A new focus

After a crazy weekend, today was recovery day. I woke up and my limbs ached, I climbed out of bed rolled downstairs and ran a bath - pouring in a heap of Radox in the hope that it would do what it says on the tin. I made it a bit too hot and climbed in, turned on my little digital radio and listened to 6music and sank into the water. I also found the most amazing amazing meditation video on Youtube. A 50 minute extravaganza in fact, I started watching the first bit and then watched all 5 sections. Get me eh? A nice start to an almost perfect Sunday.

In my last blog post I put a few old drawings up that I did at school. A lot of those drawings were actually oil pastel pieces and pulling them out reminded me of how much I enjoyed that medium. Since then I have done a few pieces and I've decided that it really is my favourite medium. I also got all 386 pictures from Asia developed and I've started a new project where Im taking those pieces and working from them to create oil pastel art work. It's been brilliant for a few reasons - firstly its good for me to practice and remember my own skills. Its nice to also have a steady focus of a project and not be rooting around with my sketchbook trying to draw anything and everything, which has been fantastic, but it feels good to have one main pathway for a while. My brain was literally exploding at times and now this is reigning it in a bit. Its also secretly making me realise this could be a body of work which could lead to a display/or something more but I'll make those sort of decisions after I've reached a point where I'm finished. I say "secretly" because at the moment, just doing it is the main thing. I don't want the outcome to take over or cloud me.

Today sitting down and doing it with my music on was like being in heaven. I know that sounds cheesy but I was literally loving every freakin' moment of it.

Here is the first semi finished piece of a girl having her hair washed in Vietnam. This is the way round that it should be as she was upside down. I've been trying to figure out if it should stay that way round. My mum says NOPE. I think yep, but HMM be nice to know what others think:




Here is the very first piece I did of a baby in Hoi An, completely unfinished with no background. The baby was picking up a roll from the floor. I didnt manage to squeeze that in but maybe I will extend it:



At the moment, its a bit straight so I expect once I get more into it I will start to experiment with things and textures but that will evolve when Im ready. If not with this project then the next. They won't all be figure drawings - I plan to do scenic and still life shots.

Its exciting and I'm looking forward to documenting my steps over the next few months.