The other side

I have created a new blog for writing on: please visit it at: Ten Thousand Things

Windrush Hill

Way up high on Windrush Hill
I stand for hours to test my skill
Like a sail upon a stormy sea
Completely as one, I'm free.

In true form to my blog title I am still finding the Errant side hugely outwaying the finished artwork side, so seeing as this appears to be a continuing thread at the moment, I thought it was time I wrote something about my artistic struggles.

The major issue is not only in finding enough time, but also in finding the right time when I'm feeling the inspiration to draw, and matching up these two parts has become a tricky issue.

I naïvely thought that when we bought our rural village house, almost two years ago now, that I would have more available time. Admittedly I am using my artistic design skills almost every day, but in re-landscaping over half of our 120 foot back garden, our front garden, and in restoring all the glossed wood in the house back to varnished wood; in short, planning, maintaining and improving everything.

Add into that all the normal household requirements, plus baking, and more often than not I am physically, mentally and inspirationally spent to even contemplate art, let alone to actually sit down and draw, if I have any ideas left to draw on in the first place!

I do actually have a rather large piece of art that I have been fleetingly working on for the past two months, but as to when it will be finished, well your guess is as good as mine.

I do envisage a time when this will not be the case, however as long as it is for now, I really do need to find a workable solution. Several months ago I made Thursday evenings a time to sit down and concentrate on ideas and artwork, but although this can work on occasion, for the most part I find my inspiration cannot be channelled into a specific time slot, so the idea has basically become unworkable in the long term.

Presently still unable to find a workable solution, I am hoping that if you have any suggestions, ideas or advice on how I can manage my life and art together please leave a comment.

Pesky Wabbits

Two days ago, I was more than surprised to see one of the wild bunnies, from the field opposite, looking suspicious on my next door neighbour's drive. Convinced that this rabbit had to be up to no good, I peered a little closer. Nonchalantly it turned to throw me a glance, then disappeared under the hedge. On inspection everything appeared to be normal, no incendiary device left behind, or any other heinous reminder that there had been a rabbit there. The hours ticked on, and slowly my thoughts moved away from the furry horror.

The following morning, I drew back the bedroom curtains and looked out into the back garden. Bounce, bounce, hop, bounce! I blinked a couple of times, just to make sure I was not still sleeping, but there it was, the same rabbit, now brazenly bouncing around our lawn. It seemed to spot me, stopping to glare up at my horrified face, before hopping into the rockery surrounding our pond. Certain that it was nibbling at the flora, I glared back as it sat sheltering from the mist of rain, underneath one of the conifers. Drip, shake, drip, bounce, shake, drip. Indignantly I left the rabbit to its scheming, and marched off to locate the camera.

Half expecting the bunny to have miraculously vanished, now that I could photographically incriminate it, I looked outside, secretly glad that it was still where I'd last seen it. Deciding that 'Operation Rabbit Cam' would work best from the patio windows, I rushed downstairs, and positioned myself accordingly.

Bounce, bounce, glare, bounce, the rabbit approached. We eyed each other up, seconds passing like minutes; I snapped several shots off, then waited. Suddenly the furry invader sat bolt upright, as if waiting for orders from the General of some hidden rabbit army lurking on the periphery of my garden. I continued taking more photos, still unaware of the dangers ahead.

The rabbit charged, I loomed forwards, with only a window pane between us, and with one quick glance we both realized the potential horror of each other's actions. The bunny retreated back to my pond rockery, and I stood gazing down at my three troughs of baby lettuces, suddenly feeling Mr McGregor.

Growing a Bear

Since last week I have started to produce illustrations for the site Growing a Bear. I thought I should mention it, as the illustrations I draw for this site will be exclusives, and therefore not feature on my blog here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I've decided that this 'as and when' art isn't exactly working for me, plus I've had a few private comments about people missing my art. So, as of this week I've decided to upload some form of artwork, at least once a week.

Presently I am working on an Un-named, which is about half the way done. I should have enough time to complete it today; and then I'll upload it either late afternoon or early this evening. The great thing is that I am actually really enjoying drawing again.

I've been working on a rather surreal piece of art this week, which was initially inspired by various shadows that I had noticed cast upon my wall last Friday. I made a quick sketch of them, and then on Sunday studied their form for some time, before making another sketch, still based on their idea, but also with my own thoughts thrown in.

I am hoping to have the final charcoal version of the drawing completed by tomorrow, so it will either appear on my blog tomorrow or Friday.

I've been advised to think about possibly writing little but often, which I agree is a good idea. Today has not been about art in the slightest, because it has been predominantly a baking and cooking day. For those of you who don't already know, I bake all of the bread we eat these days; so I started off the morning making twelve rolls and a loaf of basil bread, before making some spinach ricotta for this evening's cannelloni. We have family coming over on both days of this weekend, so I also needed to make a carrot and corriander soup, a chunky vegetable soup and finally a vegetable flatbake, which is sort of like a quiche, but not exactly.

I have also found four woodlice today; two in the dining room, and two in the lounge. Apparently, they come from space, however I'm more inclined to think that people, or the cat, are bringing them in from outside, which is where I returned them to.

I am hoping that once I have written my first entry since the blog changes, that writing will become easier, as this is pretty torturous at present. I have sat for countless moments idly gazing out at the garden, whilst the bird population flock in to find all the tasty morsels left out for them; and yet a self imposed shield appears to continue stifling my inspiration. Fortunately it only has the slightest of grip when it comes to my art.

Since buying our own house, almost four months ago now, I have discovered an aspect of myself which had been previously hidden. I have become 'house proud'! Household management continuously takes a fair amount of time, not to say energy, and then when you add in, baking and cooking, plus all the other items that slowly need addressing when you move into a new property, your time in the week quickly ebbs away.

Over this past month, I began to consider what was important in my life, and realized that maintaining a clean, comfortable and happy home environment was one of the top items on my list. I also came to the conclusion that this blog, or rather the demand of three drawings a week, was not only difficult to achieve now, but had in effect started to kill my art.

The idea behind my blog's new name and re-design, is to allow my art the time it hasn't previously had. The half an hour drawings, such as the Un-named, will still pop up, however I can now also work on art that may take weeks to complete. I am also hoping that whilst I may be errant in uploading art as frequently, I can write about my life, thoughts and inspirations instead.

There is now only a little more than four weeks before we complete on our new house and move in. It seems as if we've been living with and out of boxes for ages now, something that will not change for a while after moving either. With a million different things to sort out, my mind fluctuates from being an overused network to a purple alert shut off is imminent warning, frequently, making inspiration and time for art something of a difficulty.

I have, as you can see, put some time aside today so that I can answer the various questions I've received over the past week, either via emails or comments.

I have had to put the commercial side of my art on hold until mid 2009, due to moving house. At present the majority of my art is packed in storage, however once the chaos has subsided, I will let everyone who has asked about buying pieces have the details.

One of the most frequent questions I'm asked is, where does my inspiration come from? The only answer I can give is, from everything around me, to sometimes just the randomest of thoughts. Sounds simple in theory, doesn't it? Shame it's not always like that in practice!

Rabbits. Those cute, yet evil little creatures. Yes, I have personal experience of this! Where do they come from? Why do they infest my mind at times? And, why does the same rabbit appear in several of my drawings? All of these questions I cannot answer, but I can tell you that the rabbit's name in question is Enigma, and I have now tagged those drawings featuring him as such.

Now, which box did I inadvertently pack my inspiration in again?

Thought it was long overdue that I wrote something! At the end of my last written blog I'd mentioned that I had started being taught Tai Chi Yang Cheng-fu, well this is still going well, when time allows, although I've still not actually been taught the entire half an hour kata.

My volunteer shepherding duties ended slightly earlier than anticipated, due to the flock needing to have their blue tongue injections. They will be returning again around September time, however I'm not sure that I will still be living close enough to them, so I'll have to wait and see nearer to the time.

The loft is still being cleared out, items boxed up and sorted for either moving or selling before we move. Lots happening, with art generally fitting in around it, which is not exactly how it should be, but hopefully by next year I should be able to focus on it more seriously.

I've been meaning to write this blog entry for a week now, so here it is, better late than never! For those of you who don't know how I came to be a volunteer shepherd, here's the story.

I am surrounded by woodland, forest and farmland where I live, and at least once a week I walk through an area called Alpine Meadow. A few months ago during one of my strolls, I noticed some signs asking for people who regularly walk through this area, to contact the local wildlife trust if they would be interested in checking on the sheep they were hoping to introduce there. I took a photograph of the sign, and thought about it for several hours before finally deciding I should call them.

So, for six weeks, (there are around three remaining now), every Monday and Friday I head off up to Alpine Meadow with a pot of sheep nuts, which are actually pellets and not nuts at all, however they do make the sheep go totally nuts. As soon as they hear the rattle or just see me now, these 14 Shetlands come bounding over, and they can be pretty boisterous! I then check that there are still 14 sheep, that they all look healthy, then once the feeding frenzy is over take a cursory look at the little water trough and just make sure that everything else looks fine.

My next visit is tomorrow, and I need to be more vigilant this time as I was actually injured on Monday! During the feeding frenzy I hadn't noticed that one of the sheep, code named 'the photogenic one' was sporting a massive bramble branch, that protruded right out from the back of her and down over the front. As she passed round my left leg she unfortunately slashed it quite badly three times with her bramble lance. At first I thought it was going to be just a standard bramble scrape, until I looked at my leg!

My leg seems to be healing very well now, thanks to this amazing clear flexible dressing that one of my friends gave me. Never seen them before but it is supposed to prevent scarring, which it seems to be doing. It's called a Hydrocolloid Dressing, which you have to keep on for at least 3 days and no more than 7.

I have several photographs of the sheep, and will upload and place some links to them over the coming weeks. I don't want to display photographs in with my drawings, as it could distract from the main point of my blog, so I've decided that linking to any photos would be best.

This has turned out to be quite a long post, and I haven't even mentioned that I started learning Tai Chi a week ago, so I'll save that until next time :)

As some of you know, I'm a volunteer shepherd on Monday's and Friday's for the next six weeks or so. I have to say that the flock of 14 little Shetlands are all fantastic and extremely friendly, although I'm not overly keen when they decide to put their front legs up onto my ribs!

Today I'm working on a variety of things, including two new drawings, one of which will be put up as a blog next Wednesday. Still trying to decided whether to use charcoal and crayon for it, but seeing as it's only a sketch at the moment, I've got a while to work that out.

Oh, also feel free to tag me, or ask questions now that I have writing on my blog!

The Shake Up

It's taken me quite a lot of thinking to finally come to a decision over the frequency of my doodle posts. 7 a week for over a year is beginning to take its toll, especially on my creativity, which is then leaving me with nothing spare for any other art.

Realizing that there is no way I will be able to continually maintain 7 a week on top of everything else, I've decided to drop it to 3 instead. So, I'll post a new doodle every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. What will happen on the interim days might be either nothing, or if I feel like writing a few things I'll do that instead.

But for now, hope you all have a great weekend, and see you back here on Monday!