New blog page!

Hello folks, I've added a new page to the blog. This is where you'll find all the FREE printable stuff!

Check it out. I'll be adding more soon.

You can print off a cute Nativity scene and a Take What You Need poster.

Finding my center once again

I have stacks of notenooks.
Loads.         Too many?
                                            I don't think so.
I scribble and write in them all the time.
         Random stuff,  ideas, plans, observations,  thoughts.

Whichever one is to hand or fits in my pocket.
                   For certain important projects I do have specific notebooks.

If I empty my head often there's room for new ideas to fly around.

          And then every now and then I'll find book I haven't seen in a while. More often than not there's a messsge I wrote to my future self, unknowingly at the time, of course.

                             Today I found this. I wrote it about a year ago.
                                                            Just what I need.
                Time to regain focus.
                                            I've wandered aimlessly for long enough.

Listening to the whispers.

I get distracted too easily.
I say yes too quickly.
I give too much.
I get excited by possibility.
I battle between heart and head.

2014 feels full of possibility and adventure.
I am stood at the crossroads.
Whichever path I choose, it will be great.
It will challenge and excite.
I must only choose one.
I am listening to the inner whispers.
It's difficult.
I need to decide.

My heart is calling me in two directions.
I feel torn.

Which way do I leap?

Pockets of joy

Today I drank good coffee made by someone with a passion. It was good. It always is.

I made porridge.  I borrowed Kinfolk.

I wore red tights to brighten up the day.

I stitched some Flo feet and faces. I drew a bearded man with the machine.

I dropped a postcard to a friend.

The little moments in between all the hard work and necessaryness of life are where the joy is found. Acknowledge them. Savour them.

Where have I been?

                  Busy
                      Buried in real life
                     Grieving
              My mum
                  My father -in-law
              My cat Jude
               All gone within two months.
       
          It left me empty, lost,
                 Emotionally raw

            I left work alone
                I needed space......to do stuff.......to do nothing
             To breathe, to re-evaluate
                     To cry and laugh
                To hug and be hugged.

                    I gave myself permission
                 To take time
                     All the time I needed.....still need
                 To heal, to remember, to just be.

               It's been a time to rest
                          Restore
                 Re-evaluate
                    To surrender and unfold.
          
                          I am returning
                  To new beginnings
                         To once again live a life
                       Of positivity and possibility.
         

What's keeping me busy.

I  decided to steal myself away from the sewing machine for a while to prevent curvature of the spine setting in! I thought it would be good to escape for a giant latte and a little blogging time.

Lately I have been doing a fair amount of quilt planning. A lot of cutting up children's clothes into neat little squares. Turning children's drawings into quilt blocks and some new character sketches that I am desperately trying to find time to make real.
I have also squeezed in a little painting time and I must say I'm really enjoying this. I need to carve out more time to paint.

Well my giant latte needs drinking and it has arrived accompanied by the most delicious blackberry tart,  which I hadn't ordered but have been treated to..... diet can start tomorrow! I shall now give it the attention it deserves.

Bye for now folks.

Susan
P.s. if the pics don't show up I will edit later.  X

Art residency Cubist portrait

Today I had the privilege of working with four  year 6 students to make a piece of literacy inspired art.

The subject was a book that was studied as a class earlier in the year. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne is centered around two main characters, Bruno and Schmuel. Set against the backdrop of a concentration camp their is a certain bleakness. I felt it would be a good contrast to use Picassos cubist portrait as the inspiration for the portrait.
Wow, what a great choice! We started off,  after looking at Picassos work, by waking up the right side of our brains with some sketching of cubist body parts. We then cut out elements they everyone liked and started to place them onto the board. This is where the portrait started to come alive. As they began to add colour it was a joy to hear the children discussing how they were using colour - the emotions associated with certain colours- and how they could explore using colour freely once they realised that hair didn't have to be brown.
Here is their wonderful cubist portrait of Bruno and Schmuel.

January Blues

Bless me followers, it has been 6 weeks since my last blog post. But you see there was this whole Christmas thing going on that makes people rush around like fools. At the peak of that busyness I typed MADNESS into my laptop when prompted for my password! A sign of what was to come....actually, all that came was a sack full of horrid cold germs on Christmas morning :-( Me and the kids had bad colds, hubby had flu...of course.
But now it is a fresh shiny New Year. I tend to hibernate in January and February. It help me get through this these cold grey months without being completely miserable and horrid to live with. But this year is different. I eased back into to work slowly with a spot of self indulgent painting. Very therapeutic creative play.

I have already had two birthday parties in the studio (one was my daughters). How can you have the January blues when surrounded by a group of giggling girls all excited about using a singer sewing machine. It is the gateway drug into a lifelong addiction to sewing.....;-)

The lovely dolls they made.  (zombie style for some reason)

Her is my baby showing them how it's done.

I made some heart bunting....just because.

Every Thursday I get to work with some wonderful kids on my Art Residency. There enthusiasm is infectious. Here are the quilt blocks they have been working on.

This is how it started way back in September with year 1 and 2.

A term later and Year 6 are adding their layer.

I will take some more photos this week and write a more detailed post on  the process. It is almost ready to put together and hang.

Next week I start a 6 week course with a few students as part of the schools Children's University. We are making work inspired by the Austrian artist, ecologist, architect and visionary Hundertwasser.

I think it is fair to say that I am more excited about this than the kids at the moment!!!!! 

With so many fabulous creative things to do, the January Blues have been kicked out the window and my rose tinted specs put back on. My sunny disposition has returned much earlier than usual.

Get creative people and beat those blues over the head with a big fat paint brush or point them in the eye with a pointy knitting needle. Surround yourself with positive people....kids are good for that... preferably not your own ;-) Stop thinking and start doing.........with no game plan or envisaged end result. Just enjoy the process. It might just help a little.

Happy New Year lovely people.

xxxxxxx