Learn to draw for fun - no pressure, no expectations

I believe anyone can learn to draw. Drawing is so good for us. It teaches us to be mindful, observant. It helps us slow down and unwind. Its also a really fun thing to do.

Although maybe not so much when you are first starting out. The problem with learning new things is that we often fail to give ourselves permission to be beginners. Being bad at something doesn't feel excellent. But being bad at something is the first step towards being good at it.

I don't think you need to actually be good at it to reap some of the wellness benefits. Doing something with your hands is a good way to come back to the present. To spend some time doodling is a helpful way to switch off, perhaps after work, or if you have trouble falling asleep.

Drawing is a skill anyone can learn. There are techniques and rules that anyone can learn and with enough practice become proficient. Its a question of how many hours you are prepared to put in.

Those early hours are the tough ones. Like learning anything new, the first attempts can be almost painful - just think about what it's like to have your first few lessons with a new musical instrument! Even learning to drive has similar problems - you need to know so much at once to be able to execute the task.

However, the internet provides us adult learners with a rather marvelous opportunity. You can learn almost anything in the privacy of your own home and often enough, for little or no cost. Thank you, You Tube!

Drawing is no exception. I reckon the best way to start to learn to draw is to dig out that old bic from the bottom of your handbag, grab a scrap of paper that was already on its way to the recycling bin and have a doodle. Why not?

Don’t agonise over which supplies. Don’t go and purchase a fancy new sketchbook. These things ramp up the expectations you have of yourself and turn something that could be just a bit of relaxing fun into a Big Thing.

Need some inspiration? A bit of helpful instruction? Your smartphone is close to hand, I bet…. Many lovely teachers are just waiting for you. It was tricky to narrow down the list but here are three of my fave You Tube drawing teachers:

1. Learn to draw with Alphonso Dunn

Alphonso provides weekly videos on how to draw everything. No really, that is his tagline. I would suggest heading to the playlists and going for something like the ‘how to draw everything else under the sun’ playlist. There is a drawing fundamentals playlist. My suggestion is not to start there. Time for that later. This is just supposed to be fun. It's not school. Choose a short video - 5 minutes or so. How to draw an asteroid perhaps? A raindrop?

2. Learn to draw with Art a la Carte

Art a la Carte also provides weekly art videos for all ages and skills. You might find more of the cutesy stuff over here… cartoon kitty cats for example. Fun!

3. Learn to draw with Fine art tips

Sometimes when I feel a bit tired of drawing (what? Tired of drawing??) I find almost as much enjoyment in watching someone else draw. There is something soothing and absorbing about watching someone skillfully pull a three dimensional image out of a flat empty page. I love watching the image gradually emerge. Oh, and the sexy accent doesn’t hurt….

So what are you waiting for? Let's draw something!

Did you know these intriguing koala facts?

Koalas are adorable, cuddly looking creatures.  While gathering fascinating koala facts, I noticed that koalas have some fairly human qualities like opposable thumbs and fingerprints. But being marsupials they have other rather intriguing characteristics too...

Did you know...?

• Koalas have two opposable thumbs on their front paws
• Koalas have similar fingerprints to humans
• Koalas are excellent swimmers, and may cross rivers in order to escape from heavy flooding in one area.
• Koalas don't live in one single tree - their ‘home' is made up of several trees called Home Trees in an area described as the Home Range. They visit these same trees regularly.
• A mature male koala marks his territory by rubbing the dark, sticky substance from the scent gland in the centre of his white chest on his trees.
• The size of each home range depends upon a range of factors including the quality of the habitat and the sex, age and social position in the population of the Koala.
• Koalas are rather anti social...Unless breeding, they don’t normally visit another Koalas home trees and only spend 15 minutes a day in social activity.
• A baby koala (joey) is born only 33-35 days after being conceived - (don't tell Mrs Whale... that poor love gets to be pregnant for two years!).
• When the Joey is born, it’s only about 2 centimetres long, is blind and furless and its ears are not yet developed.
• The joey makes an amazing journey to the pouch, relying on its strong forelimbs and claws, its well-developed senses of smell and touch, and an inborn sense of direction.
• Once in the pouch, it attaches itself to one of the two teats which swells in its mouth, preventing it from being dislodged from its source of food.
• The Joey stays in its mother’s pouch for about 6 or 7 months, drinking only milk.
• Gum leaves are toxic to most.. even to baby koalas! Don't even ask how the joey is weaned from milk to gum leaves....

Want to see some more of these beautiful, but vulnerable creatures? Why not head over to Healesville Sanctuary, either in person or a cyber visit! Healesville Sanctuary is quite my favourite place to go visiting koalas.

A very good reason my kids are glad not to be a baby koala

Who doesn’t love a koala? My children adore them. In fact for a while they thought it would be great to actually be a baby koala.

We went to a birthday party recently with the ‘zoo that comes to you’. Rather impressive all told. In their friend’s living room the children got to see and touch and learn about a whole lot of Australian animals… not least of which was a koala.

They learned all sorts of things about all the animals. They even got to cuddle a koala. And they learnt one very good reason to be really glad that they are not koalas, after all.

I totally see the appeal of the baby koala and why they thought being one might be a good idea. Koalas are cute and cuddly… just like a teddy bear. That is why some people call them koala ‘bears’. It’s a misnomer - they are not bears at all, but marsupials.

And the life of a baby koala seems pretty OK…. Koalas sleep for 18-20 hours every day and spend the rest of the time eating. They live in trees - they even sleep in trees (this holds enormous appeal to those under 8!) When they are hungry the trees they live in provide all the food they want, ready to hand. They don’t usually need to drink much either as the leaves they consume provide significant moisture for them.

A baby koala is carried by the mother, tucked in her cosy pouch for about 6 months. They also ride on mummy koala’s back or abdomen. The baby koala stays with mum for 1-3 years. The easy life. All rather sweet.

But… and for my children it is a rather big ‘but’…

Gumleaves are toxic to most animals, including a baby koala. When they begin weaning off their mother’s milk, their digestive systems are not yet mature enough to tolerate the gum leaves. So instead they get to eat their mothers poop…

Yes, I’m afraid so. It is called ‘pap’ and it is a special form of predigested gumleaves made just for the little joey.

This does not comfort my children.

The pap is a specialised form of the mother’s droppings that is soft and runny. It allows the mother to pass on to the baby koala (joey) special micro-organisms from her intestine which are necessary for it to be able to digest the gumleaves. The joey  will feed on this for a few weeks, just before it comes out of the pouch at about 6 or 7 months of age.

So maybe my children don't get to sit about in trees all day sleeping and eating like koalas do. But they haven't complained quite so much about my dinner menu recently either…

Thanks, Zoo that comes to you…. I’m calling that a parenting win.

Use your artist's eyes to find a little more daily happiness

It is a privilege to be able to see the world through artist's eyes. The same privilege as it is to see the world through the eyes of a child. Have you ever taken a walk with a three year old? In 100m there will be a surprising amount of fascinating diversions. Every ant, shadow and unusual shaped leaf can absorb and entertain a child. We probably don’t even notice these things.

But if you are open to it, as we all are as children, there is awe and beauty in every dewdrop balanced on a leaf tip, the shafts of new light through the trees, the contrast of red and gold autumnal leaves against a perfect blue sky.

Finding the joy in these things is the path to a little more happiness in every day. Far more so than in the ‘big’ things, like winning the lottery or getting that promotion.

If you want to reawaken that child-like awe, the easiest way to do it so to draw something. You don't need to draw well, you just need to practice using your artist's eyes. And yes, we do all  have artist's eyes, whether you believe it or not.

Drawing is 90% looking and 10% drawing. It requires the abandonment of judgement and preconception. You know that the your teacup is round but right now, from this angle, the rim actually looks like an oval.  You know mountains don’t really have blue grass but right now those mountains do indeed look blue .

Being required to see things just as they appear rather than how you think they are supposed to be, forces you to really notice your world. If you draw and paint regularly you start to see the world in all its glory again. The shadow pattern made on the carpet by the light from the window can somehow enthrall. The arrangement of a throw, a pillow and book tossed on your chair in the living room delights. Maybe it's the composition. Maybe it is the marriage of colours - quite coincidental but even more lovely for it. These small things are enough to lift your spirits just that little bit.

In a world that bombards us with a constant stream of usually less than positive news events, the little dose of happy to be found in every part of our environment is just the counterbalance we need.

Do you know these surprising facts about whales?

surprising facts about whales arttally

In honour of the fourth and final whale in my series of animal panels I have put together a collection of surprising facts about whales. They are truly amazing creatures. Did you know....

• Only one half of the whale’s brain sleeps at a time. This is because whales are mammals and cannot breathe under water. At all times they need enough brain function to keep breathing by swimming to the surface.

• Sperm whales dive down to the ocean floor and then catch a nap standing up. Their naps last about 12 minutes during which time they rise slowly to the surface in their upright position, head first.

• Whales are believed to have descended from land animals that returned to the water roughly 50 million years ago after living millions of years on land.

• The beluga whale is actually capable of facial expressions. Some times the beluga appears to be smiling or frowning as its lips and the crescent of fat that forms the forehead are both highly mobile

• Some amazing adaptations of the sperm whale include the ability to limit blood circulation to the brain and other organs, slow the heart to 10 beats per minute to conserve oxygen, and collapse the lungs and rib cage. These unique physiological adaptations are necessary to withstand the intense cold and crushing pressure of the sperm whale's two mile dives.

• Toothed whales hunt their prey using echolocation. The reliance on sound as the whale's most critical sense explains the small size of their eyes relative to their bodies

• Blue whales are the loudest creature on earth. Like all baleen whales they use sonar communication at very low frequencies. The blue whale's cry measures 188 decibels - louder than a jet which is 140 decibels.

• The enormous weight of the whale is supported by the water rather than large heavy bones which it would require if it were on land. A blue whale would be crushed by its own weight on land given its bone structure

• Whales do not actually drink any seawater - they extract water from their food by metabolizing the fat

• Some whales don't have teeth - they have plates called baleen which filter fish from the water which are then swallowed whole. Baleen is made of keratin like hair and nails. Sometimes baleen whales are referred to as ‘mustached’ whales

• Whales move through the water by moving their tails up and down vertically - this is different from fish who move their tails horizontally to swim

• The heart of the blue whale weighs about 1000 pounds and is about the size of a VW Beetle. A human child would be able to crawl through the aorta to the heart.

• Killer whales and pilot whales are actually classed as dolphins not whales, despite their name

If you want to know more about these awe-inspiring creatures you might want to start here.

Have a whale of a day!

12 things you want to know about acrylic paint

Whale acrylic paint arttally

If you are getting started with painting there are 12 things you want to know about acrylic paint:

1. It washes up with water - no smelly, toxic solvents required as may be the case with something like oil

2. It is very forgiving - you can paint over anything you want to change or adjust very quickly. Acrylic paint has excellent opaque coverage so even if you have a deep purple area you can paint over it with a pale colour or even white and it will be completely covered - this is not the case with watercolour!

3. Your finished painting is completely dry straight away - unlike oil paintings where some museum curators will not consider the painting totally dry until it is 50 years old

4. You can paint on almost anything - acrylic paint is made of pigment suspended in water and mixed with an acrylic binder. Yes, that is basically plastic! Paint on paper, canvas or wood like my little whale

5. Acrylic paint comes in marker form - hurrah! There are several brands available now such as Posca, Molotow and Montana. Some of these markers are even refillable. They come in different nib sizes and shapes, even brush tips. I used acrylic markers for the whale and the doodles in the picture in this post as well as all my paintings in the animal panel series.

6. You can make it translucent for glazing - You can mix it with a matte or gel medium which is really just pigment free paint. This will make it more translucent and enable you to make glazes over the top of your existing work

7. You can add texture and/or increase the drying time. While fast drying time is often described as an advantage, you may want to work wet in wet and blend the paint like an oil painter. You can still do this with acrylic paint by adding the right medium to it. Many different acrylic mediums are available eg, texture paste, flow medium

8. Acrylic paint plays so nicely with other art supplies. If you choose a particularly matte acrylic paint you can use your coloured pencils over the top. Try it out with watercolours too.

9. It is still relatively 'new' as art media goes. This means we don't really know how it is going to stand the test of time

10. It was first created in the lab in 1901 by Dr Otto Rohm

11. in the 1950s acrylic paint was commercially produced as interior house paint

12. Early adopters of acrylic paint in the art world include Moris Louis, Kenneth Noland, Mark Rothko, Robert Motherwell, Barnett Newman, Roy Lichtenstien, Andy Warhol and Bridget Riley.

Want to know about Girl Power?... Ask these whales

Ok I know I am going out on a limb here as whales are probably not the totem that springs to mind when we think of girl power. But maybe it should be.... did you know....

Whales have BFFs

Yes, they do!

The Mingan Island Cetacean Study group have discovered that female humpback whales not only make friends with one another but reunite each year.  Whales are not as unsociable as was once thought. They remember their friends and even find them across the ocean and among other whales.

As any BFF knows, friendship is good for you. Even if you are a whale. Female  humpbacks who form friendships are healthier and give birth to more calves each year. When they meet up with each other they simply float along together, eating and enjoying each other’s company. Some of these friendships are known to have lasted up to 6 years.

Interestingly, friendships between females and males (or even male-male friendship) are mostly unheard of. No one quite knows why, but only the girls have BFFs.

Whales have midwives

When a calf is born, the mother whale is usually surrounded by midwives. While the mother recovers the these midwives help the newborn stay at the surface so that it can breathe.

And mother whale deserves the support, if you ask me - blue whales are pregnant for nearly two years! A blue whale calf is 7.5m long at birth. The baby blue whale gains 3.7kg an hour until it is about 8 months old. By this time it weights about 22.5 tonnes. That's a lot of nursing....

The baby blue whale drinks enough milk to fill a bathtub every day.  The milk from the blue whale has the consistency of cottage cheese and is about half fat. No wonder someone wrote a poem about milking a whale...

Whales value motherhood

Some female beluga whales have been seen carrying small objects, floats or buoys and even complete caribou skeletons on their heads or backs. The whales treat these objects like calves. Scientists surmise that for the whales, these objects are surrogate babies. Aww.

A group of sperm whales adopted a bottlenosed dolphin with a deformed spine. It is thought that the misshapen dolphin would have been rejected by his own kind, or simply not been able to keep up with them. However, the dolphin was taken in by the gentle whales.

Go on... spread the love...Why not share this post with your BFF today?

The whale is poetry in motion

The whale is poetry in motion. Whales are the subject of my next set of animal panels. I rather enjoyed putting together this set. Don't get me wrong - I enjoy them all, but I think it was the colours in this set that made me feel particularly happy.  And what is more delightful than a whimsical whale?

A whimsical whale poem or two, perhaps?

The Whale

The Whale is found in seas and oceans, Indulging there in fishlike motions, But Science shows that Whales are mammals, Like Jersey cows, and goats, and camels.

When undisturbed, the Whale will browse Like camels, goats, and Jersey cows, On food that satisfies its tongue, Thus making milk to feed its young.

Asking no costly hay and oats, Like camels, Jersey cows, and goats, The Whale, prolific milk producer, Should be our cheapest lactic juicer.

Our milk should all come from the sea, But who, I ask, would want to be— And here the proposition fails— The milkmaid to a herd of Whales?

by Ellis Parker Butler

Never ever keep a whale in your pond

Did you ever hear of the tale, about the Man...who kept in a small pond...a rather huge Whale.

(in my opinion, he should have gone to jail)

In this pond...the Whale would miserably sit, whilst the Man`s friends...all stared and pocked at it.

Then one night...the rains did heavily drop, and from the pond...the Whale did hop.

(not much of a hop, more of a twist and a belly flop)

And still the rains...did not cease to stop.

Flooding the land and lifting the house, up a tree...ran a door mouse.

Then the house started to move and float, being nudged by the Whale...it was now moving like a speed boat.

To the Ocean...they set sail, the house being pushed ever faster...by the huge Whale.

Now the man lives...all alone out at sea,

with the Whales now charging Dolphins...a small fish fee,

to see The Hairless Monkey...that belongs...back in a tree. by James Irwin

Fun facts about the giraffe

Whenever I pick a subject to draw and paint in a series like this, one of my favourite things to do is to investigate the subject a little further. Totally nerd up the whole process.

With the giraffe, that research process has been well worth while. Check out these fun facts about the giraffe:

• giraffes only need 5-30 minutes sleep per day. They often take little naps that last only a minute or two, and can rest standing up
• the lungs of the giraffe hold 55 litres of air
• a giraffe's heart is 0.6m long and weighs 11 kg. It is the largest of  any land mammal.
• NASA did research on the valves in the blood vessels of the giraffe to aid in the design of space suits. In order to protect the giraffe’s brain from sudden changes in blood pressure when it lowers its head to drink, it has valves to stop the back-flow of blood and elastic-walled vessels that dilate and constrict to manage flow
• the giraffe has a blue-purple tongue that is 53cm (21 inches) long. It is thought that this dark colour on the tip is to protect the tongue from sunburn as it is mostly out gathering leaves.
• the giraffe’s tongue has thickened papillae, which helps to protect it from the vicious thorns of the Acacia tree that it favours. In addition, thick saliva is also believed to help to protect the giraffe’s tongue and mouth against the defensive mechanisms of their favourite food.
• giraffes eat most of the time, chewing the cud like cows do and eat about 34kg of leaves per day
• despite its significant length, the giraffe's neck is not long enough to reach the ground so in order to drink so it has to kneel or spread its front legs
• although some people think that the giraffe does not make a noise, it can moo, grunt, hiss and snort - it just usually chooses not to.  Studies also suggest that giraffe can communicate with sounds that are below the level of human hearing.
• the beautiful patterns on the giraffe are designed to camouflage them in the African plains. Like fingerprints, no two giraffe have identical markings.
• the giraffe species name is  Giraffa camelopardalis because it has a small hump between its neck and its back and can go for many days without drinking like a camel, and because its markings are similar to the leopards 'spots'.

If you have still not had enough of giraffes, you might want to head over to the National Geographic website to check out a range of photos and facts about the awesome giraffe. You might also enjoy the comprehensive information from the San Diego Zoo over here.

What will you try today? ...consider Picasso's advice...

"God is really only another artist. He invented the giraffe, the elephant and the cat. He has no real style, He just goes on trying other things." Pablo Picasso.

Excellent point, Picasso.

Let's let go of norm and expectation and try new, different things.

Play. Experiment.

This is good advice if you are an artist worrying about finding your style.

But really, it is good advice for all of us, in our daily lives. Life presents us with a veritable smorgasbord of opportunities. It would be a shame to miss out by not trying whatever we can.  Sticking only to what we know deprives us of the chance to discover new joys.

What will you try today?

It's a rough start if you are a baby giraffe!

Giraffe no 2 Mixed Media on Wood Panel by Kerrie Woodhouse

It amazes me how graceful a giraffe is with that long neck and spindly legs that seem to go on forever. It seems to me that having these attributes could actually be a bit awkward.

It certainly makes it interesting when a baby giraffe is born. The mother giraffe gives birth standing up. When you consider that a mother giraffe can be as tall as up to about 6 metres (20 feet), those baby giraffes get a pretty rough start to life!

After a 15 month gestation period, the baby giraffe (calf) commences life with a fall to the ground of almost 2 metres. No matter... within the hour the baby giraffe is usually up and about. A giraffe calf can run 10 hours after birth. Rather impressive.

A giraffe calf weighs around 100 kilograms and is about 2 metres tall at birth. This height will be doubled in the first year. Calves stay with their mothers until they are 15-18 months old.

Count on a giraffe to brighten your day

I am painting giraffes this week, and a jolly cheery thing it is to do.

I started out with bright colourful backgrounds I loved .... (and a cup of tea)

And then did some sketches of various giraffes...

and then found that I was quite paralysed when it came to putting the giraffes on the backgrounds. It is hard when you have something you like in the background because you can't help but worry about messing it up. And in a sketch, all is forgiven.  Lines that are not quite right seem okay in the sketch, but when you start painting the sketch they start to scream at you.

However, I bravely committed.  And I am now resolving to paint more giraffes because they are such a remarkable animal.  A most unusual beast. I have learned all sorts of things about them (no fear.... there is more on that in another post...) but today there is something else I want to share.

There is a most wonderful story about a giraffe. It is a children's story... my very favourite kind of story. Like all the best children's stories it has a message for us all. It is a tale about celebrating your uniqueness, forging your own path, knowing you can do anything you put your mind to by finding your own special way.

The book is called Giraffes Can't Dance by Giles Andreae. There are also narrated videos of the picture book available on You Tube. Happily I watched quite a few of them today.... all in the name of research. I think this one is my favourite. Check it out  - it's very short, and sure to brighten your day (whatever age you may be).... here is the link.

How to feel calmer in one minute

Monkey 4 Mixed Media on Wood Arttally

Here we are at monkey number 4. It always feels rather good to get to the end of a complete series. This little monkey is sitting quietly noticing the world around her. We all need to do that too. Being busy is easy. It feels inevitable somehow. Remembering to take a little time out and sit for a moment.... that is much harder. But so important.

I think we are probably all aware of how valuable meditation is,  but how many of us have managed to make this a habit?

For many of us the excuse is time. Somehow finding time in the day to sit and essentially 'do nothing' seems impossible and even counterproductive if you schedule is stretched already. The other excuse is that it is too hard, it takes too long to learn, that you are too restless and can't quieten your thoughts.

How much easier would your life be in you knew how to feel calmer in one minute?

Because one minute is actually all you need.

Even one minute of sitting quietly can make you feel significantly better. Whether it is a little anxiety, a little frustration, overwhelm, or tiredness, you might just be surprised at the difference a minute can make. Try it and see... its worth a shot.  Here is a little video that explains it all and gives you a chance to try it now for yourself. And there is a free app you can download called One Minute Meditation.

I love the idea of taking one minute to reset. No yoga mat, no meditation cushion. But I do rather like having a bit of help. By which I mean that while a moment of silence is immensely valuable, there are times when I like to have some more specific audio guidance.

If you do too, you might appreciate the free resources available at just-a-minute.org. There are a series of one minute meditations available that cover all sorts of things such as visualisation, relaxation and concentration. They even have one minute meditations for kids. All these meditations are available free either to stream or download.

And may you have a calmer day because of it.

Play! Every day.... yes, even if you are an adult

Play! Every day..... yes, even if you are an adult... in fact, especially if you are an adult.  Children don't need to be told to play, but sadly, we adults do seem to need telling.

The Importance of Playing

One of the reasons I love to draw and paint is that  for me it is play. And play is so important, for adults as well as children.  Playfulness certainly influences my choice of subject matter. Just like these little guys. These monkeys remind me to play. They represent fun - something I choose to look for in each and every day.

There are so many reasons adults should be playing. Even playing video games can improve your quality of life and actually (contrary to what we may believe) it can make us more imaginative and improve our social skills. Playing reduces stress, increases our opportunities to bond with others who share our playful interests, and gives us something to look forward to.

Fave Quotations

I'd like to share some wise words (not mine!). These are some of my favourite quotations on the subject.

• "In every real man a child is hidden that wants to play." Frederic Nietsche

• "It is a happy talent to know how to play." Ralph Waldo Emmerson

• "A person's maturity consists in having found again the seriousness one had as a child, at play." Frederic Nietsche

• "Whoever wants to understand much must play much." Gottfried Benn.

• "Play is the highest form of research." Albert Einstein.

• "The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct."  Carl Jung.

• "You've achieved success in your field when you don't know whether what you are doing is work or play." Warren Beatty

• "You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation." Plato

The importance of true grit

If I am honest, I have reached a bit of a lull in my quest to willingly post my daily creations. But I think this is an inevitable part of a creative process. The initial enthusiasm that comes with a new idea gets you going. Then that steam runs out and it becomes a question of persistence.  To keep on placing one foot in front of the other. Now is the time to understand the importance of true grit.

Jerry Seinfeld talks about marking a cross on the calendar every day that he does some writing. The point is to make a chain of crosses. Not to write something brilliant. But simply to show up and write. Every day.

So I feel that that is where I am right now.  Making the most of the opportunity to demonstrate that I have some grit.  I really don't like that word, somehow. But persistence (grit) has been shown to be a key predictor of success. (There is a TED talk by Angela Lee Duckworth that explains the importance of grit, if you happen to be in the mood for a vid!)

To be persistent you have to be okay with imperfection, with failure even. Persistence is continuing in spite of setbacks.  A setback can just be a call to your creativity, awakening your problem solving equipment in order to find a way to move forward.

“The most important thing about art is to work. Nothing else matters except sitting down every day and trying.” ― Steven Pressfield

Persistence is probably what the 'p' stands for in professional. An amateur stops when things become hard, or when enthusiasm and inspiration wane. A professional continues doggedly on, whether they feel like it or not. Writers know all about this. For example,

“I write only when inspiration strikes. Fortunately it strikes every morning at nine o'clock sharp.” ― W. Somerset Maugham

The effort of persisting is very worthwhile, though. It is helpful to keep a mental note of past successes achieved through perseverance. Recalling these successes is a great encouragement when your persistence is being tested again.  So I have seen for myself that continual practice, in small but steady ways really does build your skills. I am choosing to see this as an opportunity to rack up another mental note of successful perseverance in the memory banks. We will mark the occasion with this whimsical monkey swinging through mixed media vines on a wooden panel.

By the way, there is a test you can do to determine how 'gritty' you actually are. So if you love a personality test or two (let's be honest... who doesn't?) you can try this one...

Whimsy is fun

The next set of animal panels for this month feature this crazy little monkey.

Apparently I can't stay away from whimsy.  Whimsy is fun, and the reason I started painting in the first place was to have fun.  Life is serious enough. So for me, painting is about a return to the simplicity of childhood. If it is cute and silly and colourful, I love it.

What better way is there to add a bit of fun to every day?

"Today was good. Today was fun. Tomorrow is another one."  Dr. Seuss

Painting on wood

Owls 4 Mixed Media on Wood June 2015

I have been loving painting on wood.  It felt like a very modern thing to do. How wrong I was about that!

A very brief history lesson

Apparently, wood was the substrate used by most artists until the 16th century.  It was a very prestigious medium in Greece and Rome. The oldest surviving Greek paintings are a series of 6th century BC painted tablets from Pitsa.

The old masters painted on many different types of wood, depending on what was locally available. For example, Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) painted on poplar when he was in Venice and on oak when in the Netherlands and southern Germany. Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) used oak for his paintings in France. Hans Holbein (1497/8–1543) used oak while working in southern Germany and England.

The move towards canvas

In the 16th century, canvas began to gain popularity in Venice. Italians were making the best quality canvas at that point, for sails. Mantegna led the change from wood to the cheaper and more portable option of canvas.

Canvas has been the substrate of choice for all serious works of art since then. However, wooden panels have seen something of a renaissance recently and are being recognised as one of the most durable and archival supports available to painters today.

The advantages of painting on wood

I love wood because of its smooth surface. It feels more like working on paper than canvas does. The smoothness and firmness means that it is easier to use many different media on wood compared to canvas. For me, this increases the level of detail I might be able to achieve. I also appreciate the greater freedom this accords me when correcting for those little 'accidents' happy or otherwise.

You can even use watercolour on wood.

Sourcing wood for painting

I do understand that since it is only wood, it is possible to paint on any piece of wood. That is just a little bit too much effort prior to getting into the fun of painting for my liking. If you are more patient and skilled at carpentry than I, you can find your own wood, or even hardwood and gesso it to create a lovely solid, smooth painting surface. Lori McNee demonstrates in this video, if you are interested.

But my preference is for ready-to-go cradled wood panels.  I kept seeing artists using them in my online travels and they appear to be easily available in America and Europe. However, I live in Australia, and they have been hard to find out here.  I have finally found some (obviously...) Cavalier Art ship Australia wide, as far as I understand, so if you are a fellow Aussie that might help you out.

I rather like that what was old is now new again. I am happily embracing wood panels and looking forward to experimenting a bit more with them. Hopefully, you will too!

Put your stress in perspective

It is so easy to get embroiled in the minutiae of daily life. Chores pile on top of wish lists. Supermarket queues and incompetent drivers add a layer of frustration to the day. Everything seems urgent. Overwhelm can ensue.

And then every so often, life sends you a little reminder to take a step back, to put things in perspective. Today, Thing Two (my son, age eight) cut his head open with a cricket bat. He is perfectly alright now, after a trip to the plastic surgeon to dig out the remaining bits of the bat and stitch everything back together.

A minor emergency is a great clarifier, it seems. Funny how when needs must, a full day's itinerary can be shelved to deal with something that actually is important.

The most valuable things in life are not on any to-do list. Caring for our loved ones, spending a moment to feel gratitude for our cherished families is a most helpful way to reevaluate our priorities.

Perhaps all those tasks on your list - in whatever stage of completion - are not worthy of the stress we allow them to cause us.

Amazing facts about the owl

Whenever I choose something to draw, one of the things I love most is how studying its form in order to capture a likeness makes your curiosity about the subject grow.  It is one of the things I love most about art. It can take you away from your everyday worries for a little to ponder something completely different.  To contemplate and appreciate the world around us.

I chose owls for this first set in the June series because I think there is something a little bit special about them. Quiet, graceful, knowing.  They are really not like any other bird.

We probably think of them as birds of prey, grouping them in our minds with hawks and eagles. But there is a school of thought in the taxonomy of these birds that their closest relatives are in fact hummingbirds and kingfishers. Hawks and eagles are diurnal hunters and therefore considered a little more primitive, akin to the cranes, herons, and other prehistoric-looking birds.  Owls are nocturnal hunters, cleverly avoiding competition by hunting in opposite hours to the birds of prey.

One of the owl's most distinguishing features is its eyes. Those large round eyes are in fact completely immobile. They are not 'balls' as such but are shaped more like tubes.  Unlike other birds, owl eyes are on the front of the head rather than the side, giving them the more human quality of binocular vision.

Of course, having totally immobile eyes, no matter how captivating they may be, is something of a limitation. The owl compensates by being able to rotate its head 270 degrees - not full circle as we may have liked to believe.

Being able to rotate your head in an almost complete circle does mean that you will be asking rather a lot of your neck.  The owl neck has fourteen vertebrae, twice the number found in other birds. These vertebrae facilitate the impressive range of motion. Such a range of motion however, creates its own set of problems.

Twisting at the neck so dramatically impacts the blood circulation to the brain.  The owl has some rather amazing  systems to deal with this issue. For example it has developed alternative blood vessel routing and air-cushioned vessel casings to prevent rupture and stroke during violent head motion. And when neck movement cuts off circulation, the owl has special blood-pooling systems that collect blood to power their brains and eyes.

What a remarkable creature the owl is.

If you would like to know more about the amazing owl here are some good places to start:

• 10 Awesome facts about owls
• Video: True facts about the owl
• Comprehensive information on owls from Bioexpedition.com

Creative courage

One of the things that I never really understood before was just how much courage creativity takes.

I have to admit that I spent an extraordinarily long time 'arranging my workspace' when I started this painting. I kept telling myself - its just paint and wood.... nothing to fear, surely?

And once you manage to get over that initial resistance its so much fun. I love colour. Splashing it about for the background just makes me happy. And I love my acrylic markers. I had some loud music going at first (I usually do... Only when that album was finished and I had silence did I notice the delightful scratch of the marker tip on the wood panel. Inexplicably soothing.

Indulging your creative side is a fascinating journey of self discovery. I don't think there are any solutions to finding creative bravery really, other than to feel the fear and do it anyway.  That is what bravery is anyway, isnt it? It is not the absence of fear but the taking of action in spite of the fear.

"It takes a lot of courage to show your dreams to someone else." - Erma Bombeck

"Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties." - Erich Fromm

"Creativity comes from trust. Trust your instincts." - Rita Mae Brown