my saturday 011011

my saturday 011011, originally uploaded by SuzeArt.

time well spent 🙂

wisp o’ the willow

wisp o’ the willow, originally uploaded by suesviews.

Here’s my latest artwork 🙂 A photo that I manipulated digitally, making time for some art therapy. It’s been a busy time lately and I can feel myself becoming overwhelmed…

This week there has been someone at the house every day, all day and I find it exhausting. I hadn’t realised how much I depended on the peace & quiet surrounding me, along with a sort of routine that I had begun to build up. I’ve been getting up very early & trying to get through a ‘working day’, but have realised that I am nowhere near ready to do anything for 8 hours at a time! Except, perhaps, taking photographs 😉

Whatever I do, I need a constant supply of tea & tobacco. That’s not good. No willpower, me 😦 The only time I can go without either for a stretch of time is while I’m asleep… I could sleep for weeks at the moment. The weather isn’t helping. There’s been a roof of low cloud hanging over the valley for over a week now & I need to see the sun shining again, in a beautiful blue sky….

Having no transport & barely enough money to keep the bills paid is driving me mad, too. SO, I am having this image professionally printed as notecards & hope to start selling them, amongst others I hope, as soon as possible. Probably on Etsy…

We shall see…. 🙂

Mum in Million in a Meadow

Mum in Million in a Meadow, originally uploaded by suesviews.

see description on Flickr (click on photo to be taken there)

sad for my absence…
glad to be beginning to feel better 🙂

hoping you haven’t all deleted me from your lists 😉

wishing you Peace, Love & Happiness xXx Suze

may all your wishes come true…

may all your wishes come true…, originally uploaded by suesviews.

Have a lovely Christmas, everyone!

Love to All xXx

Soul Journal pages

My goodness, these pages inspired by the Soul Journal Group have been a little adventure in their own right already.  I’m going to have to learn to go at my own pace here, as I can already feel a bit of tension building up when I see the new projects being posted, yet am being sent spiralling into deep thought by the formation of the first few pages. I need to take my time here…

I’ve worked on the first 3 prompts more or less at the same time, in a bit of a jumble.  First, I completed the ‘Permission Slip’ page…

I made my envelope the wrong way round (I liked this picture & wanted it to show), so had to improvise when it came to sticking it on the page! Inside the envelope is my actual permission slip.  I gave myself all sorts of permission and got quite carried away! 🙂 I also sprinkled a few stars that were left over from my boy’s 18th birthday celebrations earlier this year. I love them, they’re so tiny & shiny! 🙂

…then I began the Instant Gratification piece which I enjoyed focusing on & found it much easier to work on than the other two! (Which tells you something about me straight away! ;-))

I very much enjoyed colouring this page in with pencil crayons – a soothing process 🙂

The most challenging so far, for me, has been the ‘Lost & Found’ prompt. I’ve had this page going on in the background for about two weeks & had to leave it for a while as I got a bit overwhelmed. I came back to it last night & just started writing on it – I’d been forgetting it was a journal page & that I’m ‘allowed’ to do anything I want on it!  Getting uptight about following ‘the rules’ is something that creates unnecessary anxiety & holds me back in Life as well as Art, I realise…

I’m not sure that this is finished yet. I’ll more than likely come back to it again. The subject of Lost & Found really got me thinking, though.  No one gets through life without going through loss of some sort, and I’ve been relatively lucky compared to many, I’m sure.  The loss of an old friend a few weeks ago now had already set me off on a nostalgic, reminiscent train of thought. At the time of loss our senses become heightened, it seems. We are more aware of the fleeting & precious nature of our own lives….

Part of the prompt for Lost & Found was to pick up found objects throughout a day.  I took a walk to the local shop and found so many feathers, I was surprised.  Since then I have noticed feathers everywhere!  I even found the most beautiful drawings of feathers in an old magazine I was looking through and was able to use them to represent all the real feathers I have collected over the last week or so.  Something magical about them, and inspiration for a future project, I think..

This is the most productive I’ve been in a long time, and I love it! 🙂 I hope there’s something in these pages that inspires you in some way…

For now, have a great weekend all. I’ve run out of puff on this post! 😉

Love to All xXx Suze xXx

An unexpected Day Out…

I spent the day yesterday at this show. (I am fortunate to work for a Tree Surgery business who provided the ticket & the transport!) I’ve never spent so much time in such a testosterone-fuelled environment before.  It was quite  fascinating!

Almost the whole of the staff of the company I work for were there, which was great as I run an office over 100 miles away from head office & usually only see the manager that I assist (Nick) in person. All other communication is by phone & email, so I can feel very isolated at times. Seeing the faces to all the names I type on a daily basis was fun, and to top it all off the weather was dry & warm. A real blessing!

One of our lads entered a pole-climbing competition, which was very exciting! I got dizzy just looking up at the top of the 90ft poles! Our man took 44 seconds to reach the top – the world record is just 10 seconds! Another man took part, complete with birthday balloons tied to his harness, as he’d turned 77 the previous day! Amazing, and incredibly inspirational 🙂

There were even Artists present!  The chainsaw sculptors had produced some beautiful work over the previous two days, and I was amazed to see what could be done with a tree trunk & a chainsaw. This hand holding a quill just blew my mind!

The surroundings were beautiful, I’d never been to Cannock Chase before, in spite of it being just over an hour away on the motorway.  We’d taken Stan, our Chocolate Lab dog, and had a lovely walk with him.  I got chatting to 84-year-old George for a few minutes while Nick threw the ball for Stan.  I discovered that George lives close by the Chase & has gone up there for 5 hours a day with his dog for the last 28 years! He was sat on a bench taking in the beautiful view, while his old collie cross bitch (his third dog) rested at his feet.  I wish I’d taken a photo of them both.  It’s amazing how much you can learn about someone in a few short minutes, and it was a lovely part of the day for me 🙂 Aha! Nick has just sent me one that he took of the pair us. Here we are…

*gasp* I’m still just a 19-year-old on the inside! lol 😉

‘Bless George, it was lovely to chat with him 🙂

Some more of what I saw…

I dream of having a holiday in one of these beautiful structures one day…

extreme rock balancing!

I hadn’t spent so long on my feet in quite a while and what with all the walking, the excitement and the unusual heat, I was shattered by the end of the day! In a good way 🙂

I hope you’re all enjoying your weekend, and I’d like to take this chance to wish my dear friend Janet a very Happy Birthday for today! Many Happy Returns to a lovely lady! Bless you, Janet 🙂 xXx

I hope to be back with some Artwork soon, but don’t hold your breath. You all know how unreliable I can be. It’s the Artists’ Temperament, I can sometimes convince myself! 😉 lol

Love to All xXx Suze xXx

Soul Journal 1

Soul Journal 1, originally uploaded by SuzeArt.

Hello Lovelies 🙂

Huge thanks to all of you for your very kind & supportive messages after my last post. Things are settling down a little now, after an emotional rollercoaster of a week…

I took a brave step this week and committed myself to the Soul Journal Group. I’ve only just started following the prompts, but have thoroughly enjoyed myself so far.

This piece you see in the photo is the result (so far) of the ‘Instant Gratification’ prompt for week 1 (Links to the info are on the group’s home page). I’m a bit behind as yet, but it doesn’t matter… the journey is the important thing, and the fact that I have produced something every week for the last couple of months (thanks to Nance for that!) is such a huge bonus! 🙂

I’m rushing this post (again!) as I’ve had the morning off work waiting for a plumber & have to go & get some work done now! Back soon, I hope!

Love to All xXx Suze xXx

attitude

attitude, originally uploaded by SuzeArt.

at·ti·tude (t-td, -tyd)
n.
1. A position of the body or manner of carrying oneself: stood in a graceful attitude. See Synonyms at posture.
2.
a. A state of mind or a feeling; disposition: had a positive attitude about work.
b. An arrogant or hostile state of mind or disposition.
3. The orientation of an aircraft’s axes relative to a reference line or plane, such as the horizon.
4. The orientation of a spacecraft relative to its direction of motion.
5. A position similar to an arabesque in which a ballet dancer stands on one leg with the other raised either in front or in back and bent at the knee.
[French, from Italian attitudine, from Late Latin aptitd, aptitdin-, faculty; see aptitude.]
atti·tudi·nal (-tdn-l, -tyd-) adj.
atti·tudi·nal·ly adv.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2003. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

attitude
Noun
1. the way a person thinks and behaves
2. a position of the body
3. Informal a hostile manner
4. the orientation of an aircraft or spacecraft in relation to some plane or direction [Latin aptus apt]

Collins Essential English Dictionary 2nd Edition 2006 © HarperCollins Publishers 2004, 2006
ThesaurusLegend: Synonyms Related Words Antonyms

Noun 1. attitude – a complex mental state involving beliefs and feelings and values and dispositions to act in certain ways; “he had the attitude that work was fun”

Currently, I am working on my own attitude, and worrying about my son’s.  Won’t say much as I’m muddled, to say the least. Said goodbye to an old friend this week. She was 41, with two teenage sons.  Here she is, Helen, in her prime, in my journal…

Look at that smile! This girl had attitude in spades! She had a kind heart, too. It upset me much more than I’d expected when I saw this lovely photo of her on the Order of Service at her funeral on Friday.  We had drifted apart over the last 3 years or so. I’d bumped into her once or twice & we’d been pleased to see each other.  I can’t remember ever having a cross word with her, which is quite remarkable, in 21 years.  Our sons were born 2 days apart & spent a lot of time together as they grew up…  There we are, you see I need to go & create this page!

Go tell a friend that you love them! 🙂

My Love to You All xXx

Feel

Feel, originally uploaded by SuzeArt.

My contribution for week 6 of Nancy’s Collage play.

Made in Wales 🙂 I had an unexpected and really lovely short break near Aberdovey from Thursday to Sunday. I’m posting this from Flickr and am in a bit of a rush. Back later…

Love to All xXx

May You Never…

I found this video, May You Never, quite by accident this evening. It’s one of my favourite songs performed by one of my favourite performers. I saw John Martyn live in Birmingham (Odeon) in the 80s. Unforgettable experience… I’m a sentimental fool (note that I left the ‘old’ out, deliberately!) 😉

We’ve had week 5 of Nance’s Collage Challenge and Crowabout herself was feeling ornery this week! (am I right, Nance? ;-)) Testing us, she was, by giving us less help than usual! There was no prominent image this week – up til now there’s usually been a face that jumps out at you & demands to be focused on, but this week there was mostly bits & pieces. I knew what she was up to straight away (yeah, right ;-)), and then my companion suggested that I stop being so uptight & neat & tidy with my attempts. He ripped up & placed the strips that male up the ‘flag’ (or Magic Carpet as Alberta suggested on Flickr! :-)) on the background that I’d made a few weeks ago and wasn’t too keen on, and then challenged me to rip up other images, while he stuck the couple’s faces on the shapes I’d cut out of the shreddie-looking biscuit things…

By the time he’d done that, I’d practically built my messy church-type building. It came from nowhere. I was remembering something I used to love doing in infants school, when we used to rip up different coloured scraps of tissue paper and create big mosaics of fish, or daffodils, or whatever we were doing a project on at the time. It’s good to remember such happy times 🙂 My son made a life-size picture of himself the same way at nursery school when he was 4 yrs old. I know I took a photo – hope I can find it one day…

I have to say that this has been one of the most therapeutic pages I’ve ever made.  Never has one single page made me think so much! I’d best go & do some more. I’ll leave you to form your own opinions…

…and look forward to hearing them 😉 Enjoy!

xXx Love to All xXx