Art & life

The update of my art practises and production has become non-existent as you can tell for nearly two years now, if you follow me on my other social media platforms, you would realise that I haven’t updated my art gallery on DeviantArt and similar websites since late 2019; this is purely because of the lack of supplies, not the lack of will to produce art.

I simply cannot replace art supplies as often as I want to in order to produce what I want when I want; I simply do not have the funds to do so.  However, saying that, there is a silver lining to the cloud recently, I have a small increase in my monthly budget for personal use which will be used for art supplies henceforth.  This means that shortly I will start updating my art social media again and I will also be creating a website specifically for my art, so keep a look out on that!

Practising art has had to be purely a pencil thing only, sketching has improved a lot, but it’s the painting, shading and blending I want to practise as I am not at all confident in that area yet!

I will be aiming to produce art to saleable quality by the spring of 2023, I know it’s a long way away, but it is my goal to do that.

This is why I am mentioning it on here, because soon, I will be showing some of my art here and discussing my style development as it goes along and also I will be discussing what kind of artist I am becoming, because I am not really sure yet how to categorise myself, because of the lack of practise and socialising within the art community.

This too, will change, I aim to join a couple of online art clubs soon, to try and learn more about art, but also about myself and my style – there are several clubs on offer out there and I am excited to say that this is on my agenda before the end of this summer!

I will also be making use of my patreon account finally, I have had a patreon account for around two years, but didn’t really know what to do with it, so that will be made use of by the end of the year too, not sure what I will offer on that yet, but I am thinking about that a lot!

Also as Henry is learning more and more about design technology, web building and robotic coding at school at in his after school clubs, I will be more confident in actually setting my YouTube channel up finally, again, it will all be for the end of this year!  So the end of 2022 is potentially all go for me!

I have not been writing anything towards my novels since 2^nd February because of tiredness and general home and family commitments, I will be honest with that, but all of this should have blown over and settled down by the end of summer.  The main problem in the house is that our boiler leaked and ruined two of our walls with water damage and mould, which we’re having cleaned up and redecorating, that is the major thing right now.

The boiler is fixed so there will be no further water damage, Frank has been a wonderful help with things recently, and he really is a blessing to us, so glad to be reacquainted with him!

With a confirmation that the bad neighbour is most definitely moving within the next couple of months, I am so excited that it seems that life is going to get better quite soon, it’s all very intoxicating!

So with all that going on, there should be a lot more updates on here for you to read, so that would be nice wouldn’t it?

I have been too quiet recently and I owe you more than that!

Thanks for reading and take care!

Inktober challenge 2018

 

Tomorrow is the start of Inktober and Wednesday is my 36^th birthday, yesterday Paul (my husband) and I went out to select my birthday presents and I chose to concentrate on stocking up my art supplies.  I chose to take on two new Medias this month, inks and oil paints.

As you can see in the photographs I have eight different colours from the Winsor and Newton range, traditional black Indian ink, apple green, silver-metallic aluminium, purple, blue, scarlet, sunshine yellow and peat brown; I wanted gold but they were sold out, so I have to buy them another time.  I didn’t realise until I had got home that these inks are mixable, which meant that I would have needed the white I saw there, to mix with the scarlet to make a sort of pink colour.  I learned this by watching some YouTube videos which showed me how to use the ink for various effects in art.

I am very new to inks in this format, usually I draw with inks from felt tip pens and biros, but I wanted to do something a little more traditional – so I bought a dip pen for drawing and mapping to help me, I was tempted to pick up the big black feather quill I saw there too, but I forgot to put it in the bag at the end of my shopping trip, I was limited to a budget of £75, so I wanted to see if I had more money for it at the end of the trip, I did, but I forgot it.

I also bought a pack of 28 limited edition sharpies that are fine permanent markers, another thing I have never used before.  Now all of this didn’t cost me £75, there were other things I bought too – but I took a photograph of the things I specifically bought for the start of Inktober, which is something I am trying to do very seriously this year.  I have also bought a pink mixed media sketch book with forty pages, specifically for this event. 

For those who are not in the know, Inktober is an annual event which lasts for thirty one days throughout the whole of October, where artists are urged to use inks in their art in at least one picture per day and to record these pictures on social media – the idea was bought about by a guy called Jake Parker, it’s a sort of NaNoWriMo for artists.

I am hoping that my best friend in the art world, Erin Cooper is going to do Inktober as seriously as she normally does this year as before now, I have never took on the challenge as seriously as I aim to for this year – it would be fun seeing what each other can do this month.

So, the challenge starts on October the 1^st, all you need to do is draw with inks daily, until Halloween and you’ve officially passed Inktober, miss a day and you can go to the imaginary Wall Of Shame!  Well that’s what I will do to myself, if I miss a day, lol.

 

 

Daily Pages 1 2015

Daily pages are just that, to be written daily.
If I for whatever reason have forgotten to do so, some day, please email me at misstcousins@hotmail.com and tell me to pull my finger out and write them, if you are a fellow author or artist, because I need some motivation and support in my creativity at times; being lonely and without creative friends makes me lethargic and lazy.
Usually it is required to write three pages per day in your daily pages alone until you have built a habit of writing again; I start these and do it well for about seven weeks but then I lose interest and then I do not write for three or four months at a time; this is not because I have no interest in writing or because I am forcing myself to write because I am interested in the money prospect once published – but because I get lazy, I get ill, I get side-tracked by new games online or 1000 piece puzzles and painting.
I am 32yrs old, I have only one friend offline and I see her less than once a month because I live an isolated life, because of my sickness. I am trying to see her more often, especially as she is only four doors away from my house and her name is Alona, she is Latvian and we became friends because my son and her daughter goes to school together and are in the same class and are best friends.
Alona seems to me to be the perfect friend, one that is there for you during your ups and downs and though I personally don’t see her often, she helps a lot. My husband and my son see her daily and occasionally she looks after Henry for me if I have appointments that are at the times where we should pick him up from school – he enjoys going there and playing with his best friend Alice.
I just wish I could do more for Alona, as I am sorry to say it all seems too one-sided this friendship and I feel like I am taking advantage of her good nature.
Alona’s husband is a builder and has often offered to do our house up for us for free, I couldn’t possibly allow it, he works too much as it is.
I am reading a lot more lately too, I am getting through two to three books a week now, particularly books based on art and how to paint and cosmic ordering.
I must say however, that the more I read, the less I want to write fiction because I feel that I am stealing from someone all the time or many people, I don’t think there are original ideas anymore and I don’t want to come across as a cheating fraud; I have been on numerous writers groups online and they’ve all said that I shouldn’t worry about it and just simply write and get things published as a lot of people have confidence in me that I have natural talent not only in writing but also art. I still feel fraudulent though.
Today is a Saturday when I am writing these daily pages and they won’t be published until tomorrow, daily pages will be published on my blog the day after I have written them because I am trying to get ahead in my writing of this blog.
I am a little confused by myself, I created this blog to be based mostly around fantasy short stories and it has become a personal life and poetry blog instead, fully unintentionally, I am actually disappointed in myself for allowing it to be side-tracked, but it will be side-tracked a lot from now onwards because I do plan to talk about a great number of things, from food, to culture, as well as fiction and poetry.
Horror will be present on this blog too, so if you’re going to be too squeamish it might not be for you.
I am also very spiritual and will talk about various things in regards to spirituality and the occult.
Something random, today I went the hospital for an appointment with my consultant, yes a Saturday morning, no lie ins today; and on the bus I saw a lovely site, sitting on the fence in the beautiful English countryside just outside the East side of Coventry city, between Pailton and there, was a buzzard watching some sheep and it turned its head and looked directly at me, it was amazing.
I was also confused by some hedgehogs which seemed to be up and about at midday, two in fact, in half a mile distance to one and other, I thought they were strictly nocturnal.
I am unhappy with the fur I found outside my house today too, lots of it, looks like some animal had had it ripped right out of them in the night, I was a little unsettled, because I got myself involved a few years ago online with some witch friends and I got myself an American boyfriend who turned nasty and jealous with my offline friendships in the UK and he turned my friends against me and when they hate someone they do curse them and stalk them and tend not to forget them. It makes me wonder, you know?
Though Paul my husband reckons he heard a very aggressive cat fight last night around 3am, I take his word for it because I am nearly totally deaf these days without both my hearing aids in and when I am asleep the only way I can wake up from day to day is to be patted on the rump, I can’t even hear an alarm clock!
It is weird you know to think that it is cheaper to travel 120 miles away to visit a friend to a free entry fete in Sheffield than it is to go to a local adventure playground park, I bought this up because soon it is half-term and I am thinking about doing something with my son Henry; I was hoping to take him to The Conkers Discovery Center near Ashby-De-La-Zouch and it would cost us for the whole day around £90 – 110, whereas a trip to Sheffield to visit my friend at a free classic car show will be £18 return ticket via coach, it’s a mad world.
I then looked into taking him to the nearest zoo, all costs included; train fayre, food, tickets etc. will set us back £250.
We have a leaking roof which will cost us £3000 to replace as we’ve bought this house outright now, we have a new boiler system being put in next week and we are in dire need for a skip that will cost £150 for what we need.
My health is getting really crap now, excuse my French and so, I thought enough is enough and it’s time for a change – so I decided to re-enter my interest in cosmic ordering and ho’oponoopono to get my life back to where I want it to go and not where other people are forcing it to go.
I was told for cosmic ordering to be truly beneficial to you and your life, you must not set yourself limits or be humble in what you want, you’ve got to be completely honest with yourself about what you want from life or else it will feel you are trying to cheat the system and you won’t get exactly what you want – or if you do, there will be things you will still be unhappy about – so I have made a list of the things I really truly want, to the maximum and greediest of my dreams for a perfect life.
My wants and needs are thus;
I want a garden bigger than 1.5 acres not sure how big I am willing to go, but the garden must be able to contain a large area for guinea pigs and guinea breeding and rearing (breeding to keep and show, not sell or give away). The area should contain several pens to separate males and females for selective breeding and each pen should contain 20 individuals with lots of space for toys, and a little tunnel that leads outside in the garden for fresh air. My husband Paul used to breed guinea pigs in the past, so he has the necessary experience to do this.
The garden must also be big enough for me to have an agility training area for my dogs, Paul and I have agreed we must have at least 4; one pair will breed a litter where we will keep at least 1 pup and keep that line in our family for generations if possible. Again I will show my breeding pair of dogs, the other two dogs I won’t because we plan on having a giant breed and a lapdog, the breeding pair will be some kind of spaniel or collie. I have the necessary experience to train dogs, in fact I very nearly got a job as a police dog trainer, but because the job involved me bringing home two pups to live with me during their training my mum wouldn’t let me take the job (I lived with her at the time).
The garden must also be big enough for 50 fruit trees, particularly apples and hazelnuts, as we want to hire dormice to help them breed and work with the national wildlife trust.
We also want a vegetable and fruit patch at least 50ft square.
We want a large patio area with potted herbs that’s approximately 30 by 30ft and a large BBQ area; this patio area might be extended to an outdoor swimming pool that will have a pull enclosure that’s attached to the house so we aren’t limited to using it only in the summer.
We also want a little meadow flower patch to attract bees, we want to hire a beehive, and we also want a pond big enough to take 6 Aylesbury ducks.
We also need an area to put chickens, up to 30 of them.
And a little flower garden, a football field for the kids, another field with several adventure playground apparatus for the kids and finally a little moss garden retreat for me.
Ideally this house will contain a brook or a stream flowing through the garden somewhere.
As for the house we need a lounge for visitors, a family lounge, and a large shared office for me and Paul, a huge kitchen with a dining area and room for a sofa and an island and a walk in larder, as I am Ina Garten in this family.
We also want a separate formal dining room as we will host dinners.
We also need a large art and music studio as I do compose music as well as paint and write.
A play room for the kids downstairs would be an added bonus, a downstairs toilet, an outside toilet, a three car garage, an annexe for a housekeeper, and a minimum of 5 bedrooms because I want more kids and I have relatives that travel down from Manchester a lot who needs a place to stay at Christmas time.
My life will involve painting, writing, composing, and voluntary work, prop making for theatres and going to auction houses.
Ideally I would want for nothing, never to be in the situation again of deciding between going to the hospital via bus or having £8 less in the food budget that week, which is a lot, considering the current food budget, is £50 a week.
I do not want to drive, but Paul wants a large garage for two cars, one that’s large for day trips with the kids and friends, and another little run around for us to do shopping in when the kids are at school, he also wants a RV as we’ll take regular trips to Great Yarmouth and Dorset and the peak district for photography and rock pool reasons.
We’d also like to drive across Europe from time to time.
I would love to go to the fantasycon every year; I would love to go shopping in New York at Christmas time. I would love my health to get better so I can start living now I am away from forced isolation.
I want to be able to be a Goth again (though not a strict one as I get rainbow moments, hippy moments, sexy jazzy moments, steampunk moments and middle eastern harem belly dancer moments) and to afford their plus sizes as I am not a lightweight, I can barely afford normal types of clothes, let alone alternative fashions.
I want to say to my son, yes I can buy you those Disney Cars pyjamas that are £25, there you go – I want to be able to buy things off the rack in shops and not have a buy now and pay later account in some catalogue.
I want to surrender to my urges that one day I wake up and I say to myself, I want to go by bus to town, just to go to the library and sit about for a couple of hours and then come back home without second thoughts that this will cost me £7 out of our weekly food budget.
I don’t want to sit around for 3 months waiting for me to save enough to get more brushes or paints to finish a painting I’ve started, which is a regular occurrence.
I want to make friends that are so at home with me they think they’re family – I don’t want friends that are there just for fun or just to rant about life, I want positive, creative, spiritual and family oriented people who want friends because they want emotional support, they love people, they crave being with others and sharing food and homes with them.
That’s the dream life for me.
This is what I am working towards with my cosmic ordering ideas.
Wish me luck xx