Cath Sheard Art

Tag: art journaling

  • Out of my head, onto paper

    Out of my head, onto paper

    This has been a rough week for various reasons, so a day of pouring out my heart and head into my art journals has been good for me. I don’t sleep well some of the time, and when things are rough I tend to have bad dreams. I process everything that’s going in complicated dreams, often with my long-dead parents in them. I haven’t been doing that this week, but have been very wakeful, so hopefully getting lots of thoughts down in my art journals – many unreadable – will help settle my brain a bit! People say art is cheaper than a therapist, but I’m not sure they’ve seen my journal and paint supplies 😉

  • Getting down the bones

    Sometimes all I need in my art journals are the bare bones in order to remember an event or feeling. Other times I write a lot; how readable it is depends on the content. I’m generally very open with what I share, but there are times when I can’t have other people reading the text. The ‘feeling let down’ page was one of those rare moments, so the story behind the page is on the back of a tag. I can lift it up and read if I want to, but probably won’t. Getting it written down was enough. Cathartic!

    confusionswhyfoodshushguard

  • A bit of this & that

    I hit the wall on Friday. I was working, had an appointment for an x-ray of both knees in the hope of replacements, a bunch of deadlines, a meeting with some of my staff, a puppy to wrangle etc. I found myself rushing round the house muttering “I hate every f*cking thing” as I went. After 50+ days of 6-6.30am starts and little rest, I was exhausted.

    The x-rays went well, but left me very sore. I had lunch at the skatepark; sunshine & fresh air helped. The meeting with four of my staff made me feel a lot better. In the face of all this they’re innovative, determined and caring – I love them to bits.

    Today I got up with Inky at 6.30 but went back to bed when Tony got up about 8 – I didn’t get up until midday and, after lunch, Inky slept in my arms for about 3 hours. I didn’t really tackled any work till after dinner, which has no doubt done me some good.

    Yesterday I did my weekly diary and started a journal page which I completed tonight, along with some COVID journal backgrounds. The journal page has a story behind it, which I can’t share 😉

    This slideshow requires JavaScript.

    radical 2020 05 10dyary 2020 05 10dyans class 2 20200507Inky dyans class 2020 05 07

  • New art journal

    I’ve been waiting (im)patiently for some new art supplies and they arrived this week, but playtime had to wait until the weekend because I’m working from home. I was super excited to get a Dina Wakley Media blue edition journal and I love it! I had one of the original mixed media journals Dina put out and enjoyed it, so was interested to see her using denim. I also got some of her collage tissue, a few paint colours and some of her new gloss acrylic sprays.

    The thing about new supplies is there is always a learning curve. Not all acrylic paints work the same way, tissue papers are different weights and so on. With a mixed media journal you need to learn what the various substrates do. Often there’s some completed pages you love early on, and a few you’re pretty ho hum about.

    The only way to get really comfortable with new supplies is to play, play some more, and then play even more. Test, retest, and start to understand how they work. Today I’ve done 3 pages in the new journal. Two I’m super happy with  and one is in the ‘ho hum basket’ but that’s ok. As I say to people when I teach a class, in the end it’s only paint and paper…

    completely youdo not feed fears 2020 05 03strong 2020 05 03(1)

     

  • Getting to the feelings

    I’m starting to record more of my feelings about COVID-19 and the lockdown, not just the facts. I know this is good for me, because – apart from one or two people – my journals are my safe place where I can say whatever I want.

    Tomorrow at 4.30pm we find out when New Zealand will move from Level 4 to Level 3. As much as I want that tiny extra bit of freedom (and it will be tiny) what I really want is to only do this once. I’d rather wait a bit longer than have to start over. The stats from countries who locked down too late, or broke lockdown too early, are truly frightening.

    There are a few New Zealand commentators – privileged white males mainly – who think we should worry more about the economy than about people. Men who think our empty ICUs and low number of deaths mean we “got it wrong” whereas it signals we got it exactly right. I hope those loud opinionated voices don’t win and cost us all the gains we have made as a country. I hope we are better than that.

    anger 20200419get real 20200419numbers 20200419safe houses 20200419