☆ When Family come to stay... I have little time to play [Friday Art]

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Week 14 2014

It's a catch 22.

I have crap loads of work to do, a weeks worth of posts to flesh out, a give away to draw, a newsletter to write, I need to get some painting in, cause my soul is crying out for it + lets decide last minute throw make a video for the launch of Listening to your Squeak.

But it's also my nan's 94th birthday, a birthday we weren't 100% sure she was going to make, and my fabulous cousin + her kids are coming to stay for the weekend + I haven't see her since last year + I am desperate to spend some quality time with her.

A catch 22.

This life is a juggling act at the best of times, but this weekend, I wasn't sure I was going to be able to fit it all in.

I rediscovered something about myself, that since leaving the work force to care for my babies, I had forgotten.

I work best under pressure.

I don't have time to check my emails, or Facebook, or read that book, or play that bloody addictive app on my iPad that has sucked away hours of my life.

Under pressure I sit down, concentrate + smash it. 

Instead of the day it can take to write the newsletter, it took me two hours. 

Instead of deciding I didn't have enough time in half hour to paint, I splashed some paint on the page + ended up with something I love.

So this weeks friday art is this cute little blue haired girl + her mane of feathers.

And although it too a little more that half hour to do (Mac ended up doing the school run that day so I squeezed in another half hour)

So my question to you is, how much time do you spend procrastinating? Now I think most of the time my procrastination is beneficial, but it certainly doesn't hurt to review how much time you DONT spend on the things that are most important to you. What do you think?

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☆ Long Weekend Birthday Bliss...

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A huge Queens Birthday long weekend for the Mac family with Bugs birthday [hooray!] and my brothers 30th.

Birthday Girl

Three days of food, wine and laughter, three days of long days and short nights and sharing the soap box platform, three days of Bean and her cousin being bestest buddies one minute, arch nemeses and tears the next.

Bugs birthday took on an owl theme - unintentionally the cake was supposed to be an abstract princess castle, but I lacked the energy for that.

Part of her present from us was a hand made owl mobile, and although I have been planing this for months, of course I, the consumate procrastinator left it to the last minute to start.

Still need to be 'mobilised'

Home made bunting - no problem, I'll wip that up the night before! [FYI Sticky velcro spots - good idea in theory, but not so great in practise!]

And finally some work in progress, which I have put aside while I finish this weeks illustration friday.

Hope your weekend was just as much fun as ours - maybe not as tiring though!

☆•*¨*•.¸¸

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☆Procrastination and Lessons from Bean...

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So I am not sure what I should be writing about, or even what is the purpose of my ramblings, why do I feel the need to share my journey, or does there even have to be a plan?

I find that writing this blog is much harder and much scarier than I first thought. I assumed that it would be similar to writing in my previous paper journals, where I would just blurt out what ever was on my mind in a random jumble of thoughts and ideas. But I feel that this should be more organised and coherent and possibly the thought of an 'audience' has given me a kind of stage fright. Could I just be procrastinating again and letting the fear take over?

This blog is about rediscovering my creativity - I am making a very public and truthfully, for me, a very scary statement to the world that I am going to follow through on the promises I have made to myself and my family, to live a creative life. I suppose I should relax and let it evolve on its own….maybe

Ever since I have been consciously living, not going through the motions of the day so to speak, I am finding it easier to have creative moments each day. I guess I am consciously making time - so when Bean* and Bug* are asleep, while Bean is playing quietly, and Bug is kicking on the play mat, or instead of siting mindlessly in front of the box overnight, I am drawing, painting, sketching and reading the numerous art and craft books that I have collected over the years.

The other day Bean and I sat down at the kitchen table to paint - me painting mdf letters of their names for their toy boxes, and her in her sketch book. Now Bean is my eldest child and she has always, always been fussy when it comes to her hands. She just does not like to have them dirty. If she has dirt, or food, or paint or a marker pen spot on her hands she fusses and has to wash them - or rather we have to wash them for her.

But that day she very slowly and very bravely started to finger paint! She started off slowly - so slowly, the tip of a finger here, then the pad there, then her whole hand until finally she was holding her hands up to me so that I could cover them in huge globs of cold squishy paint and she was slapping her hands down on the paper, swirling them around laughing and having a fantastic time - forgetting in the moment that her hands were.. well, dirty.

I was so proud of her letting go of her fear and being involved in the moment and I decided that I need to take a leaf out of my two year olds guide to being creative - Let go of the fear and live in the moment….

Of course three hours later when she had dinner on her hands she demanded they be washed straight away.

So this week I am going live in the moment and let go of the fear… and we'll see how that goes!

xx

*P.S Bean and Bug are the names we gave our girls during my pregnancy. Bean is two and Bug is two months! I image they will feature often in my upcoming posts!

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