WOYWW #663: Keeping my head above water

Thanks so much to those of you who left messages of support on my previous blog post. It really means a lot. As things are now I'm keeping my head above water - my blood pressure is under control with medication, but now I'm having panic attacks and can't sleep very well. Last night I slept like 2-3 hours and been up since 2.a.m. Not good. Lucky, it's my day-off today. If you can recommend an effective OTC remedy, please let me know! So far I've tried CBD gummies and passion flower extract. Nytol seems to help but it makes me drowsy the next day - I'll have to take one tonight though. When I told my GP about my panic attacks, he didn't seem too interested. Perhaps I wasn't dramatic enough. But enough of my moaning - I'm here to share me desk for WOYWW! 

I took this shot last night. It shows my 100-day-project journal. Yes, it is that time of year again! I'm not doing a full page each day - that would be way too much for me to tackle. I'm only adding a layer a day and call my project 10X10 layers - so it's just 10 pages during the hundred days with 10 layers on each, which should be very manageable, leaving me with enough time to work on other things. These are the first three layers on my first page.

Here's the cover of the journal I made specifically for this project:

You can see some of my other pages below completed for  various challenges in the last few weeks - and a video flip-through of my corrugated cardboard pieces at the end. 

 

Thanks for visiting!

I'll try to catch up with everyone later! 

WOYWW #660: A difficult post with sad news

Just as well that I announced last time that I will blog less frequently - I wouldn't have had the strength to write this post sooner anyway. I'm not sure I'm ready for it now. 

A couple of days after my last post I received the devastating news from my father back in Hungary that my mother had had a massive stroke. The doctors didn't give him any hope that she would survive. She died three days later never having regained consciousness. It came out of the blue - she was in generally good health, but she did have high blood pressure and had stopped taking her medication because of the side effects. I spoke to the whole family over Zoom on Christmas Eve and she seemed fine. They even went on a nature trail during the holidays and there were no warning signs. She was 75 years old. Her mother died of a stroke at around the same age as well, as did my other grandmother, so I'm probably genetically predisposed myself. 

A few days later I ended up in A&E too with very high blood pressure, literally off the charts - no doubt caused by the stress. I wasn't unwell just very panicky so the out-of-hours GP sent me in at 2 am. I'm on medication now and my BP has come down but it's still higher than normal. Because of this ongoing health concern on top of the escalating Covid situation on the Continent, I can't go back for the funeral. I'll see my family some time in the Spring/Summer instead, when hopefully things will have normalised. 

Here's a photo of me with my mum in summer 1988 - ready for my first day at work. She worked in the same business park, so we caught the bus together. I remember that day as if it was yesterday.

While all this was going on, I still kept making art and posting on Instagram - frankly, that's what kept me going. I didn't make any public announcements, just carried on as normal. I don't like drama and attention - keeping busy and pretending everything is ok is my coping mechanism. 

I did snap a photo of my desk on Monday - after all, it's WOYWW. 

Here's a digest of some of the art I made for the January challenges on Instagram...

- a series I'm doing on corrugated cardboard for the #happyyouin22 challenge:

- a couple of  journal pages for the #creativeunfold2022 challenge:

- and this page inspired by Laly Mille's WOTY (Word of the Year) lesson for #artjournalwithlaly:

Originally, my word was 'freedom' because I want to achieve a level of artistic freedom - and I added 'brave' as a sub-word in light of what had happened. Life goes on for those of us left behind.

Hope you're all well. Please take good care of yourselves xx

WOYWW #657: Happy New Year - ugly art club challenge completed!

Happy New Year everyone! Who else has their Christmas deco still up? Back to the drudgery tomorrow for me and I have some errands to run this afternoon but I'll make time to visit as many desks as I can before that and the rest later on. I have decided to blog less often - maybe once a month - just to keep my blog going, as much for my own records as for anything else, and of course to keep in touch with  WOYWW and the handful of other blogger friends who follow me. It's nice to look back on my blog as a sort of diary but it's so much easier to post on Instagram. Should you miss me (I don't see why you would, but if you do) just visit my Instagram profile for updates. 

My desk shot from yesterday taken in rare daylight: 

I've completed the 2-week ugly art challenge and started two other January challenges. They are not too demanding as the #creativeunfold2022 runs weekly and the #happyyouin22 every other day. I find these challenges very inspiring as we cheer each other along, otherwise I tend to get a bit lazy and aimless.

Here are the remaining pieces from the #tuac5minchallenge: they were supposed to be 5-minute projects, but some of them took longer - I don't think it matters. These have all been created on brown paper packaging and they all have collaged teabags. I like to work in series, though there's always a danger that the pieces begin to look too similar to each other using the same materials. 

I've also made this reel showing all 14 pieces together in quick succession (reels can only be max 30 seconds in length):  

I have a couple of pieces for the January challenges completed as well but I'll post them all together next time. Until then, cheerio! xx  

WOYWW #656: Last pages in my Advent Journal 2021 and more ugly art

The last WOYWW of 2021! Christmas is pretty much done and dusted. The days are short and going fast, especially when you sleep until 10 am, like I do. I enjoy not having to get up early and dreading the return back to drudgery in January! But we're not quite there yet! Here's a shot of my desk with all my Christmas pressies staged:

Some Tim Holtz stamps and stencils (I've been wanting the Stamp Collector set for absolute ages, how did Santa know?), some mini Archivals just for using with those stamps and a very nice book that I accidentally stumbled upon. 

Also on my desk is a stack of  "ugly arts" - more about those later - but first the last three pages in my Advent Journal: 

The last page is my word for 2022: freedom. I'm looking for my creative freedom where I don't have to fuss about small details, just play and enjoy the process. I've come a long way, but I'm still not quite there yet. 

The Ugly Art Club's 5-minute challenge helps me achieve this freedom, though I must say I still spent way more than 5 minutes on some of these pieces, sometimes overworking them unnecessarily.

The Ugly Art challenge runs for only another 5 days, but fear not, there's a brand new challenge on the horizon #happyyouin22 which runs throughout January. I'm planning to take part, even though I told myself  that I wouldn't! How could I resist? These challenges give me such a creative boost and I get so much inspiration from others. 

Hope you all had a good Christmas and got lots of pressies from Santa. Here he is delivering ours a few minutes past midnight! 

Wishing every one a happy, healthy and creative 2022! 

WOYWW #655: Advent Journal 2021 Week 3 and Ugly Art Challenge

I'm terribly late today. Although I'm off work now, I woke up with a debilitating migraine. Nothing unusual, it happens all the time - and thankfully never lasts too long. I'm back to my normal cheery old self again. A quick show of my desk late last night:

That's my latest page in my advent journal - only 3 more pages to go - which means just three more days till Christmas! I'll just show you my pages for days 15-21. Some of them are double spreads. 

On Monday a new challenge kicked off by #theuglyartclub. You have 5 minutes to create something - anything - ugly or not - doesn't matter. The challenge runs for two weeks. Here are my pieces for the first two days, just using my scraps on a brown paper bag (my butterfly ban was lifted for this project!): 

I'm glad I made it today after all - I couldn't have left without wishing you all a lovely Christmas!

I plan to be back before the New Year! xx

WOYWW #654: Advent Journal 2021 Week 2

Have you noticed how we get into a time warp around Christmas each year? It's spooky, really. On Monday I realised that we didn't have anything to put under the Christmas tree yet (I know, I'm not very well organised and most of the responsibility falls on me, even my own presents!) so I headed out to town and came back with three bags of stuff, mostly practical. Let's just say my family is now fully stocked with socks, underwear, slippers, pyjamas and snuggly robes and I'm getting myself some crafty stuff as well. 

My desk shot this morning is a bit staged - I wanted to show you the delightful cards I received from LLJ and Cindy! Thank you, ladies - you're ever so kind. In the foreground is my advent journal, which is filling up nicely. I'm following the prompts posted by @artjournaladvent on Instagram - one of the organisers, Michelle, used to be a desker - some of you might remember her from years ago! 

Here are my pages from week #2. So far I've managed to keep up to date, although it did involve some late-night art sessions, sometimes in the 11th hour! There's lots of gold in all of these! (there are some tiny little butterflies smuggled in again - just to break my own self-imposed rules - what can I say, I'm a rebel LOL!)

I even managed to put together a lightening quick slideshow of my previous scrap journal, in the "add 27 photos" trend format (doesn't look so good on the desktop though). 

Happy #654! 
I'll be around soon - if not today then later in the week! xx