Cath Sheard Art

Blog

  • And on the mend again

    Mum came out of hospital yesterday. She’s not right exactly, but she is improving. As always, it will take a while and she won’t get back to quite as good as she was.


    She moves with all the speed of a herd of turtles stampeding through a field of peanut butter… But she is very determined.

    Last night I found her sitting on her bed, waving her arms round. When I asked what she was up to, she said she was doing the muscle strengthening exercises they had shown her in hospital. Good on her!!

    So, life reverts to semi-normal – until next time…

  • Sometimes other things are more important than art..


    I’m not really doing any art at the moment. Mum’s been sick for a bit and on Thursday we took her to hospital in the ambulance – again 😦

    She has got worse since; things are not going that well. I know painting would calm me, but I have zero concentration. I’m not sleeping very well – I was finally sound asleep this morning and the hospital rang at 7am and woke me. Of course I thought the worst, but they were just updating me on her progress. Nice of them, but..

    So, we watch and wait and pray. Not the first time we’ve been through this, and hopefully (probably) not the last.

    Stay warm everyone.

  • Identifying the demons

  • And more painting…

    As you can see, I’ve been inspired by Patea Beach this time – and the view out to the cliffs. It really is a beautiful beach on a good day – and miserable on a bad one!

    We’ve had Tony’s daughter with us for the weeekend, up from Christchurch, and they got out and about seeing the tourist sites.

    Meg’s chemo didn’t go well on Friday and they had to quit the process – so we’ll try again tomorrow.

    In the meantime, I’ll just keep painting to sooth my nerves…

  • Taking baby steps…

    I’ve decided to branch out a bit – and take some new “baby steps” towards my art goals. Although already some steps have proved to be more “giant” than “baby”!

    I took a giant step in terms of confidence, and sent five paintings for in the Affordable Arts Exhibition in Wellington later in the year. So a bunch of strangers are going to look at them and decide if they are good enough for the show – and it’s a month till I hear back. Good thing I’m not a nail biter.

    I joined up with http://www.artfind.co.nz and listed some paintings. Scary stuff – your head can tell you all kinds of things. What of no one likes them? What if people send emails saying they’re no good? Even worse, what if no one cares either way? Imagine facing that- total indifference. I was beginning to think I’d made a serious mistake – then today I got an email from someone interested in buying one of my paintings. Who knows if the sale will go through, but it feels great anyway.

    So, onward and upward. Credit card in hand (to pay the fees) I listed a couple with Ebay this morning. I figure at worst, I lose $12US – how bad can that be? On the other hand, I might be able to say I have paintings in private collections in America LOL

    One of my newer paintings is a step away from my landscape series. I’ve been watching the sea – we live a few minutes from the beach – and that has inspired me. So I’ve started a new series, thinking about tidal pools, what’s under the water, and what it looks like looking down into the sea.

    And, last but not least, Meg is doing really well with her chemotherapy. We got blood tests back today and she’s fine to go ahead with the fourth treatment early next week. And even better, there are no cancer cells in the blood, so now we just have to get the glands completely back to normal. Meg’s a star. And so is my sister, Ailsa, who made Meg two great polar fleece tops because she really feels the cold since she got sick. Thanks Ailsa.