quick and quirky quote no. 4

artwork

had a great afternoon today just playing around with some new artwork.  

really love the colours in both of them.

quick & quirky quote no. 3

this is one of my most favourite quotes. 

it is a reminder to me to follow my dreams no matter what they are ... no matter how old i am ..... no matter where i am ..... no matter how i am feeling.  and that i really can achieve whatever i want with hard work and imagination. bliss.

date with donna

back here i was waffling on about all the art courses i was trying to get through, so i thought i'd report back on the donna downey course as that is the one i have managed to actually finished (nothing like having to physically turn up to something to get it completed).

if you have not yet encountered the lovely donna, she is this kooky (i love kooky) american mixed media artist.  she is totally mad for the colour teal - her own admission - and was wearing a teal cardie, her glasses were teal in the dame edna style (with diamantes of course) and the front of her hair was also that gorgeous teal colour (she said that she stands out dramatically in the vanilla town where she lives and receives both positive and negative comments about her hair).

the class was great, learnt lots about backgrounds, colours, techniques.  it was an art journalling class and we were all given these deee-vine hand made fabric covered journals to start work on.

my biggest stumbling block with starting an art journal has been messing up a perfectly good and usually beautiful journal with paint and glue and stuff that i may not really like when i'm finished.  so going to this class and having to immediately get stuck in and  into a apply paint to this totally glorious journal was very ... what's the word .... liberating!  i had no choice but to dive in and smear a heap of paint on a very white page in a beautiful journal.  i now realise that its ok to mess up something that is beautiful, well hopefully not messing up - more like enhance it's beauty.  yes, that is what i do isn't it? 

  you can find more info about donna here .

 so here are some photos of the day.

Donna in action

a couple of girls came over from NZ for the weekend course and one had this hilarious (and very NZ) apron which Donna found hugely amusing ... as we all did.

the kept us fortified with delicious food

my beautiful handmade journal

 

this is one of Donna's amazing art journals ....

.... and this is one of the pages from the journal.

quick & quirky quote no 2

back here I thought I'd start a quick & quirky quote of the week that may or may not include some of my artwork, but it didn't really get too far .... i think life got in the way.

let's try again shall we ...

abcd meetup

i love a get together and recently i went to one that was very special.  a get together of like minded women for a few hours one saturday afternoon.  it is called abcd - which is :  

artists bloggers crafters designers.  

  

the whole even is organised by the very fabulous Steph and Lisa

part of the fun of the event is the take home goodie bag.   if you contribute something to the goodie bag, then to you get to take one home and they are full of amazing goodness - wonderful creative things produced by the very talented people that attend. and its not one of those wanky kind of i'm so cool events, its a group of great women getting together, chatting for a few hours and sharing information and stories. 

 all the gorgeousness of the afternoon can be seen in photos on Steph Bond's great blog called Bondville and Lisa's called The Red Thread.  take a look.  below is a photo of me taken on the day (no I didn't spend the afternoon walking around like that, we all had to stand with our contribution to the goodie bag and have our photo taken), and - shock horrrrror - i think it's an okay photo of me, all due to the talents of Anni at Milk & Honey Photography).

if you're an abcd person and you want to come to the next one then take a look here, they are held nationally too!

courses and classes

i am crazy for doing courses at the moment. 

i've just finished the most amazing course for creative businesses called 'Hello Soul Hello Business' - how to have a business with soul.  loved it loved it loved it.  met some great women from all around the world, and  I seriously could not recommend this course more. it so exceeded my expectations ... i think it exceeded them by a thousand per cent if that is possible.  having said that there was a lot of content and a lot of homework, and it was really easy to get behind (which I and others did regularly so much so that they added an extra week long break in the middle of the course so everyone could catch up). they covered so much more than i expected and i learnt so much more than i thought i would ever need to know.  the course was created by two highly experienced women that I totally and utterly admire - kelly rae roberts and beth nicholls .  so worth considering this course if you run your own business. love love loved it.

typical me thought I would be able to manage and juggle far too much, and then drop half of it. when I registered for the HSHB course, i also thought i'd register for the Flora Bowley course True Bloom and do the two together.  clueless.  then again that's maybe being a little tough on myself .... i really didn't expect the HSHB course to be as in depth and time consuming as it was. so i did two classes only of true bloom and that's it.  fortunately you can access the classes for 6 months so that is my next little adventure.

there's more ..... this sunday i will be at a 5 hour art journalling course run by donna downie .  so excited i could ... well not sure what i could do but i'm sure you get the idea.  it's going to be great!!