What a goal!

It's OK, come back, come back, it's not a football post! Now that England have slunk back home from the World Cup with their tails between their legs we can all get on with life as normal again (and enjoy all those funny jokes that are doing the rounds).

So, GOALS. Yes, I intend to score this week. I am fired up and ready to achieve. Here's my list which I am sharing with the cyber world. Do feel free to check back and see how I am getting on and shame me by comparisons with a certain football team if I fail to make progress.

1. Complete VAT return well ahead of schedule. (I have to tell you that the mere thought of this actually makes me shiver with distaste...). This should not take long, but feels like a mountain. I think it's even easy and straightforward, yet anything to do with tax brings me out in a dose of the eebie jeebies. By committing to it here, I do hope I stand a chance of completing this one.

To achieve this goal, I need to: get all my finances up to date (no mean feat) - and to achieve that requires some serious tidying up of all paperwork. Ugghrrrr......

2. Create a drawing for the Diary Project. A fellow blogger (Hybrid J) pointed me in this direction. 365 (ish) artists are creating their own individual pages for 2011. It's an 'ish' number because I think there's extras on the cover and back... Entries must be in by Thursday. There are still pages available if you want to sign up. It's free and there's no obligation to actually buy the diary - but come on... how could you resist seeing your work in print?

To achieve this goal, I need to: Decide on a theme that closely matches my current work, practice a few times, sketch and then send off!

3. Prepare the house for ... drum roll ... my boyfriend moving in this weekend! Eek, how exciting! I have already cleared a 'little' space in the wardrobes sweetheart and a couple of drawers... You already have my heart! (what a slushy romantic!!).

To achieve this goal, I need to: give away all those clothes I haven't worn for years, try and consolidate my art 'studio' into just one room in the house, make him his favourite dinner...

4. Add to my current series of greetings cards I am designing - with a special one for my friend's 40th. You can see some samples in my previous post. Then see about how best to get them made into prints. This is an important step in the formation of my creative biz!

To achieve this goal, I need to: DO THE OTHER ONES FIRST!

This goal sharing was a wonderful idea that sprang from the Kelly Rae creative business flying lessons ecourse. Cathy has created us a page where we can share our links, so do pop along and add yours too.

Pictures but not many words

I wasn't going to post tonight. Not because I didn't want to, but rather I feel too tired to think words into coherent sentences. Instead, I'll just show you some recent work. I'm creating a series of cards with grungy backgrounds. I've been sticking torn old book pages on a card then layering up some paint with a brayer and paintbrush, keeping the centre fairly light. Then I drew the faces on top with coloured pencil. The top one has a wonky face. I realised I'd got the angle of her nose wrong too late to do anything about it! Never mind, it's all a learning experience and if I ever become rich I'll send her to a top Hollywood plastic surgeon for a spot of realignment! If the second girl looks familiar... no it's not the neighbour's daughter or the woman on the tills in the supermarket! I based her loosely on Venus! I've got a couple of backgrounds ready for some more. What do you think? I must say I enjoyed the creation process of these - seeing the faces come to life out of the background, yet still being a part of it... if that makes sense? (I did warn you I was tired!).

How do you feel about ripping up books to use in art? It is mildly uncomfortable... Something not quite right about it!

(Perhaps I should tweet that last sentence! It looks like it is probably under 140 characters. I'm still getting the hang of it. I wonder how many tweets were sent yesterday after England crashed out of the world cup? More than one I suspect!

Have to go now... feeling a bit wonky myself...

The Hatter's invitation

Alice sat quietly at the back of her shop watching the cinnamon dust motes float idly in the heat of the afternoon. Trade was slow at this time of day as those that thronged her store in the cool of the mornings took to the shade to rest when the sun was at its fiercest. She too closed her eyes and relaxed against the pastel cushions that matched so perfectly the hue of her cup cakes and fancies. She smiled as she felt the magic begin to stir around her, knowing that to give it strength she should empty her mind of irritating thought and just believe...

As the temperature cooled around her and the whispered stories of generations weaved their way into her mind, Alice began to grin. She knew exactly where the magic would take her this afternoon. She reached out instinctively and grabbed her basket from its spot by the door as both the chair and Alice sped off on an afternoon of adventure...

***

The Hatter had grown tired of tea parties. His guests would insist on the same old sandwiches and cakes. How he longed for something a little different. Well, today he smirked would be different as he had sent out invitations on the wind of change and, as everyone knows, that's the premium mail service for magic. The Dormouse and White Rabbit pondered how he could afford it, since he claimed to have no coins left to repair the hole in his top hat, but the question didn't perplex them long... They were far too excited to see who would answer.

The White Rabbit checked his watch for the hundredth time and sighed. One minute past four and the same old cast of characters. The March Hare was already annoying him and the Dormouse was of course asleep. It looked like nothing would break the monotony of this perpetual tea party...

***

Meanwhile, Alice clung to her chair in glee as it flew across the clouds, her long hair flowing behind her like a ship in full sail on the ocean. She turned to view her wake and waved at those that followed - a crazy procession of artists and writers, crafters and creators led a full blown riot of imagination. It was truly a site to behold. Baskets overflowed with sweets and pastries, cupcakes, teacakes, chocolate, carrot and fruit cakes... Jugs of lemonade fizzed with delight with their bubbles all popping in the excitement.

"Not long now" Alice called as the crazy procession began its descent through the clouds. The patchwork fields grew closer and sunflowers waved a cheery greeting as the flying chairs and their occupants (not forgetting the baskets and their sumptuous contents) dropped one by one into the garden and found themselves seated at a very large table presided over by a startled looking fellow in a top hat with a hole in (from which peeked a sleepy looking dormouse).

"You came" he squealed, "You came. I always knew this tea party would begin on a Fanciful Twist."

****************

You can join the party too - just close your eyes and believe... or, if that doesn't work, come visit Vanessa and the partygoers at A Fanciful Twist for the blog party of the summer.

Eye candy: First pic of Alice in her shop created digitally from a selection of magazine pictures. Cupcakes from a magazine (Vogue) and overlaid with my artwork from... Journal page of Alice's adventures. Layer upon layer of collage and paint weaving into Alice's story. Alice sketched on top in graphite and coloured pencil. Look carefully and you might just spot the dormouse. Mad Hatter painting by me (done a few months ago) and overlaid on a spread from a cricket tea in Country Living.

Cirque

Have you ever been to see Cirque du Soleil? It's like watching the most incredible Hollywood effects but they are real. Your eyes and brain start up arguments about what exactly they are seeing and debate how these artists could possibly perform the most intricate of moves. The colours flow like paint and the costumes swirl and all the while this incredible haunting music floats around you like silk, wrapping you and mesmerising you with its spell.

This is my tribute to the colourful performers and my entry for Inspiration Avenue's Circus challenge. I've been looking forward to painting it all week - as soon as I saw the prompt, it just popped in my mind and I just knew. I've dibbed and dabbed all evening with a somewhat varied soundtrack. It started with coverage from Glastonbury and finished with a spot of flamenco. Make of that what you will! The paint isn't even dry yet, so I've photographed which leaches a bit of the colour out - I really went for vibrancy.

Now, shall I run away and join the circus or just go to bed... Decisions, decisions...

Acrylic on canvas paper.

Inspiration and a strange ramble

Sometimes as I wander through blogland (and indeed also that stranger place known to many as 'real life'), I find so many sources of inspiration that my mind can't cope. It is spilling over like a fountain!

Lately it seems that every blog, magazine, news article... it all seems to spark something. What is great that this is continuing at work. Someone said to me today that he could hear my cogs whirring as ideas for an event began to take shape... What I haven't quite managed is to conjure up the time (or resources) to make these dreams reality, but we can but hope. Whenever I've done all those personality surveys they drag out at work I always show up as a creative, an ideas person. My nemeses being analysis and finishing things off. Perhaps I could just sit on a sofa eating chocolate and thinking up jolly wheezes while a team of lackeys executes them for me. Nah, I'd just get spotty, put on weight and miss all the fun!

This post will be disjointed - I warn you now. I should have perhaps warned you at the beginning but then it might not have seemed to random.

I'm sorry dear readers but I am more than a little tired. OK, so I didn't take part in an 11 hour long tennis match nor qualify for the final 16 in the World Cup, but hey it's been a busy week.

Back to where I started. A couple of inspiring things that have flitted through my conscious this week. First, some geurilla art posted by All Pulped Out. I have a big ambition to undertake a geurilla art exercise at work (we're harking back to another paragraph now). I have yet to quite firm up the best subject matter and overall objective... but I'll get there. Someone find me an interesting telegraph pole... Now, I could have included a picture here but I want you to go and read the full post, so off you go now...

The Kelly Rae course this weeks discusses time management and goal setting. Perhaps I should have organised my thoughts before starting this post. But you see, I just wanted to write something... anything... I haven't blogged for a few days and I missed it.

And more inspiration... well this weekend there's a delightful tea party to attend - there will be cupcakes and magic aplenty, as well as strange fellows in hats... If you've not packed your hamper and dug out your party dress yet then I suggest a quick trip down to the emporiums in Memory Lane to see what you can find...

Finally, the challenge at Inspiration Avenue this week is 'Circus'. I can't get the kaleidoscope of colour from Cirque du Soleil out of my mind... I just need to find time to somehow translate it onto paper...

I have to go now. My head feels slightly befuddled.... Normal service will resume soon (one hopes...)

Eye love a good story...

My finished piece for the Three Muses 'eye' challenge. You can see the work in progress and explanation in my previous post, but in short I cut a strip out of a magazine picture across the eyes, then drew them back in. This was a fun technique to try and I threw in a pile of other media as well as the collage and coloured pencils. A bit of water soluble oil pastel here, a touch of acrylic there. Cutting out a feature then drawing it back in opens up a whole world of opportunity. I kept her eyes fairly true to the original, but next time I might go for something much more kooky!

And as for what this piece is telling you. Well, I invite you to speculate dear readers. Who is the man on the beach and why has the woman lying next to him been ripped out of the picture. What relationship do they have to our moody beauty? Is she perhaps the abandoned wife, left with nothing but a diamond necklace? Or maybe she came across this photo in her late mother's possessions and finally begins to piece together the mystery of who her father was... It all waits to be told...

Or is the picture just a fragment passing through. Does the real story here hinge on the necklace? I'm thinking a great deal about diamonds this week as I read 'The Necklace' for the Wish Studio book group. More on this here, where another story begins...

Eye like to sketch

A bit of work in progress I thought I would post for Sunday Sketches. Inspired by this week's challenge by the Three Muses - Eyes - I experimented with a bit of mixed media slicing a chunk out of the poor girl's face then doing a spot of pencil surgery. I plan to do more - add some bold chunks of colour and maybe layer up some more collage. You'll have to come back on Wednesday and see if I manage to ruin it or not! I've had a prolific weekend with art. Maybe this has something to do with the fact that I have a cunning plan up my sleeve...

I'm not sure I dare admit it. Perhaps I'll just whisper... You see, there's an art market coming up soon at the town where I live and it only costs £10 to have a stall there... I was thinking of applying... but to do that I'll need a bit more stock... Shall I? Dare I?