Art - is it in the genes?

Oops - have not blogged for a couple of days! I was out for an evening, then forgot the next day - I will have to plan a bit better. Maybe I should just blog at weekends like a friend of mine does, I know I missed yesterday but it was a holiday here in WA, so it felt like the weekend. :)

Anyway... The weekend got me thinking about ancestry, because I follow the UK programme 'Who do you think you are?' (which I missed because I was out!) One of my musings was whether we inherit our talents/gifts from our ancestors. When I returned to the UK this year I found a load of family papers and photos at my mum's, including a photo of my greatgrandmother who looked like a spirited and determined woman despite being dressed in the oppressive looking clothing of the time. I'd like to hope I share some of her characteristics. My mum has often told me about how creative her mother was; she could knit anything without using a pattern and it would always fit. Apparently she would make hand knitted swimwear which would fit beautifully until you went in the water with it, whereupon it would be three sizes larger when you came out! I would love to research my ancestry and find out if there were any other artistic types in the family.

NASA did a creativity test in the 1960's - out of the large group of 5 year olds they tested 98% were seen as 'creative'. When they tested an even larger group of adults, only 2% were 'creative'. They concluded that 'non-creativity' is a learned behaviour. How awful is that!

Come on people, dig deep and rediscover your natural creativity - it's your birthright!!

My image for today is a pastel my daughter produced a couple of years ago. It's one of my favourites because it's so whimsical and happy. Remember how art used to be at school?

Day 5 - and a short note ...

Phew! I am so pooped! We've spent all day getting ready for the kerbside collection, ripping out weeds and piling up garden rubbish - creating order out of chaos! All that fresh air has made me very tired, and I don't have much to say. (Apart from I've blogged for 5 days straight - well done!)

So I will finish with a quote, which always gives me heart when I see it:

"It is never too late to be who you might have been." - George Eliot

I'm working on it!

Contemplation

This picture is one of my earlier paintings. It makes me feel peaceful - thought it was time for another image to brighten up my blog.

At the moment I'm working on a simple patchwork quilt, which will hopefully be finished soon so I can post a picture of it. Sure I've broken a myriad of quilting rules in the making of it, but I'm happy with it, you'll see the results soon.

Today when reading my favourite blog of a wonderful Canadian artist called Violette, she suggested being truly creative and creating all your Christmas presents and cards this year. A great idea when we're worrying about the 'credit crunch' which dominates the news, but also what a great way to show someone how much you love them - to spend time on them, an awesome gift.

(image copyright of Lara Geach)

Random Thoughts

Phew, what a day. I've been busy doing ... what? One of those days when you just get busy with kids and school runs, family shopping and so it goes on. Sometimes I think I'm mad to be trying to set up my own arty business, because let's face it when am I going to find the time? I need to re-read yesterday's blog and take it one small step at a time, and not expect everything to happen overnight.

On a day such as today I need to focus on my intentions and get excited about why I'm doing this. I want to show projects in progress, finished items I am proud of and want to share with the world, inspire others to have a go at being creative. I also want to share my 'research and development' happenings - I've got a few craft activities I haven't tried before or first did when at school and not touched since then that I want to document. Then there's the more mundane side, such as researching blog etiquette and working out issues such as copyright. It should all mean I'll never get bored!

Suppose I have to accept that there'll be high days and low days - not that today was really a low day, more of a 'what on earth am I doing?' kind of day! Frustrating, but it will pass!

Hopefully we can work out how to connect the scanner to the PC this weekend and I'll be able to upload more images, including doodles of mine - now doodling - that's a whole other subject ...

One day at a time ... (day 2 out of 100!)

Well, here I am on day 2 of my blogging 100. I am very impressed with myself (ha, ha!), as I was impressed at seeing my thoughts published in the blogosphere yesterday. Amazing.

Today has been a busy day of buzzing about with the family, so I haven't managed to do anything particularly arty, although I have hundreds of ideas flying around in my head, which I hope will find their way onto this blog. So, no image today, but that doesn't matter as no-one else will be reading this at the moment as I'm doing a 2 week trial with no access to anyone else until I feel a bit more at ease with this medium. And as the title of this post says, it's one day at a time, or one baby step at a time. No need to rush things! Work towards your goals one step at a time, you will get there!

Oh well, time to sign off, only 98 more days to go and things will only get better!

Day 1 - My blog intentions!!

Today is the big day - my first day of blogging! So I thought I would put my intentions 'out there' as a start. I really want to inspire others to be creative - it's a gift we all have, it's just sometimes we also forget it's there. I guess you could also say it'll be a guide to 'how NOT to write a blog' - let's just say this is going to be a massive learning curve for me, but somehow exciting at the same time, because it is after all another creative medium.

To kickstart my motivation I've decided to commit to 100 blog entries, hopefully on a daily basis - I'd better get creating so I'll have something to write about!

Ooh, better tell you something about my image - it's a section of a painting of mine called 'Choices'. Sometimes I think life is like a tree with many branches, we get to choose which one our life will follow. Where will we end up?