Getting Organised

Well it's been as busy week in lots of ways. First of all I signed up for two new courses starting in the New Year. Initially I signed up for Willowing's Life Book course which lasts all year. It seems like a great way to celebrate my 60th year with lots of creative stuff. Then I signed up for Kat's Eye View intoductory photography course 'Find your Eye'. I think this will be more within my comfort zone as I am a lot more confident with the camera, but time will tell!

One of the really good things about Life Book is that you get an extra class included that you can start straight away so I am taking Magical Mythical Makings. Not really quite my thing in some ways but excellent teaching and lots of new ideas and techniques. In particular I have been introduced to water soluble crayons which I had never even heard of and which are just fab!

Also this weekend I have been rearranging our study / spare bedroom to become more of an art / craft space. I found my Dad's old desktop easel in the attic, which was really good as he died around 15 years ago and I wasn't sure if I still had it, and rearranged the desk and filing cabinets to make space for a small art table (IKEA here I come!) There isn't as much room as I would like but hopfully I can make the space work for me.

The absolutely best thing to happen this week, however, is that my son passed his driving test - Yeah!

Finally I am just going to add a couple of photos from last weeks beach trip as I think they are rather fun.

Exploring with my Camera

Last week I found a fab new website belonging to Kat Sloma in it she has a page dedicated to 'exploring with a camera' and suggests different themes around every two weeks. You can then link you pictures to her website. (I am going to try this but given my current lack of success with importing badges I'm not overly optimistic!)

The current them is "Found Texture" and I had a fab weekend on the beautiful Isle of Wight going for walks with my camera. I honestly thought I was quite good at noticing stuff and finding the 'sacred in the ordinary', but I was amazed at how much I noticed that I wouldn't have done before.

I have put the picture in the 'Textures Album' which can be found on the right sidebar of this blog, but can't resist sticking a couple of my favourites right here in the text. These are all from the beach and as you can see the weather was fantastic for October in the UK.

Hope you like them enough to have a look at the others in the album!

Experimental Art e-Course

Today is the last day of Amelia Critchlow's experimental art e-course. I have had such a great time doing it over the last 6 weeks! I couldn't have started from a much lower base, ie thrown out of art classes aged 12, but I have so enjoyed myself and been amazed at what I have managed to produce.

My favourite bit was learning to use acrylics - so much more fun than water colours - particularly when you use your fingers or sponges or virtually anything you can lay your hands on to apply the paint!In this one I used cinamon sticks and stuck them on the picture at the end! It was also great having the Flickr group for feedback, from Amelia and course members. I feel I have learned such a lot.

Have been trying to add the Experimental Art badge to my blog but for some reason its not working - will keep trying. I would really like to personalise the blog design but haven't worked out how to do this yet. Maybe for now it's enough to have got the blog up and running!

Welcome to my blog

Hi, my motivation for beginning this blog is that in 2012 I will hit 60, so maybe this is a good time to pause and reflect!

I'm not ready to give up the day job just yet, but I feel I need to begin to plan for a different kind of a life in the future. One thing that struck me was that I would need to find different outlets for my creativity. I use a great deal of creativity in my work as I develop projects and organise and run events amongst other things. I like to innovate and be at the cutting edge.

 
Question: how to engage with my creativity in retirement?
Answer: begin a journey to find my creative core now!