Journalising / Diaries

I had to do it at Uni and we make the students at school do it, so why did I stop?

I'm talking about keeping a record of the things that emerge from my work room. Time might be an excuse, but it is so frustrating to go back to a piece and wonder "how did I do that". so I am going to try and start keeping a visual/process diary of some sort again. Inspired by Ro Bruhn's wonderful journal pages, I dug out an old lino cut I made years ago of blackberries, very convenient as my latest piece was inspired by this delicious berry, then stamped and water colour washed some pages.

Now these are no comparison to the beautiful and colourful pages created by Ro, but they gave me a base on which to record my materials and some of the new techniques I tried, Oh I wish I had lovely handwriting! but at least I have something I can look back on when the grey matter refuses to remember.

Today is wet and windy, autumn has finally arrived so I am spending the afternoon making Cornish pasties, and my favourite and nearly healthy carrot and date cake.

12 Month Project Finally Finished

Remember way back when, I told you about a Wendy Froud inspired doll I was making as a group challenge, ........no.......... well here's a reminder

Well she is finally finished. Steve had to work all weekend so I had two whole uninterrupted days to work on her. She will be dancing when I get her stand made, the one she is on is only temporary and doesn't support her too well, hopefully it won't take me another 12 months to get it done. It is so good to be able to finally spend some time back out in my work room, the weather has been glorious so everything dried nice and quick so I could get her finished ........ ummmmmmm what to make next :)

MIA

I have just realised it has been nearly a month since my last post. There is a very good reason for this, the inability  to sit down. An old back injury has been giving me a very hard time and I have spent the past few weeks  much like this.

I have watched far more daytime telly than can be good for anyone, all sorts of old dvd's and done a lot of ceiling staring.

The two things I could really have done with, my itouch  and microwave were both being replaced or repaired, well the microwave, which I needed to heat my wheat bag, was repaired, worked three times then broke again. It was brand new used about a dozen times then sat in a dusty workshop for two weeks waiting to be fixed. When it was finally ready, Steve picked it up on his way home to find it covered in dust, glue and scratches. When he mentioned this to the lady, she gave him one of those stainless cleaning cloths!!.  The glue obviously didn't work,  so it's got to go back again. I wonder what state it will come back in this time.

My itouch would have saved my sanity a little, at least I could have written the odd e mail, checked my favorite blogs and generally kept in touch with what is going on, but, alas, that too decided to pack it in. There was no trouble having it replaced, but they didn't have any in stock so have had to wait three weeks for one to come in. As is always the way, there is a replacement waiting for me, well Steve, to pick up, now I am able to sit at the computer again, all be it for short periods of time.

Talking of sitting at the computer, this has been blamed for my bad back, which I try to deny adamantly, but lost the argument, so the computer chair has been banned and I now sit on a very large red ball. I don't care how good it is supposed to be for my back, it is impossible to sit still on, the urge to roll about is just too much :) and very uncomfortable after a short time, which I think is the whole idea to dissuade me from spending so much time here.

So nothing creative has happened, hopefully very soon I will be able to get back to some sort of normality, but I have a feeling I am going to be doing a lot more moving around and back strengthening for some time to come yet