Christmas Presents

I am having a home made Christmas.

There are 2 good reasons for making everything yourself.

1. People really really like handmade stuff

2. I really don't like to waste money on presents that people simply don't want, need or appreciate.

Now its not that i don't like my friends and family, its that i don't like the commercialisation of the winter holidays, be they Chanukah, Diwali, Christmas or the Solstice.

To this end I am struggling to make presents for my loved ones.

Presently I am battling with a cross stitch pattern based on one of my paintings. The software is just not happy with the colours I have picked and is insisting on picking dull browns and greys instead of the vivid yellows and blues of the original painting. I'm now resorting to picking each colour and stitch individually.

Thankfully the other presents have been fairly straight forward.

So here is wishing you a very merry festive season, and a happy healthy and prosperous new year.

Personal Statement

I am applying to university.

This involves filling out a very large form, making choices and decisions about where to go and what courses to take, and then completing personal statement.

Ah yes, the personal statement. 47 lines about why a university would be foolish enough to accept me. Lots of things to talk about, lots of things to say, easy on the jokes and try to be grammatically correct and spell everything in ENGLISH please. No special characters and try not to sound like an idiot.

Yeah, OK. Let me just ponder it for a while.

So I'm this really talented, only slightly bonkers artist who until 4 years ago hadn't done any drawing since the first week at secondary school. Really honestly I am, look I can make pretty pictures, weird pictures, textiles and books. I do great things with books, totally cool.

Perhaps that wasn't the right pitch.

What do I say and how do I say it?

Here's what I got so far.

I cannot imagine my life without art, despite it only having been part of my life for the past 4 years. I have crafted continually all my life, and for me art is an extension of what I learned and developed growing up in a crafting home. My life revolves around the creation of art and crafts, and I work constantly on new projects, challenging myself to try new techniques and media, and to keep working with media that I have found difficult. At the same time art is therapy for me, it has helped me deal with the challenges that life has presented me with over the years.

My hobbies revolve around my family, home and art, and I try to combine these hobbies together. I have 2 dogs and spend hours drawing and sketching them. I always have a sketch book with me and I love to sketch people and their dogs whenever I am out and about. Don’t let this love of dogs fool you into thinking my work is twee, whimsical or cute. Far from it. I have an eye for the unusual, difficult and painful. I like to see the rough edges, to look beyond the varnished image presented to the world, and many of my projects during the Foundation Degree have involved looking at the discomforting truth.

Over the past 4 years my confidence and skills have grown, and I have done more than I thought myself capable of. Consequently I want to do more, present myself with greater challenges and see how far I can go. Going to University is the next step in the great journey art can take me on.

Opinions? Please?

Good News, Excellent News

I set up a website on a day when the weather was bad and I was snowed in, bored out of my brains and too chicken to drive my car in the snow.

It has already borne fruit, and I have finally sold my first piece of work! The day the website went live. I'm so happy to finally be able to describe myself as a professional artist.

That was the good news.

The excellent news is the offer of a small solo exhibition next year. Oh yes, solo, one person, all on my own, exhibition. Jumping up and down for joy and in amazement. Suddenly I feel like everything is coming together in my art life.

For now, thought, I have a mountain of work to get through and less time to do it in!

But at least I can call myself a professional now.

Don't forget to check out my website, link to the right.

Taking The Plunge

I'm snowed in. I am totally stuck in the house, mainly because the car is out there, somewhere under the snow that has blessed us here in Sheffield, and because I can't walk a long way because of my dodgy back, and there is almost no public transport running. I am here, at home, alone, bored and pretty much climbing the walls with boredom.

As a release from the boredom, I decided to have a look at website deals. You know the kind, build your own from templates, basic ones that don't quite do what you want them to do but near enough for now.

So now I have a website.

It is a bit dull at the moment, but will improve as I get more confident and better at changing the things I want to change without having to pay more each month. It also includes a gallery and I can add a paypal button if I want, although I am happy just for people to email me if they want anything.

I feel really proud of myself for finally taking the plunge and getting it off the ground. It all adds to the concept of professional artist!

the link is at the side of the blog, called, appropriately enough My Website. Take a look, then let me know what I should add to make it better, more interesting and perhaps even something you'd look at regularly.

Its been a while

I've not posted for a couple of weeks, which isn't really like me, I can always find something to moan on about for a few lines.

I was lucky enough to be invited down to Colchester to meet some very wonderful people and stay in a gorgeous cottage with friends, old and new.

I was taken repeatedly out of my comfort zone, into the town to shop, to an art gallery I'd never been to, to a kennels to meet loads of dogs, all of which I wanted to take home, and to cook real food to be enjoyed by real people. I had a chilled out, completely wonderful time.

I spent a morning taking photos of Sharon and her son Rowan, whose house we stayed at, and I am pleased to say I managed to get some really nice pictures. These will be posted later when Sharon has had chance to look at them.

Spending that time being chilled and being cared for made me realise how far from well I am, and how far I have to go to get better, but it also gave me a glimpse of what I used to be like, when I was well and how I will be again. It was good for me in all ways, healing, supportive and helping me look to future and know that I really do have one.

Thank you Sharon and Rowan for sharing your home and the rest of your family, Linda, Rick, Kelly and Tony for taking the time to meet me and inviting me to the dogs, and for eating the Sunday roast dinner. I promise there will be another bread and butter pudding next time I come over.

More ipod Pics

This is the first life drawing attempt. The app I used is called brushes, and has layers like on Photoshop, but not the filters, so not as versatile, but certainly great for such a portable device.






This is the 2nd, where I enlarged the page as much as I could, but then went and lost a decent starting point, hence the odd positioning.











This is painting number 3. I used the layers to some effect, but wasn't sure I was actually drawing the model or playing and working from memory!

First iPod drawing

Here is the first ipod drawing using Brushes, the app I downloaded tonight.

This is so cool.

If.....

If you had your life again, what would you change?

If you were able to amend your history and make your life different would you?

If you could be well, overnight and have no illness, no depression, no problems or disabilities would you accept the cure?

If you could have a perfect life would you want it?

My answer to all of these is a resounding clear and definite NO!

Why?

Because my talent is a response to hardship, creativity is the way I have survived my life. Without it I would just be one of the 'normal people'.

Without art, without creativity, without the joy that this brings would I not be just as unhappy in the mainstream regular world, doing a normal job, paying a mortgage, having a husband, or wife, raising kids and going to Ibiza on out holidays every year.

Would not my soul die a little living the mundane life of the undamaged, the ordinary, the normal.

Yes my life is hard. It is a struggle on a daily basis with fear, depression, self harm and anxiety. But at the same time I deal with these fears by being creative. Painting, drawing, stitching and writing. The ideas are sometimes easy, but the execution is hard, a battle with the medium and the world. Other times the work comes out easily, and is a cathartic experience at times when I am not doing so well.

If getting well means losing my urge to create, I'll stay ill. It gives me a reason for my life. And without purpose what are we?