Rolling the ball...

Kate Bush sang about rolling the ball, and now I'm thinking that creativity is a lot like this, keeping a ball rolling. The longer you stand around pondering the ball the less likely you are to get anywhere because a ball that isn't rolling isn't fullfilling its purpose. It may as well be a cube.

I've found another old(ish) piece out tonight and between trying to calm myself down after a nasty Tax revelation (hopefully putting that right tommorow) and watching the new detective drama on BBC1 Death in Paradise (a bit like Jonathan Creek set in the Carribean) I've worked on it adding new splashes and layers of colour in watercolour, coloured pencil, gold acrylic ink and oil pastel.


I just hope all that lot stays on the Ingres paper and doesn't fall off!

WATER WATER...BUT NO TIME!!!!

Mum woke me in the early hours of this morning as we had briefly become the owners of a not so luxurious riverside residence! Well, not quite. A main had burst and Police were diverting traffic outside our gate (the road was blissfully quiet all morning) while a collection of worried Severn Trent workers gathered around the hubble-bubbling water that broke through the tarmac near the lovely old Victorian Post Office on the corner. There were news broadcast people outside my Uncle and Aunt's house (because the water had come up to their front door step) and Mum's friend called to say that no one was being allowed to walk into Great Bridge as she had seen cars submerged in the water.


I've begun a second job this week, hence only the smallest amount of progress on my drawing...


Creative time is like frayed rope at the moment and I'm clutching at strands finer than the lines produced by my dip pen nib.

THIRD TIME LURGI

For the third time since November I'm down with a cold. Not too bad this time, just doing my best (now unseasonal) Rudolph impression and making Tyrozets my very very best friend.

It's been a weird week though. Ups and downs that include an extremely sick auntie, a lost (and thankfully found) flashdrive and a new part-time job offer. I already work part-time in an office and am extremely protective of my spare 'creative' time at the end of the week (I choose to work part-time in order to devote regular time to my writing or artwork), but stubborn debts that just won't go away despite years of me attempting to be conscientious call for drastic action. I'm just worried about losing my creative time, and energy, especially as at the moment my visual artwork seems to be developing at a pace. Plus, although it's been very much on the backburner, I've actually completed my novel at last. I suppose I'll just have to be more disciplined and frankly brutal with my time while I'm working full-time in non-creative paid employment. Creativity is so important to me (in whatever form I'm compelled to peruse it), but the millstone of debt has become such a negative force in my life. It has to be dealt with somehow.

I've finished my long mossy tree drawing. I'm quite pleased with parts of it and have ideas for new pieces to springboard to from this one, though I'm stumped for a title for it yet. I do have a destination in mind however, just have to keep my fingers crossed for that one and perservere.


Here's something very very old, it's actually from my Degree show (back in 1988!!!). I studied graphic design but specialised in illustration during my final year. This was my interpretation of the horoscope type Leo (which just happens to be my own).


And here's something very new, the beginings of a new drawing. It's one of my graffiti trees and will be called PW PW 2001.

Perfectible...

Art (drawing, painting) was a huge part of my early life. I have a degree in Graphic Design (specialised in illustration) from the then City of Birmingham Polytechnic, but I always wrote as well, and this has been the form my creativity has taken over the years.

From time to time I get the urge to do something visual though, often it's tied into the seasonal creativity thing - i.e. at certain times of the year I get specific creative urges, the times when I'm most likely to have the visual urge is spring, and autumn. The obvious reason for this being that simply, I love the transitional seasons - right now I love trees in a blaze of colour, and the strange fungi that are bursting through the mulch of leaves and moss and fallen seeds, nuts and seed pods, these natural phenomenom I find so inspiring. Mostly lately I appease my urge to capture something visually (to capture the moment, to understand something about my own interaction with the world, a childlike interaction that I hope I will never lose) by digital photography. I feel guilty though that I allow my artistic skills, mostly drawing, to atrophy, though the main reason for this is a practical one - there simply isn't the time to do EVERYTHING, to write poetry, to write fiction, to slog at getting these published (to deal with the failure when I don't - dealing with failure is EXTREMELY time consuming) and to express myself visually as well.

I tend to work visually off and on, exhibiting occasionally, mostly at one of the annual RBSA open exhibitions. Still, I'm aware at the moment that I need to pack my life with creativity in order to keep my 'spark' going, and this blog is part of my strategy of doing this.

I'll explain, later...