Myeloma Update 1

Hi Everyone,

Many thanks for all your thoughts, love, hugs and prayers.  I have been busy practicing my jellyfish on the couch act....

Blue - created  on watercolour paper with copic markers, prismacolor pencils, watercolour paints....148mm x 210mm = 5.8" x 8.2" 

Small faces for me....just for fun and I started an online course called Beautiful Faces which I'm really enjoying watching the videos from and seeing other people's gorgeous work in class - I look forward to fully participating when I'm ready but for now just some no pressure, let's have fun faces and try out some big hair too.

I'm doing ok.  I went into hospital for a round of chemo on Tuesday 7th April and stayed for a few days only, not the week to 10 days as was expected.  I've been for chemo on the day ward since and have started on the Myeloma chemo now too.

I have the usual symptoms I guess you could say - food taste funny, very tired - which is very good as I need to rest to get better, I'm a bit like a wobbly duck....I walk funny now due to pain and balance....slow and steady.  I've got a nasty red rash on my upper chest but my hair hasn't started falling out so......

The biggest challenge can be the mental one...waking up on my 48th birthday wondering if it was a bad dream.....48 with terminal cancer how did my life come to this....all our lives change...some we can control and some we can't....some we need to deal with and accept and fight to change and make better but I now have a new life that involves doing 'nothing' - the most important 'nothing' of my life and that is to get rid of the nasty cells in my body..... and when they are gone I get to start another new life....ch.ch.ch.changes.....

 Love love love this material of my new pyjamas - it's just gorgeous - the colours and the flowers/leaves! Wish I had painted it!

I've been busy colouring in - pencils, Sharpies/markers/textas and received some travel watercolour paints which are awesome, so these have given me some fun to play with.

Many thanks again to everyone for thinking about me, love and hugs back atcha.  Mxxx

29 Faces Day 6 Christie

Christie is named after an artist friend who likes to zentangle and draw faces too.

I created her on watercolour paper with watercolour crayons, acrylics, paint pen and inktense pencils.

Reflections on 2013

Well, 2013 is all but over so let's have a look back at the year.

My One Little Word for the year was Believe:

- The highlight of my art year was having five paintings exhibited at a gallery and selling one of them!

- I hosted BlogtoberFest 2013 and managed to blog every day along with a hundred or so others!!!

 - The lowlight of the year when it came to my art was when I lost belief in myself in May when I had a booth/stall at a vineyard and a young lady said "this art (she was referring to my layered paintings) is so easy to make"......I know I shouldn't be so sensitive but there's a lot more to this than I'm saying...

 - the highlight of my year was travelling through Europe on a motorbike with my husband for three months!!!

- my favourite art tool in 2013 was hands down no contest and if you can't guess then this must be your first time reading my blog.....my gelli plate - I love it so much I made a facebook group so I had a community with which to share with - The Gelatin Printing Enthusiasts Facebook Group.

- Whilst travelling I doodled and coloured in and zentangled and mandalaed too:

Well, I had a great year and I hope yours was great too!

Shells' Sunday Snippets

Shells' Sunday Snippets - (started by {tinniegirl}) - My week in photos... No need for words. Let the pictures tell your story.

BF2013 Zentangles

For Arty Farty Fridays I thought I'd share some Zentangles with you that I created this week.

Zentangles were created by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas and are abstract works of art created on 9cm square tiles involving patterns and repetition. It is very meditative and relaxing and all you need is paper and pens.

 

At the library I found this book by Beckah Krahula "One Zentangle A Day - A 6-week course in creative drawing for relaxation, inspiration and fun."

All the artwork you see today is from the book. I have been practicing the tangles and then adding them to one tile to make one piece of artwork.

 

Zentangles and Zentangle Inspired Art are a lot of fun to do, I find them relaxing and great to do in the evening in front of the television.

Have you heard about the giveaway that I'm having and have you left a comment to be in the draw?

BF2013 Day 7 Soul Comfort

I won an online course through Sharyn Holmes of gutsygirl.com.au called Soul Comfort run by the Brave Girl's Club.  I received the information yesterday and I started today.

"Soul Comfort is a fresh new concept using art and journaling as a means to relax and comfort yourself and to get grounded while dealing with the craziness of every-day living."

Whilst I was traveling recently I started drawing mandalas, zentangles and doodling with markers as a means to relax and comfort myself, to be creative without any pressure on myself to produce a masterpiece.  As you can see in my work below, none of these are masterpieces and some of the ideas are 'stolen' from magazines or tiles or art or windows or walls.

All the supplies for Soul Comfort fit into a tote bag - which is a lot more than what I took with me on the back of a motorbike - but it means I'll be able to grab the tote bag out and put it by my chair at night and journal or colour in or even stitch and pack it all back in the bag and put it in my 'art'/spare/junk room.  And I have a lot of the supplies already such as the journal above which was given to me by my friend Lin and waiting for me to use and now is that time.

So I'm really looking forward to this e-course. What e-courses have you taken this year that you've enjoyed and could recommend?


Left: based on glass plates I saw in Cesky Krumlov, leaves I saw on Pinterest I think, vase from a wall hanging from the 1500's - couldn't take a photo so I did the drawing.

Below: the wall in Berlin that I based the drawing on....

grrr...having trouble with http://pixlr.com/express/ so will upload the drawing later.....

Update: Yeah, I just had to re-start my computer and it's working. *headdesk*

 

BlogtoberFest 2013 Day 4

Arty Farty Fridays!!!

I thought that on Friday's I'd share with you some of the art I saw whilst on our European Bike Vacation. Many bed and breakfasts and hotels had paintings on the walls though some where plain and boring!

I'll also share some of the art, well, the colouring-in of mandalas and zentangles that I did whilst away.  Being on a motorbike I couldn't take much of anything but took some coloured markers and a home-made smash book, which I had trouble getting into without photos, so I used it to create mandalas - but my circles weren't great so I turned to zentangles. I decided not to take my watercolour pencils with me as I didn't want to put any pressure on myself to produce 'grand works of art'

Hotel/B & B paintings:

At a B & B near Narbonne in France:

Mandalas and Zentangles I created whilst traveling:

I got ideas from the internet and even magazines in laundromats ( next Friday's blog!) and I bought paper and more markers (pink and purple in Tuscany and orange and brown in Prague!) along the way as I found this very relaxing and a little addictive! They are not traditional mandalas/zentangles but more patterns and colouring-in - something I loved to do as a girl - Santa would give me large pictures to colour in and new markers.... #childhoodmemories!

This became something I looked for when photographing on my vacation - the colour of houses in Tuscany and tiles on floors in cathedrals and chateaus...which I'll save to share with you another day.

I like the owl the best...which one do you like?