The first post, self portraits and why I want to share my art.
Welcome! Ha, I wonder if anyone is reading this. They say the first post is the hardest - do they? Perhaps that's just me. I want to share a bit of my art - because why not? And hey if someone finds this interesting and it inspires them to be a bit more creative then that's good enough for me.
Self Portraits
“It makes sense to draw the one person who is guaranteed to be sitting still for as long as it takes!” Dan Johnson, artist
I think this is quite apt for my first blog post as, just like writing this, drawing myself and then sharing it with people is also a bit awkward. That whole self promotey style doesn't come naturally to us Brits. But screw it, I was actually quite pleased with this drawing because even my Mum said - "I can definitely see that it is you!" Cheers Mum! Ha. I do think it's difficult to share your art without seeming a bit full of yourself. And I don't want to seem that way, I simply want to inspire. But to draw yourself also requires you to put away your insecurities (and I have quite a few of them!) and just draw. And I must admit the drawing turned out a little bit ugly at first but I tried to make it look okay! Thoughts?
Doodles
Doodling: to make spontaneous marks to help yourself think
This is essentially where my cards inspiration has come from. My little cartoon doodles - which my art teacher told me I wasn't allowed to do for GCSE or A-level Art. I find this quite odd looking back - why was it seen as 'good art' to create what the teacher thought I should, instead of 'real art' - expressing myself! Who is the examiner to decide! And my Art teacher did have some crazy ideas - from eggs to actual pieces of rubbish made into a collage. Wow, makes me feel great about my doodles. But people like buying them so this makes me very happy.
I make art as a form of mellowing out from the world
My life right now is probably the most hectic it's ever been - yet with more time than I've had before to do what I love. My husband and I run 2 businesses (tunetrucks.com and experevent.com - Well him and our friend run the former, and him and I run the latter, I design for both) This keeps me busy along with a part time job (to keep us afloat during the out of season times) and the various volunteer work I do with my church (mormon.org) and now I've started Alf & Florence! With all these various things going on I can quite easily feel overwhelmed, especially considering we only started all this at the end of last year. Very early days. Sometimes Ben and I just think - oh we'll look back on all this with fondness! Remember when we were so busy we barely had time to eat?! Honestly, we have forgotten to eat sometimes. Speaking of, we also decided last year to become vegetarian/ part time vegan! Gosh - it's like I'm just desperate to make life hard for myself. I may write a bit more about this another time. But yes I use my art to just chill out sometimes. It does just help me take a step back and breathe. I need to do some artwork on that word "breathe" (I had a brief look into mindfulness meditation and that's something has really helped me separate myself from my crazy emotions!) So as you can already see this blog is about the stories behind my art - with deeper ramblings from yours truly.
Thank you
If you've kept reading all the way until the end then thank you. All the support I have been shown from merely just starting all this a few month back makes me very happy. Thank you for your kind comments and your orders! Please leave a comment to let me know what you thought!
Alex x