Felt like scribbling a doodle tonight and colouring it in, no agenda - and look what happened! I've called it the 'Lovebird'. Also practised signing my name as Larissa, my artist name!

Today I went up to school to help out with the 'Easter Extravaganza' - lots of Easter craft activities for the kids. I think the children enjoyed themselves playing with paint, glitter and glue, but I was the one who was overwhelmed, it was so noisy and busy! The excellent thing about it was that kids were being encouraged to be creative and enjoying themselves doing so. It's just getting older that makes me grumpy about noise levels! :)

Oh, and today I am famous! I've appeared in a newspaper article about art therapy in the West Australian. It talks about Linda of Creative Seeds, and she'd asked me to do a testimony as to how art has helped me, and we were printed!! I feel very proud. Take a look if you have a few moments.

Arrival of autumn

Another sunset picture! This one had the most amazing colours - this photo just doesn't do it justice, the colours were much more vivid when we first noticed but in the few seconds it took me to go inside and get the camera, the colours became more muted. It's still stunning though.

So, what did everyone do for Earth Hour yesterday night? At 8.30 pm our family voted for Earth, and turned off all the lights for one hour. We lit some candles and the children went to bed by torchlight. It was all very exciting. Actually it was a refreshing change to sit without the TV on and enjoy the quiet. I thought we'd talk about deep and meaningful stuff, but we just lay on the sofas and savoured the silence. It was bliss!

Today was the end of daylight saving in WA, so dad, you are now 7 hours behind us! It's strange that this marks the start of autumn, but it's still pretty hot out here, mid-high twenties and the sun feels very strong. We spent today in the garden, pruning back the roses, moving a shed and planting cuttings; another season means more jobs! So no time for anything arty :( I will make up for it in the week! I am having a bit of a revamp of my wardrobe though and am either throwing out or altering clothes so they last for a bit longer. Will even attempt to make a skirt from a pair of jeans and will post the result here if it works, together with the link to the site that tells you how. Last weekend I ordered some fabric from e-bay to make some clothes for my daughter, and somehow managed to order some for myself too ... Looks like the long winter evenings are going to be busy!!

Zero tolerance for technology (yesterday that is!)

Obviously today technology is my friend again. My husband made the PC much better and today it's working!

Yesterday though, I took a break and painted for the day. It's a move away from my usual people on a smaller canvas - this canvas is about 100cm x 80 cm, and is a commission for our room by my husband. I'm using colours I don't usually paint with, I'm a bright colours girl and this is in neutral earthy tones - I'm more used to wearing them than painting with them. But it will do me good to have a change. As you can see from the photos I've drawn a band of Celtic knots down the left side of the canvas, and on the right hand side are two swirls, a very loose interpretation of the New Zealand koru. I suppose it's a painting to symbolize the two sides of my life on the two different 'sides' of the world.

On a technical note, the koru are made of thick jute twine which I glued onto the canvas then covered with tissue paper soaked with PVA glue - you can move the tissue around slightly with the glue brush to give interesting texture and it also helps to hold the jute onto the canvas. I will paint over it in acrylic paints when I'm happy with the texture and layout. A few years ago I took a book out from the library, I think it was called 'The Celtic Knot Workbook' and it taught a wonderful method of drawing Celtic knots using a grid method. You simply plot points, join them up and them draw the 'ribbons' along these lines. At first it really feels as if the whole thing is not going to work, but as long as you remember that the ribbons go alternatively under then over the ribbons it intersects with you can't go far wrong. It's very meditative as after a few minutes you just slip into it and the only awareness is of the progression of the ribbon. It takes patience and practice but it really is worth a try. I'm still working out of my exercise book that I practised the lessons in, but one day I hope to draw some knots freehand.

I'll post pictures of the work as it progresses because I think it's always interesting to document your work and also to share the process with people. I'm sure all artists would tackle the same project in completely different ways.

It was very restful painting. I've been concentrating on items to make for a craft stall and neglected my painting which is my first love. I need to do more! Still, all creativity is great to me and I'm really enjoying this plethora of artistic activity!

Technology-sometimes I want to scream!

This is not going to be a long post! I've been having trouble with the PC all day, my laptop does not want to connect to the internet, and now I've been loaned the smallest notebook in the world and I can't touchtype on it so it's taking me ages! Also the spacebar seems to stick sometimes so I have to go back and put spaces in and it's really stressing me out!! Computers can be so annoying, which is why I'm an artist and not in IT... (but I do love my blog!)

Right, have to stop now before I throw this computer out of the window!

Rainy day musings ...

Today it's been raining! Yay! So I went outside this evening with my youngest and we planted our baby strawberry plants a friend had given us yesterday. Now the plants will all get watered by nature and hopefully last a bit longer!

When we went into the village today we saw that someone had been creative in the car park. The asphalt had broken up over the months in one place, so this clever creative had picked up some of the pieces and laid a path of stones and built a tiny village with the asphalt pieces. I was gutted that I didn't have my camera with me - it was definitely worthy of being posted on the net. Hopefully it will be left alone over night and I'll get a photo of it tomorrow.

I've been feeling a bit frustrated today. A friend has been encouraging me to 'step up to the mark' with my art and visions of having my own creative business, and just reach out and take it. The thing is, I don't know what to do first! I have lots of paintings to paint, lots of dolls to create and ideas for workshops, but don't have much sense of direction or focus. Is it time to put a business plan down on paper properly rather than keep it in my scruffy notebook and as ideas in my head? A business plan doesn't really feel that arty, but I guess we do have to live in the real world! And a sense of direction always helps you to get where you want to go!

Needle-felting and happy doodles!

Whiteboard doodle by talented artists

My first needle-felting project completed

Don't you just love finding doodles that make you smile? I liked this spider that had been a 'joint' doodle by my children. It looks so cheeky and happy, I had to include it here.

Last night I completed my first needle-felting project. Farbles! (Felt marbles!) All you do to create these little beauties is to alternatively wind a small amount of wool fibre and some wool in layers until you've built up a small ball shape, which looks incredibly fluffy and lacking in substance! Make sure the last layer is wool fibre. Then you place the fluffball on a foam block and carefully push the felting needle in and out at intervals over the ball until the wool is secured, then continue inserting the needle all over until it's felted. The longer you use the needle the firmer the ball will become. Be careful with the needles! They need to be pushed in straight so they don't bend or snap, and they are extremely sharp and you don't want to stab yourself. I had to cut one of the farbles in half to see the colours inside, and you can see from the photo that it is felted right through. It's such an amazing process. I want to make lots of them now! I'm thinking that you could perhaps make smaller ones as beads then thread them onto a necklace or bracelet. Very original fibre art!

Natural creativity

An artistic take on yesterday's leafy creativity!

Yesterday we went for a walk on the new concrete paths which have been put down in our suburb. I quite liked the rustic no pavement look, but well, I guess they had their reasons for neatening nature up! Anyway ... nature got her own back in a very creative way. As we walked along we noticed that some leaves had fallen and stuck into the concrete whilst it was setting. Some of the leaves had already eroded away, and left beautiful leaf shaped indentations. We had great fun finding other leaves that were still stuck to the pavement and peeling them up to reveal the natural art underneath. It was interesting to feel the texture as well - some of the indentations were silky smooth and in others you could feel where the veins of the leaf had been. We were fascinated and it must have added an hour onto our short walk! See, creativity happens where you least expect it - you just have to look!

Today I have been a busy bee writing up a new resume (CV for Poms like me!) and cutting out patterns for a new design of spirit doll - it's a bit larger than the ones I have posted about before. Don't know how they will go, as their arms are obviously bigger too, and are pointing upwards. I did think today that this may be a design flaw waiting to happen as I'm not sure if they'll bend and become wonky after time passes. It will need some R&D I think! Maybe I can strengthen the whole lot by painting over in PVA once I've painted the doll with acrylics. I will post my findings here ... I've also been dreaming of making some beads by needle felting, which I've never tried before, but hey, that hasn't stopped me so far in my artistic endeavours! I've got the wool, I just need a bit of space and quiet so I can use the needles without getting distracted - they are very sharp and have barbs on them (ouch) to tease the fibres together, and you can injure yourself if you're not careful.

The weather is cooling down as autumn approaches as well, so I treated myself to a lovely, fluffy new dressing gown today as my much loved, but very old one, has become threadbare and is falling apart at the seams. The new one is so soft and comforting I almost can't wait for the chilly winter mornings!