Working Through The Pile of Unfinished Projects - 3

Earlier this year, I completed a black and white drawing of my Nature Beings with plans to enlarge it on canvas for our home.

I always find after finishing a project, I am inspired to create another, however, not right away.  Some of my black and white designs have taken more than 10 hours to complete so not only does my mind need a rest, but so does my hand and neck hahaha.  So instead of losing the idea, I made a rough sketch so when I was ready to do another, I knew what I wanted to do.

Incorporating the fluid shape found in my Nature and Spirit Being drawings, and also inspired by my love of the Mother Goddess, her form began to take shape and I was excited.  For me, the Mother in my drawing represents peace, openess and enlightenment.  I had finished her form and wasn't sure if she'd remain in black and white form, or if I should incorporate a splash of colour.  After consulting Heath (he is the most awesome soundboard and is so great with colour combos), he really wanted me to leave it black and white and to fill the white space with my "eyes", a common theme found in all my drawings.  

So off I went.  Now this is a slow going process.  The "eyes" are major hand cramp territory and so I can only do short bursts of an evening.  After about 4 collective hours of work, I realised the background sucked ... ughhh ... big time.  I wasn't happy with how it looked despite Heath insisting it was awesome.  So here is my predicament - I've already spent 6+ hours already so do I give up now or see it through (even with gritted teeth) to the end.  My <erm> lovely husband insisted he loved it so that it was going up in our bedroom.  <Face plant>.  Please ... no!  

Now I don't know about you but when your other half genuinely loves what you create, despite you hating it, this ... is ... big.  I mean mine listens to me babble all the time about this or that and constantly has WIPs thrust under his nose for inspection/comment/praise teehee.  So continue I must for he wishes it so ;)

So after a "far out" long time, hand cramps and ink, she is done.  I love her despite my perceived flaw of the piece.  It's ironic when you think about it.  Perhaps it was meant to be in the end ...

Have a fabulous weekend!  

Inspiration: The Eucalyptus

Australian Eucalyptus are such beautiful trees.  I've been lucky to have grown up in leafy suburbs where large trees surrounded our family home, parks and schools so my love of large trees and collecting fallen pods and seeds started from a young age.  I've never truly appreciated them for what they are until recently as they tolerated being bent and viciously blown about in the recent winds.  They are so strong and mighty, yet forgiving (for our landscape is known to be quite harsh in the Summer), delicate and graceful.  

The knowledge I've gained since working in nature has been monumental as I've needed to understand what a plant needs to survive and thrive, which in turn has naturally forced me to look deeper making my connection with the earth so much stronger.   The cycle of life in nature is truly fascinating.  One incredible bit of knowledge I've recently learned was that some of our gums require bushfire to spark life into fallen nuts to rejuvenate.  Some natives require just smoke and others fire as well.

Feeling inspired, I wanted to draw - it's been such a while!  I've been asked many times what I would call my style.  To be honest, I don't know.  It's something I've always done.  I've never been able to integrate colour - it's always been just black and white - and I always start with a pen.  I've never been able to label my style as it's never pre-planned or sketched out.  Sometimes I'll catch a glimpse at how the light brings to life a particular spot or the texture of a leaf and my muse awakens.  In this case, I wanted to embody the leaves and gum nuts swaying in the wind. 

So after an incredibly productive weekend of collecting wood, harvesting the rest of my shiitakes, making shiitake salt with the left over mushrooms, household and business chores and a little socialising, I finished my concept drawing which I plan to turn into an A3 sized drawing:

Enjoy your week :)

Work in Progress and New Online Platform

Happy Sunday (and also Happy Valentine's Day ❤️) everyone!

After an extremely hectic couple of weeks (with more to come until March) in the day job, I've been pretty spent energy wise to do anything other than work, sleep, work, sleep.  Unfortunately this means, for me, not much block time to work on some of my larger projects. 

Instead, to keep the creative flame slowly burning, I've been steadily working on these two projects: teaching myself basket weaving.  This is my first attempt so very rough:

...  and sketching a design to turn into a much larger painting for our home:

Also, I've been to-ing and fro-ing trying to decide between multiple online platforms to share my work and blog.  As you know, last year, I began listing up some of my older work on here but found there was a .com issue meaning some of my followers were unable to view it online so I occasionally shared individual pieces to my Facebook page as well.  However, with Facebook, the views haven't been as many as I had hoped without having to pay for "paid likes", which, in my opinion, aren't really genuine likes.

Until such time as I can hold another market stall or two, I thought why not try another online platform.  I'm unhappy with how Etsy has changed from being an online handmade marketplace to now being one similar to that of eBay, and Madeit.com.au doesn't seem to get a lot of traffic (in my personal experience), so I decided to give a free trial of Indiemade a go.  What you'll see there is the same you've seen before here on Blogger and Facebook (which I'm running in conjunction with Indiemade) until I'm able to upload new work.

Here's the link if you want to check it out: http://highlystrungcreations.indiemade.com

So if all goes to plan, I'm going to have lots of new and unique pieces for you this year:

- woven items (ie boho bags, journal covers etc)

- necklace series and designs

- handmade components

- paintings and prints

- handmade handicrafts 

Enjoy your week ahead 🌻