Dharma in the Garden

So, long time no posting. Essentially I've been suffering from a creative dry spell for, oh... too long.  Although I haven't fed or nurtured the garden much in recent months, I haven't forgotten about it. But I see it  needs a bit of revamp although I'm not sure where to start or indeed what I want to do with it.  

Meantime, on a more positive note I am boldy participating in Free Spirit Knits' Inside Out E-Course again this year. This is definitely helping to get the creative juices flowing again (well, starting a slight trickle anyway).

I have also bought myself some BrainSync Meditation CDs and have just started listening to Clear Wave Creativity ("Unlock your imagination, and experience inspiration flowing from deep within the currents of your own mind. Under the calming sounds of Mayan waves, Alpha binaural beats will swiftly melt away the day’s worries, and spark higher levels of creativity, intuition, and awareness.") Here's hoping!

 

"It's like a concert tour but with sketchbooks"

Next year my sketchbook will be doing a tour of America.  And after a tour of galleries and museums across the country it will be part of a permanent collection at The Brooklyn Art Library.

It's not just my sketchbook of course.  There will be thousands of others from around the world taking part in The Sketchbook Project 2011 run by the Art House Co-op.  It's a chance for professional and amateur artists alike to show their work and be part of a creative community.  

For the sketchbook project I have chosen the theme 'It must be...' and I have until the end of the year to fill a moleskin sketchbook based on this theme.

Oh boy, what have I done?

ACID Project

Yesterday was the first day of my digital photography class and my fears of being the only female among a group of retired men were completely unfounded - only three males and seven females! We spent the morning in Aberdeen's Union Terrace Gardens with our cameras and then back to the art gallery to manipulate the photographs using Photoshop CS.  The idea was to use the software to create sepia or black & white images as the gallery currently has an exhibition of Victorian photography which we had looked at earlier in the morning to get some inspiration. Photoshop CS is all very new to me so I had a bit of play with it.  My playing around resulted in an image which I liked so much that I decided to share it with the group at the end of the day instead of using the sepia one.  The colours being so strong and vibrant, I referred to it as my 'acid' picture.  

I have been so inspired by my 'happy accident' that today I created three more 'acid' images and have decided to make it a long term project.  I do have a slight difficulty in that I don't have Photoshop CS (nor the funds to buy it!) and it does give me greater control of hue and saturation. However, I am undaunted as Paint is good enough meantime and can produce some impressive results (although the colours are not quite so intense).   

I am calling the project ACID (Aberdeen. Colour. Imagination. Drama) and I can't wait to add more exciting and vibrant images to the collection.

Inside Out Explorers

Well the Inside Out e-Course has now finished and I'm starting to have withdrawal symptoms!  Missing my daily dose of reflection and creative fun.  I would love to do another one but time, money and a digital photography course have put paid to that plan. 

Anyway, Shannon (our inspirational guru and course organiser) has put together a montage of all the course participants' creative efforts from the four weeks and you can see this on YouTube

Perfect Things - 20 of them!

Could have thought of a lot more but here are 20 perfect things in no particular order:

An Agatha Christie novel (any of them, it doesn't matter) and a comfy chair
The scent and taste of vanilla. Vanilla perfume is the best!
Newly cut grass - summer's here!
Laundry blowing in the breeze and the fresh air smell when you bring it indoors
Viennese Truffles - makes the first item in the list even more perfect
Life because it is perfect, in every way. I just need to remind myself and get in the flow
Gardening - it's the best therapy ever and you never stop learning
Art - my saviour, my passion, my dream
The White Sands of Morar  May they always remain so blissfully unspoiled  
Spending time with Mum, lunching, shopping and chatting - so rare but bliss! I love you Mum
Girl talk - giggling, gossiping, gassing, great fun
All the amazing people I have met through blogging - bless you all
Katharine Hepburn movies
My Alegria PG Lite Red Scribble Clogs - funky and comfy!
The Inside Out e-course because it's OK to not be perfect!
Granola with cranberries, blueberries and organic yoghurt. Yum!
My summer house and it's view of the garden
Bird song - it never fails to lift my spirits
The sound of waves breaking on the shore
The man who shares my life. Nothing would be perfect without you.

Lose the scissors!

Just completed Week 1 of my creative e-course Inside Out and about to leap into Week 2!  It's been great to just mess about with paint and other fun materials and not worry about the results on the paper. This is something I have real difficulty with so hoping to learn how to release all the angst I feel when I start a painting.  The best part has been snipping words and images from magazines and making wonderful collage.  For a little while I was taking time to cut words and pictures out with scissors but then I realised that it was actually far better to just rip and tear things out.  Essentially learning to let go and just be a child again, not caring about being neat or tidy.  Lesson of the week for me has been "lose the scissors"!



There are some parts of the e-course that are challenging for me.  Particularly the journal writing exercises. But I am finding the free form writing to be cathartic. After all the course is called Inside Out and that is just what is happening when you get your thoughts down on paper.  Some thoughts aren't so nice (lots of negativity that needs a light shone on it) but equally I am finding lots of nice stuff turning up!  I have done something similar many years ago when I tried to work my way through Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way (no fault of Julia's that I never managed to complete it). Anyway, morning pages (as they were called) threw up some pretty good stuff and I re-read them again the other day to remind myself of what was going on in my life back then.  



Loving the relaxing meditation (which I just don't do enough of) and looking forward to learning about yoga. 

So can't wait to see what's in store this week, although definitely will need to plan my life better so I can do a little something every day instead of a huge splurge of activity at the end of the week!

Other pictures from my journal of self-discovery can be found here

WhiteSpace

WhiteSpace is a local art workshop run by the City Council's Arts Development Team. I stumbled across a page about them on the Council website about a week or so ago during a google search for local art classes but the information there was well out of date.  Then last night I was flicking through our local free newspaper (which I don't normally do) and there was an article advertising the latest programme of art classes at WhiteSpace! 

I knew they would be very popular so phoned first thing this morning.  As I expected most of the classes were fully booked already but they did have a jewellery class starting in January which still had places left.  Now synchronicity definitely played a big role here.  Surely it was meant that I would find this course at this particular time...  So I didn't hesitate and booked a place there and then.  It's a ten week course for beginners. We will be working with silver which is exactly what I'm interested in. 

Pottering

"So you see, imagination needs moodling - long, inefficient, happy idling, dawdling and puttering." Brenda Ueland

Moodling - what a wonderful word!  Moodling is really what I do best.  Although pottering is what I call it.  I can potter for hours, around the garden, around the house.  I can start lots of tasks then be distracted by something else far more interesting.  This makes me sound like I'm incredibly lazy, which I'm not.  I don't spend my life just pottering.  I wouldn't get anything done for a start!  However, for the chance to feed the imagination, to just let it float from one thing to another, to plan, to dream, ... nope you can't beat spending a day (or two) just pottering.

Dharma Creation

In the beginning...

Dharma in the Garden is being created.  Watch this space!