Art Every Day? (well, most days)

I feel I've done lots of creative stuff, but I don't have pictures of all of it.

 Here is some of the stuff.

Printing cards with Mary this afternoon

A fun and productive card printing session

I made this book years ago

It's a circular book

Perfect for mandalas

I pencil my designs in first

Then draw them in with a marker pen

I'm off to a yoga retreat tomorrow for 3 days

It's at a place called the 'Mandala Yoga Ashram'

I thought I'd take this little book along

…and colour in my mandalas, when I'm not doing yoga!

I had my 50th birthday last week

With wonderful chocolate cake

And a walk on the beach (I'm easily pleased)

The week before a group of us made wreaths

This is me wearing my wreath,

and then symbolically casting it into the river

That evening a friend brought us a roadkill deer.
I gutted and skinned it
It was a weird contrast!

And this week my paintings will be hanging
in the corridors of the
Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital

I'll be back at the weekend, all yoga'd out.

A medley of recent things

Mums birthday

Below are some wonderful pebble mosaics I saw in a courtyard garden at Devon Open Studios in September. This is another of the many things I'd like to have a go at one day.

Pebble mosaics

 ..and seeing those made me notice these lovely cobbles outside our local church

Old cobbles

 I wonder how long these have been there?

I recently did an evening 'Printing Without a Press' workshop at the Double Elephant studios in Exeter.

Corr, I loved doing these. The bottom left image is printed on fabric. With the long evenings approaching I feel an urge to get back into fabrics again.

I've done a lot of arty stuff recently, but rather than fill this post up too much I'll do another one soon with more catch ups in it.

I've written a long rambly post about life and art, and where I may or may not be going with it. It feels too disjointed and a bit scary to share it right now. I think I'm hoping that telling you might prompt me to get on and be more open. I love posts from others that are all soul searching and honest.

Mandalas

About a month ago I was introduced to the concept of mandalas. They are really just glorified colouring-in exercises, but like many creative activities they can be wonderfully absorbing and therefore meditative. They can be done lightheartedly for pure pleasure, or can be looked at more symbolically for deeper meanings and symbolism. I like both ways.

Mandala in progress

 This is the mandala that I designed and coloured in the day I was introduced to them. This one includes symbols for change, infinity, hope and clarity of information. It was also done at a time when many people I knew were dying. We all have to go at some time, and the people close to me had had wonderful lives and slipped away quickly.

Same one with a bit more added

Another one I adapted with an autumnal feel
(sorry about the appalling quality!)

Flowers for inspiration
(image by Melinda)

Colour inspiration used in my first mandala
Image by Melinda

More mandala ideas
(I feel a new book coming on)

Re-organising my craft room

I haven't done a lot of art the last few days, but I have had a huge re-organise in the room I do my creative stuff in. I finally splashed out and bought some shelving. These are so fab I'm going to buy some more.

I completely re-arranged the room so I will have space to have workshops in here for 3 or 4 (5 at a squeeze). It has been through several stages of chaos. This little corner is fairly sorted.

 The rest of is is still a little chaotic. (and the new shelves have now moved into the corner you see below).

Chaos

It's easy to sort things like 'watercolour paints', 'decorative paper' 'plain paper', 'books for re-purposing'. Filing the 'other stuff' has not been so easy. I have 3 big boxes of 'other stuff'. I'm not going to be able to find a lot of things for a few weeks!
I'm running some afternoon crafting sessions here on Monday afternoons, this is what we'll be doing this Monday (if anyone comes)

Yo Yo flowers

I also did some doodling in my diary, but it's dreadful, so I'm not going to show you!

Todays 'art' (ok, creativity would be a better word)

Here are some of the creative things I did today. Today was a day off, so don't worry, I won't be doing this amount of posting every day!

Bread dough ready to rise

Ready to knead again

Drawing our new buddha
(also our only buddha)

Buddha on the first page of my art journal.
I plan to work in this journal every day

Cat enjoying the sunshine

Vince's hat nearly finished

Conservatory plants enjoying the sunshine

Allotment pumpkins
in a lovely old bowl someone gave me recently

Bread out of the oven

Cranachan with raspberries from the allotment

Ok, so some of these are more like appreciation than actually being creative, but hey, there are no blog category police!

Art Every Day (in November)

I've just decided to sign up for the Art Every Day challenge. It's not normally my thing to take part in something like this, but I thought I'd give it a go.

I managed to get the logo on here which is a start, this should link to the blog that is hosting the challenge.

The thought of doing this is both exciting and scary. Hmm, better get off the computer and go and create something……...

Paintings

I've never done anything like this on canvas before…...

I submitted these for an exhibition today. It was pretty scary. I'm really pleased with myself for actually getting round to it, whether they are selected or not!

My "Scraps" book in progress

I've been spending more time filling books than making them recently. This one is my "scraps" book. Actually it should be called my 'precious scraps' book because most of these scraps are from particular places, people or events, or are images that remind me of such. Some of these scraps I have had for years, some are from a few days ago. There is a sketch dated 2010, and some pieces I know I've had since art college days over 10 years ago, and a bus ticket from last week. I love doing this book, I could sit and do it all day, but life keeps getting in the way. I hope I finish it before I get obsessed with something else!

After several unsuccessful attempts I managed to do this flip through of it. The book isn't finished, but I like the fact that you can see pages in all stages from finished to barely started. There's a funny bit at the end where I'm scowling at the laptop trying to work out how to stop it. I could have edited this out, but I like those quirky 'I'm not perfect' moments!
Clicking on this image should run a you tube video.

The book contains some of the following:
photos (mine and other peoples), pages from books that I've taken apart, bits from colouring books, sketches I've done, notes, bus tickets, my decorated paper scraps, and others scraps from workshops I've run, paint, songs from wedding and other ceremonies, bits of cloth, a few images from the internet, napkin scraps, magazine and newspaper clippings, photocopies of book pages, stamped and punched scraps.

A Commission

I have done a few commissions in the past, some I have enjoyed doing, some I have not.
Laura Denning who I met a few months ago emailed me to ask if I would bind some work for her. I waited two weeks before replying, half hoping she would have found someone else, but saying that yes, I was prepared to consider doing it. She brought the work round and we discussed options. I have learnt not to offer people too many options! A technique and price was agreed upon and I have to say I enjoyed the process and was really happy with the finished books and so was my customer.
They were two books of sun prints, both covered in sun print paper. They looked so lovely when they were finished that I am inspired to make some books like this with my own decorated papers.

stitching

stitched

spines glued with some very well matched cloth
as I realised it would show between some of the sections

covers made

cover detail

outside

inside ...  beautiful

spine detail

Happy customer, happy me

Here is her website with information about the exhibition at Dartington Hall

http://lauradenningartworks.weebly.com/index.html