Ino and Gaara Picture story!

MF Designer

Ino and Gaara wanted to go to the Anime Expo 2008 at London's Excel

So after executing a weeks worth of costume-jutsu, everyone met at Bank on the DLR

Headed to a cafe, where cake was eaten, Guy-liner applied, and pins stuck into Ino's head

Next stop the Expo for moody pictures

And friend making!

Budding artists were at work

Finally, There was the journey home

And someone to squeeze!

For IBTB of the TAW!

This is just a little post about a little box...it's a couple of inches across and I made it when I was pregnant and trying to get used to not working...it's my half hour activities box. If I can't make up my mind what to do I pick a scroll and have to do what it says, be it a chore or a pleasure...certainly makes you think clearly whether there's something you want to do!

Peek-a-Boo!

How am I supposed to concentrate? It's hard work being grumpy and trying to have 'issues' when this one keeps popping up with a grin on his face!

Love, love, love.

Digging out some of the bits of me I struggle to love at the moment...everything tumbles in together for me, creativity, sexuality, flow of life and Spirit...and somewhere in the middle of all these drives is a big fat mean and grumpy policeman squashing it all down saying no! no! no!

Seriously wishing today that he would just bugger off and let me be the bohemian polyamorous pagan I am underneath. I'm remembering that I have a very old dictionary somewhere, where the meanings of words like licentious, lascivious and perverse all have quite lovely juicy definitions, rather than the pejorative ones that they have nowadays...perhaps if my policeman could just be a bit more Zen and a lot less disapproving, read the old dictionaries rich in diverse explanation rather than moral judgement...

Though somewhere in this I am learning. This may not be the age of artists leaving the towns and cities to return to the influences and timings of nature, living together in physical communities, but communities are happening on-line...and somewhere in this a sensation a hope is growing in me. That these on-line explorations and encouragements to be creative are very much about life, not about escaping from it or filling empty spaces within it, but about learning to change it; re-equipping more and more people to be creative, full stop, in their nature of living...colouring outside the lines, creating richness and diversity and a more Zen set of internal policeman.

Yep, I'd come out of hiding for that!

This just sends me!

I love Sia, I love listening to her, but the chance to see Sia perform live is one I recommend you grab with both hands...I spent half the night with goosebumps in a very warm room! This is called Day Too Soon and it's one of my faves, shows off Sia sense of fun and her amazing voice. Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmMjOOhgwso

Reading way too much!

I can't do this no reading thing!!!!!

It's as much part of me as breathing and moving and sleeping! I am managing to curb my behaviour slowly if what I am doing is immersing myself in other's work instead of my own creativity...and I've allowed myself to read and work with some of my own material.

I've started and finished this A2 pencil portrait of a friend in the day or two before she had her baby....and it's the first portrait I've ever done where I wasn't allowed to put a face in!

I find I am so busy and feeling overwhelmed by the amount I have to do...and that I am being rescued form this and other sensations by the Daily Morning Pages from The Artists Way...

Each time I begin to write the complaint 'I have so much to do!!!' it is instantly translated into the wonderfulness of 'having so much to do'! So much choice, life is so full of amazing things to do! My life is full of things I love to do!

My other joyous writing discovery is ruminating over words I've shuddered to hear ringing in my head from school reports...Lazy..bone idle...and discovered through writing them down how much I LOVE THESE WORDS!

LAZY

BONE IDLE

LAZY BONES

I even wrote a life story for Dame Lazy Bones and loved every aspect of her life!
All the sayings with bones in keep popping up, feel it in my bones, get to the bones of it, bad to the bone, work your fingers to the bone! Loving it all at the moment!

I am lazy! If I can see a short cut I generally take it, if I can cut back to the bones of the matter I will. It's me and life here who need to haggle over what is necessary, never had much time for the middle guys!

Dame lazy bones wears ridiculously deeply frilly clothes and a huge hat BTW, I guess she has time for all that nonsense because her bed isn't made.

Lucy in The Sky

I have to follow that last one with some of my mum's amazing sky piccies

Painting Sky

Sitting underneath The Painting Sky
Where creation
Has opened up its heart
In all its brilliance

"God has left the back door open,
my mother always said to me"

My mother says to me.

Wingspan

I see his wingspan stretch
The light embraces him
The clearest breeze
Caresses his head
His movement stirs within

Leaves me haunted

A singing from the sky
Peaceful breath
A promise bringing
Of flying in the light

No Reading!!!???

Okay, I'm here as promised..it's late in the day here in the UK, but hopefully I can get this posted to all three blogs before time is called.

I think this is going to be somewhat of a ramble...you are forewarned.

Starting with not reading....I haven't, started that is, working with the logic that allowing ourselves two weeks for each week is to make the process more achievable rather than less...I did set myself the challenge of completing ten days no reading though...tomorrow is Friday... so another M,T,W,T,F,S & Sunday will make ten? er no, it makes eight! Okay I'm aiming at eight then.

I AM TERRIFIED OF NOT READING FOR EIGHT DAYS!

How am I supposed to do this? Crap. I get it, I want to do it...My work will benefit, my backside will benefit, I will ring my mum!...I just don't know if I have the focus. I am trying to step into this Etsy thing, even if I only allow the minimum reading to allow for set-up, what a place to try not to browse!
And I've been off-line so much in the last few weeks I feel out of touch already...and guilty(!!??) for not keeping up with others as well as myself! I'm enjoying the sense of friendship and community, and we do this by reading each others blogs and comments and e-mails! Hmmm...actually I can make international calls for free, perhaps this would have been a good time to exchange some phone numbers! too late now, no-one will read this!Lol!

Okay reading rant finished.

My two year old boy fell in love with a baby doll today...nearly all his little friends have baby brothers and sisters this year, another two in the last three months and another on the way...I think he's feeling broody! We left the shop with a doll that suckles and coos and giggles and babbles and only cries if you take it's bottle and lay it down (and then only for 30 secs) it has a motorised face and 'breathes' when it sleeps...He has been in heaven all day looking after this baby and it's been astounding to watch. he had to put the baby to bed next to his cot, just before his own nap (and again at bedtime tonight)telling me I must shush and not wake the baby...and then when he woke up all I could hear through the monitor was "I love oo" "I love oo".

I'll try to get a picture tomorrow.

Okay, enough rambling!

I'm hoping to post about a pinhole artist Paul Debois in the next few days...I'd like to do a little interview with him (as if my list of creative 'must do's were not long enough yet this week!...still I shan't be reading, or net browsing, or watching T.V. so I should have plenty of time! )
(and yes I'll ring you too mum!)

Big kiss

I've been gone tooooo long!

Life has been changing, and I'm amazed at the speed things hurtle once they get going!

I'm hugely happy to say that Julia Cameron's The Artists Way has been stupendously helpful for me!...I now face two weeks (well it'll be ten days) of no reading...No idea how Ill pull that one off, but it's already interesting to try...and I have been writing and clearing so much!
It has rather thrown my life into a jumble, but I'm kinda content just to find what finally settles into place.

I think the fact that we are on the slopes toward mid-winter will have an effect though. In making room for the Christmas process, both on the supply and demand sides, I hope there will still be room to allow the flow that will carry me through the beginning of next year.

I don't want to lose this amazing feeling of connection again, I've been here before in the bliss of the deepening and opening...Perhaps, as this time I understand even more dearly the value of this authenticity and it's vulnerability in the throes of life, I shall be able to hold to this clarity to keep calm in the centre of any storms that well up. !!Wish me luck!! I shall add that the resource of the TAW blog and community has been wonderful for this process and who knows...perhaps we may find support for each other that lasts well into our creative lives.

Been photo playing (as you'll tell from this blog), portraiting (unable to show here) and am 90% commited to the Etsy shop idea...In addition to my three morning pages his morning I worked out the numerology for the name SisterJulia's Etsy Shop and it came back the same 28/10 pattern as my date of birth...that's nudged me a bit more to going for it!

Okay. I only planned a tiny blog to say Hi! and promise to blog again, huh! I'm promising to blog again tomorrow and back to more regularly from now...I've had my breather, so for now I send you

A Big Kiss!!!

Lovely Iris

Pirate Girl by Iris...I love the blues in this

Things are shifting constantly for me at the moment....result...I've turned my house upside down! Massive re-organise and clear-out...obviously because I wasn't quite busy enough!

Hopefully, before too long this will mean my decks are clear and I can get back to drawing and blogging a little more easily!I had a lovely and very productive weekend...one of the joys of which was receiving the picture below from Iris, The Giveaway Tree winner!

I know Iris from lj, where she has always been a kind and generous supporter offering encouraging comments to many artisits at play and work...She also creates lovely mixed media paintings such as the ones here today, and is currently studying on Suziblu's Petite Dolls course.

I've had a blast messaging back and forth with Iris since she won, and I asked her permission to share a couple of quotes with you...these are my faves!

"Ooh wow that's so awesome!! Thank you sooo much! Heh I'm surprised, I never win anything usually!"

"I got it today!!! OMG it's masssive! I thought it was A4. Such a nice surprise! I've put it up on the mantelpiece. I also just LOVE those little cards you included. I've stuck a bunch of them upright at the back of my keyboard so my eye keeps catching the cheerful colours & phrases while I'm working."

"I'm so excited to have more art here, I've been talking to my boyfriend about it all evening. I wanna surround myself with art. I don't care if I have no room to sit anymore, it'll be worth it! "

I know exactly how she feels!

Big kisses from me.

Way Busy!

What a difference a camera can make!

I am sooooo busy!
Life is so full!
How did this happen?
I feel awash in a sea of my own creation...Julia Cameron...hmmm. On top of already being so busy it's a challenge to blog at all, I took some of my pictures to mum and toddler group yesterday and already have an (experimental) commission, and am considering stocking an Etsy shop for christmas shoppers.



At least I've made it back here for a quick blog, and I posted Iris her chosen picture and managed to check in on fellow tailcastions yesterday as well!



I've stayed in on my night off tonight to help catch up with my things to do list, but I'm out tomorrow afternoon,Friday afternoon and Friday night and next Wednesday we're off to see Sia again.



Think I've finished the pic below of Lilith...it was the concluding message from the journey. Compared to the original sketch it's kind of meandered in areas...I still have it up and am talking with it, so we shall see.