Oops

I realise it is going to look like I massively failed this morning, and I guess I kind of did. 

I had an online Zumba class at 9am this morning, and I had intended to get up early enough to do the sun salutations beforehand. However I can already feel all my muscles aching from yesterday so I decided Zumba would be enough, and I'll do yoga tomorrow. I then completely forgot about writing a blog post and started my admin instead. Hence belatedly writing it now. 

So 'the plan' failed, but the productivity succeeded. So I guess, like yesterday, it is still a 50/50 success. 

  

Rock and Roll

It is definitely not as early as I hoped it would be. I am probably an hour earlier than normal, but an hour later than I wanted to be. So half a success, it was the first day though, so I guess I can ease myself in. The good thing is that it was a nice way to wake up. The sun salutations are quite uplifting and calming so I feel more focused than usual and ready to get under way. I haven't completed any sun salutations for a long time and it showed. I am beyond stiff, so I hope that will improve with regularity. I also only started with ten so I would like to build up to a lot more. 

I also realised that if I am writing a blog post everyday, these posts might get pretty boring, so I apologise in advance. I am not sure if much art will happen today. If it does it will either be making some limited edition prints or finishing off the half started painting.

The first task will be getting in a food shop for an isolating friend, and then maybe working on my Tax Return and setting up next years files.

It is all rock and roll here.

The Purge

So it seems as though I still have too much on my mind. It is sunny, but I need to stay indoors, I should do some exercise but my back hurts, online zumba is coming, but it will interrupt my work flow, I have a text, three texts, twelve texts. I have eaten too much cake. I need to go and queue for some food and the post office. I need to head out for some fresh air. People need to know I am OK, I need to check that they are OK. I need to earn some money somehow....

Oh.

My.

God.

I need to stop thinking. 

Please brain, just shut up for a moment. I started a painting yesterday and managed to paint the background before I decided I wasn't even vaguely in the right head space to get it done. It is propped up in the lounge patiently waiting for my head to clear.

So I have come up with a plan. I was going to say one that won't work as I keep coming up with these plans but I should be more positive. I can't self sabotage before I have even started. So are you ready?

I need to get up EARLIER.

I am going to do some yoga sun salutations to start the day. Focused breathing.

Then breakfast and a shower.

Start the working day with a blog post and a brain purge to maybe start emptying whatever the hell my head is full of.

And then go, be free and do my day with no routine. But it has started well, and it has started an hour or two ahead of where I normally am. 

So that doesn't sound too bad. I feel like I can do this. I have the next few weeks of no work to make this my new way to attack the day, and I am writing it here to make it official. You can see whether it works or not by whether there is a blog post and at what time I posted it.

So come on. Lets do this. (and I'm having the weekends off, unless this routine makes me feel amazing)

Covid-19

I managed to create my first post lock-down painting the other day and needless to say it was about the current situation we find ourselves in.

I tend to paint how I am feeling or what I have seen, which is why I often paint more after I have been on holiday or if the weather is strong. It needs to be something that slightly catches my attention. A perfect sunset, a particular light, a strong wind, a storm, an amazing building, a place I haven't been to before. I tend to switch my art brain off most of the time, otherwise it would drive me crazy (yes people that know me, this is why I am sometimes incredibly vacant) so when it is off, it needs to be something different that catches my eye to wake it up again.

Everything about now is different and it is accompanied by an information overload. Articles endlessly rehashed, the same four points said 600 times across every newspaper and social media outlet ever created. 'Experts' dredged out of cupboards with debatable references, saying one thing, saying the opposite of another. 20,000 people will die, 8,000 people will die, some are old, some are ill, some are young, the curve is flattening, we are heading to the same fate as Italy....

I mean seriously, just hold for a second. We need to wait. We need to stay at home, social distance and see what happens.

BREATHE

I am a positive person, personally negative possibly, but glass half-full minded with a dark sense of humour (before I have all my friends saying 'What? You? Positive?!) So out of everything I have seen and heard, my brain chose the following points:

1. This is global and we are in it together.
2. There are rainbows of hope and thanks to the NHS
3. The NHS and the key workers are going to protect us, and we will look after them.
4. The earth will win, and the virus will go. 
5. Light/hope will overcome the dark/fear.  

At least this is what my brain has chosen to believe and to hear. So, with those points in mind, it should make this painting, pretty self explanatory....

Things will get better. 

Lockdown

So I don't even know where to start with writing a blog post right now but I thought it would help purge a few things out of my system.

So I managed to complete my first painting of the year and the following two commissions, which were both due by last weekend, successfully. I will share posts about them later.

I also managed to successfully get the flu on the first day of March, which absolutely knocked me for 6, I am in fact still not totally over it which is starting to drive me crazy. It has also timed in with the end of the world as we know it, with the Covid-19 lockdown in the UK now in full swing. There is a chance my 'flu' may well have been the Coronavirus that is currently ravaging the world, I had all the symptoms, but I guess I will have a better idea of that when they bring out an immunity test.

It is literally crazy times at the moment. Needless to say all my architecture work is on hold and unlikely to resume anytime soon, so I was grateful to hear of the self employment package the government has put in place today. It will make a massive difference. I had intended to use this enforced break time wisely and catch up on my enormous art to do list and do some painting, but so far I am epically failing. I can't seem to persuade my mind to come back down to earth and focus, it is wandering, EVERYWHERE. I have prints I can make, I have a good stock of paint and canvasses, I need to make a mobile friendly version of my website somehow, and I want to put some prints up for sale on Etsy. So far though, I have been for a couple of solitary walks, spent a lot of time looking out of the window, and making cakes and cooking. I don't even particularly like cooking so don't ask me what is going on with that? Who knows, maybe in times of crisis I become a domestic goddess. Or a fat, cake filled person. One of those two things I am sure.

So anyway, brain, please come back and focus, I can't cope without you. Everyone else stay home, stay sensible, stay healthy, and be prepared for a glut of paintings from me. Hopefully! 

Amorphous

So being insanely busy seems to be continuing. I currently have artwork and architecture work coming out of my ears!

I did manage to make a start on the first painting of the year last weekend, but then it went a bit pear-shaped, or I at least had an artistic tantrum and then painted over a big section of it. It is currently sat in my living room awaiting another attempt at sorting it out, which will hopefully be a bit later on today.

I also sorted out the sketch designs for another commission that is ongoing at the moment, and one of those designs has now been chosen so that is good. That will be the next painting if and when I manage to finish the one on the go at the moment.

Etsy seems to be coming into fruition already as well, as within a week of putting all my mugs online I have managed to sell one. Whether this was a fluke or a sign remains to be seen but either way it is a good start. I am hoping to put my limited editions up on the site for sale next if I ever get some time to sit down and work through it.

Speaking of sales, Amorphous has left the building this week and been re-homed just up the road from me. I am very happy this painting has now found a new home as it has always been a firm favourite of mine, and brings back fond memories of Big Sur, where the rock is. It is also the first painting I ever entered into the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. I wasn't going to enter this year, but selling this, made me change my mind and keep trying to get in, maybe selling it is a sign? You never know when your time will come....

Wish me luck!

Be good 2020...

You know when you have a niggle in the back of your mind? One along the lines of 'I must do a New Years blog post' well yes, I may have had that niggle in the back of my mind for 24 days. Where on earth has January gone?

So the end of last year was a bit of a mess. Not much artwork going on, not much architecture work going on either. January seems to be the opposite so far, a fair amount of architecture work coming in and on the way and three commission requests lined up already! Bizarrely I am quite often more busy with art in January than I am in December which never really makes sense to me but I'll still take it.

The commissions are all gifts at the moment so I will have to reveal them later. In the meantime, I still haven't managed to do my first painting of the year yet which feels a bit wrong. I knew January was going to be busy so I am not overly surprised but I do need to paint soon. I can feel a painting bubbling around inside me and it is good not to leave it too long when I get that feeling otherwise I can get quite irritable.  Artistic temperament and all that.

I have still kept art things ticking over - I am on a tweet and Instagram post a day this month as I have 30% off all my originals for January. This doesn't seem to have drummed up much interest as of yet but at least I am trying and you never know who might one day see a post. I am also quoting for a couple of bespoke prints and I am about to upload some items for sale on Etsy. I have lots of plans this year to be a bit more proactive and get everything working a bit more efficiently. So, massively belatedly, HAPPY NEW YEAR all! Here is to hoping 2020 carries on like this with art and architecture and money pouring in.

And fingers crossed my new boiler, which is currently being fitted will go in with no problems and my house will behave itself for the rest of the year!