Reflections

I've been busy reflecting! I've just completed the first week of Susan Conway's Unravelling e-course which encourages you to think about how often we see ourselves reflected back in our everyday lives, Vivienne McMaster's e-course Wading In is about Self Portraiture, and, I'm back at College continuing with my studies to become a Counsellor, which includes alot of reflective work through keeping a learning journal.  Anyhow, I'm very happy with this self portrait I took earlier this week:

As a trainee counsellor, I am required to undergo 10 hours of my own personal therapy, I had my first session on Thursday, and something very useful came out of it.  I felt unable to destroy some old school reports written about me in Junior School, my counsellor reflected back that they seemed to be holding some power over me.  I thought about this, how could I release the grip they held over me? Shredding them didn't seem appropriate but transforming them into something more useful did.  So, I picked up a pencil and began drawing random shapes over the reports then cut the shapes out. Unconsciously I had drawn a bird like shape.  I collaged the bird onto my self portrait picture and wrote the following quote onto the bird "Life is like photography, we use our negatives to develop". Stuck a few negatives around the picture and "voila" - I have transformed the negatives from an old school report into something postive with a bit of Art Therapy!  I found another bird shape so I have kept that to use in a later project, and the rest I was happy to throw away.

Life is like photography, we use our negatives to develop

I feel much lighter after doing this piece of work & I read this this today from The Daily Love - " so many of us lead our lives holding on so tightly that nothing new, nothing miraculous can find us" - how true. 

 

Indian Summer

We appear to be experiencing an Indian Summer in the lateness of September 2011 - and so I am savouring the sunshine, a little like the last of the summer wine. 

Images for the day 28th September 2011

Faery Squash

Inspired by the Experimental Art assignment, I've been messing around with watercolours to create staining/mark making. Also inspired by faeries and autumn leaves here is my playful offering:

Having a smashing time

I've been inspired by hapa-zome.  Which is, essentially,  hammering or smashing plant material (leaves or flowers) into fabric to create an imprint  - its derived from Japan apparently and I love it! 

I decided to make a card for my god-daughter Sarah Rose who will be heading south tomorrow to start University at Kingston, London. Whilst walking the dog earlier in the beautiful sunshine we are currently enjoying here, I plucked a couple of roses from the rail embankment to use in my hapa-zome creation.  I stitched a piece of fabric onto card, then placed the rose petals onto the fabric.  Covered the petals with plasic and began to hammer (v.satisfying), my intention to create some splodges.   If I wanted to have a full imprint of the flower, I would have used a smaller flower such as a geranium or lobelia, but  I wanted my fabric to be stained. A bit of modge podge, faeries, glitter and stamping was all that was needed to create my card:

Here's a card I made earlier in the week using the same process:

This card was made imprinting leaves and lobelia onto fabric

Experimental Art

Soooo excited to have signed up with Amelia Critchlow's Experimental Art e-course.  On day 1 we were given a doodling assignment!

Here is my doodle, the yellow splodge is food dye which I blew around with a straw to form a shape, then I began to doodle around it!  Doodling is v.addictive!

 

Doodling addicts can be found at this cool blog spot - doodlersanonymous

Is This True For You

I came across this mug yesterday on my shopping travels and loved the quote on it:

Catch Up

I've not written a "proper blog" for a wee while, so, I'm trying to play catch up now, I'll start with my 3 day trip to Coniston......going to Coniston is an annual event with all the members of Young Church from Lytham Methodist. The thing is, the members of the young church are growing up - I think the adults outnumber the kids these days! Anyway, there were about 35 of us this year.  We stay at the St Martins Youth Centre which is bang in the middle of Coniston, it's like going home as we have been going for a number of years now.  This year, I chose to camp out in Dora McFlora, because the kids/young adults keep you awake til all hours and the bunk beds are just a bit too soft for my creaky back.  We all had a great time and I got chatting to a famouse fell runner in the Black Bull pub on a Friday night called Joss Naylor.  He is a LEGEND in the fell  running world.  I know about Joss Naylor as I bought a book about Fell running last year in Ambleside, and his name is mentioned throughout that book. What an opportunity to be able to have a chat with such a great man, who, in 2006, (age 70)  ran 70 Lakeland fell tops, covering more than 50 miles and ascending more than 25,000 feet, in under 21 hours!
My meeting with Joss gave me the impetus I needed to climb Coniston Old Man the very next day, I even managed to run up several parts of it and on the descent, my friend Nikki and I on the spur of the moment went wild swimming in Goats Water Tarn - it was very cold!

Me at the top of Coniston Old Man - First time this year my legs have been out in a pair of shorts!

DoraMcFlora in the Youth Centre Car Park

Tarn on the ascent up Coniston Old Man

TiddlyWinks with some light refreshment

Some of the kids in Coniston Lake

Another Tarn!

Fern  covered steps

Great Big Stitched Postcard Swap

Here is my creation, I posted her this morning, hopefully she will make it to her recipient in France!  For those of you who can draw people/faces, don't look to hard! she's a bit out of proportion! Still, I enjoyed making her :)

Bloom