The End

You know what it's like when something that has taken up an awful lot of time comes to an end. You are half relieved, half sad. What do you do with your time now? The more intense the experience, the more tricky it is when it suddenly all comes to a stop.

I remember when I finished my degree. I had had four years of intense experience. I had a year out in the middle - I had an abscess that had to come out and that set me too behind to continue my final year. But I worked and one of those jobs was at the College and the other turned into the basis of one of my final year projects. So my studies were never far behind me.

All that effort and work. I got a first. I won a prize. But it was a very odd experience, finishing. It suddenly didn't mean much. It still doesn't feel like much, although I am proud of it, I do wonder what it was all for, all that work. My graduation day was a strange empty day. It took me by surprise.

I loved my studies, i found them so interesting. Not sure I would have worked quite so hard, been so ruthlessly dedicated if I had realised how little that title of first would mean in the end.

I made myself ill in my final year. I became quite depressed. I started to gain weight and that hasn't really stopped. OK, so some of that was due to giving up smoking but....

But once I stopped studying, I realised there was little else left. All my hobbies had gone....

BIG only lasted six weeks but it was a pretty intense six weeks. Getting through all the exercises, all that paint! Then there was the tribe itself - a bunch of amazing women. Although our NING site is still operating for the moment, the amount of activity has dropped, not quite to nothing, but close.... Some days at the height I would have 100 fearless emails awaiting me, notifying me of new comments and other things going on....

So here I am now and I have my life back and normality can reassert itself. I put away all my paintings today. I am going to let them rest a little. Then I shall come back to them maybe, see which ones I like, which ones I feel like doing something else with, which ones ight end up on a wall.... maybe....

Apart from my Christmas Creativity - which I needed to do anyway - I need to get back to using my Wii Fit. What shape do I want my life to take now? A new beginning - or is that BIGinning?

BIG Roundup

Six weeks of BIG creativity! In no particular order.... I don't think this gives away Connie's material. Hope you enjoy them!

Going DEEPer?

BIG has been fantastic, it really has. Connie's material is amazing and the group of women I have found myself with are incredible. There is sooo much good feeling and wonderfulness floating around. Connie's further packages sound awesome. The Tribe for a month with a huge resource backlog to enjoy and DEEP an inspiring continuation of BIG, developing our individual FEARLESS voices as artists.

Except...

A little voice is whispering to me and it is saying no.

DEEP is probably very good value for money but it is hugely expensive in real terms. I could afford it for January. I could. If I scrimped over Christmas and my family and food.... I could if I was prepared to be pretty damn poor for the next two months. It might even be that some nice member of my family might give me the means to pay for it as a Christmas present.

But... if that much money fell in to my life right now, would DEEP be the best thing I could spend it on? A new laptop. The tools for making rag rugs. A new wardrobe system so we can stop storing clothes in plastic bags.

I have learnt that I need to focus on one maybe two things at a time. Working means I just don't have the time and energy for more than that. I have spent the last six weeks painting my little heart out. It has been great and I have learnt a lot, it has opened doors inside of me. But is this the path I want to follow further, to the exclusion of other things?

No, not right now. Maybe later. Maybe if I win the lottery and have lots of money and time. Maybe at some other time it will call to me.

What astounds me is that my horoscope for today was talking about having been frivolous with money and how this was a mistake and I needed to see about reversing some of those financial indiscretions. I was stumped for a moment until I remembered the financial indiscretion I was being tempted to make and in that moment it confirmed to me that my answer should be no. But no never has to be final.

I may do DEEP later in the year, but January is not the time for me, unless things change....

Snippets

OK - so I finished off the bracelet for my Mum. I sewed on the clasp and finished all the knots. Then I figured I had time for a pair of earrings - three square millefori beads threaded onto head pins with added hooks and dangled from ear wires. I even took photos. But the cable has vanished - and I only had it last night and it was right here! So creativity photo catch up tomorrow - or the weekend if the cable still won't give itself up!

Unfortunately I am out of time - my bed calls. My only remaining decision, given that F is not working over night, tonight, is whether or not hot water bottles would be too much with him in the bed as well. They were soooo lovely last night. Socks to protect me from the lovely stone one by my feet and Oswald the cuddly croc protecting me from the second one and snuggling me all night long.

I didn't really remember my dreams from last night - no drama, no big messages. A peaceful night. A small snippet that was heavily influenced by the TV show Fringe and featured two schoolgirls is about all I awoke with. More along the theme of shadows with a sprinkling of duality? Not enough to do anything with really.... Let's see what dreams come tonight!

BIG is progressing. The background to my last painting during BIG is done. I added some details tonight - then the phone went. Tomorrow night I have some details to add over the top. Then I might scrawl with my pastels and then the final finishing touches.... I have learnt soooo much about paint by playing within BIG.

I am looking forward to reclaiming the space my BIG painting has been occupying because this is where I shall put the tree at the weekend. Always a fun job!

Anyway, I am sat here yawning my head off! Night night, sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite!

Dream BIG

I wrote this post on the BIG blog today and thought I would post it here as well..... Even though a lot of this is not so new here...

Something has opened inside me. A door, a flood gate. But open all the same, no matter what it is. The change has not happened in my waking life, but in my dream life.

I have always had the occasional powerful dream. A couple of years ago for instance I had a dream where I had two beautiful big guardian dogs and some firm authoritative figure wanted to take one of them. Three weeks later one of my two beloved dogs, slipped and couldn't walk properly. On going to the vet it turned out that a bone cancer had been hidden in his shoulder joint...

Suddenly this last week or two, my dreams have been picking up a pace, not just the normal dream drivel either but the occasional dream of the other sort to. One morning I dreamt someone was telling me I should learn only one thing at a time and I had a choice. I saw a book and each page was something I could learn. The first was cooking (I can cook just fine but I don't think it meant THAT sort of cooking...) a few pages I can not remember and then a page entitled dreaming. And then my beloved's alarm went off...

I bought a book called Dreaming Realities by Julie Silverthorn and John Overdurf and this has been very interesting so far. Obviously I can not share all the material here but it can be divided into parts, the first part deals with the science of sleep, the second with some techniques and the third with more detailed instructions. The techniques I have read about so far are incubation, interpretation and lucid dreaming but it is incubation and interpretation I wanted to talk about here...

because it reminded me of BIG.

Incubation is all about asking your dreams questions. Interpretation is all about understanding your own personal symbology. The book talks about dreams being from the higher consciousness. The message goes through to the unconscious which turns it into a dream which the conscious mind can interpret. I think that what we have learnt in BIG is the same thing, except the unconscious turns the message into art....

So I am working on my art and my dreaming and they are kind of meeting in the middle. I have no idea where the two will take me, for surely my life can not remain unchanged with such forces at work?

BIG and small

Now we all know about gremlins that stop us from doing things. Now sometimes we find ourselves in situations where it is not gremlins stopping us but other aspects of ourselves.

I had Glandular Fever followed by Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and although gone, it rumbles on and means I just can not fill my life up as much as other folk. I go to bed early and get very little done after work.

I learnt last year that too much fun over too long a period is just as tiring as working - everything caught up and I walked away from blogging and all the things that come with it for a while. I have learnt to take on less and to graciously walk away when it all becomes too much. Mostly.

I thought BIG and the Happy Book would be alright together but I have had to stop doing so much Happy. Sometimes the Happy tasks are too BIG to fit in a weekend with BIG and still have some energy left. I am getting near the end of BIG and I am so tired now.

But is that tiredness another gremlin? Maybe, but battling on is not the way round it, battling makes it worse. I have to skirt round it, know when to push and when to let it pull. Give and take. So now, other things are going to drop a little, to help me get through BIG, because BIG has a deadline and I made a commitment and I want to finish it.

So less Happy (well, there has been less Happy for a couple of weeks). Less looking at everyone else's BIG progress and commenting. Hopefully I can catch up with that before the Ning group vanishes..... Right now, I am BIG and I am small to.....

Snippets

Ok so snippets tonight - I am tired and don't have much to say. I think enough has been said already this week, in oh so many ways.

I looked up symbolism of the phoenix this evening. Apparently Arabian phoenix's sang - they sang songs so lovely that the Sun God himself would pause to listen. My phoenix is singing. I have no idea why my phoenix is singing, where that idea came from or what it means. I do know that Arabian Phoenix's are supposed to be the King of all Birds and it symbolises the rebirth of the sun. I guess it's presence in my painting can only be good.... I know times are bad.

We got a dehumidifier the other day and already the lounge feels warmer - but we have a loooong way to go with drying out our home. I wonder how far ranging the benefits will be?

A colleague out of the blue, started telling me about a knotted rope keyring they had made. They showed me it and I realised it was one of the knots in the knot books I bought. I never got round to really making any of them but this little bolt from the blue made me think I should have another look - after all I have plenty of things to use.

Another little thing is that there is a felting course - a short one with chats - it overlaps with BIG and costs more than the price of a book on felting. I also want to do rag rug making before felting - I only need to buy hessian and a couple of cheap tools to do it. I might also buy a new cutting mat, a decent rotary cutter and one of those wide cutting rulers - maybe. But I sooooo want to do the rug thing. I want those rugs - in my newly decorated bedroom (maybe it will be decorated by the time I finish the rugs.....

And there we go - that is quite enough for this week. May tomorrow be a new and better day that sees the start of a new and better week!

Flames That Burn

I started writing a post about the LP. About my frustration. About my general confusion as to why. About my hurt. About my sorrow.

I thought we were friends. I honestly did. Monday first thing, I would have she was trustworthy and a good person. It seems I was wrong on all those points. I knew she was naive and that is still true. It seems she expected to do what she did and still expect us to feel comfortable with her. We don't, we feel we have to watch every word. If she chooses not to join in general office chit chat, that is not our fault. I guess I really did not see the extent of her self-centred hypocrisy. I guess it suited her to be my friend for a while.

She left early today but generally it was a miserable and stressful day. She has done this. To us and herself. And I am sad and unhappy. How long is this going to take to settle down? Where do we go from here? I wonder if long term, we can all work together. Us three form such an uncomfortable triangle. One of us is the Boss, another has alienated her colleagues and then there is me.

I came home and painted, painted to express something sparked. I choose red, yellow, orange, pinky purple and blue and somehow as I painted it all turned red. So I scratched in flames. Then the painting told me phoenix, so I drew a phoenix, wings spread, beak skyward. Then I realised the phoenix was singing. Then I felt spent. My emotions and the paint have told me things I did not expect - a message. I will rise from the flames, I will sing. All shall be fine. For the birth of a phoenix is a joyful thing.

I gave LP a second chance after all the events of last year. I guess I was not wrong in what I thought last year and I am not wrong about my Boss.... I guess this is both of them at their very worst. I hope that their very best starts to shine through soon.... or they become a part of my past rather than my present or future.

Practice

I don't have much to say or many thoughts on my mind tonight. The day has been fine. The quiet after the storm. Uncomfortable with lingering traces of electricity.

One thing painting BIG is teaching me is that you need to practice to fix a shape in your head to understand it. I need to look at something hard and draw it in a variety of ways to get a fix on it. I can't draw faces or bodies because I have not sat down with the real thing or a picture and practiced. I don't really understand the form.

Thinking about it, there is only one form that I have practiced, over and over, well two. I used to draw celtic knots but I used a ruler for them, being as how they were precise, detailed forms, dependent on their geometry to work. The other was horses.

I loved horses. I drew them for fun, copying pictures from magazines. I rode as well and also worked up the local stables for the love of horses and extra free rides. I even used to set up jumps in the garden and pretend to be a horse. My Mum still finds that amusing....

There was one picture I did of a horse. I think it was the one I was most proud of. I made a discovery. I learned how to shade things in white. I realised that white was all colours, so if you shade a horse with all sorts of colours, without getting too bright, it can make it look white. It was awesome....

There seem to be a lot of horses turning up in BIG. Maybe I should paint some too. Or maybe I should take what I learnt from painting them and apply it to something else... Practice so I can do a decent job of painting it...

Green Witch

Last week as part of BIG, I painted this painting. (Some of this has been previously written, sorry for repitition)


It is based on a memory, or a half memory / half story. I talk when I am tired, mostly about nothing, sometimes I get repetitive. As a young child, my family was driving back from somewhere at night. I was resisting sleep. The moon was full and I started to talk.

'That's my friend Moon that is. Can you see my friend moon? I love my friend moon.' and on and on. I think I half drove my folks crazy and half amused them.

And so this I painted. My childlike me has moved from the car and is alone with a blanket in some vegetation. I am not surprised by the blue hair, after all, I am fully aware of my love affair with blue hair. I even remember how that started.

When I was putting myself back together after my breakdown, aged 21, I read a book called Stepping in to the Magic by Gill Edwards. A great book. She proposes that we have a higher self and a basic self (as best I remember) with guided meditations to meet them (amongst a lot more). I met Scrutius, the mole who is my Basic self - he searches for hidden treasure and I gave him a fantastic pair of winged pink glasses a la Dame Edna. My higher self was a blue parrot spirit called Anyol. In human form she has long wild blue hair....


I should re-read this book and redo it to. I am not sure if these are permanent features of me or if they are likely to change....

but the green skin?

The only thing I do know is that I drew a lady with green skin on my soul armour page of my soul journal and all of a sudden it is very clear that she is me. The same me as the green skinned girl.


So this week we have to explore an aspect of our previous painting. Ask a question and using painting to answer it. So I wanted to find out what this green meant to me. I filled my pallet with six different greens. I slopped it on to make a beautiful background and then painted on top in more green and this is what I got.


I knew spirals would be in as they were the first thing to pop into my head. Then a tree. But the tree wanted to be more symbolic and they also drew on celtic knotwork with entwined strands. Then, the idea of a green man but he turned out to not be a face, but a body with his green lady. They are mere suggestions in the green, crude. Then they got vegetation and more spirals and then the second lady tree and the spiral clouds.

I will take another picture once it is dry and I can move it somewhere with better light....

So what does this mean? Oh that is sooo clear to me now. Green is the colour of life, chaotic, messy, verdant life. It is the colour of my spirituality. My Goddess and her consort, amongst the trees and other plants. It is spirals and knotwork, spiraling and knotty life..... It is who I am.

I was claimed by my Goddess from the beginning. I was a witch before I was born. I am.

I should have no doubt.

I claimed the moon as friend when I was tiny. I wrote stories of Father Sun and Mother earth in my teens. The biggest signs of who I was before I even knew what a pagan was.

Soooo....

This brings a new question. I know traditionally there has been a two tier system in wicca - hereditary and non-hereditary. I always wondered about the lost hereditary witches - I wonder if I might be one of them? There is something in my family - acertain something that seems to have slid down the tree, probably from my Mum's Fathers side. And that says it all, a generation with no women born to the family. A hard time with deaths before they should have happened and a broken family.

My Mum is no witch but she has a healing touch and sometimes, with an uncomfortable look on her face, she admits to me that sometimes she knows things. With her Dad dying in her teams, a few years after he separated from her Mum, what contact would she have had with her paternal Grandma? If she had been a witch, what could she ever have said?

But it doesn't matter. I am sure I am a hereditary witch - or at least that I was in one of my witchy lives. Because that is what this painting tells. I am a past life witch. I have no idea how close to the heart of the spiral I will step in this life, but it is my choice, my Goddess walks with me but the degree to which I involve her in my life is my choice. And I choose her, just like she chose me so many lives ago.

I should believe.

Time of my Life

So..... As Connie has posted, there is a lot going on this November and as much fun as it sounds, just like her, i don't feel like I want or have to do everything. I am really enjoying BIG, mostly, some times it is tough but I so want this.... I am also enjoying the Happy Book with Jamie Ridler but following that a little less thoroughly.

This week for instance is a problem for me - I have a bad memory so remembering which lines in books I loved when I read them before is tricky! This task is one that would be much, much better for me to do gradually over time. The books I am reading at the moment don't lend themselves to lines for the Happy Book either - the Queen Mum's biography and a teen vampire book...

I do however have a whole bunch of projects of my own that are a little on hold. I want to dedicate my time to BIG. This holiday season is going to see few of my family receiving birthday and Christmas presents that I have made..... I just can't face that much jewellery....

I want to make rag rugs, learn to crochet and make felt. I want to paint more silk scarves. I want to make a HAPPY freaky cuddly toy. I want to draw some isolated lines of my body in bright colour. I want to experiment with some filler I have on pieces of small wood board that were excess packaging at work. I want to paint layers of paint on to different textures and then scrap and sand......

The first week of BIG, I wanted to do every exercise a gazillion times. I was very conscious of my lack of recent painting experience and felt that I needed more dedicated time to relax in to BIG. This week I have no leave and the clock change has left me drained. I dedicated Sunday and I have a painting for this week's task but how much do I need to do?

I contribute to all the discussions, comment on blog posts and pictures and am fully part of the process.... but how much painting do I need to do? I think I need to start another one for this week to keep in the flow but I have no idea what... Maybe I should just turn up at the blank page and see what happens.....

Animal Magic

I have been trying to think of memories.....

As a kid, I didn't really fit at school. I was often the one in the playground by myself. I remember I used to spend a lot of time on the edge of the playground. There was a steep bank covered in grasses and I used to stand there and catch crickets. I would hold them in my cupped hands and peek at them for a bit before letting them go. I was no older than seven.

At my next school, I used to catch tadpoles. Gently cupped in handfuls of water before being released.

I remember a holiday with F. We went to Lanzarote and there was a swarm of locusts there. We found them in a high hanging valley. At the hanging end, there was a steep drop off, which the road zig zagged down. The locusts were bright pink and the swarm was flying off this drop off. I can't really describe the sight....

Another moment of insect awe occurred on an Autumn day, walking across wet grass at school. Every step caused a cloud of daddy long legs to take flight......

I remember one time at a beach as a kid - I was picking up handfuls of sand. I was most surprised to find one handful of sand contained a flat fish. A little tiny fish. I was in awe for a little while before I let it go. I spent the rest of our time on the beach looking for another one.

My folks were bell ringers and I spent a lot of time in churches. One time I was poking around in a dusty forgotten corner. It was dusk. I found a collection of flower arranging materials in a corner. There was a large glass vase. In the bottom there was a patch of furry mould. Being the sort of child I was, I picked up the mould. I was very, very startled when it moved and a head appeared. It sat there a while before picking itself up and flying off. Not many people get to hold a bat I guess.

My parents house is in the country. There used to be an old lean too conservatory, with a vine in it. Our old collie was an outdoor dog and he had a bed in there, amongst the bikes and other things. The door was always open. Sometimes birds would fly in. I would go and catch them in my hands, carry them outside and release them.

One time I was sat in my room and I could hear a lot of tweeting, very loud tweeting. I went to my parents room and looked out there open window. I could see a blue tit in the tree opposite and it was very intent on the hosue. There was still a lot of loud tweeting. I eventually realised that there was a blue tit in the bedroom too... I caught it and let it out the window where it rejoined it's mate and they flew off together....

Another time I was walking on the beach and I came face too face with a seal. Another I was walking in a wood at dusk (not for the cowardly) and a badge crossed my path, pausing to look at me. Magpies walk next to my car and look at me. Another, walking through maram grass on some dunes, I had an encounter with an adder (the UK's only poisonous snake), we both paused and stared before going our separate ways. Walking with F, we spotted a beautiful copper slow worm on the path and watched it for some time. I remember finding a newt by the sand pit - it had been a pond but my folks didn't like the idea of a pond with us young kids around, I never saw one there again. I used to watch the squirrels on the lawn whenever our science lessons got too dull. We sometimes go to the country park and feed the ducks and the squirrels. i love the feel of their little claws.

So many of my best memories it seems are tied up with animals. So much of what I remember. I remember doing a rain dance at school to get worms to come to the surface. I remember moving the logs in the back garden to see which insects had been making their homes there. I remember peeking at birds nests. I remember watching the bats dancing in the darkening sky above me. I remember listening to the hunting owls call in the orchard as I lay in bed. Watching the woodpeckers feed.....

I rode horses and worked at the local stables. I walked our dogs, long ranging walks, from our front door out into the English countryside. I joined the Young Farmers Club, a youth organisation for the country and competed in stock juging with them. I spent a lot of time looking at cows, sheep and pigs. There was a cow that followed me around, pigs that nibbled your feet and a cat that sat on my shoulder all the time I spent in the farm yard.

Did other children catch crickets? Did other children catch birds? Handle bats? Revel in clouds of insects? Why are these little moments the ones I recall so clearly? Why have I never realised this before?

The Green Girl and the Moon

Yesterday I painted a BIG story.


When I was a kid, and still sometimes these days too, when I a very tired and more than a little sleepy, I witter. I talk and things come out that may not make any sense at all.

One time, when I was little, we driving back from some where late at night. I was fighting sleep and my mouth went in to overdrive. I spent quite some time asking my parents if they could see my friend Moon and pointing out my friend moon to them.


So I painted this. but I ended up sleeping in grass, with a cover over me. And my skin turned green and my hair blue. The blue hair was no accident, but the skin was..... but I liked it.

but as I looked some more I realised I have seen this green person somewhere else....

Here in fact (my first art journal page ever, via Caspiana and soul journaling)
So that lady there, defending my right to create, is me. And she is fierce.

I know where the blue hair comes from. A long time ago I did some exercises from a book and discovered my higher self was a blue parrot lady / spirit. In her lady form she has blue hair and in her parrot form she is just blue....

I have loved blue hair ever since.

but green skin? what does that mean and where does that come from?

Must think on this further. I seem to have a lot of stuff to think about right now. Things are starting to move

The Dame of Shape

I have come to realise why I enjoyed paintings based on shape the least. It is because I love shape the most. I love architecture and sculptures. I love celtic knotwork. I love geometry, with this being my favourite area of maths. I enjoyed AutoCAD to and worked as a draughtsperson for a time. But if you love something, you want it to be right. And that for me is when things get tricky and my gremlin whispers...

Shape is best in 3D and if there was ever a lady who understood form, I reckon Dame Barbara Hepworth would be a contender... She also had a pagan leaning which appeals to me. The painting above is called the Green Man and the one below is Winter Solstice.


As much as I love her work, I don't want mine to look like this. This is not my voice. Mine is a little less precise... messier.... I am sure I will find it....

Cry Me a River

Today i feel sad. Really, really sad. I painted a BIG picture. Pastel pink, lilac and blue smeared together and overlain with grey. The large tears in slightly darker blue, pink and lilac, then a big eye, grey, white and black with hints of the other colours in there to.

With every stroke I could feel myself well up. I am welling up again now. I wrote in my journal and cried. Not that I wrote anything particularly profound.

I know I am unhappy with my life. I love F very much but everything else could do with some degree of change. I don't want to work full time. I want to live elsewhere - somewhere in the country, fewer people, bigger windows to bring the outside in, land on which to play.... I want to have more time for me, more time to get fitter and stronger so I need less sleep, so I can avoif the health problems coming. I want something else, not what I have.

I don't want to sit behind a computer in a cold draughty warehouse, doing mind numbingly dull work with no natural light every day, watching my back for the actions of my Boss.....

Reading what others write about the synchronicity of BIG already, makes me sad for myself. What if nothing happens for me? What if so much happens it turns my life upside down and I can not cope? What if I have to do the changing and I can not step up to the bar?

Is it time for me? I felt like I was starting to get somewhere and then I got ill and it is as if this last year has been a non-year, just dealing with work and my Boss. Now all of a sudden, everything has started again but where am I going? Where do i want to go? How am Igoing to get there?

Recent signs suggest change is coming.... that dream I had with the path going up the hill, when it had been a bit lost on the rocks. The footholds appeared one by one in front of me as I climbed up. Jamie also said she saw things in my dreamboard suggesting thing were going to change for me soon.....

I feel so lost and sad. I could cry me a river to float away on....

Time Out

I am tired....

I am so glad there is only two days in this working week for me....

I have been painting like mad as well. BIG is so inspiring! I think everyone should try it.

But tonight is a night off. I got a book and went and had a bath, with some bad food.

Then I caught up on the BIG tribe and pretty soon, I am going to bed!

Sometimes you have to stop. but only for a little while...

Grey Inspiration

How do I feel today? Tired. Grumpy. Tired.

It could be the events of yesterday. It could be the weather.

but no, it is my neighbour! Doing DIY and banging away after 11 last night. I go to bed pretty religously at 10 each night. I was proud of myself though. I put some clothes on and my slippers and knocked and had a wee chat with them. And then I went home and slept.

A couple of years ago I wouldn't have done that for sure! F was proud of me, and said so to....

So today I went back to work when all I wanted was a duvet. Everyone else did too. Seems those nasty bugs are starting to attack....

One more day and I have two days off though. Yay!

It was been stormy and rainy and windy today. Sometimes days can be very wild down here. Like living in a cloud too. Very grey. One thing I really love though, is watching seagulls flying in a windy grey sky. They wheel about so gracefully but also, there is something about the monotone of it, the way their wings and bodies fade in and out as they cross the shades of grey. Sometimes you just see white, so vivid against the grey, so white. Sometimes they match and all you can see is moving wingtips and the body, a dot of black...

I always get the feeling that they rather enjoy a windy day. They never look like they work so hard at flying when the wind is up. No hard slog of flapping across the sky, they ride those gusts and swirl in elegant pirouettes.

So I came home and painted some and I quite like it, but it is such a veeeeeery simple piece. The only thing I don't like is that it is wet so the flash shines off it. So, grey can be cool, if you look in the right way and at the right time.
Another photo may follow when it is dry....

The Fear Demon

BIG started today and I have been really enjoying it. This week we have four exercises, explained in a pdf and then fully demonstrated and explained in videos as well. And Connie's videos are fun as well!

I worked on the first two exercises today and all was going well until I started my sixth painting. I painted some sinuous green lines and then I painted a dotted line on each side but then I got stuck. Well and truly!


I had no idea where to go from here. I couldn't face painting around all the dots and thin lines. I didn't want to spend hours filling the sheet with more dots and lines - the original ones would get lost for starters. I didn't want to use all the colours on my palete either so I was feeling limited. I had the idea of doing a wash but had no idea if it would blur everything and cause it all to run.

The lovely Connie suggested I take a break, and I did. The first thing I did after was use up some of the paints on my palete that I no longer wanted - black, flourescent red and gold. I figured if I painted the fear demon, badly, as he deserves, I could giggle at him whenever he gets uppity.

And here he is....


I then bit the bullet and did the washes on my picture as well as two further line / dot sections. The washes are subtle and don't show too well but they are blue, green and pink. And I am glad I finished it off.

Go visit BIG!

I am sooo tired. 12 days of work with no break. Some very long days. Some bad nights sleep.

And here I am, at the weekend and I have so many things I want to do. I have not switched my Wii on in days and I have cheap shops to scour for paint and brushes. I did find some today three with the largest being 1" and I have plenty of small brushes but..... if I find some more cheap ones.... a nice big one maybe....

And paints... more colours of ready mix maybe...

I found a nice book for my BIG journaling with butterflies on the cover and the pages.

I want to set up some paper, tape up my plastic, I want to splash some paint and see what comes out.

I also want to finish my Happy Book stars page. I have to do some thank you letters, which would tidy up an old Happy task I failed to do. There is one or two of them lurking around, unfinished things.

But right now, I am just so tired and I can not wait for a lie in

BIG Start

Eek!

Let's step back a day or two.... The lovely Mel posted all about how she was about to start an online course called BIG. It sounded great and fun and my first thought was I hope she posts a lot of her work from it and that it wasn't for me, wasn't where I am right now etc....

But BIG festered in my brain. Those little questions started popping up and answering themselves.

I can't paint... so it isn't exactly about painting, at least not perfect painting, professional painting. This is fearless painting and I can be fearless right?

I am not feeling creative right now.... but I so want to...

It costs money... I just worked all weekend piling up overtime to satisfy the man (not F but the man that is the corporate overlord). If I don't deserve to treat myself with my hard gotten bonus earnings....

I am lost and in a rut... so time to get out of it!

It requires lots of materials... I have bottles of poster paint and access to lots and lots of paper. I now have some waste paper in the form of a single sheet wound around and around to a thickness of an inch or two. I can get another piece or two if I run out....

Maybe I was wrong, maybe this is what I need right now, to get me kick started again.

So I did it and now I am nervous. There are some proper artists in the group, but then I am not here to make art, I am here to be BIG and FEARLESS! Art might happen as a byproduct....