Tag Archives: Doodles

Another Teesha Inspired Journal

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Another Teesha Inspired journal :-)

Hello friends, I’m back – I think.

I have my new computer and, as we all predicted, at first it caused more problems than it solved, but gradually it is getting sorted out and at least this one is not crashing all the time and eventually I will sort out all the glitches, it all just takes time which is something I seem to be a bit short of.

Today I did a workshop with some of my colleagues from Ryde Social Heritage Group and we made Family History Shrines based on a free ebook I found on Aisling.net here is the link if you are interested: http://www.aisling.net/freebies/family-hist-shrine.pdf

I got together with 8 friends who have all researched their family histories and I showed them how I create my mixed media backgrounds using acrylic paints, stamping, stencilling etc. and everyone created lovely 3-fold books.  Unfortunately we ran out of time but at least they left with lovely backgrounds and now they will be working at home to put details of their families into the books.  I completed my book a few months ago and then I showed it to my friends and asked if they would like to make books about their families too.  I was delighted when they all said yes and we had a great day today.  At the end of the month our work will go on display in an exhibition called The Unfolding Story for Ryde Arts Festival week.  In fact the work produced at all three of my workshops – Art Journaling, Matchbox Momentos and the Family History Shrines will be in the exhibition.  Woo Hoo that’s just great.

I am not at work this week well I went in on Monday, but took the rest of the week as annual leave.  The main reason for this is that this weekend is the big Isle of Wight Music Festival and it causes a lot of disruption for me getting to and from work, so this year I decided to avoid the hassle and take time off.  Unfortunately the weather has turned wintery again which is not good considering the time of year, but I am getting a few things done and it’s good just away from the daily grind for a few days.

The page above is the front cover of my fourth Teesha Moore inspired art journal a style, which you know I completely love.  I think and hope that my personal style is now beginning to show.  Anyone looking at my art would know it is inspired by Teesha, but I hope a bit of me shines through too.  Anyway after today’s mixed media workshop I realised it’s been a while since I played with acrylic paints, stencils and stamping and  I think I need to get back into that again soon.  I’ll have to find the time some how….

It’s late, I’m cold (it’s supposed to be mid-summer for goodness sake!) so I’m going to bed now to try and get warm, hopefully Billy the cat will come too – he’s a bit like a living hot water bottle.

Take care my friends and I’ll be back soon.

Big love

AJ 🙂

Flower Power

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Flower PowerHello friends!

I am totally out of synch again!  I missed Sunday’s and Wednesday’s posts and I am posting this today instead of tomorrow because I have a new computer.  I got it for my birthday from my lovely husband and once I get it set up things should get a bit easier.  This ‘steam’ driven computer I am still using at the moment is really on its last legs and stops and crashes all the time.  However before I can set up the new one I need to transfer some files from this one to my external hard drive, and then I’ll have to set up the new computer so I can access the internet and my emails – oh you know all that techy stuff that I’m not much good at.  If I disappear for a while again you’ll know why!

Since my last post I really have been ultra busy.  My local history group had two Open Days in the Cemetery – believe me it’s more fun that it sounds – and as well as the actual two days we had to set up displays, learn scripts, I had to research and write a guided walk and then when it was all over we had to take it all down and pack it up.  If you are interested you can read about it here: http://www.rshg.org.uk/newsarticle.asp?newsid=349

The weather was glorious, lots of people came and we had a lot of fun!

The day after our Open Days was a Bank Holiday, this was fortunate because somehow I managed to sleep for 12 hours!  I never do that and normally I am an early riser.  My husband finally came to check if I was OK at 11am and woke me up.  I felt a bit groggy when I first got up but the weather was so nice I spent the rest of the day in the garden tidying up.

On Thursday, after work, I did my first (1 of 4) workshop with the young people at the Foyer.  Gosh that was a challenge!  I’m not sure they were inspired by me or by the idea of making matchbox momentos, that’s what I was asked to do with them.  Some of them did some fantastic work, but it was so hard to keep the attention and interest of others.   I am going to have to try harder for the next three weeks, I hope some of them come back next week, I was really looking forward to sharing a creative experience with new people.

The image above is another page from by Circles of wisdom book, it’s a kind of flowery theme, perfect for an old hippy like me 🙂

Right, now to start sorting out transferring from one computer to another, hopefully I will see you soon from my new super-dooper, ultra fast machine.

Big love

AJ 🙂

Big Mouth :-)

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Big MouthHello friends!

Sorry I went AWOL last weekend, well I didn’t really go missing, just ran out of time!  Nothing new there then!

I’ve got some exciting news though.

I spend a bit (lot) of time searching for inspiration and uplifting ideas on the web and one of the sites I have frequently visited to find excellent quotes and motivation is “Tiny Buddha – Simple Wisdom for Complex Lives”.  So I was surprised and delighted when Lori from that site contacted me about using some of my images, of course I said Yes!  You can find them under the Fun and Inspiring section.  It’s strange I get a lot of inspiration from other people but it never occurred to me that my art might be inspiring to others. Thank you Lori and thank you universe.  Being included Tiny Buddha has made me very happy.

Today I had a meeting with a friend who runs a hostel for young homeless people in the town and I’ve agreed to run 4 short workshops with them making ‘matchbox momentos’.  Of course I really don’t have time to take this on, but I’ll just have to squeeze it into my busy schedule some how!  It’s going to be good. 🙂

Today was my last day at work until next Tuesday, that makes me happy too.   I finally got up to date and cleared my inbox before I left this evening and everything was in order, that’s a really good feeling as sometimes it feels like I’ll never catch up.

For the next two days I will be working with my friends to set everything up for our Open Days in the cemetery on Saturday and Sunday.  We will have exhibitions and lots of interesting historical stuff on display, I will be leading guided tours and taking part in a ‘Character Walk’ where I will dress up and tell the story of someone from the past.  There is lots to do I just hope the sun shines and we get lots of visitors.

The page above is the back cover of my third Teesha Moore inspired journal.  I found the Big Lips and the banana that I wanted to use and the rest of the page just came together.  I decided that my quote should be about the big mouth so it says “If you did not see it with your own eyes and hear it with your own ears, don’t invent it with your small mind and share it with your Big Mouth”.  It’s not exactly a positive quote but true nevertheless.

Have a great week and I’ll see you soon.

Big love

AJ 🙂

Breath and Relax!

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Green MandalaHello friends!

OK it’s official it’s time I sorted out my art room AGAIN.  I’ve just spent two days looking for a journal I’ve been working in.  Well not two whole days because I’m out at work most of the time.  But I’d get up in the morning and look for it, come home from work and look for it, move piles of stuff around and look for it, and it couldn’t be found anywhere.  It was driving me NUTS.  I knew it was here (somewhere) and I also knew that if I was tidier I would stand more chance of knowing where things are.  Of course, once I stopped looking  I found it and just by  moving something on my desk and there it was!

So it’s on my To Do list now – Sort out Room.  Every now and again I have a go at it and if I make a concerted effort I do make some progress, but it is so difficult to stay focused on tidying up when I find so many interesting things.  You see I collect things, things I really don’t need, but things that ‘might come in useful’.  My room is full of ‘stuff’ – art stuff, local history stuff, and general life stuff.  To me it’s all fascinating and interesting and I have plans for using it in the future, but I will admit it would be better if there was some kind of order to it.  My obsessively tidy husband hates having to come into my room, he just can’t cope with the disorder and chaos!

I either need therapy or an assistant, I’m not sure which.

Today’s image is a mandala from my Circles of Wisdom book, I hope you like it 🙂

See you soon

Big love

AJ 🙂

Ignite your Fire

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Ignite your fireHello friends!

I hope everything is bright in your area of the world, here all is good.

The page above is from my third Teesha inspired journal.  I really LOVE this style of journaling.  The words on the page are a quote by Osho “Your life spark fires from within your inntermost temple, no-one can reach there but you.  It is your inner sacred sanctum, you are your own master there, only you can reach and ignite your fire”.  So, go on, Ignite Your Fire 🙂

This is a short post because a mountain of ironing is calling to me and has to be done before I go to bed tonight.

Take care everyone and I’ll see you soon.

Big love

AJ 🙂

 

Humanity

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HumanityHello friends!

I hope you are all well and, if you are in the UK, enjoying the spring weather.  Today especially has been glorious – sunny and warm.

I was supposed to be helping T put in the new concrete gate posts to replace the wooden ones that rotted away at the bottom.  He finally managed to drill out all the old concrete with the pneumatic drill borrowed from a friend and today was the day to put the posts in.  Unfortunately I woke up with a blinding headache and didn’t get out of bed until about mid-day.  By that time he had completed the job on his own.  What a star!

Gradually my headache wore off and as I felt better and it was a nice day I took Mum and Dad out for a drive and a short walk along the beach at Bembridge.  I think it wore them both out even though we didn’t walk very far, but then Mum is 80 and Dad will be 91 in a couple of weeks time.  However I also know they appreciated being taken out for a couple of hours.

I have been receiving lots of lovely feedback from my workshop last week and requests to do more.  I will do more, but I need to pace myself, because I work full time, have commitments at home, have commitments to Ryde Social Heritage Group and I want to have time for my own creativity.  So it’s not something I’m going to rush in to.

I am having major problems with my email at the moment.  My ISP introduced some ‘improvements’ to the mail service recently and ever since then my email has been messed up.  I was receiving some emails but not all of them.  Yesterday I had a long, and sometimes difficult conversation with a support technician.  I think he may have been in India, at least he had an Indian accent.   He spoke very good English, but his voice kept fading in and out and he had to repeat himself lots of times before I understood his instructions.  I thought he had sorted it out, as I received 150 emails while he was talking to me, but today I’m still having problems.  I am pretty sure I should have received more than one email today and I haven’t been able to send any!   I know I just have to make another call to fix it, but today I’ve either been too ill or too busy.  Maybe tomorrow…

The page above is another page from my third Teesha Moore inspired journal.  It’s a little dark, but I do like the images I used.

Have a great week and I’ll see you soon.

Big love

AJ 🙂

 

Sunshine!

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07-sWe have had a whole weekend of sunshine, it makes such a difference, I hung my washing outside to dry this morning for the first time in months and I even did a bit or gardening this weekend.  When I say gardening that’s not really what I mean, I am not much good with plants.  But if you have a patch of ground that needs clearing of everything, then I’m your (wo)man ;-).  I also mowed the weed patch and I am still of the opinion that we need to get rid of the grassy areas.  T is only interested in growing vegetables, fruit and flowers so the grass gets neglected and more and more weeds grow there.  Paving or something that doesn’t grow seem much appealing .

I’ve been practicing faces because I need to have a face I’ve drawn for the next stage of the Mermaid Circus.  Having drawn the face we then copy it, cut it out and collage it onto a page of our book to create another mermaid.  So far my faces are not up to much, although I can see some improvement on my first attempt.  Several artists have told me that to learn a new skill, you just have to keep doing the work.  Like maybe if you do it 100 times at the end of that you will be creating some good work.  I don’t think I have time to do 100 faces but I am trying to do one a day.  I don’t feel ready to share them just yet.

Here is another mandala from my Circles of Wisdom book.  Sometimes words are not necessary.

Have a great week and I’ll see you soon.

Big love

AJ 🙂

Embrace your Uniqueness

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Embrace your uniquenessHello friends!

It’s Sunday night and I am just about ready for bed, I’ve been fighting with my computer for a large part of the day and it is driving me slightly nuts.  I wanted to post this image earlier but for some reason my computer couldn’t find my scanner.  The scanner was switched on, plugged in to the computer and clearly working but the computer refused to acknowledge its existence.  Several reboots of the system didn’t sort it out, so I gave up in disgust and switched everything off.

Now a few hours later I have come back switched everything back on and it’s working fine.  I don’t understand ;-| ?

This page is another from my third Teesha Moore inspired journal.

Teesha’s and Jane Davenport’s online workshop starts tomorrow and I am really looking forward to it.  I just hope my computer doesn’t decide to finally give up the ghost before the workshop is finished.  Keep your fingers crossed for me 🙂

It’s been a busy weekend.  Yesterday we had a sunny and fairly warm day for a change.  This was fortunate as my friends and I spent the whole day from early morning until late afternoon at the Pier Head where there was a ‘Party on the Pier’ and we had our exhibition on the history of the pier on display.  We had a great day and spoke to lots of lovely people.

Today it has been sunny but colder.  I took Mum and Dad out for a drive and a walk this afternoon.

It’s late and I am tired so I’m off to bed now.

Big love

AJ 🙂

 

A wonky Mandala :-)

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A wonky MandalaHello friends!

OK so symmetry isn’t everything and I went a bit ‘off centre’ when I drew this one, but I love the colours which are Inktense Watercolours (mainly) and it’s a reflection of my Universe at that time 🙂

I hope your week is going well, I’m back at work now and enjoying my boring job but having some concerns about some of my colleagues who are very stressed by their workloads.

I heard a radio programme about chanting the other day so I thought I would give it a go.  I’m using the Buddhist chant Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo but I haven’t learnt how you breath and chant at the same time yet – I keep running out of oxygen!  I don’t think it’s supposed to make you light headed is it?  I doubt I will keep it up but for the time being it’s an interesting exercise.

The Mermaid Circus starts next week and I am so excited about it.  I’ve also ordered a copy of Art Journaling magazine because it has 10 pages by Teesha Moore and I just had to have it.  I got an email today telling me it’s on it’s way, so I hope Postie does not delay with the delivery.

I was wondering how I would remember all the stages and all the things I want to share with the participants on my Art Journaling workshop on 27 April, so at the weekend I sat down and drew a map fo the workshop on a sheet of A3 paper.   Of course I am bound to take a few diversions off the map, but if I stick mainly to the route it will all get done in the right order.  Yesterday I ordered the last of the pens I need for the participants to use and they too are on their way to me.  By the time of the workshop I should have 5 journals completed in the style we are using so there should be plenty for people to look at and hopefully get some inspiration from.  I have also made up welcome packs of goodies to give to the people who come along.   So I think I am just about ready to Rock ‘n’ Roll now.  I am feeling slightly nervous and very excited to be running my own workshop.

Hopefully on Monday evening I will get the names of all the people who have enrolled (if not on Monday then it won’t be until Saturday 13 April which is the first time I will be able to get back to the Library).   As soon as I have that information I will contact everyone to share some more information about the event.

I hope you are all having a lovely week and are keeping warm.  It is still cold here and we even had a flurry of snow today.   I keep thinking about that lovely tropical island paradise of Tobago and how much I’d like to be chillin’ out under a palm tree on the beach at Castara Village:

Castara BayIt’s always hot in Tobago and this is about as crowded as the beach at Castara ever gets …. Happy Days 🙂

See you all soon

Big love

AJ 🙂

 

Confusion Reigns & the Universe Delivers

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Unquestionable WonderHello friends!

Because I work full time having bank holidays is a special treat and this weekend especially as we had Friday and today (Monday) off work.  But the change of pattern confuses my brain.  In the UK we changed to British Summer Time this weekend, the clocks were supposed to go forward on Saturday night, but in this house we put them forward on Friday night.  I think this was because Friday felt like Saturday to me and I convinced T to alter the clocks.  Consequently we spent the whole day on Saturday in a different time zone to everyone else!

I’ve had a busy weekend though.  Lots of art on Friday, on Saturday we went to the local DIY store.  We couldn’t understand why there was hardly anyone there, but now realise it was because we arrived just after it had opened.  Then I spent the rest of the day breaking up a large lump of concrete so we can replace the rotten wooden gate post with a concrete one.  Oh my that was hard work!  It totally wore me out and I had a hot bath and realy night that day.  Yesterday I also felt exhausted all day but I went to a Cemetery Open Day in another town on the Island and then visited my parents in the afternoon.  T had a go at breaking up the other piece of concrete holding in the other gate post, but it was too difficult for him.  We have been wondering if any of our friends have a pneumatic drill, it doesn’t seem likely does it?  Today I’ve had time for more art :-).

The weather this long weekend has been bright and sunny, but still very, very cold, I’m beginning to think I’d like to emigrate to a warmer climate, but then there are the cats to consider…

Talking of the cats, the Bengal Boys were three years old this weekend and had a special fish supper to celebrate.  For the past 6 months there has been a bit of a power struggle going on between them as to who is Top Cat.  I wish they would sort it out because I don’t like it when they squabble.  They are both still very sweet, but not with each other.

Early this afternoon we were visited by our friend Russ who we have known for at least 30 years but hardly ever see.  He said, “I was just passing so I thought I’d drop in and see you”.  He stopped and had a cup of tea with us and said he noticed we had been breaking out the concrete by the gate posts.  T explained what problems we are having and  Russ said “I’ve got a pneumatic drill I can lend you”, he went away and has just called back to deliver it.  It seems so unlikely that that could happen all I can say is “Thank you Universe and Russ”!!!

The page above is the from my third Teesha Moore inspired journal.  I also got some inspiration from the sculpures of one of my favourite artists Jean Miro.

Have a good week and I’ll see you all soon.

Big love

AJ 🙂