A Creative Revolution - learning with Flora Bowley

 

It's been a little while since I've signed up for any new courses (those who know me will know I love a course and before I had children used to be almost continually on some sort of self development!) but this week I started a new course called The Creative Revolution with Flora Bowley.

It's good as an artist to look for new ways to work, and challenge yourself and your creative process. I wanted a course that fed both my soul, and gave me some new techniques to weave into my current way of working. The Creative Revolution felt like a perfect fit, as it brings together all these elements. The course information had intrigued me as had the short video Flora had released on visual riffing, a way to add new input into your work, and move past creative blocks by offering short, quick exercises that could be done easily.

So far we are just one week in and I've been enjoying the heart focused messages which feel close to the messages that I like to get across in my own work. I've been enjoying playing with watercolours, and have been sharing some of the results over on my Facebook and Instagram feeds. Although I bought some watercolours a while back I haven't used them very much so it has been nice allowing them to flow onto the page. I'm looking forwards to seeing what new insight it gives me about how I work and integrating this into my own way of creating beautiful art that I put out into the world.

 You can see what's currently in my Etsy shop here.

A family love celebration

 

You may have noticed that love is one the themes that constantly weaves itself through my work. We are very much a family where we tell each other how much we love each other. We have family hugs. This weekend on the run up to Valentine's Day I thought it would be fun to have a family love day, a theme to run through the day. It took a little, but not much preparation and was fun to arrange. The boys came down to see the decorations and thought it was their birthday! They loved the idea of having a love day!

We started off with a special breakfast together - chocolate chip pancakes, strawberries, blueberries and a few mini marshmallows. I had decorated the table with heart confetti which the boys thought was funny. After breakfast I gave them a small present, just a comic each wrapped in paper. Giving it as  present made it more interesting for them.

I'd arranged some activities for us to do through the day which I had found via Red Ted art which is a great resource for finding lovely activities to do with your children. I'd done some of the preparation the night before whilst P was watching the rugby! One of the activities was this paper hug activity, super easy to put together and even today they have been giving hugs with it!

A new book bought over the weekend, on mindfulness, gave me another inspiration. Goldie Hawn talks about having a happiness wall, and I thought our love day would be a great variant on this  - I cut out hearts from card I had at home, and wrote a little note to remind us who was telling us about what they loved about the person they were talking about. It was so nice to hear the boys sharing what they loved about our family, and each other. They said that they loved playing games with each other and having fun, and hugging each other. We put the hearts up on the wall as a reminder.

At teatime we had a special tea with heart shaped sandwiches and finished with some cupcakes with these lovely cake toppers I got from fellow etsy seller Cherry Made this. It was a lovely day.

 

Art, music and the Fishermen's chapel

I've been out and about a bit more than usual this week (thank you, Nanny and Grandad looking after the boys!). Twice this week I have been to the Fishermen's chapel in Leigh on Sea. It's a beautiful white building not far from old Leigh on sea. The downstairs is a lovely open space which hosts a regular meet up on a Wednesday, a coffee meeting for artists/entrepreneurs to meet up and chat. And the lovely chapel space itself upstairs.

 

Friday I was lucky enough to pop along and listen to the fabulous Daisy Bowlers, a local group I have heard a few times before. They are amazing singers and terrific fun to listen to - a lovely way to spend a Friday afternoon whilst the boys are at nursery. It was a full house and lovely tea and flapjack too.

 

 At both I had some of my art and cards available for sale. The chapel is starting to host some local artists work on their walls as an affordable art gallery and it lovely to see the range of local talent in our town.

Above all it's a good reminder of the importance of getting out and connecting with what's happening in your local area - sometimes as a small business it's so easy to get stuck just working at home and it's refreshing to get out and meet people and be inspired seeing others loving doing what they do and working with friends and family.