Day 4 A single word focus

Day 4 Beyond Layers Task: Think of one single word, mood or thought...... and then set out to create a photo around your theme.

Work Always - Day 21

A work of art is a world in itself,

reflecting senses and emotions of the artist’s world.

Hans Hofmann

Art is a spiritual path for some, a way to reflect on what is within us, and on what is important in our lives, a way to grow. We need to commune, to communicate with others. Speaking words calls for a listener, just as an author longs to be read, and just as making art calls for a viewer. We can be own listener or our own viewer (as in a diary) and this can be all the purpose of our art. But when someone else shares this communication with us we feel “listened to”. One comment is enough for me to feel that someone has listened, and the satisfaction of seeing my blog grow with an archive of my own work helps too.

If we have the opportunity to have many comments or be featured somewhere (like a gallery exhibition) we feel affirmed, that we have said through our art something timeless and beautiful, or relevant to others. I'd be proud of that, but it's the process of becoming myself that's most important, and seeing how my work is changing and growing with me as I learn more techniques and sensibilities.

The artists I choose to be my guides or inspiration (like you, Kim!) help us begin the process, but it's those who take it further to produce something uniquely their own who are truly artists. I feel that I'm in the 'copying the master' stage, but the skills I am learning excite me and give wings to my own ideas.

Kim's excerpt from Julia Cameron's Artist Way is a relief:

'As artists we wish we could always work well, but we must settle for always. The 'always' we can control. The 'well' we cannot control. For this reason, we do well simply to serve, to focus more on the process of doing our work than on the 'product' of work produced.'

So here is a treasure of my heart... 

A Week of Colour

Day 19 of kim Klassen's Beyond Layers course set the challenge of a colour a day for a week. Since I'm so behind, I did a storyboard of my colours, using pics I've taken in the past year.

Day 18 Black and White tips

Well, after experimenting by changing to monochrome setting on my camera, I hear from Kim's next lesson in Beyond Layers that I shouldn't limit my picture by committing to black and white. Kim gives so much information and so many ideas that I am blown away by the possibilities. I've chosen to do only a few of the ideas as my picture felt finished.

Here I took a colour portrait that I've always liked and converted it to black and white in Photoshop Elements 9. I played with Camera Raw, healed a few spots that had scanned on, and added a texture - Kim's Graduation Day in Multiply mode at about 50 % opacity.



Next I took a black and white photo I had taken in an old Australian country cemetery and experimented in Camera Raw. I added Kim's Aurora texture in Soft Light mode at about 20%.

Working in Black and White

Day 17 of Kim Klassen's Beyond Layers Course

This week Kim focussed on fears that block action in our lives. A great book I read on this years ago has a wonderful title - 'Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway' by Susan Jeffers. There's something about the exhileration of pushing through and doing something in a state of fear that makes coming through the other side so worthwhile.

Our assignment was to work with black and white. I found how to switch my camera to view in b&w and used 'liveview' on my Nikon D90, which helped me to see how it would look, rather than just converting a coloured image later to b&w.

Here are some treasures from the sea...

A Whisper of Art

One action ripples out to affect the future...

10 Truths About Me

This week in Kim Klassen's Beyond Layers course, we are asked for 10 truths about ourselves and a picture to match.

1. My home is a sea-change. We're surrounded by forest and beautiful beaches and I don't get out in it enough! My nest is too cosy!

2. My 'Sewing' room has become a dedicated creative space for so many activities and I wish I had more time to do stuff in it!

3. Two nicknames my partner calls me are 'Clutterbunny' and 'Queen of Clutter'. And it's true! I collect interesting and beautiful things.

4. I get excited about so many things to do in life – and take on too much. I don't feel I achieve depth in many of my efforts because I try to do too much at once.

5. I always wanted children from when I was a teenager and would dream that I found an abandoned baby in a basket on our doorstep, and it fell to me to love it.

6. I had to wait many years before finding the right partner and starting to have my babies at 38. Now I have three beautiful children of my own who teach me about myself push me to grow in more ways than I'd expected.

7. Creating and re-creating is my meditation, my 'living in the present moment' time to reflect on my life and be alone in the midst of the busy family life. I've always carved out a niche of time to do this – quilting, card-making, doing up old furniture, photography, writing... even if the housework suffers.

8. I want to leave something of myself in this world that makes it a better place. I volunteer some of my talents to help my community, while trying to balance the stress of fitting it all in and keeping time for my family, too.

9. I yearn for close friends to talk with about life, the Universe and learning to grow, and I love a good honest chat over a cuppa. The wonderful women in my book group are a balm for my soul. The Internet is opening up possibilities for sharing and connecting deeply to others, too. I have one dear close friend who knows me and accepts me for who I am. She's a treasure! We just pick up from where we left, even years later.

10. Books are my friends too, along with the Internet, and I love to learn and reflect. Taking action is my biggest challenge, but I try to change things within my power – growing in patience, understanding, ways of speaking, being positive, noticing what my family needs, my attitudes and way of being in the world....and I always write too much!

The textures used on the photos were Kim's KK Musiclovin and the lower one from Jerry Jones (http://shadowhousecreations.blogspot.com/).