Working loose

It’s been a long week at work. School holidays are always a very busy time in a library, but we have 6 new computers with free internet so the teens are swarming! We normally have about 500 people through the doors each week. This week we hit just over 1,000 – not bad when you consider the population of Patea is approx 1100. And to make life even more “interesting” this week two of my four staff were off sick. I just hope they’re resting up well.

My rest has come in the form of painting time, shut away in my art room with no people, no teens, no music – just me and my paints. If I can’t sleep, I can always paint, and paint I have. I have been trying to work looser and also trying to lift my colours a bit. I do tend to paint quite dark paintings, and am making a real attempt at more cheerful work. This one is 10×10″ on gallery wrap canvas.

How to really relax

Check this out – total relaxation. Goldie gets up on Mum’s knee, drapes herself into the folds of the mohair rugs and settles down. Utter bliss out. Nice!

Not a lot to show for it

But I have been working hard all weekend. All the usual of course – Mum, washing, housework – but painting up a storm too.
I have made a really good start on 3 more paintings towards my next exhibition. I only stopped because I was getting tempted to fiddle round on top of wet paint. Patience is NOT my best virtue!

My husband Tony and I hardly ever go anywhere together. So last night we decided to leave Mum set up, and head to the stock car champs in Stratford – approx an hour away. By the time we got there it was drizzling; by the time we had seen five races it was really raining. We gave up and were back home by 9pm. So much for our big night out LOL

My big art weekend

Yahoo It’s Labour Weekend. I am always reminded of a Garfield comic strip about this:
“Labour day, schmabour day
What a dumb day
To hire some poor jerk and then send him away
To celebrate work by playing all day”.

Apologies to Garfield and Co if that’s not quite right. Anyway …

I love Labour Weekend. I get to whip through the laundry etc and then spend 2 1/2 days in my art room making stuff – mess, flags (new one above – based on a flag Burma had when Japan was in control in the 1940s), postcards, maybe even a painting or some patchwork. How cool is that? Have a great weekend everyone.

Creaking around

with a torn ligament in my ankle. Two days off work with my foot up and I am bored as can be.
I have spent quite a bit of time on the Internet, fixing up things, shifting things – you know, sorting…

Anyway, managed to finish this work. Another in the new 10×10 series of abstracted local landscapes. For sale at Etsy and on my website http://www.cathsheard.com/

81-84_365 : time out

I have been so tired I could not face uploading anything. I think when Mum has been very sick, then gets better, I relax and it hits me. Watching someone dying slowly over years is not an easy thing; nursing them at home is emotionally draining.

Would I change it though? Not on my life… This time with Mum is precious, and it is not an opportunity every daughter gets.

CC06

We cropped, we shopped, we scrapped!!!! It was GREAT.

Okay, what am I on about? Last weekend was Crafting Connection 2006 in Wellington, run by Kiwiscraps – the best scrapbooking retailers downunder.

I did 9 classes in all, and scrapped till I thought my eyeballs were gonna fall out LOL. Natalie, another librarian, went with me to Wellington and we had a blast. She shopped, I cropped, we ate great food, slept well, and bought heaps of new scrapping supplies. Excellent… We’re saving up for next year.

I bought home some unfinished projects cos some of the classes were really fast paced – and have since finished most things. Which is seriously cool, cos sometimes unfinished projects kind of, well, stay unfinished…

At least I did something :-)

Okay, so it’s not exactly a major piece or work – but it was good to get the paints out and do something. Now I have blue/purple fingernails – so situation normal

Pity the scanner has added stripes across the top where there aren’t any LOL

Mum is in the hospital wing of a resthome for about 8 days – the hospital said she was too sick to come home but not sick enough to take up a bed when they’re jam packed already. So they recommended the hospital wing – and Mum likes it, so that’s good.

This week I’m off to Auckland for a 4 day course – so I’ll take a few art supplies and a journal with me and make the most of the long evenings. Hopefully that will kick-start some creative habits again. I’m finding the longer I don’t do any real art, the grumpier I get!!!

And more painting…

As you can see, I’ve been inspired by Patea Beach this time – and the view out to the cliffs. It really is a beautiful beach on a good day – and miserable on a bad one!

We’ve had Tony’s daughter with us for the weeekend, up from Christchurch, and they got out and about seeing the tourist sites.

Meg’s chemo didn’t go well on Friday and they had to quit the process – so we’ll try again tomorrow.

In the meantime, I’ll just keep painting to sooth my nerves…

Another weekend spent painting…

I had another relaxing weekend, working my way through more of my art course.

It was a weekend of experiments really – from using a garden stake to draw an Indian ink cartoon, to painting flowers using nothing but gladwrap, an old credit card or a paint roller!

This flower was done with only three colours of paint and a rubber paint roller. I’m quite pleased with the effect.

The black and white drawing was done with Indian Ink – we had to depict our week in cartoon form. It didn’t photograph very well, the writing says
As her week got busier, Cath began to feel lost in the chaos; limbs slowly detaching and her mind developing a calm but annoying stutter.
It’s a good thing a weekend of painting makes me whole again LOL.