Review of 2006 & Week 8 - Strength

Moth created in Painter IX

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As those of you who've been following my progress will know I'm now on the 8th week of my revisit of the Artist Way, and therefore on Strength. Like last week and next week I'm getting inspiration from other sources for these weeks. I'm still doing morning pages and noting synchronicities.

As its the new year and lots of people are writing reviews of 2006 I thought I'd do a little reviewing too from the perspective of my art and creativity. And include a few thumbnails of favourite pictures too - most of these are linked to flickr so you can see them larger if you click on them.

January

Last January I was really beginning to get into doing collages that I assembled and altered in Corel's Painter IX - incidentally I recommend this as much more interesting to artists than Photoshop - Painter started out with brushes whilst Photoshop seems to have only recently discovered them. I can't say it never crashes but it is wonderful to use!



Then Melba started up Mixed Media Memoirs that ran throughout 2006.



I felt I'd really found my feet with respect to digital art making!

I also encouraged Johnny Norms to start up the Camel Exchange



where we sporadically have fun collaborating on silly bits of art. This was my colouring in of a Camel that he'd first put on his blog - Elbowroom

It was a full month!

February

February is for Valentines and I joined in with my only ATC swap to date:


I got back ones which were so different in flavour that I felt I'd gone wrong somewhere along the line. I'd found the format too small for comfort too. So no more ATCs.

I got interviewed by Reluctant Nomad which I really enjoyed but I didn't manage to actually do any of the interviews that other people asked for, though I did do a lot of the reading... maybe because this blog is where I introspect... sorry to those who've been hoping for interviews I think you can take it that they won't be happening.

February was also the month when I did a batch of potential tarot cards - I mentioned them recently so won't repeat them here.

This was my favourite of the MMM's I did in 2006:



March



I'd been occasionally posting Mandalas. This one prompted me to start a blog dedicated to them - unfortunately it didn't get anywhere. Although I like Mandalas I clearly didn't want to have to make them!



I posted this ink blot and got all sorts of suggestions from people about what it might be!

April


Magnolia is a favourite plant of mine - I planted this one to celebrate our 1st wedding anniversary in 2001. And I really like the way this image came out using cloning brushes and an erasing rake (that's non-standard but easy to make in Painter).

I did a book tag and consequently later in the year I read two of the books on the list that I'd not previously:

• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - enjoyed it but wouldn't want to read another one like it!
• The Time Traveler's Wife - I loved this.

I love seeing faces and this one, found in a park in Wales, needed just a little highlighting to make clearer.

May



I went on the first day of a Hypnosis course. I like going into trance but I did not appreciate the instructor hurting my hand whilst I was in a state when I wasn't feeling pain. Since this course I've really got into self-hypnosis and recommend this book:

The Secrets of Self-Hypnosis: Harnessing the Power of Your Unconscious Mind by Adam Eason

It is very good at providing a safe framework and good suggestions. As you end up writing your own scripts you know what you are programming yourself to do!

June



In June I joined Wardrobe Refashioning for 2 months. The idea was not to buy new things but to make, refashion and generally alter clothes. I didn't do very well. I threw out lots of horrible things - at least as far as the "to be altered" pile and some right out. But this was the only garment that I did much to and it didn't fit me and wasn't to Jim's taste - though he gamely modeled it!

At least I didn't go buying new things during June and July.

But mostly that was because I went on retreat for a couple of weeks at the end of June and then in the heat of the ridiculously hot summer here did nothing in July!

This was a MMM I did before going on retreat:



July

This was my 12th and last MMM.



August

In August, although I was still not blogging, I was alive and kicking!

I won a makeover and spent a day as a model:



The downside of this is that I've never been able to look so good since, which has been rather disheartening.

September



Still didn't blog so I missed my first year blogiversary.

During my time off I was doing a great deal of energy work - all very weird and unusual so not really bloggable. I was following my own intuition and worked in ways I'd not done before. The goal was to get me really well. I did lots and lots towards this. I finished the work just before we went on holiday in October. Since then my energy has increased enormously. I've had more clearing pains than I like to recall and I'm not entirely clear of them yet. For those of you that "don't believe" in energy work just think of this as a great big placebo that I needed to give myself and it worked.

October

When we got back from a week in Cornwall / Devon I started to blog again.

The highlight of the holiday had been the Eden project and I loved this painting done by a shamanic artist is residence there:



November



I started doing some exercises from a great book - Art Escapes.

And then, to my own surprise, I decided to revisit the Artist's Way.

My sidebar currently has small images for the reviews of each week so I won't repeat any of them here.

The highlight of the month was the North Bristol Arts Trail and finally meeting a near neighbour who sculpts



December




Illustration Friday had a theme of Masks which seems to have been echoed over and over around me. Even today I've seen more masks.

Tarot seems to have taken over to a large extent too. And many of my images were drawn directly from others cards.



The year has finished with the first card inspired by SoulCollage



And a blog dedicated to Tarot and Soul Collage.

Wow - this must be one of the longest posts ever - thank you for reading it!