☆ Illustration Friday

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SNEAKY

Just sneaking in this week with my IF project - not much art completed this week - we are still a house hold of sickness, but now on the mend (fingers and toes crossed!)

Have a great weekend.

x♥x

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☆ Art, Heart and Healing - Week 3

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So I am posting this a bit later than I planned - my gorgeous children have lovingly passed on their cold to their parents! So A LOT of Tinkerbell has been watched in the last week to keep tanties at a minimun, and to save mums pounding head!


If you haven't already checked out the Art, Heart & Healing course you should - it is absolutely fabulous, I have learned heaps in regards to technique, letting go, being open and celebrating the now.  And if you don't have time at the moment to do the course, Tam is leaving it open, make sure you spend 10 minutes checking out the fantastic art that people are creating - and OMG the monstahs (week 3) - they are soo cute and I wanna cuddle them all. I can't wait to make to mine - but i suspect i'll have to share with my girls!

So here are my pages from week 3 -


The cover of my book:

My first quote is one I have had scribbled on a post-it and have carted around the world with me!

I decided that I needed to have a second quote about courage and/ or letting go of fear and I found this one:

My 'I celebrate' page was funnily enough just as hard to do as my 'I wish for you' page. Not that I couldnt think of things, i could have written an essay, but I really wanted to be specific about what I celebrate the most, or whats most important to me at this stage in my life...

This was such a great exercise, it really made me focus on the now and whats great in my life at the moment. When I was in my 20's I used to keep a very small journal in which I would write everyday 5 positive things that happened that day, and if I had a really crap day, what was positive about the crap...It was really hard to start with but in the end it was really easy to find the positives in my day.

Thanks Tam for reminding me to celebrate my life and not wish it away...


Have a great weekend everyone!

x♥x

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☆ Illustration Friday

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Burning

Sometimes when that lump sits in the back 

of your throat like a burning ball of acid

all you can do is relinquish control 

and scream it out...

x♥x

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☆ Busy Times and Sick Girls...

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Well it has been a very, very busy couple of weeks at 'casa de mac' - I hope like crazy this isn't the beginning of the festy, oops I mean festive, season. I am not sure we can survive six more weeks of this.

And isn't that crazy - six weeks until the biggest, most stressful holiday of the year. More alcohol drunk than at any time of the year, more chocolate consumed than at Easter and more diplomacy and tact needed than a UN meeting! But that rant is for another post!

 So anyway, our weekend in Sydney was so much fun. We stayed in Manly, right on the harbour, and our old stomping ground. Walking around Saturday morning, having coffee in the rain, the corso empty of tourists, I remembered why I loved living in a city like Sydney.

Later that afternoon going to the mall, not able to find a car park in the entire place, waiting in cues for everything, and having to visit seven shops to find a pair of jeans, for my very picky husband, I realised why I love living in a small town!

The reason we were in Sydney was for my youngest brothers engagement party, and we had a fabulous time catching up with family. Of course Bean was sooo excited to see her cousin they went absolutely feral....

The next day we had a BBQ with family at one of the waterfront reserves, before beginning our 4 hour plus journey home.

But we had one detour to make - to Ikea! I love this giant home wares heaven, I love looking at all the displays, I love the bright colours and sleek designs. My husband tolerates it, and as long as I feed him caffeine he copes very well (although he said he was desperate for a smoke after our time in there and he quit 10 months ago!) My brother-in-law believes that Ikea is straight from hell, and never, ever wants to visit there again.

So Ikea'd up we joined the hordes of other suburbanites wanting to pay for their bulging trolleys full of Ikeaness, and proceeded to spend one hour in a cue to pay for our goods - crazy, why yes we are, thank you very much! Another reason we fled the city when we moved back to Australia!

After such a great weekend, the week following began badly and finished worse. Both the girls came down with colds, snotty noses, hacking coughs, no sleeping or eating. Then they both had jabs - so cranky and unsettled, and to top it off we jumped from 16 degrees (celsius) to hot and muggy 28's. Finally both G & I caught whatever the girls had, and spent the weekend on the couch watching disney movies to entertain Bean....

But after a 7 o'clock bedtime for the girls and me, and after sharing our bed with Bean last night, we are once again a fairly happy family. (Touch wood - quickly touch wood!)

So apart from my IF project, not much art completed, and I missed a couple of days on my sketchbook challenge but will pick it up again tonight. And I also managed to quickly finish week 3 of my Art, Heart and Healing course - will post pics tomorrow.

Hope you all had a better week than us, and that this week is better than the last!

x♥x

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☆ Illustration Friday

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Just a quick post today, as I am trying to catch up after our weekend away, but  I finished my response to the IF prompt 'afterward' last night.

Over the weekend I caught up with my sister and cousin, both of whom are first time mums this year, and we were talking about how much life changed after babies...

When Fred was born, I found this fantastic quote for the card I was making:

"a baby changes your dinner party conversations from politics to poop"
                                                                 - Maurice Johnstone


So true!

x♥x

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☆ Art, Heart and Healing - Week 2

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I managed to finish my two projects for the Art, Heart and Healing course before taking off for the weekend - Yah!

Here's what I posted on the forum:

I don't have many photos of myself as a child at my home, they are all stored at my mum's and I thought I would need to go raid them (which I need to do anyway!), but synchronistically my aunty gave me three photos she had taken of me as a child so I instinctively choose the one of me in a bath
Which in hindsight I feel is symbolic of my innocence and vulnerability, both of which I felt strongly when I was completing this piece (and again as I post it here ;)!)

It took me a while to think of an idea for the second page, I was very blessed as a child and had a very happy childhood but when I was a teenager I was friends with a group of girls who would take turns in hating each other for a day each week (this was of course led by just one girl whom we never hated!) It was all so dramatic, confusing, vicious and painful as only it can be to twelve year olds.

Close up of my whimsy girls:

Have a great weekend

♥x

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☆ Illustration Friday

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It has been a crazy week so far. and it doesn't seem like it will get any saner over the rest of it!

I have been working on my Art, Heart and Healing week 2 projects, trying to finish them before we go away for a long week end in Sydney, I finished my Illustration Friday prompt, had a Bug whose teeth are all seeming to come through at once, a Bean who has a persistent cough and clingy for mama, a husband who ended up in the emergency department for stitches (only 3 and not a bad cut!) and a slice to be made for playgroup (what am I mad - why haven't I bought one??)

So I can only hope that our weekend away will be a calmer and less hurried time, but I know with parties, BBQ's and family catch ups planned (as well as some well deserved retail therapy!) it will be just as manic - but heaps of fun!!

Thanks everyone for the lovely and supportive comments - I will reply...soonish?

So anyway Illustration Friday..

I was inspired this week by a quote about fairies by J.M. Barrie:

"Every time a child says I don't believe in fairies, there is a fairy somewhere that falls..."

She spent to long time not believing in fairies..
(watercolour, mixed media)

Hope you've had a great week so far and happy hump day!

xx

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