Heads & Shoulders...

Knees and toes, knees and toes. Heads and shoulders knees and toes, and eyes and ears and mouth and nose... it's time I stretched my comfort zones...

This sketch represents the beginning of a limbering up in my pencils. I do love to draw a face, but it's time to branch out. We start by tucking the hair behind the ear and attempting to capture the funny little thing. My poor models in the past have suffered with hearing problems and have complained to Artquity (that's the artist models' union you know) that they never have ears! What a cheek! In fact, the only time I think I ever attempt anything auditory is for pointy elf appendages.

And as for fingers... well if I can hide them under a fold of clothing then all the better.

Not so now my friends for it's time to feel the pain, it's time to put on those trainers and get the heart beating hard and fast. It's time to leave the comforting blanket of long hair and head and shoulder poses... Eek, am I up to the challenge?

My post for this week's Sunday Sketches.

Resolution

This resolution's not mine (non-smoker, rather than a refusal to give up!). Instead, it's a bit of fun to start off the New Year and answer the theme from Illustration Friday.

I must say, it shows how times have changed when I'm sober and bored enough on New Year's Eve to get the paints out... That can't be a good thing. I did stay up until gone 2am though - what a rebel!

If you read yesterday's post, you'll know that this time next year I'll be waking up in some swanky country hotel looking forward to a bracing walk with the family through the countryside on fresh fallen snow. I'm getting excited already! We'll have tucked in to a hearty breakfast involving copious amounts of local produce, wrapped ourselves up warm and allowed the fresh air to blow away the cobwebs.

Today however it is grey and drizzling... I'm off to do some housework... deep joy...

New Year New Challenge

Part 1
Today, being the last in the year was perfect for the task I set myself this morning. Homework from a Coaching Circle I've joined was to write a letter dated this time next year detailing what a fab and successful 2011 it has been. It's a bit too long (and personal!) to share in its entirety here but I thought I'd stick a couple of relevant paragraphs in for posterity... Coming up after those is part 2 of this post outlining a new challenge site I found yesterday.

31st December 2011

Well, it looks like we’re going to finish off 2011 rather nicely; I’m settled rather comfily in an armchair by a roaring log fire in a country hotel. We thought we’d treat ourselves this New Year by allowing someone else to do the cooking. Some friends and I have got together for a special treat. The kids are outside playing in the snow and I’m sipping a warming mulled wine before we get dressed up for the festivities tonight.



I was going to write that I needed this break, but you know what I don’t. I deserve it yes, but need it? Not really. I might have just had the busiest year of my life, but it has been such fun that I’m not tired. In fact, if anything, I’m actually more fired up with energy than ever before.

A lot happened really fast so I’m not sure where to start in retelling it all to you. I think the speed of it all was down to the fact that I was so ready. I’d put the background research and work in for years but never done anything with it. I needed the final push to make it happen and that’s what 2011 was all about for me.


I finally got around to contacting my favourite art magazines with submissions of my work. It was no good just sitting around thinking, I had to ‘do’. I submitted work for Somerset Studio and my leap for joy when I got accepted almost hit the ceiling – and this on the back of my acceptance into Seth Apter’s Pulse book too. Best of all, I was featured in Artful Blogging – a four page spread! Imagine my delight! The exposure has been terrific and generated hundreds of new followers who of course get exposed to my art shop too! Off the back of this I’ve been contacted by a number of magazines and ezines to produce content for them. I’ve been churning out the writing and artwork non-stop since....


Ha! Would be nice eh? Well, that's my visually exercise done. My subconscious should be digesting this now and believing it has happened already... You may have noticed a distinct theme this week in my posting. I really am determined this year, I assure you, and the theory is that if I keep writing it down and going on about it, then it will definitely happen!

Part 2

Sometimes I just love to go on a blog hop to see where it might take me. I'll click on links on other blogs, then more links until I'm miles from where I started and probably circumnavigated the world a few times too.

Last night I found The Sketchbook Challenge by just such a journey. It begins tomorrow, is hosted by a delightful spread of artists (many of whose books grace my shelves) and will give a monthly prompt to get our creative juices going.

Each month the artist hosts will share their pages and participants can post to a Flickr group. It's all about the nitty gritty of ideas forming from the scribble through the the final pieces. Learn about everyone's unique creative process.

Best of all, it's free to join!

The image up top is one I haven't shared on here yet. I drew it on a card for a friend a couple of weeks ago. It's funny, it doesn't seem to write to post without sticking some art up!

Not very good at...

Doing nothing. I did manage for a while this morning as I drifted in and out of slumber, but the freaky dreams about aliens taking over the earth eventually became too much for me.

Since then it's been a non-stop whirl of activity. I've written to do lists and crossed items off, I've cleaned the windows, planned aspects of the upcoming year, learnt how to use a new presentation gizmo and structured some artist interviews (more on those soon...). I just don't do sitting still.

My son is away with his father, and I like to keep busy so I don't feel it so much. His absence does mean I have more time to focus (and work) and less time is spent building things, fixing things and pretending to be a superhero's sidekick (I'm never allowed to be the main guy...). I miss being the superhero's sidekick though...

I'm all of a fidget, I'm making plans and lists. I'm ticking things off. I feel guilty if I'm not up to something and am usually planning the next item on the agenda. I have so many books I want to read, paintings to form, plans to take shape.

I've always been like this, but never very good at completing tasks and ambitions. I'm always great at the start, but then begin to drift into the next idea before I've got all I should out of the first. Next year will be different. Prepare to see things happening. I'm fired up like never before. Watch out world... I'm coming after you!

Yesterday I made a cover for my Diary (the one I'm featured in on Feb 23rd - follow the link and check out the spread in the bottom left corner). Front and back designs plus a bookmark. Another task ticked off the list, albeit one that's been on there for about two months!

The Book of Lisa

This is very much how my book looks at the moment. It has its heroine and some words but the story is all jumbled and seems destined to remain so. Yet time... in that way it has... is slowly ticking away... Has the moment now arrived to put all this talk into substance?

 I am deep in thoughts and plans for the New Year. I have even put to work a new notebook on the subject Lists sit neatly and safely within a pretty cloth cover tied with a blue bow). My ambitions and goals are written in blood (well ink from a Bic actually, but that doesn't sound quite so melodramatic!). I feel that the last year saw a massive growth in my creativity. There was more focus, loads of learning - I dare not calculate how much money I spent on all those online courses - and so much practice and, above all, fun!

In the last two years I've written over 500 blog posts. I make my living by writing and thinking creatively. Yet I feel there is still so much to be achieved. It has been noted that perhaps I hide in my art away from the tricky task of book writing and publication. You see, picking up a pencil is much easier and requires more relaxed thinking. I can watch TV at the same time or natter to the family. I can listen to music and go from start to finish in as little as half an hour.

Beginning to write a book however, is the first brush mark on the Forth Road Bridge! Chapter after chapter stretches out across the horizon, empty and waiting for its piece of the story and then when I finish, what then? Statistically unlikely to be snapped up by agent or publisher first go, so it will be back to the beginning... Is it any wonder I keep putting it off?

The clock keeps ticking though. The next 12 months will see me submit short stories and artwork for publication (the first one actually went off today!). My word for 2011 then? Well, it can only be one... PUBLISHED!

I was planning on writing this post anyway, but it ties in very nicely with two wonderful challenges. The Three Muses - Book and Inspiration Avenue - reflecting on the last and future 12 months.

She is my Muse - an excerpt from a painting I did last night, with some digital additions of words and time piece.

BIG mistake... HUGE...

When you're feeling a little under the weather (and speaking of which, rather fed up with the compacted snow and sub-zero temperatures), really wound up and tense, snappy and snarly... what's the best medicine? Staying at home with your loved ones in the warm watching old movies? A soothing sketch or two? Or, hitting the sales?

Sometimes I wonder where my common sense went. Apparently I took it with me shopping.

BIG mistake - we're talking Julia Roberts-style, longer than Rodeo Drive, HUGE mistake! Fighting traffic, wading through slush, fighting through crowds of zombie-like shoppers ambling three-a-breast, tangled clothes pulling six hangers off the rail, surly shop assistants with anti-customer policies....

I'm still shuddering at the horror of the whole experience now. Some people were just designed to be Sale shoppers and some of us should stick to shops that end in letters like .com or .co.uk. Much safer on the sensibilities I can tell you.

Still, there's a bright side. I'm home now, smelling sweetly of 'half price' body lotions, plugged into soothing music and... I didn't spend much!

I'm not too sure what has wound me like a coiled spring (a rusty, creaking one at that). Perhaps I have chopped too many vegetables over the past few days or maybe it's because I had to pack away 'my art studio' so we could actually sit at the posh dining table over the festive season... Am I suffering withdrawal? Should I shove some acrylic paint down my fingernails or spill glue down my clothes to make me feel better?

Isabel - a sketch - and a milestone

Here I am staring at a pc screen late on Boxing Day. My vision is slightly blurred through fatigue and a tipple or two (well, tis the season... the Irish coffee may have been perhaps a little more than necessary...). Suddenly I realise I have missed Sunday Sketches...

Well, it so happens that I have something up my sleeve - what self-respecting artist doesn't after all? I rather love this pretty little lady who appeared as if by magic one evening last week. She's not quite finished... or is she? What do you think I should do with her decolletage? I was thinking a red blouse with white polka dots? Shall I paint her silken outfit or collage with some interesting papers? Decisions decisions...

I've called her Isabel. She is definitely Spanish. I know this because she kept tapping a flamenco beat while I was trying to draw her - and the fact that she only spoke that language was another large clue...

Perhaps I should post now while I am ahead...

By some fluke I just realised this is my 500th post!!!! Wow! Who would have thought it? Unfortunately, I am too tired to think much on this right now, so tune in again tomorrow (or possibly the next day) for my 501st post when I hope to have something intelligent to say on the matter. Right now I am off to bed. Tootle pip!