Searching for Authenticity

WIP Oil on canvas

One of the exciting things about being an artist in the early stages is the freedom to play around, try new styles and techniques and embark on a process of discovery. On the flip side, it is trying to find the balance between experimentation and artistic development while maintaining my authenticity. The non-judgemental part of me enjoys the experimenting while another part of me wonders how I can create an artist brand if I am changing and inconsistent with the type of art I do.

I think I have touched on this before, my struggle to go down any one direction. I love oils and I love the glazing, the detail, the flow that you get with them. I get lost in almost a meditative trance when I am painting in oils and can spend hours lost in blending and detail. Then again the abstract resin works I have done are so much fun. It is pure colour and play and while I don't get trance-like with it, it is a fun break from everyday work as I can head into the studio and throw another glaze on in 5 minutes and then have to leave it again to dry. So those works are done in many many stages which fits in well with two small children and two businesses.

Then again I love pencils and drawing and getting into detail detail detail and I get completely lost in time with drawing. And what about mixed media (like Soar) - that is fun and crafty and also satisfies some part of me.

So to be authentic to me and my journey as an artist, I think I need to continue with my play and experimentation as every type of art I do satisfies me and brings me joy on some level. It is about the process for me and I don't want to think about branding if that limits me. I just want to be me.

Soaring

This piece is about letting who you truly are, soar. To fulfill everything that you can be, to see possibilities and to shine.

When I stroke my children's faces as they drift off to sleep, I tell them they are perfect exactly how they are, that they can do anything they want to in life, and that they are completely and utterly perfect being who they truly are. When they are in that sleepy half awake/half asleep stage, they are so receptive to being told this and when I ask my son if he knows how truly perfect he is, he whispers yes with a smile and closed eyes.

We tend to lose that sense of truly knowing ourselves when we grow up, and what a loss that is. My children are now 2 and 3 and I know it will break my heart when I see things happen in their life that makes them question how perfect they are, how amazing they are, and that they have the ability to soar. I feel that now in my thirties, I am trying to remember who I really am and I am so excited about life and possibilities and big big dreams most of the time. But sometimes those doubts creep in and I think who am I to think I could do this.

That is when I think of Marianne Williamson's amazing piece of prose and think who am I not to be.

This piece is a reminder to soar, that when you are truly you, you can't do anything else but soar. It is mixed media on canvas with 4 layers of resin with different pieces embedded in different levels so is quite three dimensional in person.

My deepest apologies to my dearest blog...

My dear blog,

I humbly apologise for the neglect I have shown you for the last few months. I have been alive and busy (very busy) and due to some external factors (like a laptop that had to be repaired twice) and some internal factors (not putting you up on my priority list), I have neglected you. But now I am back. Here is some proof of my busyness.....I have been taking photos of pretty flowers....

....and playing with resin and layers of mixed media (this is still a WIP with several more layers to go)....

...and hanging artwork at Cafe Apollo finally....

...and it looked good!

I have spent a lot of time chasing this fearless little girl......

...and watching her discover the world........

...while enjoying the dog obsession this wee dude has (he currently has to sleep with his "pack" of about 8 soft toy dogs including his mangy Hairy (who is almost hairless now from love)...

.....and answering the questions a dozen times a day of "What's this Mummy?".

So as you can see life is busy. My Possibility business is soon to launch and I have been doing consulting work for a shoe retailer (which is why my children now have enough shoes to last the next few years as I find it hard to ignore clearance sales).

So please forgive me blog, I do humbly apologise and I would like to say that I'm back!

Charcoal portrait

Today was a "mummy" day which sometimes means I get the chance to draw as my kids love seeing me draw and they can draw at the same time.

I was going through photos on my laptop trying to figure out what I was going to draw and I came across this photo of my son's best friend. Last Friday at his friend's house, we convinced the boys (with bribes of course) to dress up for some photos and Carter was a fireman while his best friend was a pirate.

So here is Ryan in his pirate glory. I toned the paper first this time which I quite enjoyed working with rather than having a pristine white background. It does look better in real life and it is bigger than A4 so the scanner didn't capture it all. I'll have to see now if Ryan's mother likes it.

Possibility

Some of you may have noticed that my posting has been sporadic as of late. One of the big reasons for that is I have been working hard on getting everything ready to launch my business in a few months time. I know that I have mentioned little pieces about it, but I now have my confirmed logo designed by Karen Rubado (see above - isn't it beautiful) and feel like I am close to being ready so I now feel good about talking about it to you all.

The name of my business is (as you can probably guess) Possibility Ltd. My main focus initially will be career coaching, recruitment and interview skills and CV development with life coaching added early next year. I am half way through my Diploma in Life Coaching which I am thoroughly enjoying and about to start taking some clients which is exceptionally exciting (and just a little bit scary) as well. In the more far off future, I would love to add creativity workshops as well as that would just be so so much fun.

It took me a long time to come up with the name for this business and I absolutely love Possibility. I wanted something that stood for my values and beliefs about how we can all have a great life and I think Possibility sums that up for me. It makes me so sad to see so many people feel they are completely trapped, that they can't move on from a job they hate because of things like financial commitments, status etc and who are so unhappy. I think we are supposed to be happy in our life and the work we do has a major impact on us and how we feel about ourselves and every aspect of our life.

For me, balance is incredibly important. I love being a mum and wife, being an artist and being a businesswoman. I need those areas to all be fulfilled to have that balance. And though I am probably working harder and more hours than I have ever done before in my life, I am so energised and excited about it and it feels so good that I can share the knowledge and experience that I gained in all my years in Human Resources to help enable people to make changes in their life and have the skills and knowledge to be able to make these changes.

Going through all the thinking and planning for this new business is also making me re-assess other parts of my life, e.g. what this blog is actually all about and what I want to communicate here. I'm still thinking about that but watch for some changes coming soon...

Have a fabulous day!

Trying out Derwint tinted charcoal

Tonight I tried out a small tin of Derwent Tinted Charcoal that I bought over a year ago and then stashed away in my studio cupboard and promptly forgot about. After playing with the red chalk pencil this afternoon on Tayla's portrait, I had a memory trigger that I did have something like that and I found them.

I wasn't terribly experimental with the colours tonight, but they are lovely and velvety to use and I did this with a white chalk pencil, a tinted grey charcoal pencil and a tinted dark blue/black charcoal pencil.

Incidentally this angel belongs to an old gravestone that I drive past frequently. This gravestone is right at the top of a graveyard on a hill with it's back to the road and for months I drove past wanting to photograph it so I could draw or paint it as I find it so beautiful. A few weeks back, kids were in daycare, and I knew I was driving past there for a meeting so I left early and took my camera and took a number of photos. The sun was very bright that day so I would like to go back when it was more overcast to get more subtlety.

The reason I drew this tonight was as a study for a painting. I have an idea about incorporating this into a large work so I also prepared a canvas tonight so I am hoping to draw it out on there tomorrow. I must say, this was supposed to be a study and I spent about 3 hours on it, but it was thoroughly enjoyable and I am really pleased with the outcome. The picture isn't nearly as good as what it looks like in real life but you get the idea.

Portrait - Carbon pencil and chalk

Yay for lazy Sunday afternoons! I finally finished this portrait of Tayla and because I wasn't so happy with progress just with the carbon pencil, I used some red chalk as well which I kind of like. Makes it a little softer I think.

We had a great weekend with the kids having an over-nighter at the grandparents so DH and I got to both sleep in. I thought I would still wake up at 6am, but didn't and actually slept through to 9am which was just lovely. The house seemed ridiculously quiet without two toddlers about and this morning I managed to finish a book with no interruptions and have a generally lazy time. Yay for grandparents.