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30 Days of Blog Lovin’ ~ Day #6

Day 6 and still going, well just. I am not really feeling it tonight, I am tired and feeling uninspired tonight. It has been a long week. I am relieved to finally have my resin class finished, so that is one thing I can tick off my list. I still have to do the photos and instructions and edit the video but at least the layout is done and all the samples so that is a start!  
I got out today to have afternoon tea with some gorgeous ladies, they never fail to make me laugh. Thank you Jenny, Deb, Bev, Trish, Joan & Ngaire. They always bring me so much joy and mischief! Love you girls! xxx

  Ok, I do have lots I have to say but tonight is not the night, I do know I have been re evaluating my reasons behind doing this 30 blog challenge. I feel like I have gone off the path of what my true intentions were. So I will have lots to share about that when I have a little more energy and when I am not so tired. Basically it comes down to me being scared to reveal my true inner thoughts and feelings and not just judgement from everyone else but also judgement of myself.
I really need a clearer head to articulate what I want to say about this, as I have trouble articulating what I want to say at the best of times.
Mum has arrived a night early so the next couple of days will be spent in the car! So I think I need an early night tonight!

 

 Night all, and thank you soooo much for your comments. I deeply appreciate each and every one of them! Hugs to you all! xxx

30 Days of Blog Lovin’ ~ Day #5

Day 5!! Woohoo! So far so good! Well it is Friday night and the end of another week. I can believe how quick the weeks are flying by. We have had a few windy, overcast and rainy days these past few days, so I just want to share these beautiful sunset photos taken last month. I thought I would share something else that makes me happy and that is Sunsets and Sunrises and taking photos of them. They really do take my breath away. I love how no two are ever the same! Photography is a easy escape for an artist date too!

 


All of the sunsets in this post were taken from our back yard in June, well they were all taken on two or three different nights but the sky changes so much from minute to minute, I just keep clicking away. I have my tripod set up inside the door ready grab and race outside the minute I see a golden hue starting to come through the window. It took me quite a while to work out the best settings for shooting sunsets in manual with the canon. I still experiment with the settings from one extreme to the other but I am loving what I can capture now!

These power poles in our side paddock feature a lot of my sunset photos, so I am always trying to get different angles on them.

 

 Love the colours in the evening sky, there is something just so magical about sunsets! They definitely fill my well!
 

I love how the sun hits the ground in this one. This photo says hope to me, its like the light at the end of the tunnel is shining bright!

The painting below was done during a workshop with Susan Riley Gee, I used one of my photos of a sunset for inspiration, excuse the pic of this it was just taken on my iphone. That is Sadie in front, she was probably thinking hurry up and move this so I can lie back down! LOL

Sorry I don’t have much to say tonight, it has been a long day with more videoing of the resin class kit, the good news is that it is almost finished, just waiting on a couple more things to set.
 I don’t feel like I have achieved as much as I would have liked to again this week, so feeling a bit deflated tonight that another week has flown by and I haven’t achieved everything that I set out to achieve. I really need to knuckle down and make some changes in my life and routine to achieve the goals I want to achieve, time to give myself a big kick up the arse I do feel!
I have to take mum up to Townsville on Sunday and back Monday for her first raidium appointment, so I will lose a couple of days work, but that is ok because family will always come first. Just not looking forward to the 5 hour drive each way 🙁
This weekend take notice of the nature and scenery around you and see if you can capture a photo of it, even if it is on your phone. Take note of how it makes you feel, could it be something as simple as this that fills your well too?
Wishing you all a lovely weekend, I hope you get some downtime in! 🙂 xxx

30 Days of Blog Lovin’ ~ Day #4

Day 4 and what a day it has been. This morning was a complete write off. It was a slow start this morning after a late night last night, I finished up around 2am but couldn’t get to sleep until nearly 3am. So it was a weary start to say the least.

The Eye of the Beholder by Michelle Grant
Anyway I have been working through this book called the Artist Way by Julia Cameron. It is all about discovering and recovering your creative self. A part of it involves writing 3 A4 pages every morning when you get up. Another part involves taking yourself on artists dates by yourself. It is designed to go through each chapter over 12 weeks, but I am in a group on facebook who are doing each chapter over 12 months. I have had many insights in doing this book and many breakthroughs so far this year. This book is definitely helping me to find my creative self and me. To keep your creative soul full you need to keep filling the well by treating yourself. It can be the smallest thing like sketching outdoors or visiting a gallery, reading a book or going for a massage. Really does make all the difference. I don’t do that part often enough but I can tell when I need a break, and its nice to do those little things guilt free. Anyway this is way off track from where I was heading but I just had to explain what my morning pages were to finish today’s story.
Jelly Fish work in progress
Well after the struggle to get up, I grabbed my cup of green tea and lemon that I start every day with and went back to my bed where I do my morning pages. I just got settled and started writing when Don comes in with his laptop and wants to chat about this and that and how to do this and that on his puter. It is harder for me to write with the interruptions. So I get up and go and start cooking my eggs and tomato for breaky and write a little more while that is cooking, now Don is out in the kitchen with me and now he wants to sort stuff we have going on with our solar panels and then stuff about our financial adviser amongst other things, so inbetween eating breakfast and finding paperwork and other things my morning pages have gone by the way side.  (I just read this back and it sounds like I was trying to run away from Don, I know he just wants to spend time with me too, I will have to let him know he will have my full attention after I have done my morning pages, they just help me to clear my head for the day first) After I cleaned up and got dressed I headed into my office.

I got a couple of orders and calls finalized before I got a visitor. Then before I knew it is was lunch time. So from all the distractions in every direction from the moment I got up I am feeling extremely scatterbrained and have no idea what I am focusing on now. Don and Wil went for a drive and I took the opportunity to have some alone time and clear my head, So I meditated for 20 mins and that did the trick. It just helped me get back into the moment of what had to be done in the here and now! But I still feel like I haven’t achieved much today. I did get all my orders finalized and I did get more resin embellishments made. But I still haven’t finished videoing my class kit : And one of my big light bulbs I use for videoing blew tonight, so I wont be able to do any more tonight. I have to order these photography bulbs in because they don’t stock them in town. 🙁
Work in Progress
I constantly feel like I am a day behind on my own schedule. I know the procrastination demon has a lot to play in that.  I think I found one of my time wasters today that I didn’t realize before, and that is I usually catch up on facebook and emails while I have a cuppa, but what I didn’t realize before or just chose to blissfully ignore is that my cuppa breaks usually end up with going from this link to the next and the next because that is interesting and that is something new to learn etc etc, but before I know it an hour has gone by and the last of my cuppa is cold. Hmmm think I have to make some changes there, I think I need to have coffee breaks away from the computer. Take a good 20 min break and enjoy my cuppa then get back to work.

Most of my work days start at 10am after I do a couple of jobs around the house and go through to midnight or 1am usually, I know that is not balanced and inbetween that is cooking tea and feeding animals and collecting eggs etc. I need to start walking again, that helps me to stay a bit more balanced too! I love working from home and having that flexibility but it is a lot harder to have a work life balance. Its lucky I love what I do, I just wish I was more efficient on the actual business side of things!  

So I have nothing really insightful or exciting to talk about tonight, so I am sorry if I have bored you.
I think I need an early night, I have been feeling sleep deprived all day. Well anytime between 11 and 12 is an early night for me! LOL Since it is already 10.15pm, prob a bit late for an early early night!

I have a little sticky not on my computer screen that says focus, I think I need 20 of them around my screen and I think I am going to work with a timer tomorrow and really pay close attention to where my time is going. I always feel like I never stop but I am not getting the results for the work it feels like I am doing! So tomorrow is operation knuckle down and cross a few things off my to do list.
Another work in progress.
 I started all the art work in this post at a workshop I went to last Saturday with a local artist Lynnie, the background techniques were created with shaving cream and inks, it was a lot of fun. And a perfect day for filling my creative well!! The Jellyfish still needs something more done to it I think and I have no idea what the yellow one or the other one is going to turn into! This was a great class to just let go and see what comes up, this is something I still struggle with!

In the next week do something just for you on your own, try something new or just take some time out, go and fill your creative well!!! I would love to hear what you have done to treat yourself, I would also love any new ideas you might have for me to fill my creative well too 🙂

Wishing you a fabulous day tomorrow!! xx

30 Days of Blog Lovin’ ~ Day #3

Day 3 already, Today has just flown by, actually every day just flies by these days and I don’t really seem to be getting ahead. I just wanted to follow on from yesterday about what makes me happy, well something that is pretty simple but brightens my everyday and makes me feel connected to my Grandparents is having fresh flowers in the house. My hubby Don was with me when I bought these,

 

I just get them from our local grocery store and usually I can pick up a couple of bunches marked down. When Don asked who were they for? I said “Me, cause I am worth it!” LOL he replied with “yeah but isn’t it my job to buy you flowers?” I had to chuckle as he has only bought me flowers a handful of times over the last 25 years. Maybe I have planted the seed now and he will get the hint! LOL! It is something so simple that can bring a smile to my face every time I walk into the kitchen!

 OK back to today, I have started videoing my next workshop class and have been making resin embellishments. I have a mess everywhere, which is typical of me when I am creating! I just need to wait for a few more things to set then I can put the layout together tomorrow.

I am a shocking procrastinator and go from thinking I can achieve anything and can take on the world to the next minute thinking who am I kidding. The internal battle in me on a daily basis and even a minute to minute basis does my head in at times. The positive voice in my head is ever so slowly taking over the negative voice. But it is still like one step forward and two steps back.
It would be so nice to be able to stay focused with a positive frame of mind for a whole day, I know I would be able to get twice as much done.

I think too that I struggle to believe that I can have it all, that I can have the success that I know I deserve and it frustrates the hell out of me that I still let these thoughts and doubts control me. But I guess the first step is acknowledging them and recognizing them quicker.
I have some pretty big dreams and goals that I want to achieve and the main one is earning enough to replace Don’s income so we can enjoy our own financial freedom. I know I have a lot of work to do between now and then and I still have a lot of work to do on the negative nana’s in my head.
One step at a time hey!

On the creative front I have been learning to draw faces, I have taken classes from Jamie Dougherty 
and Jane Davenport and have been going through other drawing books that I have here. My girls are starting to look a bit better, A lot were looking really sad there for a bit. I am still waiting to see what my style is going to be! But I guess I will only find that with a lot more practice.

 This is the Girl I did in Jane Davenports Class in Brisbane, she has these cool face stencils that was used for this journal cover and the birds are from napkins!

Ok I have more resin making tonight so I will leave it there and catch you tomorrow!!

Wishing you all a fabulous and productive day tomorrow!!

Thank you for stopping by!!! Much love and hugs to you all!!