Musings About Stuff

Life Book Update: 20 September

Art Journal, Mixed Media, Musings About Stuff

I was not excited about the last week’s bonus lesson in Life Book, but it was doable and I hate skipping lessons (until now I skipped only one), so here it is:

wp-1474291823907.jpg

I think it’s very obvious that I did not put much effort, but the point was not so much about drawing and painting. It was about healing and setting boundaries and in that respect the lesson was very good. The house represents myself, the space inside the fence are my closest people (probably family), the space outside are my friends, just across the river my working colleagues and other people I know but do not really ‘click’ with, and up on the moon the people I have to keep away from.

In my case majority of people  I know are on the other side of the river and just a few on the house side. I am glad that there are only two people on the moon though, which tells me that I manage my relationships quite fine. For an extreme introvert that is… May look strange to you, but I feel comfortable like that.

Frozen

black book, doodles, Mandala, Musings About Stuff

It’s raining. It’s been raining for two days. I am confused. I have too many things to do. I do not feel like doing anything. I am tired. I do not know what to do. That summarizes it.

This one I worked on during our company retreat:

wp-1473061904060.jpg

The retreat went well, but left me exhausted. It was too much. I needed time to come back to normal. But I did not have time. I needed to travel and work. And then a problem appeared which needs solving, and more travelling and it unsettled me. Hence my feeling of not being able to do anything. And the rain does not help.

And then I am thinking about catching up with the courses I took. Why did I take 5 courses I cannot possible manage to follow? I knew it would be impossible, but I still tried. I am a bit mad at myself because I always think I can do more than I can. And it creates anxiety. Like I do not have enough of it anyway…

So I am paralized. Frozen in time. Cannot get going. There are too many things to do and I know I cannot make it. So I choose to not do anything. Does it make sense? Instead of enjoying the courses I am taking, I made myself miserable and started thinking about the lessons like something I have to do. Like work that needs finishing, like obligation that needs to be fulfilled. Look, it’s crazy!

This morning I painted with watercolors. It’s drying, I will post it tomorrow. I did not do any of my outstanding lessons in my five courses. They will have to wait and I will need time to recover. From today until December 31 I am enforcing a ban on buying art courses. On January 1st I will reassess the status. There is only so many hours in a day and there are limits to what I can achieve and stay sane and happy. That’s what I wanted to say today.

Dark is the Night

Art Journal, Musings About Stuff

Of course it is, because it’s past 10pm. But there is something else that’s dark – my mood. I lost control yesterday and said something I should not have said to someone I love and who is weaker. And it was not fair. No matter how hurt I was…
So I am on the mend… being all forgiving to both of us. And I thought some color therapy would do me good so I did two backgrounds in my two journals. Because I couldn’t do anything else. It felt good. Good night world. Let better me awake in better you…

image

All over the place

Art Journal, doodles, Mixed Media, Musings About Stuff, Ornaments

image

It’s been un unsettling week. As you read in my last post, there were things to do which I didn’t like doing. And I did them all but one. BUT! They are not done because two of them  are ‘to be continued…’ because… such is life… so there is a certain feeling of accomplishment but then also a certain disappointment. Anyway… I was so unsettled that I didn’t feel like art journaling at all. Maybe it would have helped but I  just couldn’t. I went to sleep early every night… (escape, escape… ) and I woke up at 5.00 am every day. 🙂

And today I am driving to a wedding party. And being what I am, of course, I hate parties and having more than 2 people around me at one time. So the week is finishing in style… instead of relaxing I have more stress coming my way…

So… my art journal page above is just a work in progress and I will continue to work on it next week. Off to packing now… wish me luck…

Creative Chaos

Musings About Stuff

Today I am sharing something rather unusual for me… I mean, no, it’s not the mess that is unusual, it’s just that I don’t share my mess all that often 🙂 Somehow today I was not in any deep thinking mood and don’t have a finished piece of work to show off, so I thought, why not share this:

20160503_093317.jpg

So… I have many things in progress. The black page with white handwriting is part of a lesson for Life Book 2016. That one is  finished, I am just working on the second part which comes on top and it’s there in the far right upper corner. Next to it is this weeks lesson from Life Book 2016. Obviously I am a bit behind, somehow couldn’t make myself start the lesson in time last week, so I started both at the same time this week…

In the middle, there is my art journal with the current double spread ornamental doodles. I will be finishing that one tomorrow morning. Here in the lower left corner is my hand-made Food Mood and Exercise journal (I am trying to lose weight and it helps writing it all down, at least for me if I have to document it I think twice before putting it in my mouth…). Next to it on the big pile from bottom to top are: my company laptop, something on top of it, I do not know what, and on top of that my private laptop, on top of my private laptop is my little everyday planner, on top of the planner is my transparent travelling bag with art supplies, and on top of the bag is another hand-made journal where I stick some scraps I collect from mail I receive (or some papers on which I try something and then it’s too pretty to trash), and where I write my morning musings and doodle carelessly… Quite an impressive pile of stuff that is…

There you go… You got some insight into my morning routine. I clean it up every morning when I finish with my arting time, but next morning it’s again the same… It works for me…

Have nice Tuesday you all…!

2015 in review

Musings About Stuff

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2015 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 1,100 times in 2015. If it were a cable car, it would take about 18 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Hello World…

Musings About Stuff

This will be a blog about coloring. In my scarce spare time, among other things that I do, I create line art for coloring. First when I started it, few years ago, those were kind of mandalas done with color pencils just for my own pleasure. Then, at some point I thought that other people may be interested in coloring them, so I started redrawing my art in ink, tracing it in Inkscape and placing online on a blog. After some time, I also started drawing line art with pencil and ink, and coloring it myself later on, or sometimes not at all. I just realized that black ink and plain pencil can create very interesting shapes and relationships. Most of my line art starts from one single dot, circle or square and then gets additional shapes growing from those that already exist.

So, slowly, in my scarce spare time, I will start uploading my old and then new line art. I want to move my old blog here and, of course, to add new art as I create it.

Coloring pages are intended for grown-ups, and older children, because they are quite complicated drawings and require patience and steady hands. I am sure there are people out there who will find them useful in their search for their inner peace and a creative self, or maybe just for some fun in their moment of leisure.

Graphics are png files, you need to download them and open in a drawing program, or just plain MS Word and you can resize them and change transparency (make lines paler if needed) and print on any paper you like and color with any tools you like.

Happy coloring and let me know if you stumble upon this coloring book, I would love to know that someone visited.