...like too much chocolate

I think I just needed a break from everything. I was a bit surprised myself. After I finished my submissions for my art course, got healthy again, no visitors, no major commitments, I thought I'd be drawing and blogging up a storm. But no. It does feel a bit like when you eat too much chocolate. You know, it was sooooo good and you didn't want to stop, but you really just had to. The end result for me is this little break in my blogging output. It won't be for long though. I promise.

And speaking of sweet things - how sweet is this! This fine artwork has actually been drawn by someone who I would never have guessed would dabble with a pen. The keyboard is firmly his friend. But here it is. And furthermore, he did it to brighten our day at work. What a lovely surprise. And regulars to my blog may almost recognise him. He visits here from time to time leaving strange comments. His cybername is something indecipherable and starts with "A". Maybe he'll leave a comment this time.

Do you know 'Notebookism?'

If you don't know of the great site Notebookism, you should definitely check it out, and not just because it is such an interesting site where stationery lust is paramount, but because they have been nice enough to feature my 'Tidarithms' artist's book. This is the fourth time Armand has been nice enough to post about one of my books. If you missed seeing my book before click here or here to see the Notebookism article about my book. If you would like to see more images of my book (on Flickr) click here. And if you missed the other rebound books click here and scroll down, and artist's books click here and scroll down..

Drawing up a storm

These two drawings were done as part of my drawing course. This one, "Warming to Warming" is a satirical look at the issue of climate change. I was thinking about how ridiculous some of the politicians 'solutions' seem; the 'solution' you have when you're not having a solution. I began to extrapolate that ridiculousness. I came up with the idea that if we could get used to the problem, and even work with the pollution to create a new kind of beauty - decorative smog - that would be a 'solution' too."Grey Greenhouse" is a work with similar inspiration. I found a recent quote from Prime Minister John Howard - "...economic growth should take precedence over emissions cuts". I silhouetted key words from this quote with smog coloured paint and added some of the 'decoration' I had included in the above drawing. These images were then cut up and shuffled in an effort to emulate political process.

Both of these drawings were done on pages removed from an old book from the "Teach Yourself Building" series, JE MacFarlane's 1945 "Electricity in the House".

In the news yesterday, John Howard promised to commit to greenhouse gas targets - after the election! Seems my artistic motivation wasn't too far from some kind of twisted reality.

Rebound Artist's Book

Another artist's book. This one made by rebinding the reworked pages of an old library book "Logarithms". The artist's book is titled "Tidarithms".



The theme of the book is the mangrove near my home. (If you missed my previous post on working with these mangroves click here.)

This book looks at the tidal level at 3pm each day for two weeks in April/May this year. I chose the Logarithms book because I felt it was appropriate. The maths behind the tides escapes me. (And what I may have once known about logarithms has left me.) I know the tides are governed by forces that are understood, but they seem strangely random to me.

I used a date stamp to 'draw' the mangroves aerial roots. The rest is pencil, acrylic and collage.

The original pages have been rebound in a Japanese fold block that is detachable from the covers. Click here to see more images of this book on Flickr.

Reading

Roly

When is a banana not a banana?

Once, Twice... Three times the reason

I've wanted to go ahead and post my response to Eric Maisel's second incantation - "I expect nothing", but I'm sick at the moment and I thought I wouldn't be able to. Actually, when you are sick, I discovered, is a perfect time to practice the Ten Zen Seconds incantations and reflect on what they mean, personally, and how they affect me. So, there I was, expecting nothing, and...*bing* ...I realised I was expecting myself to create something new for this (yes, I know that is obvious, but at that stage it wasn't to me!) and a split second later I realised that this drawing I had already done actually 'said' "I expect nothing" to me anyway. So here it is. And that's the first reason for this post.


The second reason is for me to be able to say THIS IS MY HUNDREDTH POST!!! In honor of this momentous occasion I've actually spruced up my links a bit. Yes, I know you can't tell, so that's why I'm saying it here. And it's worth a look because there is some good stuff there. I've got rid of a few dead links, I've added some new blogs (unfortunately they're mixed in, but you'll find them) and a couple of fun sites to the 'frivolity' section, and a whole new section 'Artists'. In this section you'll find some really interesting people and their work. Some you will know and some will be new. And its not just painting and drawing. There are some exciting book artists, fibre artists and sculptors too. Some of them have long been my favourites, but some I've only found recently. It's not meant to be a representative list. And I'll keep updating it.


The third reason was to show you these three drawings. Once again, these were created in response to an exercise in my drawing course. Firstly, I had to experiment with mark making with non-traditional tools - about 20! Then, having narrowed it down to 3, do three tonal studies using those marks only. The top one was done with the metal part from a floppy disc. The middle one with a gluestick - yes, the sticky end! And this final one with the open end of a pad of post-it notes.

Janey got me

Yep, I been tagged. I'm not really a tag type but for Janey I'd do (just about) anything.
1. List 7 random facts/habits about yourself.
2. Choose another 7 bloggers to tag and list their names in your blog.
3. Leave your 7 tagged bloggers comments to notify them of their tagging and to direct them to your blog for tag instructions.
OK
1. I'm addicted to coffee. I've long suffered from the eternal curse of the quest-for-a-perfect-cup-of-coffee syndrome. I have recently gained relief from the curse with my Nespresso machine (a perfect cup every time!) but it has done nothing to help the addiction.
2. I don't have any piercings or tattoos, which these days is a slightly unusual.
3. I have never mowed a lawn in my life.
4. I'm afraid of grasshoppers.
5. I'm an incurable Johnny Depp fan. I have a special section in my DVD collection. My latest addition is "Cry Baby" which I'd heard was crap but bought anyway. I love it! It is a wonderful spoof musical, all very tongue in cheek.
6. My favourite author is John Irving. If I find out someone I meet loves his books too, then I will love them as a dear dear friend and equal. I think anyone who doesn't love his books is crazy.
7. I love stationery. I need a minder in a stationery shop and I am unable to go past one without going in, just to look at the pencil cases (I love clear plastic best) and pens (I think I own every pen there is).

OK, who to tag?
1. Jade at spectrescope. Jade is one of the most exciting Australian artists I've seen in a long time.
2. Alison at scribbles adagio. Alison is another fabulous Aussie who creates to most charming interesting memory paintings of her interesting and sometimes surprisingly familiar childhood.
3. Hawk over at Pile of Index Cards should be interesting. His passion for stationery exceeds my own and visiting his blog is always interesting enlightening and a little confusing. I'm trying to understand Hawk!
4. Ty in Wales over at chasingtigers for another male perspective on this whole tagging business and some great sketches.
5. Ronell over at Africantapestry should also be interesting to ask. She lives in France.
6. And Linda at Quotidian Curiosities is another blogger who posts great drawings and paintings and is now tagged!
7. And I'm going to give Rob a go over at Sumosays. He always amazes me by the apparent amount of time he puts into his work. Check out what he as done with The Empire Strikes Back!

And on another matter, I haven't updated for a while and I will be a while longer before I post my latest pic for Eric Maisel's Ten Zen Seconds incantations. I'm sick and taking it easy until I'm better. In the mean time enjoy this Paris scene I drew adding myself to it!

Mania in the Mangroves

My spare time is limited these days. I've mentioned I'm doing a course but I've never said what. It's a Bachelor of Arts (Art) (online delivery through Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Western Australia) and I'm loving it. Any spare time I have is swallowed greedily up by the exercises for the units I'm doing. I'm currently getting close to the end of a drawing unit and a textile unit. The textiles unit has been a big surprise. It has involved a lot of installation art and 3D work (as well as work with actual textiles!) I've been working with the themes 'time' and 'space' and a beautiful patch of sand down behind my house next to the mangrove trees where their aerial roots rise up to breath.

Here I'm playing with the tide itself, first creating a hole in the tide by using the low tide mark inside a glass cylinder at high tide...




























and then creating a cylinder of high tide water at low tide.















Then I needed to create another installation using only what lay within my area of sand. I stood all the hermit crab shells up vertically to mirror the extreme verticallity of the aerial roots.













I also played with the photos of my site in Photoshop, changing the roots into lush grass and the trees into spectacular autumn trees in a fabulous garden.




This gave me another idea...





Mangrove areas are vital to ocean ecology. Most ocean fish are born in mangroves. But mangroves are often not valued by humans who sometimes think of them as dirty (they collect our rubbish in those spikey roots), inaccessible and a waste of good waterfront real estate. I thought of the cute endangered animals who end up with droves of humans championing their cause while more unappealing animals slowly fade away. I wondered if mangroves were more cute and/or appealing, if we wouldn't look after them better.


With these concepts in mind I collected leaves from the nearby trees (nice healthy ones with no blemishes because we humans like that) and attached them to the tip of the aerial roots to make a faux lawn area. Why? To indicate that if mangroves were more human-friendly we might look after them by default, the way we look after vegetation or animals that serve us well.




P.S. I've played with these images in my recently downloaded drag & drop widget on my new Mac. What do you think? Is it a good tool, or are the images too small?

TEN ZEN SECONDS and a couple of minutes interviewing Eric Maisel!

JA: Firstly Eric, can I say how much I appreciate you visiting my humble little blog, and how thrilled I am to have you. I've been reading your books for quite a few years now and they are all good, but your latest "Ten Zen Seconds" has really intrigued me. What is Ten Zen Seconds all about?

EM: It’s actually a very simple but powerful technique for reducing your stress, getting yourself centered, and reminding yourself about how you want to live your life. It can even serve as a complete cognitive, emotional, and existential self-help program built on the single idea of “dropping a useful thought into a deep breath.”

You use a deep breath, five seconds on the inhale and five seconds on the exhale, as a container for important thoughts that aim you in the right direction in life—I describe twelve of these thoughts in the book—and you begin to employ this breathing-and-thinking technique that I call incanting as the primary way to keep yourself on track.

JA: Where did this idea come from?

EM: It comes from two primary sources, cognitive and positive psychology from the West and breath awareness and mindfulness techniques from the East. I’d been working with creative and performing artists for more than twenty years as a therapist and creativity coach and wanted to find a quick, simple technique that would help them deal with the challenges they regularly face—resistance to creating, performance anxiety, negative self-talk about a lack of talent or a lack of connections, stress over a boring day job or competing in the art marketplace, and so on.

Because I have a background in both Western and Eastern ideas, it began to dawn on me that deep breathing, which is one of the best ways to reduce stress and alter thinking, could be used as a cognitive tool if I found just the right phrases to accompany the deep breathing. This started me on a hunt for the most effective phrases that I could find and eventually I landed on twelve of them that I called incantations, each of which serves a different and important purpose.

JA: What sort of hunt did you go on?

EM: First, I tried to figure out what are the most important tasks that we face as human beings, then I came up with what I hoped were resonant phrases, each of which needed to fit well into a deep breath, then, most importantly—which moved this from the theoretical to the empirical—I tested the phrases out on hundreds of folks who agreed to use them and report back on their experiences. That was great fun and eye-opening!

People used these phrases to center themselves before a dental appointment or surgery, to get ready to have a difficult conversation with a teenage child, to bring joy back to their performing career, to carve out time for creative work in an over busy day—in hundreds of ways that I couldn’t have anticipated. I think that’s what makes the book rich and special: that, as useful as the method and the incantations are, hearing from real people about how they’ve used them “seals the deal.” I’m not much of a fan of self-help books that come entirely from the author’s head; this one has been tested in the crucible of reality.

JA: Which phrases did you settle on?

EM: The following twelve. I think that folks will intuitively get the point of each one (though some of the incantations, like “I expect nothing,” tend to need a little explaining). Naturally each incantation is explained in detail in the book and there are lots of personal reports, so readers get a good sense of how different people interpret and make use of the incantations. Here are the twelve (the parentheses show how the phrase gets “divided up” between the inhale and the exhale:

1. (I am completely) (stopping)
2. (I expect) (nothing)
3. (I am) (doing my work)
4. (I trust) (my resources)
5. (I feel) (supported)
6. (I embrace) (this moment)
7. (I am free) (of the past)
8. (I make) (my meaning)
9. (I am open) (to joy)
10. (I am equal) (to this challenge)
11. (I am) (taking action)
12. (I return) (with strength)

A small note: the third incantation functions differently from the other eleven, in that you name something specific each time you use it, for example “I am writing my novel” or “I am paying the bills.” This helps you bring mindful awareness to each of your activities throughout the day.

JA: Can you use the incantations and this method for any special purposes?

EM: As I mentioned, folks are coming up with all kinds of special uses. One that I especially like is the idea of “book-ending” a period of work, say your morning writing stint or painting stint, by using “I am completely stopping” to ready yourself, center yourself, and stop your mind chatter, and then using “I return with strength” when you’re done so that you return to “the rest of life” with energy and power. Usually we aren’t this mindful in demarcating our activities—and life feels very different when we do.

JA: That sounds really interesting. Which incantation will be most helpful in assisting me to turn up at the blank page or canvas every day?

EM: I recommend to readers that they go through the twelve incantations, read the explanation for each, and then pick one or two that resonate the most for them and give those a try.

For one person, “I am equal to this challenge” may prove the most effective bridge to creating, for another person it might be “I trust my resources,” for a third it might be “I am taking action.” It might also be an incantation of your own creation—I suggest that readers create some incantations of their own, finding just the right words to drop into a deep breath that will assist them in whatever their objective is, whether it’s “doing nothing,” working hard on a project, or “vanishing” into creative work.

Any one of the incantations may prove to be a magic bullet, but it will be a different incantation and a different magic bullet for each person, so quietly and carefully going through all twelve is the starting point.

JA: I often feel resistance to my work while I'm creating. I fall in love with it first, but then begin to doubt. It is during this doubt phase that I'm most likely to discard the work or set it aside and begin again. While this might be the right thing to do at times, I find I have a lot of unfinished work stored in my studio. How can I use the Ten Zen Seconds incantations to help me persist beyond doubt and solve the problems of the work?

EM: Getting work finished—and not just finished in a draft way, but in a “finished” finished way—is very important. If we don’t finish our work, we get disappointed in ourselves, we doubt our ability to “really” do the work, we experience little joy from our own efforts, and we don’t have the experience of making sufficient meaning.

A starting place is to use incantation 7, “I am free of the past,” to help you get free of the past of not completing—to consciously and mindfully tell yourself that you are through not completing things, that that difficulty is behind you, and that you intend to stop doing that. Then you might try a variation of incantation 3, “I am doing my work,” and name as your work “I am finishing this painting.” Breathing-and-thinking “I am free of the past” and “I am finishing this painting” just might do the trick.

JA: Most of us wear multiple hats everyday. How can Ten Zen Seconds techniques help with overcoming the perception that there just isn't enough time in the day to do all the things we want to, or even have to? Can this technique make more time in my day?

EM: It can! Or rather, it can increase the number of “islands of mindfulness” in a person’s day. It is not possible that we accomplish everything in life with the same mindful attention, nor is that required. We can “space out” while we do some mechanical work or watch a few television shows. The trick to meaning-making is to pick our meaning-making places: to decide that the next hour gets my mindful attention, because that is when I am painting, but the hour after that doesn’t, and that the hour after that does once again, because that is when I am having that serious chat with my son, and so on.

We do not have to allow everything in our day to have the same adrenaline-doused, rushed, uncentered quality—if we can’t add extra hours (which in fact we can add, by getting up earlier and getting to our creating first thing), we can at least add extra mindful hours, and that is a big deal.

JA: Is there a way to experience this process in “real time.”

EM: By trying it out! But my web master Ron Wheatley has also designed a slide show at the Ten Zen Seconds site www.tenzenseconds.com that you can use to learn and experience the incantations. The slides that name the twelve incantations are beautiful images provided by the painter Ruth Yasharpour and each slide stays in place for ten seconds. So you can attune your breathing to the slide and really practice the method. The slide show is available here.

JA: How can people learn more about Ten Zen Seconds?

EM: The book is the best resource. You can get it at Amazon by visiting here. Or you can ask for it at your local bookstore. The Ten Zen Seconds website is also an excellent resource: in addition to the slide show that I mentioned, there is a bulletin board where folks can chat, audio interviews that I’ve done discussing the Ten Zen Second techniques, and more. It’s also quite a gorgeous site, so you may want to visit it just for the aesthetic experience! I would also recommend that folks check out my main site, www.ericmaisel.com, especially if they’re interested in creativity coaching or the artist’s life.

JA: Is the book available in bookshops in Australia?

EM: Ah, that is a question that authors can’t answer! I know that I have many readers in Australia and that both creativity coaches and creativity clients in Australia know about my work, but as to whether a given book of mine exists there—that is knowledge I do not possess! If you can’t find the book, make a fuss—making a fuss in life always seems to work!

JA: What else are you up to?

EM: Plenty! I have a new book out called Creativity for Life, which is roughly my fifteenth book in the creativity field and which people seem to like a lot. I also have a third new book out, in addition to Ten Zen Seconds and Creativity for Life, called Everyday You, which is a beautiful coffee table book about maintaining daily mindfulness. I’m working on two books for 2008, one called A Writer’s Space and a second called Creative Recovery, about using your innate creativity to help in recovering from addiction.

And I’m keep up with the many other things I do: my monthly column for Art Calendar Magazine, my regular segment for Art of the Song Creativity Radio, the trainings that I offer in creativity coaching, and my work with individual clients. I am happily busy! But my main focus for the year is on getting the word out about Ten Zen Seconds, because I really believe that it’s something special. So I thank you for having me here today!

JA: Thank you! It has been very interesting and exciting to have you here!

JA: Bye!

EM: Bye!

JA: Wow, wasn't that something! Eric Maisel, here! on my blog!

JA: You know something, I'm not going to just leave you all high and dry at the end of such a long post. I'm going to promise you more! Yes, more excitement right here!

I've actually tried out the first incantation "I am completely stopping". It works wonders! I've used it to have a break from my studies which, up until now, seemed to fill my mind all the time. I've also used it for instant relaxation. Again it works instantly and seems to even have a cumulative effect.


I promised you more... I've begun a project to create an artwork in response to each incantation and this is my first one - I am completely stopping... which gives me an idea... see you later!

Patiently waiting for someone special...

Been busy catching up on my drawing and creating for the courses I'm currently doing. I'm 'just about' up to date, which I think is the closest I've ever been to up to date, so I'm feeling good about it.

I'm also feeling good about my special blog guest. Yes, I am having a special guest visit me, right here, on Friday (US) or Saturday (if you're from Australia). My visitor is one of my favourite authors and creativity specialist Eric Maisel. He is going to be generous enough to answer some questions I have about his new book "Ten Zen Seconds".

I've had a copy of this gorgeous book for about a week and I'm excited! Well, you'd be excited too if you had a very simple technique you could learn in an afternoon that gave you the power to 'centre' yourself in an instant! That's right. Instantly. Well, actually, you can have it too. And I'll tell you how, right here on Friday/Saturday.

So far I've used the technique to help me with overwhelment about how much work I have to do in such a small amount of time, anxiety over waiting for my marks and feedback, and to give me self-confidence in an environment I would otherwise feel I didn't fit in. And yes, the results were instant. I've been feeling what Eric describes as 'centred' - calm, controlled and directed. And happy! Wonderful!

So, yes, I'm excitedly waiting too... patiently... waiting... I can't wait!

One-eyed monsters

This is two versions of the same drawing. The theme was monumentality and it needed to include a change of scale. I chose the squirt bottle of shower cleaner because I thought I'd be able to turn it into a scary one-eyed monster. I didn't really want to include other objects in order to show its monumental scale. I thought I'd be able to show it by a careful choice of perspective and by the expression in its 'eye'. But as I drew, and gazed more intently into its real 'eye', I found it looked more and more like a chook or a turkey. Then its expression changed to one of foreboding and fear. The drawing began to make me think of Christmas Eve and the inevitable chop for the turkey. I could no longer help myself. I drew in the looming shadow of someone reaching for its neck! I hoped the drawing would show monumentality by inference, that the world and everything in it could be seen in the viewers minds eye as huge, the way the turkey-squirt would see it.

But no, it didn't work. And the drawing did need to show monumentality. So I left it for a week while I decided how to resurect it. My only solution was to add something or someone to show the scale, to increase the angle of view on its head so that it looked like it was looking down, and to make that one eye look mean again. I looked at the work of William Kentridge who often gives the effect of scale and monumentality in subtle ways. I looked in particular at a drawing inwhich the male subject (I believe it is a self-portrait of sorts) and his cat are alone in a monumental space; the words "HER ABSENCE FILLED THE WORLD' are written above them. I thought this was almost the exact opposite of what I was trying to show in my one-eyed monster drawing - her (the monster) presence filled the world! So I included Kentridge and his cat, tiny and in the foreground, to provide the necessary scale. I'm not sure if I like the second incarnation of this image better than the first, but I do like it, which is more than I thought I would when I started out to change it.

And I'll be quiet for a few days (digitally not acutally) because I'm off to Sydney to see my daughters, friends and some art. Sounds good doesn't it!

More Bookfest Bounty

Back to Bookfest and I'm so glad I did. Another inspiring stack. A couple of great pick-ups today. SCUM Manifesto by Valerie Solanas for one. SCUM stands for Society for Cutting Up Men and Valerie is the sweet lassie who shot Andy Warhol. I'm giving this one to my daughter (for academic purposes only!). The two "Sam.." books will make a great present for someone I know (and there is a long tradition of 2nd-hand-weird-books-as-presents there!). The best repurpose-as-journal buys of the day for me were "The Choir-Boy in the making" (Oxford University Press 1923) with great advice included, like the bit on selecting boys. And "Our Hearts were Young and Gay" with delightful pictures.
Ahh, I wonder if I'll get back tomorrow?

Pile of Index Cards

I've loved Hawk's ideas and photos ever since I first stumbled across them on Flickr. I'm slowly moving toward organisation. I've read the book ('Getting Things Done' is the title elsewhere; here in Australia it is titled "How to Get Things Done" by David Allen). This weekend we put the finishing touches on a filing system Allen describes. It does feel good. Next is to dive into the index card world Hawk so elequently describes. Hawk hangs out over at Pile of Index Cards (or just click the link in my sidebar). He recommends gridded index cards for writing down each idea or to-do. I can't buy them here, so in these photos you can see my solution.

I opened the pack of index cards (I chose blank because I like blank) only enough to reveal one long edge. Then using a ruler and a fine red artline pen I ruled lines at .5cm intervals. Hawk marks the top edge of the cards to categorise them so that when they are in their box (dock) it is easy to see what is what. My red lines give me enough visual info to be able to make my marks in all the right places. And I don't have to worry about doing OS orders which is nice.

In search of the 'perfect' perfect journal

Look at this little hoard! What beauties! This is my booty from the annual Rotary Bookfest - day 1. And all it cost me was $5 for the lot!!! Some classic titles and books here. My favourite being from the "Teach Yourself Building" series and titled "Electricity in the Home". I can see these little gems rebound and reborn as quirky sketchbooks and journals. And that is really what this is all about. The 'perfect' journal was the subject of previous posts here and resulted in my Guide France, Perfume in Provence, Path to Rome and The Function of Voluntary Muscles sketchbooks. Each one 'perfect' for its purpose. But what about all those other purposes I might have? I feel the need for a 'perfect' book to contain each one of them. And so I hoard, because I also don't quite know what purposes I might think up in the future either. This gorgeous little stack will be taken upstairs to sit next to those other stacks I already have. Together they make a fabulous mound of future possibility.

Can't for Rotary Bookfest - Day 2!!! And it goes all week!

Another book

Another book made for my textiles unit. In this project we had to consider the themes Time and Space and using an aerial perspective, create a map. I've titled this "Every place I've ever lived: 1962 - 1978" which I think is fairly self explanatory and probably gives away too much personal information too! I hope one day to have some spare time to finish the series.

My diary

I've been making more books. This one is a complete change of direction and materials for me. The project required me to use processes of at least two artists whose work I had researched. I loved the work Astrid Krogh did with fine stainless steel mesh creating optical effects by layering and weaving (www.astridkrogh.com). I also looked at Jarg Geismar's installation with hanging books (http://www.balticartcenter.com/docs/eng/exhibition/2002/jarg.html).

From these strange beginings came "My Diary". This tiny freestanding sculpture represents the way I use my private journal and the ideas I put into it. Each page of the Japanese fold 'book' is woven from a different material and the meaning comes more from it's surface qualities than from the actual material itself. There is a page of secrets, one of passion, one about my health and there is a page for when I feel good about myself. There is even a page that represents my virtual presence in my digital 'diary'. I tried to create an optical illusion like Krogh's by weaving stips cut from a plastic sheet magnifying glass. The magnifications and distortions it creates hold the rest of the book in place by forming the covers. This is my acknowlegement that a diary, my diary, any diary is just one perspective on life and its issues and can contain views we wish we could really 'see' in the real world.

And now can I ask you a question? As I sit here typing on my new MacBook Pro I find that all the helpful buttons along the top of the Create or Edit Posts window in Blogger are gone except for the spellcheck and the Insert Picture icon. That's why I had to type the web addresses above - I couldn't do a link because the link button is just plain gone! Are there any Mac-ers out there who can help???

More rebound books!

For those of you who enjoyed seeing my rebound sketchbooks (here, here, here and here) have a look at what Shirley has done. I love these books!

The good, the black and the white

Firstly, let me say it's good to be back! I've got a lot to catch up with here, but I'll start by letting you know about my special guest visitor. Eric Maisel is my favourite author on matters of creativity. And talk about being creative! Eric has come up with a fabulous idea to promote his latest book Ten Zen Seconds . Eric will be undertaking a blog tour of the world! He will be actually (well, 'virtually' really I suppose...) visiting my little blog on the 4th of May. Leading up to then, and for a little while after, I've got some special things planned so that you can enjoy Eric's ideas for creative mindfulness and some art all mixed up together.

And secondly, here are a couple of drawings I've done while I've been off-line, a black still life and a white one.


The black one was done on white A1 paper using paint and oil stick. I've never used oil-stick before and I must say YUM! It is almost delicious the way it moves and goes on.





The white one had to be a collage. I did both of these as part of my studies. This one was also done on white paper (A3) and using paint, shellac, cardboard, paper, masking tape, tracing paper, found paper, pencil and a stamp I quickly made out of craft foam. Lots of fun!