Photographing Art work - Clearing the Clutter Challenge Day 30

 

This has been quite a month of photographing, writing and posting and still catching up, and one of the major tasks I have been putting off is taking new photographs of art work and uploading them on the website.  I have many pieces of art work and crafts for sale and the only thing holding me back at the moment is how they are presented.   Decided to take a bit of time on this and next week it will be on the top of my list and I will give myself the time and space to focus.  

Started the course Hello Soul Hello Business earlier this month and it is really getting us to think about the what and the why of our businesses, and I have gained new insight into where I want it to go.  In February I will be taking a break from the 30 day challenges, life can sometimes be one big challenge and need to just consolidate everything else that I am doing and get down to the meat of the course, and follow up on some of the things I unearthed over the past few months....also want to get back to some journalling, have been doing some as I have been clearing the clutter, will be sharing some of the pages soon.

I also want to play around with some digital art, itching to start doing some work from Susan Tuttles book - Digital Expressions to see what I come up with.  So with this it's good bye January, and hello February! Do share what will be new for you in February?  Do you have a course or book you want to try?

Friday Feeling...

I have been thinking back over the past few weeks at what I've managed to do creatively, I seem to be in that in-between stage of deciding what the direction should be for a number of things....  I'm sure as I dwell and reflect and pray the answers will come.

I have continued to sketch and journal, as doing something every day is essential to your health and wellbeing! I met up with a friend and we spent a couple of hours painting, it was great to work in the same room as someone else as I usually work on my own.  We are going to try and make this a regular feature to our week.....

I spent a lot of time at the computer connecting with other artists, there is always something interesting to see creatively online by all the talented artists out there.  This week I was inspired by Karenika, she seems to fit an amazing amount of creativity into her day - very inspiring!

Drove up to Bedford to the The Birds of Prey Centre with Alan and Sekani (I had given them a flying and handling experience for Christmas)  It was lovely to get out of London for a few hours and see some of those beautiful birds.

I managed to miss the deadline for the sketchbook challenge on my Art blog, but I will still write up what I did for the post, and then start this months suggestion.  I have also been preparing for a series of talks for Social Workers which look at the experience of the carer.  Whillst my mother continues to deteriorate with the dementia, she is holding on to her humour, laughter and zest for life!  To help me cope with the role I developed a memory book and other tools which look at different aspects of her life and means that whatever setting she is in others are able to interact and  help her talk about her memories and things that she has done with the family over the years.  I am still putting them together and will be sharing these over the next few weeks.

The 365 days of colour that you have been seeing posted is primarily to enable me to share the images of some of the wonderful flowers I had photographed that I see on my travels or plant in the garden, I also come across a number of quotes and scriptures that inspire me, I hope they do the same for you. Honeysuckle and Jasmine are two of my favorite plants and I finally got round to buying a couple, they are steadily establishing themselves in the garden. 

I also managed to get out the last of the seeds that I had in my collection which will hopefully produce some pretty flowers mid August/September.

With the wet weather we have been having it has brought an increase in the slugs and snail population, these ones here are the prettiest in the garden, making acquaintances!

and the spiders seem to be trying to find refuge in the house!

....this one was massive (honest).... the picture doesn't do it justice!

As I have also been trying to get more exercise, I started walking again with a group of women once a week, it helped me motivate myself knowing that there were going to be others taking part, and that this time was just for me! I managed to do 6 laps round the field, and planning to increase the amount each week:) This morning I went to my local park and walked 1.4 miles!  It's been a fine morning and it's amazing how many other people young and old were doing exactly the same thing (some were moving quite bit faster than I was and these were the elderly ones!)

Tomorrow, Saturday 11th June  is the launch of Alan's book eKidz in Cyberspace, The address is EEC Centre, 9 - 23 Marsham Street, Westminster, WC1P 3DW UK if your anywhere near your most welcome to come along.  It starts at 6.30pm until 9.30pm.  There will be refeshments served at the start of the event.

Finally, I have been messing around with photoshop and have managed to teach myself some new techniques.  I wanted to be able to incorporate some of my photographs with my art work, and I am getting the hang of things.  I've got Susan Tuttles book which is handy as the techniques use photoshop elements.  I am quite pleased with my attempt, and know that with practice I will get better at using all the functions.  Hope you have a blessed weekend, and looking forward to seeing and hearing what you will be getting upto for next week!