time to paint...

hi all, as usual life has been busy but we have had quite a bit of sunshine out here in the countryside, over the weekend we had temps up to 32 °C and that my dears is really hot for May!! however yesterday it rained all day and the temps dropped to 10°C and that was a huge difference and i even had to throw some logs onto the fireplace again but no complaints because today the sun is back out to play and the garden was actually pretty grateful for the rain..

but enough about the weather lol!!

i've had time to paint, mostly outside in the sun which proved a little difficult with my acrylic paint drying really quick even when pulled into the shade! but i have now bought a retarder and i'm hoping that will help the open time while i paint. anyway, here is my lastest finished painting
'SOLICE'

the text on her dress is from a my South african friend Marc Volker, he is a bit of a poet most of the time, just never get into football issues with him lol! omg he can rave on about it, i think he drives his wife Nicolette nuts with it.

i really like this text of his so i asked permission to use it and seeing he loves my art he said yes straight away and is pretty proud i used it so we are both happy :)

my insperation for the wings i found in the street artists in Barcelona

i used lots of golden mica flakes, i just love them!

i beeswaxed the whole painting, even her face, i stamped into the beeswax in the bottom right corner and added perfect pearls to it, i mainly used Golden fluid acrylics, Steward Gill Alchemy paint (colour fusion) for the eyes because i simply love the shimmer they give and i used some Steward Gill Colourise paints on the face and Golden fiber paste for her hair...

so there you have some of my mixed media secrets :)

at the moment i am working on a commisioned painting for a beautiful redhead friend, i will show once finished

have a great day and i hope the sun is shining where you are

love & peace

tanya xx

food for thought

i've been inking & painting & embossing metal, sanding and scratching... laying the last hand om my next workshop, i'll post pics when i'm totally done

i have had no time to paint and yet i feel i should have, i need to paint to orden my feelings and impressions... otherwise thet stick with me and start living a life of their own, the only way i can stay strong and not let feelings or pain take over me is by painting them away, maybe not away but giving myself a chance to put them into perspective. most people class me a a strong woman, i have been through a few ordeals in this life and yet appear to be happy and optimistic and i am! i am strong and optimistic on most days, but like all of us i do get down, i do have feelings to cope with, the pain take over on some occasions, now i am in no way complaining here! don't get me wrong! i have a super beautiful life, i am happy...

but to be honest i made it easy on myself in a way, i stayed away from social life, i never tried to make new friends where i live, i have been happy enough to meet people through teaching and it was enough for me. Over the last few months i have been out and about more, i felt it was time to come out of my hiding place, not that i was really hiding, i was just enjoying the peace of my soltitude. I live in a wonderful place, surrounded by the most beautiful nature that makes me intensely happy on any given day, i have a strong connection with nature, maybe more than with people, i don't have many close friends, by choice.

but i have been out and about and am glad i have but at the same time so many new impressions are coming my way and i am getting to know myself all over again, how i react, when i feel comfortable or not, ... new lessons, all over again, challenging and sometimes tiring but i am learning things about myself or recognizing things i already knew. and i get into the funny situation that people i meet ask if i am married or single, have i got kids? uh yes 5! lol then comes the shocked look on their faces most of the time... i get all kinds of responses, some think it is amazing i have five, they think i look too young to have five, three of them being adult! funny is that in a pub sometimes when i tell a man about my five kids i see the scared look on their faces ;) and most of them suddenly need the toilet haha! good way of getting rid of them really... :)

also i still am way more reserved or timid than some other women i see who go straight into action when they see a man they fancy, i see them getting really close, putting on sexy eyes and smiles and giggles and even to the extent of almost throwing themselves at a man the very first night they meet... i'm not judging! in no way am i judging, i'm just stating that i am incapable of acting like that, i have never ever made a first move... i was actually talking about that to someone the other day and that person said it roots from fear of rejection... that made me think... maybe that is true but i have no idea! i think it is just not appropriate (for myself) to act in such a way and i never will... do i let chances slip? i don't think so because really if a man falls for such behavior then fine... but no thanks lol!! i like who i am and if that makes me a little gray sparrow amongst colourful birds then so be it... you might find this a strange conversation lol but it is just a pick of one of the new impressions that have been coming my way, nothing more to it really.

the sun is out today but i have some more work to do before i can actually go out to sit in it, i did have my morning coffee in the garden and again was amazed by the amount of birds that are in my garden (including a whole bunch of beautiful sparrows :)), i saw buds on my lavander, yay i love love love the scent of lavender so i cant wait for the flowers. the tadpoles are becoming very active in the pond!!! soon i'll have hundreds of tiny toads hopping on my terras, i'm not too fond of that to tell the truth, it looks like some plague out of the bible and some of them even commit suicide by hopping into the kitchen and bathroom! ever had tiny toads hopping around you while sitting on the loo??? aaaarrgggg!

anyway, heading off to get some stuff done that is really long over due but life is busy and the days are way too short... i'll get it done and posted today! my mission!!

hope you all have a wonderful day wherever you are

love & peace,

and i do lay stress on the peace, inner peace is something i have found to be essential

tanya xx

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all the wonderful mums.

My mother's day so far has consisted of sleeping in because the littlies are at their dad, it is his weekend to have them so i will see them later today when i pick them up.

So sleeping in was my luxury though i would have prefered to have kiddies jumping on my bed bringing me burned toast and weak coffee and dandilions from the garden :)

however my 20y old son did make me (half burned) toast and scrambled eggs and brought it out into the garden without even a mumble of happy mother's day haha and then went off inside to watch a recorded film from last night... typical my son lol!

so again peace and quiet...

except for my little buddy blackbird who i have named George :)

my sweet son did give me a gift certificate for new sunglasses so yesterday we had a nice day in the city, choosing some pretty cool sunglasses that i will have by the end of next week, lunch out in the sun, well not so much sun but it was nice enough.

I'm not one for expecting gifts for Mother's day, whenever my kids used to aks what i wanted i always replied that it would be fantastic if they would for one day not fight or make a mess and make me a cup of tea without me asking for it... i always got the tea!

motherhood is quiet a ride, one that i have learned lots from, with five kids there is a lesson every day! my hardest lesson has been to let go... my teenage daughter taught me how to do that, in not such a soft way (some of you will remember she ran away from home in feb 2009 and is now living with her father) it hurt like hell and on some days it still does... but i have learned to let it go as much as i can, she is nearly adult now, 18 in June.

My own mother died last year in September and that too was a hard thing to deal with in different ways than most of you would expect.

She died at the age of 59 after a seven year struggle with Alhzeimers

we never had a connection, i only met her for the first time as a teenager so it was not the average mourning journey i went through...

this morning sitting out in the garden, for the very first time in my life i felt she might just be watching over me after all and it made me cry and then i started to miss my runaway teen and that made me cry and then George started singing and that made me smile and cry... and then the song hallelujah came on my ipod and ok... you get the picture.

****************

i went to a really cool party on Friday night.... oh i got home at 3.30am after playing taxi for a sad soul who's car had broke down ;)

i met so many cool, beautiful, crazy people, we laughed so much and omg you don't want to knows ome of the convo's we had, hilarious believe me!!

so happy Esther invited me :))

and i made her a little present because the very first time we met she fell in love with my framed collage necklace and insantly dived into my cleavage lol... she is like that!

(here is what i made for her, not so good pics but it is hard with the glass that reflects)

she pretty much squeeled with delight and we immediatly fitted the chain to fit and then she had to change her earrings because they didn't match lol ... and every one just had to admire it! she gave them no choice lol!!

ah well i'm going to let you all have a wonderful day and i'm going to continue to relax out in the sun, today the sun seems to have come back to play and i am not complaining!!!

love & peace

tanya xx

what makes you happy...

what truly makes you happy? my list is long!!! of course my children or on the list of what makes me happy, i find that pretty obvious...

i was pleased and suprized of the amount of small things on my list...

the blackbird singing in my garden made me intensly happy this morning! honestly i sat in the garden smoking a sigarette (that is a different story!!) and saw mister blackbird hopping around, he has been my friend for a few weeks now and he is loud i tell you! last year he seemed to get on my nerves a little but this year his song seems so beautiful! i actually go sit out in the garden just to see him. so this morning there he was hopping around from tree to bush to the pond (he is an active little fella) singing his heart out, i imagine him doing that especially for me of course, after all he seems to be my new companion. And then comes mrs blackbird, hopping along... and it made me smile to see my little companion having a girlfriend... yeah, things like this make me happy and not just for a moment... it lingers... i take the feeling back inside with me, it makes my heart sing happy songs and makes my pain lighter and less important and again that is on my list of what makes me happy!

my dog rolling around in the grass like a little lunatic

a fresh hot cup of tea

the sun on my face

sitting outside to paint

sitting inside to paint

biting into a juicy apple

drinking hot chocolate in bed

red paint (well all paint but red is my fav!)

my new oil pastels

buying new shoes for my kids

raspberry sorbet

having coffee with friends

having wine with friends

listening to all the cool music on my pink ipod

watching the kids play out in the garden

drawing in my art journal

my friend Diane in Seattle who says hi every single day

discovering new music

silence... for a long time silence was so loud!!! it brought discomforting thoughts and fears and worries. now silence is simply silent, peaceful and nice.

my list is so much longer... and that too makes me happy.

i hope you all have a wonderful day
love & peace
tanya x