JUST ME :: and a stack of blank pages

:: Living creatively ::

About me

This is the real secret of life — to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realise it is play. The only thing that is ultimately real about your journey is the step that you are taking at this moment. That’s all there ever is. I’m here to tell you that the path to peace is right there, when you want to get away. When you are present, you can allow the mind to be as it is without getting entangled in it. If you miss the present moment, you miss your appointment with life. That is very serious!
Showing posts with label still life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label still life. Show all posts

Saturday, February 8, 2014

To what lengths will you go when you're bored?!

“I’ve got a great ambition to die of exhaustion rather than boredom!”
Thomas Carlyle, Scottish Historian and Essayist, leading figure in the Victorian era. 1795-1881


Done in my Moleskine 200gsm Watercolour sketch-book

It’s amazing what you’ll do when inspiration fails to materialise. I just couldn’t think of anything to sketch – a landscape? No, boring! Some animals? No, boring! I was at my wit’s end, trying to come up with something, so I decided to really challenge myself and do something I really hate – still life!

I looked around the kitchen and grabbed a couple of things lying around and just started sketching. Before long I was totally immersed in capturing the see-throughness of the plastic wrap and the vibrant colours on hubby’s favourite mug – even my hake lying close-by got roped in!

Moving out of my comfort zone and doing something new made me realise that we so easily become entrenched in the ‘known’, that excitement and passion can easily ebb away and leave us feeling drained.
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“Often what we call procrastination, a lack of inspiration or boredom, is really just being trapped in the shell of our own comfort zone. Our comfort zone offers a safe haven, a trusted beaten path for us to follow. However the comfort zone can easily become, over time, our liability zone!”
- Dr. Sharon House – Creativity for Life

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Sunday, September 29, 2013

Two daisies

Bright flowers, whose home is everywhere
Bold in maternal nature’s care
And all the long year through the heir
Of joy and sorrow,
Methinks that there abides in thee
Some concord with humanity,
Given to no other flower I see
The forest through.
- William Wordsworth

Acrylic on primed canvas panel – 9″ × 12″

Some left-over blue paint from my palette when I did the lighthouse. I couldn't just waste the paint so  I was off on a new adventure again with my acrylics! 

Two daisies from my garden (Tarlton, Gauteng, South Africa) in a blue bottle on my kitchen table.

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Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Life is still...

I am thinking of the onion again. … Not self-righteous like the proletarian potato, nor a siren like the apple. No show-off like the banana. But a modest, self-effacing vegetable, questioning, introspective, peeling itself away, or merely radiating halos like ripples. 
- Erica Jong, Fruits and Vegetables, 1971

W&N watercolours on Bockingford 300gsm
Fruit in a bowl on my kitchen table 

I really felt like painting but was stumped as to what! My muse seemed to have gone on holiday and I don't really mind, she deserves it. So I scoured the cupboards and the refrigerator for inspiration and all I could come up with was an onion, a rather bedraggled yellow pepper and two apples. Mother Hubbard’s cupboard was rather bare! The bowl belongs to a friend who brought a salad over for a braai (barbecue) we had a while back. 

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