What do you do when you are in a rut?

Change comes and goes through all of our lives.  Seasons,  time, children growing up, getting old......the list is endless.  Some feels good and others not so good.  I think the quote for sound of music describes to me how change can work positively live

'when the lord closes a door somewhere he opens a window'

. For me this is the only way to move forward.  Positively viewing change no matter how difficult it is. 

This week I sent my 18 year old off to university in Palmerston North.  This is a 6 1/2 drive away from where we live.  It was so hard to leave her there and I felt a door close in my face.  I can see some windows opening now though.  I can see that I have done a great job in preparing her for university and she will be fine.  I can see possibilities of a little more time for myself and for my younger children at home.  With that little more time I am hoping to get more art done as well. 

I am struggling though with using this time.  I just want to go to sleep or curl up on the couch with a book.  I think the major issue is interuptions.  Even with this new time interruption's still come so often that I lose momentum and therefore stop doing work in my studio.  I also am struggling with direction at the moment.  I really don't know where to go and what I want to achieve. 

Maybe my cat has the best idea.....curling up in a bag of stuffing and sleeping.  Do you think the kids would find me!

Sam in a bag of stuffing

Fast asleep

He's hiding in here!

Look how high up he is....

It's a shame sleeping doesn't solve all problems.

So I want to ask you all how do you cope with a loss of momentum?  What do you do when you are in a rut?  What goals do you have?   Please can you leave a comment below if you have any ideas.  Could you please ask around through your communities online and invite others onto my blog to help answer this question?

I look forward to hearing your ideas.

Photography this week

I found this little bay that had these amazing root formations. The trees were growing over the cliff and the roots had grown into the silt underneath.

 I thought they would be amazing on a quilt.

Sketchbook challenge

I have done 2 pages for the sketchbook challenge this week.   Both were created using acrylic paint, stencils and white pen. 

This first of the 2 was done in a low values colour scheme.  I am trying to go out of my comfort zone so I tried something new.  I don't really  like it very much as low value colour doesn't inspire me much.  I do love the stencil though and I am keen to try this on another page.

The second page I did was with an old stencil.  The background was layers of the negative image of stencils I used on the page before. I put on whatever I had.  I really like this page.  the flowers pop and look like they are floating off the page.  I think complementary schemes are really neat.

Felting

My 18 year old daughter has decided she loves to do needle felting.  She has made quite a few small projects but had been putting off doing a larger one because of time and other commitments. 

She has had a wee bit of time before she heads off to University in Palmerston North (6 hours away) and decided for a project to finish off her Personal Progress programme ( programme our church runs for teenagers similar to the amount of work as the duke of Edinburgh award) to make a larger felted piece. 

She spent 20+ hours on this work. 

I was really impressed with this hanging.  She was too and when she presented it at her award evening most people couldn't believe it was made from wool. 

I'm seeing some great work coming out of this young woman in the future :)

And boy am I going to miss her :(



Photography this week

I have more photos today of out trip up to the Awhitu Peninsular.

I found this wonderful wee little church in the middle of nowhere.  It was just waiting to be photographed.  I took quite a few shots.  It is important when I take photos that I get it from many different views and perspectives.  For 2 reasons to get more interesting photos and one with a new perspective and also so that the subject can be viewed from different angles for future art work.

Sketchbook challenge

My husband has been in the USA for 10 days and won't be back for another 7 so my sketching has been minimal.  If you have your spouse away at all you will fully understand what I mean about not having time for many 'extras'.   He is over there visiting with family and he is really enjoying this time with them.  I am missing him so much and missing the emotional support :)

My page I have finished in a study of trees an any thing associated with them.  I love trees as many of you will know with my earlier posts.  They just have such a magic quality and ethereal charm.  I love them

I painted the first layer in acyclic red paint and then built up layers of colour and texture. I finished of the piece with white pen detail. 

I stenciled the flowers and then turned over stencil to give the negative image over the stencil.  This adds extra dimension and extra shapes on this page.

The top flower has the veining on leaves on the petals and branch structure of a tree in the centre. The lower flower has a bud on the petals and more branch structure in the centre of the flower.

I am really thrilled with how this page turned out.  I love the contrast of colour and the simplicity of the shapes. 

Quilted MP4 case

I was a very lucky girl at Christmas time.  I received a new MP4 player.  I know I was really lucky as my teenagers were very jealous of me and wanted to pinch it.  This is usually a good sign of a good present :) 

I have really enjoyed having MY music at MY finger tips.  I can listen to what I want and no one can complain.  The only issue I had was that it didn't come with a case.  If you are anything like me I knew it wouldn't take long before the player was scratch and damaged.  So I made one.

\

About a year ago I spent a day mono printing fabric.  I did one series of black, red and white fabric. I chose one of these fabrics as the fabric for my case.  I loved the strong graphic quality of the fabric and I thought it would work well as a MP4 case.

I quilted the fabric first in geometric and graphic shapes.  I worked in quite dense stitching emphasising the lines in the fabric.

Once the stitching was completed I cut out the shape I needed and I zigzag stitched around the oblong shape.

I next cut a small hole part way down the fabric to put the MP4 jack though.  I folded the fabric  and stitched down the side and sewed on a cord an voila I had a a very simple case to protect my MP4 player.

I am a guest at Dion Dior's blog

I have been featured on Dion Dior's blog as a guest.  She and I met on the Sketchbook challenge.

Go check out her amazing blog.  She is awesome and so inspirational.  Be blown away by her life story and her wonderful art work!

http://diondior.blogspot.co.nz/2012/02/artist-you-should-know.html

Photography this week

I took the children up to Awhitu Peninsular this week.  On the way out to the lighthouse we stopped at this churchyard where my husbands great grandparents are buried.  I took some photos of the church and the carvings on the graves stones.  This could be a great start of a new piece of art work.

My husbands great grandparents gravestone.

Sketchbook challenge-last pages of January

N.B  sorry about the qualtity of some of these scans.  Still figuring out why the scanner isn't working properly  :)