I am a bit knackered

I have been blogging a lot over the past few days, mainly because I have had a massive outflow of creativity, but as with all energetic outpourings, I have tired myself out and need to have a bit of a a rest.

I am close to finishing the painting part of my canvas, and the stitch work should go fairly quickly, as I already have the machine and the threads out and selected for the two tester pieces, and a very clear idea of how I want it to look and how I should proceed.

I also need to be making a birthday sketch book for my friend, Angie, and a wedding album for my friend Sharon, so I can put the photos I took on her wedding day into it.

In addition to this, I need to make a start on Christmas presents for the people I love, and to start building stock for the craft fayres I really need to start going to as soon as possible. Work? Sorry no time! Soon to have no money! Oh well, what's the worst that can happen, losing my house? Nah, been homeless before, it's a doddle! Lose my stuff? Easy peasy, done it. Lose my car? Oh no never! They can take my life but they'll never take my car! (In Hollywood style Scottish accent)

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Sorry, back now, just had to blow raspberries on the cat's belly. He hates it when I do that, so clearly I have to keep doing it. He'll figure it out in the end. The big fat cat did. Now he loves it.

Listened to a radio 4, the Moral Maze today, what a pile of uninformed rubbish, allegedly a debate about the power of Twitter and Facebook and whether it is fed by a mob mentality or is a positive force for political engagement and change. Clearly biased as the chair wouldn't allow a positive example of what FB and Twitter can achieve, and they only wanted to talk about the "mob" reaction to Jan Moir's article, claiming that despite the fact we "claim" to want freedom of speech, we don't want other people to be able to exercise it. Tosh, piffle and bilge water! I want everyone to have freedom of speech, even that toss pot Nick Griffin. What I really want is for people to intelligently and articulately prove that he's talking bollocks and that he is an uneducated deliberately ignorant fool who doesn't deserve the air he breathes. This is the responsibility of freedom of speech. Rights and responsibilities are two sides of the same coin. Say what you like, but accept the consequences.

So Jan Moir, write what you like, but take the flak! We all know it was prejudiced, homophobic, uninformed ignorant crap, you just need to learn to read better, because clearly you didn't read the coroner's report AT ALL! Otherwise you wouldn't have made such glaringly stupid errors in your article.

Erm.....sorry I hadn't intended to rant, but I think I accidentally pressed the rant button. I've switched it off now. Normal(ish) service will be resumed shortly.

Oh yeah, here is a pic of the latest canvas, the full sized one, in progress.

New beginnings 3

Just spent half of the morning applying for part time jobs to keep the wolf from the door. many and varied, but jobs nonetheless. I'm now trying to get on with my projects for college, but distracted by Facebook and Farmville. Keeping off Bejewelled though, which is finally a relief.

Projects underway, big canvas using paing, collage and stitch to show the growth of urban spaces, high rise buildings and the spread of slums in the remaining spaces. It's supposed to be some kind of comment on the lack of affordable space for poor and working class people in the new cities in the emerging countries of China and India. Also I like collage and stitch. Deadline looming. Feeling less than confident that I can pull it off.

Other project, which is the major distraction, but the least urgent is an altered book incorporating tales, myths and parables from all religions and looking at the similarities of the major stories. Creation myths, law making, punishments, lost souls, messiahs and prophets and the signs for the end of the world.

Listening to Radio 1 and quite enjoying the music that's being played. Some of it is a little off the wall.

I also have to finish going through a wedding with around 600 photos to examine, edit and make decisions on. Want to get that done by the end of today.

Phew, when did I ever find time to go to work full time? No wonder I was on the edge of a breakdown all the time! Now I am on the edge of bankrupcy, but I feel so much less stressed by that. I've seen people survive bankrupcy better than survive a complete mental and emotional collapse.

Bugger I really didn't want this blog to turn into a diary of my mental health ups and downs, but I suppose I can't really talk about my life without talking about my depression and the ups and downs of my moods.

Ok so back to more work, waiting for a message back from a friend, and will be able to get on with some more stuff once I get a response. Need a wee and some food now.

Countdown to unemployment

I've had loads of support from folks all around wishing me well in the new job choices, but now I'm starting to feel a bit wibbly. It's silly really because I know I will get loads of work, last time I was temping I had more offers than I could cope with! But still, big move and panic may set in some time at the back end of next week.

On a lighter note, there are actually people who want to come to my leaving do, so that will be loads of fun. Big nosh-up and a boozy bimble up west street.

Homework is starting to come together, I've made my sketchbook, finally and done loads of research on different artists and urban geography. I feel I'm starting to move towards a clear vision now, probably to do with Mumbai being the fastest growing city and the slums that occupy every spare inch of the city. I spent about 3 hours yesterday looking at Google Earth and photos of the slums and felt quite depressed afterwards. It seems loads of people have ideas about what to do with the slums, but none of them actually provide minimum standard housing for all the slum dwellers displaced by the clearances. How do you house that many people in adequate housing? I don't have any kind of an answer, especially when you consider the slums are responsible for the vast bulk of the recycling of waste in Mumbai and without that there would be a massive waste problem that could only be solved by land fill rather than recycling. I shall ponder. And never come up with an adequate solution.

Anyway back to the homework, I'm looking at collage and mixed media, although I've been playing with encaustic today, and I want to be able to include maps and town plans in with the collage. Loads to fit in, not sure how I'll do it. Looking at Robert Rauschenberg and Lee Krasner at the moment. Different approaches to collage, but fantastic results with both of them, such power and energy in both of their works. i have to say I've not really done much collage, but I'm looking forward to the experiments. Have to produce a finished board or canvas at the end of the project. Looking forward to that. Should be fun. I may even manage to get some stitch and textile in there too! Pics will be posted in progress.

It's now way past bedtime, so off I go.