Friday, March 25, 2011

Week 5, Recovering a Sense of Possibility

Hello there,


I'm slowing making my way through the Artist's Way.... I think some of my weeks are lasting as long as 10-15 days? hence... I'm only starting the Chapter marked Week 5...


I decided at the start it was going to take as long as it took.. so long as I stick with it til the end.  I am happy to say it's made all the difference to have a check-in buddy, my friend  Xanthe who's joined me for this adventure she's into the Dramatic Arts and a prolific writer of reviews and articles and attending performances and acting, directing and teaching... and a Mum to a dear little girl... she has her own blog http://www.xsentertainme.wordpress.com Xanthe has her creative plate very very full, and I admire her tanacity and courage to follow her dreams.


So.... how am I doing with this 12 week course?  I'm enjoying it... and well... failing a little bit too... eg. last week was meant to be 'reading deprivation' no reading... of anything!!  And while I can see that could actually be very helpful for my creative self... it seems I'm a bit too insecure in myself at this moment to rise to such a challenge, I'm addicted to my self help books and astrology newletter info, not to mention email and friends on facebook and affirmations by Louise Hay.. or any number of the various books I have surrounded myself with... and the Color Wisdom Cards... the list .. goes... on....  mmm, I may have to try it a day at a time... the thought of no reading for a week just freaked me out.


and the Artist Dates? I'm not really having much of a go at those either!  It's interesting to be telling 'the world' this... as I reread my words I am reminded to not be ripping myself off so much!  I'm doing this course for my own benefit... not to prove anything to anyone else... so when am I going to show up for myself?  


... with that... I think I'll sign off,


here is a few pic's of our new little family memeber, "Aura" a 2.5 year old Chihuahua x Foxy.  


Aura and her best friend

 she's very well behaved in the car




sitting on the towel after a big run around at the beach.



 bye for now creative ones,


Love,
Denise xo

Sunday, March 6, 2011

... Puppy Love...


We've got puppies... well dogs on our minds at our place, we're looking into fostering a little one which will then become part of our family when we adopt it.


This is a new painting I've been working on all last week ... and I actually took some snaps of it with my iphone along the way... and you can see how much it changed... I could have painted two paintings.. but instead there are half a dozen underneath the one!  


I quite liked this chair, but it looks too much like one of those 
egg shaped ones.. in which case her head would not be 
in that position... I did't quite figure that out early enough....





 
 


It'll go into the gallery soon... once it's completely finished and varnished.

bye for now,

love Denise xo



 

Thursday, March 3, 2011

sadness.... and inner critic...and sea gulls


Today I felt plain old sad... a bunch of things happened in the morning to throw my time into a bit of chaos... so after I had done the things I needed to do for others, I took myself off to sit by the seashore to write my 'later in the morning' pages.


I felt agitated and knew that if I didn't stop and write it out first I would just continue to bring my agitation throughout the day and into my painting... which I really didn't want to do.  So while having a deep chat with myself, and hearing the sound of the crashing waves and the fresh salt air.. i had a bit of a funny thought... 




"Darling Denise... how about you take those awful inner critic comments, the ones that beat you up and make you feel like a hopeless artist and write them all down.. and put them on a little raft or boat of their own and send them out to sea where the sea gulls can shit on them!"


the visual idea of this gave me a smile on my face as I thought about what that would look like, having bird sh*t all over my pieces of paper with negative self talk on them... if that's not creative then what is I thought!! 





The day actually turned out much better than how it started... I have made progress on a painting, a friend called and I met her for a chai and one of my dear daugters is cooking dinner for us tonight.



Life is good really.

love,
Denise xo
Woodford Folk Festival street friends, Dec 2010