A Little About Me...

Okee - first postie post about me and my art and stuff and such. Err... where to begin, eh?

Right ... so... I'm an artist. I cannot TELL you how weird it feels to write that! I've been an artist as long as I can remember, but I've drawn and painted and created to keep myself happy and make beautiful things for the people I love in life, not for commercial gain as I've found self-promotion SO difficult, doubting myself and my abilities in typical artist fashion.

The beginning? Well, as soon as I could sit upright and focus, my mum - also an artist - jammed a pencil into my eager grippy fist and let me loose on ginormous pads of paper. I can't say I created anything recogniseable, but my mother would have you believe I was a genius. Well...a genius at random squiggles and splodgy mess! Mothers, eh? Pretty much from that point on I lived life with a pencil or brush in my hand, mainly cartooning, like mum and her friends did. As time's gone by I've faffed about with various styles and would now classify myself as a mixed-media illusrative artist....in other words, I like to play with all art media and have a wide appreciation of styles and am WAY too graspy and selfish o pick just one! I wanna play with ALL of them! And why not? There are so SO many limitations in life - those we impose upon ourselves, and those imposed on us by others - that we should grasp the joy and freedom of choice whenever we can and create something that brings on a smile - even if it's just for us to brighten our lives with.

(pic: scrappy paper collage in one of my art journals. Background's a watercolour crayon/sennelier oil pastel and acrylic mix with flowers and swirls added with acrylic inks and Cosmic Shimmer inks...which are very sexy - highly recommended for adding gentle shimmery sparkle! I don't draw out collage paper shapes - just hack away at paper till it looks right. Kinda. )

In talking to friends and colleagues, I know that artists often lose their muse. Life and all its tribulations and distractions get in the way and block the beauty of what's there around us to see and feel. Often we have jobs which are all-encompasing or relationships with people whose goal is to diminish and destroy those who they feel envy towards and don't understand. And so was the case for me for a while. Family troubles, relationship nightmare and job pressure conspired to capture my fragile muse and lock her up in a room with no view and I stopped making art, bit by excrutiating bit and eventually felt that it was lost to me forever. NOT SO!! Life has a way of presenting oppotunities to find paths to freedom, to break those grim, oppressive shackles and break into the light - to a world full of colour and beauty and LOVELY people and kindness and encouragement. We have to remove the things that poison us and have the courage to embrace change. So it was for me. I left my job, and removed the destructive, small-minded people from my life and all of a sudden, the muse was back and art has been my happy and constant companion ever since!

(Pic: this was a play with acrylic paint mixed with gloss medium. It's good fun! This ...for want of a better word....'landscape' took just shy of 10 minutes with a selection of sticky splodgy gel/paint mixes and was entirely finger-painted! AWESOME messy fun - highly recommended as it really frees your mind to do splodgy quick art!)

Like most creaive people, my confidence to promote myself as an artist is low. I judge myself and my art VERY harshly - in fact, for most of my life I've ended up destroying my paintings and drawings once they're done - a weird kind of catharsis. However, thanks to the encouragement of those around me now I've found the courage not only to keep my art, bu show it around...and bizarrely, people LIKE it! I find that insanely awesome! And a bit frightening! I've been invited to exhibit in a couple of galleries and competitions, my first gallery exhibit being last autumn as part of a national exhibition of art. I've been asked to blog about my work and ideas so that people can get to know me as an artist, which is WELL freaky, but I'm taking the plunge (hence, blog) so I hope you wish me luck and remain kind in your comments.  If you're an artist please get in touch as I so love to see other peoples' work.

In my next post I'll yatter on a bit about my influences and generally about art wot I likes... and hopefully not bore the socks of you and leave you chewing off your own leg as preference to reading further! Thank you bajillions for your time - I appreciate it! Big hugs to lovely people - I'll add some pics for you to look at!

Shroo :)x

(Pic: Horsey horsey horsey! Love horsies! Awwwww.... This pony horsey cutie was done almost entirely with water soluble oil pastels/crayons. The brand used was 'Aquastic' by Cretacolor and were my first ones - just a few - bout in a closing-down sale of a local (much missed) art shop. Since then I've been seduced by the divine Neocolor II pastels by Caran D'Ache. I swear I would marry them if I could. They are a real artists must-have! Pricey in shops, but check out ebay as a lot of sellers can give you a real bargain! Oh - horsey background is torn book pages stuck with matte Mod Podge and brighter colours added with a teeny bit of acrylic crafter's paint and, again, sexy Cosmic Shimmer inks. I love that the versatility of the pastels allowed some text to show through the main image. Cool. )