,

but then quite liberating.

The lettering has now been removed as I don't like it.

And last of all, there's this.

Not really sure about this.

It's ok, but the face isn't brilliant,

and she looks more like a he.

It may be reworked,

time will tell.

And that's it really.

Life carries on,

Good days,

bad days.

But spring is here and summer's on the way

so who knows what will happen next?

One sock on, one sock off

Pale ghostly shapes ride the currents

gulls, slipping and sliding through the air

on sharp edged wings

The crows gamble and play

dark raggedy wings flexing and twisting

to counter the ever-changing eddies

Pigeons battle headlong, buffeted by constant blasts

driven by the need to feed

like grey suited commuters

It's another blustery day in spring

*If you're wondering about the post title,

these words came as I looked out of the bedroom window, 

part way through getting ready for work.

Emotions

A couple of pieces which have come from the challenges on Tara's Creative Spark course. The idea is to take two emotions and create a design using colours that you associate with them.

The first is fear & hope,

although fear is maybe too strong a word,

apprehension maybe?

It's inspired by a conversation about colour, and the fact that I really struggle with purple. Whenever I try to work with purple it normally comes out dull and lifeless, so I tend not to use it. White is similar. It's great as a background, or the odd highlight, but I can never get any detail or depth without it turning grey.
So feeling apprehensive, but hopeful, I applied brush to canvas and came up with this. Still not sure about the purple, but quite pleased with the white feather :)

Next up, joy & loss.

This started off as a collage experiment, using a day's worth of post-it notes (plus a couple I wrote specifically for this). I had a vague idea about memories and post-its seemed to fit. Yellow is my 'happy' colour ( I would love a yellow hippy van) and one I use regularly, along with orange and red. I needed something to contrast with it, so chose loss/heartbreak; and purple seemed to be the ideal colour to use, so I finished up with two pieces, with my least favourite colour, which I actually like.

I guess I'm on a role!

Fractal?

Dark splintering shapes against a muted background
A myriad tangled branchings
Ever smaller
Fractal
Punctuated by dark mass at junction points

Collision theory?
Fractal mathematics?

or old crow nests in bare winter trees?

Updating

There's nothing much to post at the moment.

I'm taking part in Tara Leaver's creative Spark course,

which has got me being creative again,

but it's mostly quick exercise pieces

which I don't consider to be blog fodder.

I have however done a little work on the blog;

there's a new background layout

(which will be getting tweaked some more)

and I've finally added some images to the gallery page.

All that's left for now is to add something to the 'Who am I?' page,

but I'm not sure what to add.

I could fill it with basic stuff,

but I'm not sure if anybody is interested,

so I have an idea;

You tell me what you want.

Ask me questions and I'll answer as best as I can.

Don't be shy......

SNR

Signal-to-noise ratio,

a measure used in science and engineering

to quantify how much a signal has been corrupted by noise.

"Signal to Noise" is also a song by Peter Gabriel,

and that's where the idea for this came from,

the fact that there's so much 'noise' bombarding us;

not just the aural noise

but also the constant demand for our attention

from advertising,

phones,

social media,

email.

The list is endless,

a constant stream of look at me!

no! Me!

answer Me!

no, Me first!

And it's nearly all meaningless,

ephemeral,

vacuous.

So do yourself a favour once in a while,

go and find a quite place,

switch off all the crap

and tune in to the peace and quiet.

Turn up the Signal.

Drown out the Noise!

The details are a bit sketchy

Still struggling with the energy/concentration thing,

but today was a Cubby Hole playday*

and as I didn't fancy lugging a lot of stuff with me

I just took a small sketch pad and some pencils.

I don't do a lot of sketchwork so it was good to experiment.

I came across this winter wolf photo a while back

whilst I was looking for something on Google

and was fascinated by the eyes

so decided to try reproduce it.

Lesson No' 1:

drawing a white wolf

on white card

is a lot harder than it looks!

  

This is a portrait of a friend,

again taken from a photo,

and as usual I can't get the mouth right!

Somebody recognised who it was whilst I was doing it,

so it can't be that bad :)

*Playdays are interesting as you're never sure what's going to be happening.

Today we had people felting, quilting, creating mosaics and journalling.

All at sea?

I'm not really sure what this one is about.

It's something which just came to me the other day.

There's probably some deep psychological meaning to it,

or maybe just a random vision,

I'll let you make up your own interpretation........

Well, it's a start...

This is it.

The sum total of my creativity

(excluding a couple of short verses)

since I posted this over a month ago.

For the last month I have had

no interest

no motivation

and no energy

to create anything.

The only reason I managed to do this

 is because it's part of a circle journal, so it had to be done.

Thankfully I now know why (anaemia)

and the tablets are kicking in so my energy is slowly returning.

Who knows, I may even have the energy to actually comment on blog posts again.