beach life

We are very lucky to live close to the beach. We don't take as much advantage as we should in the winter but occasionally venture out for breezy walks and some light beachcombing to find rocks for decopatching or shells to paint.

The beach always makes me feel melancholic. I like to have a right old think about stuff - like checking in: what am I doing with my life, am I doing what is right for me, am I happy, what do I need...
The sea seems to ask me these questions. In the vast openness of a winters day at the beach I find it easy to discover answers; hidden under a shell, washing ashore on the tide, whipping around my legs with the grains of sand.
I always come away 'better'.

I feel inspired by extremes, just as much as I love the serenity of the beach I also feel excited by the craziness of the city (but can only manage short bursts). I am off to London this week to visit an old friend and see some Art. I can't wait to go, and I can't wait to come home to the coast.

Where do you feel 'connected'?
Love, me x

Kid-art

My students make some amazing work sometimes. Not a day goes by that I am not blown away by the marks they make, the connections they discover or the techniques they master. Of course, they don't listen to me on it, prefer instead to think things happen as a 'fluke', or are in fact 'rubbish'. Try as I might, young people find it hard to see what I see in their work.

These are taken from a worksheet called 'Artist Study' in which we look at and draw from Artist work. The theme of the project is Cityscapes.

I love the difference between the fragile marks, the ghostly shapes and the vivid explosions depending on which artist is being studied. We looked at: Edward Hopper, Jacob Dahlgren, Canaletto, Chris Burden, Ball&Nogues and Rachel Whiteread.

Now I must stop messing about on here (my favorite waste of time), as it is Valentines Eve and I have just had a phone call for a rush-job commission for tomorrow... away to the sewing machine *poof*

Love, me x

Valentines Display

So I told you a while ago that Coastal Creatives asked me to make some canvases for them. Well, when I went back to hand everything in I took a few pictures of the window displays to share with you as my work made it into the Valentines display (in fact while I was taking pictures some ladies were commenting on my piece, saying how much they loved it!) sneeky peeks of opinion are great.

Spot them?

Also made the 'Love' canvas on the little stand. Yups, that's three of my pieces in the window!

Here's the whole shop. I am so grateful to be part of what they do, such lovely people and beautiful things in there.

This one just shows inside where my work has it's own little space with information about private commissions. So exciting!

I am also delighted to tell you that I have been approached to do a solo show of my work, both crafty and arty. More details to follow, but needless to say this is a dream come true!

Do you have big dreams?
Love, me x

A Week in Blogs

I make no apologies for the fact that I am passionately addicted to blogs, every week I learn more from them. I see so many things that I just fall in love with, and it all gets stored in my creative filing cabinet. This week I was so busy with work and a busy end-of-half-term as well as being supremo exhaust, I didn't get much of a chance to read my blog-list.

Today is Saturday, and as is the usual routine I am sat with my coffee (will be about three by the end of this week's blog-que...but decaf so don't worry), thought I would take you through the highlights and share with you what I see, and love from just one week. Up fer it? Good...let's get on then (coffee is getting cold):

An amazing fun-looking tutorial from The Dainty Squid. I love nail art and my students are always fascinated by my nails.

And the really fun story of her meet-up with one of my favorite bloggers Elycia.

Sew your own heart sweater/ braces/ bow tie with A Beautiful Mess.

This gorgeous peek into Art Journalling from Happy Daisy...

and as part of her 'week in pictures' post she showed the card I sent her, that was a prize in my giveaway!

A new blog to me 'Poppytalk' showed this goregous Topshop dress...love! She also posts a Friday Font download...yes please!

These gorgeous hand painted cups from Tiny Happy. A blog I love for it's simplicity and beautiful photography.

Little peeks into the life of Kim Smith always make me happy.

This amazing Picnik galaxy tutorial from Perfect Pear...wow! Guess what I be doing today?

This recipe from Kyla Roma looks sooooo delicious. I will defo make this this weekend. But for now I am off for coffee number two :)

Gorgeous journal pages from Kara Haupt. Very inspirational. I use her writing style a lot in my journal, its sooooo cute!

 And after seeing her thank you cards, I am off to ebay to find a Dymo machine.

A new favorite blog lead me to this, the cutest idea for a valentine. I love DIY cards.

Miss Indie posted about my favorite ever movie featuring current major crush (Zooey Deschanel)

On Elycia's blog she shared her version of the meet-up with Kaylah from The Dainty Squid, and it made me long for the days of taking photobooth pictures. Where have they all gone? Someone tell Kodak we want them back. Thanks :)

Next year I am soooo doing this Project Life thingie that I keep reading about on blogs. Elise is sharing hers every week. I am pretty envious and want to do it now!

This downloadable from My Girl Thursday featuring names from my favorite TV show: Gilmore Girls. Although actually right now my favorite TV show is New Girl with Zooey Deschanel (did I mention I love her to pieces?)

I love everything from this blog, so inspiring and this week I took advantage of the free wallapaper download.

I loooove this little case, and always get inspired by the work on the Artmess blog.

This blog inspires me so much too. I love the graphics and amazing photography. These are like little nugets of eye-candy, always delightfully welcome in my blog feed.

And that's it!

Today it took me 2 hours and 2 coffees to get through the lot, and I enjoyed every last minute of it. Now I have to go get out of my pjs and get on with my day. Things to do: paint my nails, write another blog post, drop my baby at her Nanas for a sleepover, tidy the house, cook some soup, dye my hair and write a letter.

Did you get a chance to check out any of these blogs or do you have blogs that inspire you? Please share :)

Love, me x

In love with the past

I have been watching this amazing series on BBC4 which charts how musicians from England broke through in America. More than anything I am loving the archive footage. Today I fell in love with:

How beautiful is she? Reminds me very much of this young woman that I also love and has obviously styled herself on Stevie Nicks.

I love Fleetwood Mac, I find their story very fascinating. They were amazingly talented and very passionate individuals who were no doubt full of mind altering substances...no wonder they fought like cats.

If you get a chance, check out this series. Last week was all about the 60s and the Beatles mainly. When this show is on I sit very close to the scren and sometimes snap pictures on my phone...how crazy is that? I am in love with the past (aesthetically) :)

Love, me x

and the winner is...

It's results day! I am so excited to be giving away one of my works of art. At first I thought 'oh my lord, no-one is going to enter' but they have:

There were a whole 5 entrants. (I like to think quality more than quantity applies here, right friends?) Here they are above.
I employed a very fair method of selection: eeny meenie miney mo. And the winner is.....

Congratulations Miss Chantilly!! :)

I was feeling generous, so decided I would also award a prize to the runner up, which was:

Yay for Amy!! (By the way you should check out Amy's Blog here.)

And then I decided that as there are only 5 entrants, I am going to award everyone the same prize! So well done everyone who entered :)
I will be contacting you all in the next week to arrange getting those prizes in your loving hands.

As for the rest of my weekend, I will be working on two commissions for delivery on Monday, spending some quality time with the wee-un, hitting the gym and visiting my Mumski.
What are your plans?
Love, me x

There is no such thing as a bad day...

I have had a crud of a day. Well not really a day but a single moment in the day threatened to turn it all to crud. I am usually a very positive person, not much can shake me. But I work with teenagers so you can imagine this gets tested a LOT, sometimes much more than others and it can come from seemingly nowhere. I had a run in with an angry young person today and it really got to me, made me really angry. this is what makes me not a great teacher; I take too much to heart.

How happy was I to get home and read blogs, answer = tres.

I not only read lots of blogs to cheer me up, but forced myself to go out for a run and felt a million squillion times better.

As I was reading, came accross this little challenge, thought I'd hop on board and take the focus back to the positive.

The idea is that you share on your blog, or twitter, or wherever you like...three things you are grateful for at the end of each day in February ( I hate typing February, it feels so awkward). Here are mine for today, which I have tweeted and also will write them in my art journal:

1. the aching feeling in my body after a long run
2. a warm and cozy house on a bitterly cold night
3. blogs - I love them so much and they inspire me even on the most awful of days, today it's My Girl Thursday (who has herself been inspired by Sarah Rooftops.)

You can join in too: post your three things anywhere you like, if you use twitter tag them with the hash code #3thingsfebruary (grr there you go again darn feb).

Feel free to add your below...x