Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood...

It's amazing how a few simple things can really brighten one's thinking and stiffen one's resolve.

A few days ago I was walking home from As Nature Intended in Ealing Broadway with my shopping, trying to put the creepy guy on the bus out of my mind and thinking how tired I was and what a good thing it was the weekend... On Saturday I got taken by a fit of baking and produced a loaf of wholemeal sunflower seed bread and some wholemeal danish pastries (which are a trifle bricklike, if truth be told, but the flavour is good). Sunday I mended two broken bracelets, and was suddenly complimented on "Gabriel Yeats" by my landlady Sandra, who has begun reading it, months after I had decided her interest had been politeness only, and says it is totally gripping. Monday evening I came home from work and got taken by a fit of painting, and I produced a whole bunch of stuff - a lot of small things and the beginnings of two larger landscapes which will need a lot of working-into. Last night I sold ten handmade greetings cards, and had a long chat with Sandra's artist friend Joanne, about collographs and craft shops and cellophane, and the properties of different types of inks versus acrylic paints, and the fear of the blank sheet/canvas/page.

And suddenly I feel as if it is all possible, after all. So perhaps it really IS New year, New Me, this time... I'd like to apend a picture of the new me here, but don't currently have one to hand. Anyway, the new me looks exactly the same as the old me.

Friday the 19th, already...

My goodness, how time whips by.
I'm rather embarrassed by my last entry - what a dismal soul I am sometimes, all scratchy and ranting. Proper grumpy little miss, in fact.
Very tired today, with back ache and period pain, and not much sleep after getting home after midnight from "Don Giovanni" to find the house full of people who wanted to talk... to me... Lovely, except I'd prefer to be popular at 10.30 than 12.30 pm! Then tonight is the leaving "do" of my colleague and dear friend Julie, who is going off to do a Phd, half in Durham and half in The Gambia. I'm going to miss her dreadfully, though I know she is going to have a much happier time using her brain to research control measures for the flies that transmit trachoma than she has done answering 'phones at Kew. Our loss is, hopefully, medical science's gain. Well, medical science in the eventual long-term, anyway. Initially just scientific knowledge about flies and their habits. I'm being very decorous here - her field trips are going to involve collecting large amounts of human excrement, so I probably ought to be making all the crap jokes I can. Anyway, I'm going to miss her and want to give her a good send-off. But then I have a free weekend, whoopee...
Which means some R&R, a nice long walk in the park, and some painting.
I started some more greetings cards, with stars and what were meant to be angels. The angels came out rather hefty and, frankly, menacing looking. Since I do not accept that idea that angels are the Almighty's vigilante force, I will have to work back into them again, thoroughly, probably using a lot of glitter, coloured ink washes and maybe snippets of collage. The stars, and some swirling patterns like spiral galaxies, are rather effective, though. I am running out of blank cards, which is a problem, but I'm sure I can track more down somewhere.
I think I will have to add it onto my list of tips for stimulating one's creativity; buy a box of blank greetings cards. The fact that one sees some progress, and so quickly, with card after card suddenly having colours and images on it, is exciting and inspiring.

Thursday 28th, lunch-hour...

I brought in about ten of my cards to work today, feeling rather full of myself and vaguely hoping for praise and maybe even a sale or two(!), only to promptly catch myself running my own work down: "Oh, they aren't much cop, the ink ran on this one, that one is blotted inside..." etc etc. Aargh!
Why do I do this? Am I the only person who does? I'm pretty sure I'm not... certainly HOPE I'm not! But how stupid of me. There never yet was anyone who successfully promoted their work by disparaging it; it's just false modesty and a nervous reluctance to sound as if I think much of myself - what my maternal grandmother called "thinking yourself Big".
A colleague points out that christmas designs would sell better at the moment anyway. I can take that on board; angels and stars coming up, soon as I get the chance! A couple of the more indeterminate designs could even be christmas-icised without too much difficulty, and I have lots more blank cards to use, too.
At least I have other creative things going on; like cookery. Just finished the last of the roast veg from Tuesday - stuffed roast vegetable marrow (with rice, tomatoes, pine nuts, feta cheese, parsley and paprika), and roast beetroot. The beetroot were so much better roasted than boiled that I don't know if I'll ever bother boiling them again... Yum. Now feeling slightly sleepy as I'm so stuffed with food. Back to work...

Thursday 27th, after work...

Bit of a gap; life has been rather on the hectic side. Two colleagues are off on annual leave so Julie and I are trying to cover all their work as well as our own this week. Just a WEE bit pressured!
Had a good evening on Tuesday; I came home, put some veg on to roast and then picked up my three funny, amateurish-looking little collography blocks to have a go at doing some printing for the first time in years. Mixed results! But got the buzz again and then went on, this time to start trying to do some monoprints. I had a box of pre-cut greetings card blanks, and began making cards for all I was worth; collograph, monoprint, monoprint on top of collograph, two layers of monoprint in different colours, ink painted over the top, and so on. I've still got pink ink under my fingernails two evenings later, but I was very happy crawling about on the floor like a baby, slinging ink, paint, glue etc around. Luckily kept it off the carpet (not my carpet and landlady although tolerant is bound to have a breaking point somewhere!..). Twenty-one greetings cards later, I'm not sure what to do with them all - but it was a satisfying evening. Most are themed around either hearts or spirals... If I have someone to send a Valentine to next year, at least I'll be spoilt for choice.