White on Black

White acrylic ink on black card.
Peace.

Sticks and Stones

Sometimes, when the boys are busy with their work, or when we are sitting around the table for an afternoon of family art, I sit and play with paint, pens and ink and dream up all manner of doodles in my daydreams.

I have begun to cocoon myself with stones, sticks, journals - in fact, anything that I can paint on, and carve a little work niche for myself in this busy home of ours.

It is important, I think, that we as adults allow ourselves the time to create - to keep that spark of creativity alive within us. It is all too easy to give in to chores and 'important' things and to lose ourselves in the process - to erase who we are and confuse it with what we do.

But to create these pockets of calm, these oasise of crafting and creating is no less important than the other work we undertake each day. If fact, it may be more so - for through our example our children soon follow. Once they see me sit in quiet concentration it isn't long before they too sit and concentrate and make. Maybe not for long, but at least they know that this work of ours, whatever it is, that it is important.

Pen & Ink

White acrylic ink on pebble. Anything is possible....


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Dabbling

A long time ago when I was still at school it had been assumed by most of my teachers that I would naturally take an artistic route in life; an Art A-level seemed pre-ordained and I would die a hippy or a guerilla artist.

In actual fact I did not persue art beyond sixteen years old, which shocked my art teachers no end, and instead I studied Physics (changed to governement and politics within a term), English Literature and Geography. Art was something you either could do or you couldn't and I was made to feel there was no sense studying it any further and to keep creative things for hobbies.

Life took hold and art just fizzled out of my life; it has been over twenty years since I've drawn anything, and guess what - I can't draw any more! An 'A' grade student who no longer can draw. So the old adage if you don't use it you lose it seems to be true! And one of my greatest regrets is that I listened to the advice of others and did not persue the one thing I was ever any good at!!

But perhaps all is not lost and I've begun to dabble again. I have my watercolours and inks and a fresh journal to fill up, and maybe by concerted effort I will learn to draw again. If nothing else putting pen to paper and externalising internal turmoil is very therapeutic - which is helpful when you are as loopy as I am.

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