is your brain the same as mine...

You may notice a few changes on my blog layout, I've added an etsy and a felt page, a portfolio page, a news update page and a few others...  I have also linked my web address (www.sleepandhersisters.co.nz) to this blog until I get a real live website sorted.

I have done a few more of the little drawings I mentioned in my last post...  and have also done another one of the collage girls, although there is not actually a lot of collage in them... (I am still working on that).  I am realising that all this has come from me struggling with the development of my style.  As well as soft and subtle I am also really attracted to strong colours and everything in between.  Like Amelie, I just love the colours in that movie, the greens and reds... and every time I see it I feel an intense urge to add that strong colour element to my work.  Which inevitably always, always ends in a disaster.  It really frustrates me no end!!!  I like to look at it but I can't replicate the feeling it gives me into my own work... I am slowly learning that it is ok to love what I see and love what I do and for them to be quite different.

Although I have this internal battle with the ongoing development of my work, I think to some extent I already have a unique style and it is something that people recognise as being me.  Like the first time I finished one of my pendants and I wore it into town.  As a sales assistant passed me in a shop she pointed to my pendant and said "that looks like a Katherine Quinn".   I smiled and said "it is, I made it last night"...  that is a nice feeling.

I think I my brain works too fast for my hands sometimes... is your brain the same as mine?

Blossom and Moopie

(Blossom and Moopie)

After a friend discovered this cool book on how to make 'softies' we went shopping yesterday for fabric in second hand shops and local craft shops.  Then we spent today making these cute little guys (sorry but the photo is not very good)  it was nice to be creatively different for a change, but now I am totally exhausted!

(our moopies)

I have been feeling quite tired over the last few weeks, I think it is not doing much, not having the routine of going to work, having no structure to my days.  So I am actually looking forward to getting back to work and getting ready for the students... who start mid February.  I have finished 8 new paintings over the last few weeks so that is not too bad going I guess, will post pics next time.  

8 sleeps...

(my business postcard for the UK)

I started packing yesterday and have written a few lists, lists for my carry on bag, a list for what I need in my wallet, lists for my luggage bag, lists for different things inside my luggage bag, a list of works to take with me, a list of hair care essentials... lists for every possible thing I could think of. I have 13.5 lists (one isn't finished yet) I think I am covered for everything.

Ben is starting to get excited, I think he is sensing that his first plane ride is getting closer, on the way to work he asks are we going to England today? One morning very soon the answer will be... yes.

I've been having very restless nights worrying about things, catching a taxi from the train station to the bus station in Paris... I think it is only 6km but I worry we will not find a taxi. I worry about our cat who is a little odd and will probably hibernate under the house for the whole time we are away and and stress out her carers, I worry about how heavy my bag will be, have I thought of everything, will I find somewhere that will like my art work, should I even bother with it? has Ben got enough clothes (he has grown so much in the last year and doesn't fit his trousers and sweaters from last winter), how will I cope with the lack of sleep? how will Ben cope with the monotonous hours on the plane? So those are just a few of the things going through my head at the moment. I think I need to do this though, this internal worrying, more often then not things are way better then what I imagine them to be.

Other then that I am very excited and can't wait for next Wednesday to arrive.

I haven't done any art work the last week and I feel a bit lost. I thought some clear head space before our trip would be a good idea. But I feel like some good friends I had staying have gone home and I miss them, I guess they will be back.