Thursday, July 26, 2012

Flowers and Thoughts

more random neighborhood flowers random neighborhood flowers

Just a couple pics taken with my point and shoot on a walk to the bank last week. The day wasn't too hot which was nice since this errand needed to be done and we don't have a car and the walk is a half an hour each way. There weren't a lot of flowers still around and most I saw were starting to fade now that we're deep into summer now. We haven't been getting a lot of rain either which isn't helping things.
I wish I was more in the mood to take photos or to make art of any sort but I'm in some sort of downswing and I'll I want to do lately is read. So I've been reading a lot. I seem to feel this way a lot in summer, part of it is the heat and part of it...I don't know. Maybe all the craziness that is going on in the world lately.

Thursday, July 19, 2012

Thoughts on Inner Excavation Chapter 6

The title of Chapter 6 is: I open my heart. The idea here is to be creative with someone else or in a group. I see people talking about getting together with a friend and doing one of the exercises, but besides my husband I don't really have any friends around here and not even all that many online. I could have put in a request for someone to work with over in the Flickr group but honestly I just couldn't bring myself to do that. It reminds me too much of school when no one wanted me as a lab partner or when no one wanted me to be in some other sort of group some teacher or other tried to split us up in during some class or other. I didn't like it then and I don't feel up to it now.

I thought about trying to do something with my husband but he's busy and works third shift so trying to get together for this sort of thing during the week just doesn't work. I find trying to work in a group or with a partner I don't know well and trust to be very triggery. So in the interest in taking care of myself I'm pretty much skipping this week's stuff.

I like working alone. I'm very much an introvert and I'm okay with that. Maybe later during the weekend or next week the husband and I can get together and take portraits of each other but I'm not going to stress if it doesn't happen. I've had fun with this read along of Inner Excavation and I feel I already did a lot of work with it.

This week has been stressful. Between bank error issues (resolved thankfully) and a heat wave that only just broke, I haven't been feeling very creative or motivated to go outside and take photos (or go outside at all during the day.) I have been putting in some good reading time though, so that's been fun. I'm almost finished with Laura Anne Gilman's Retrievers series and have been totally loving it.

I've also done a bit of embroidery work on my whale art quilt. I do love playing with fun threads.

time to sew

Saturday, July 14, 2012

Slice of Life Photos

I'm taking Darrah Parker's Slice of Life Project e-course at the moment. Here are some photos that I've taken so far for this project...

books and journals

brushes

tea

breakfast

popcorn

laundry time

dishes done

on the line

Thursday, July 12, 2012

Photos from Week 5 of Inner Excavation

I'm not really new to taking self-portraits. I've been playing around with them here and there for years. This year I committed to taking at least one each Sunday of 2012 and I've been documenting that journey in this Flickr set.

Back in May I took the You Are Your Own Muse: Re-Writing The Story e-course run by Vivienne McMaster. It was awesome and so liberating. You can see the set of photos I took during that time here on Flickr.

So this chapter for Inner Excavation really isn't new for me. I even played around with the mirror meditation work a bit when I took Liz Lamoreux's Create Space course a little while ago.

I've been trying to figure out a way to go deeper with this chapter but I haven't figured that out yet. I have been taking mirror portraits and shadow photos though and here are a few that I've taken this week so far...

shadow

legs

starting the day

tired again

Art Quilt in Progress...

current project

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Finishing Chapter 4: I See Me

Well I finished up my work with chapter 4 of Inner Excavation this past weekend.

Here is the chapter page in my journal:


I see me

I played around with the "Where I Stand" Prompt but this time I did so with my Instax camera.
where i stand instax

I tucked these inside the envelope on this page:
where i stand

I had a couple other pages of photos and added some poem notes to those pages as well. Some of that content is a bit to personal to share here though so I won't be adding those pictures. All in all I enjoyed Chapter 4 a lot.

Friday, July 6, 2012

Playing Around With Paint

3 small paintings

I still haven't done the writing bits I've been planning to do this week for Inner Excavation but I did play around with paints late into the night. I'll get to the writing soon. Sometimes I just don't feel like words I guess. Or maybe I'm afraid of them.

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

What I've Been Up To...

stretch

I've been working on week four of the Inner Excavate-along and taking pictures for the first week of the Slice of Life Project. I've also been dealing with a chronic pain issue flare up in my right arm/shoulder area, which has cut down on my online and art time. It's also cutting down on the amount of pictures I'm taking at the moment.

For week four of Inner Excavation: I see me I'm working on body photos that I will later couple with some poetry bits and I'm also working on a series of "Where I Stand" photos with the twist of those being taken with my instax camera. I'll probably do a bit of writing for those too once this pain flare up passes.