Day 1: Revisiting the Artist's Way

This is my first morning doodle - I was struck by the way my seemingly random lines could be interpreted as either a face or a body so I'm calling it "Face Your Body".

I've just re-read the introductory chapters and the first week of The Artist's Way and clarified for myself what I'm doing this time around. Rather than seeing it as a spiritual path to creativity this time its a Creative Path to Spirit.

I remember the first time through wondering why, when Julia Cameron said that using the word God was going to create problems for people, she still insisted on using it. For me this isn't about God at all. Its about experience not belief. The word Spirit might cause problems for you but for me it doesn't and this is my personalised path.

My version of the Basic Principles

1. Becoming more fully conscious of the consequences of each thought and action leads to greater scope for change; change begets change.
2. Becoming more fully conscious of one's own buttons enables greater freedom from manipulation by others.
3. Becoming more in tune creates greater harmony.

And that's it. Not much in common with the original 10.

I worked with three affirmations this morning. These:

1. I am willing to use my creativity to find my path.
2. I am allowed to nurture myself.
3. I am willing to use my creativity to make life more fun.

And I found them quite hard too. I found the affirmation in the book that "I am allowed to nurture my artist" easy, but to nurture myself really difficult.

Then I moved on to one of the exercises and reworded it from "List three old enemies of your creative self-worth" to "Old enemies of my spiritual self-worth". I came up with various people with whom I'd clashed; they had marked the path for me at the time but I do not see them now as enemies, more like worthy adverseries. Which means I'll have to reframe the exercises that follow this. Maybe write imaginary thank yous to some of them.

I loved discovering this. I'm not a victim of monsters but a befriender and appreciator!

Oh-oh, I can hear some blurts around that statement. Not least the phrase "well today at least".

Synchronicity: This morning I got a present from a friend who'd rung me on my birthday (over a month ago now) apologising that she'd not got around to posting my card and present in time. She posted it on Monday - it arrived today - she'd included a Guardian Angel pin. How relevant on the first day of a Creative Path to Spirit, in the first week called Safety!

Thank you!


Update: I've briefly switched the radio on twice today and got angels -
13:30
Where in the World? 15 November 2006

John Simpson presents the geographical panel game which takes a whistle-stop tour of the globe. Guests are Helen Atkinson Wood, Hugh Dennis and Crispin Swayne.

I've not heard this before and the small amount I did hear sounded like a panel game as an excuse for a conversation or maybe to avoid an interview.

Whilst I was listening it involved them playing some music and asking whose it was and where it referred to.

It was Jim Morrison's L.A Woman which prompted John Simpson to mention the "City of Angels"

THE AFTERNOON PLAY
Wednesday 15 November

The Word Man - a play about Fowler the original author of A Dictionary of Modern English Usage

Angel! I particularly like your inclusion of angel.

In trying to refind this (through the BBC's listen again page) I've discovered that it was proceeded by:

So how do you intended to define wings?

One of the limbs or organs by which the flight of bird, bat, insect, angel etc. is effected. I can find no more terse way of expressing it. What do you think?

Hah! A definition of great elegance! I challenge any dictionary now or in the future to match it. Angel! I particularly like your inclusion of angel.

So angels are definitely one of the themes for today. Now I'm wondering about that foot:

Unbirthdays

On Sunday, after going to and playing at a 40th birthday party the night before, Jim said wasn't it odd that one never got to find out what a birthday was like in a different season. He suggested that we pick "Unbirthdays" to celebrate in 2007. He then proceeded to write a script to select them randomly.

I got Decemeber 7th so its over a year to my unbirthday! At first I rejected it (our wedding anniversary is on the 2nd of Decemeber so it seemed a bit close) and then I got June 7th, exactly 6 months different. I took the hint and stuck with the first suggestion, next year I'll be celebrating my unbirthday on December 7th and Jim's is on November 6th.

That morning this was outside (though I've only just taken its picture and its deflated a bit)



My 7th birthday was horrid. The Sunday before I'd stepped on a rusty nail (Kidney 1 if you know your acupunture points). I had tetanus jabs on the days on either side of my birthday. I remember there was an ominous red streak up my leg showing severe infection. Looking at what K1 is used to treat I think I can confirm that having a rusty nail in it brings on quite a lot of those things - I had so many nosebleeds as a child and it was only when I had acupuncture in my 20s that they stopped...

I did the picture above before thinking about what to write here. I thought of it as bamboo being reflected in water. Looking at the reference I found for K1 its described as

"Wood Point on Water Meridian"

On Monday over at Reluctant Nomad's blog I saw that he had used a webpage that calculates one's death day. I suggested that he celebrate his death day every year. His is Decemeber 8th. Incidentally if you try it do experiment with mode - put in saddistic and see what it says!

If you would like to have an unbirthday to celebrate in 2007 Jim has now created a page to work one out for you!

12 Week Plan

Drawings scanned from the margins of my copy of The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron

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In 1996 I did the The Artist's Way for the first time. I repeated it in 1997 and since then have often used the idea of a programme of this sort as a way of organising my time and activities. Most of these subsequent programmes were ones that I tested, using the self-test methods I learnt from HK. They were mostly quite different from the original.

On Saturday, to my surprise, I tested that I should start a new programme this Wednesday and, also to my surprise, it is much closer to the AW format than usual. Like the AW it is split into 12 sections each 1 week long. I've also grouped the sections into 4 sets of 3 weeks. These are the themes:

1. Earth - Autumn
   
• Week 1: 15 Nov - Safety
  
• Week 2: 22 Nov - Identity
• Week 3: 29 Nov - Power
2. Fire - Christmas
• Week 4: 6 Dec - Integrity
• Week 5: 13 Dec - Possibility
• Week 6: 20 Dec - Abundance
3. Water - Ice
• Week 7: 27 Dec - Connection
• Week 8: 3 Jan - Strength
• Week 9: 10 Jan - Compassion
4. Air - Wind
• Week 10: 17 Jan - Creativity
• Week 11: 24 Jan - Embody
• Week 12: 31 Jan - Reception
  

Half-way through, I will retest to see if I need to change or stop this programme. For those of you familiar with the AW weeks you'll see that the first nine are the same except I'm not calling them "Recovering a Sense of whatever". And the last three have concepts that come up during those three weeks in the AW though are not in the titles.

• Although these weeks are inspired by the AW I will not be doing morning pages, instead I've decided to do morning doodles.
• Every week I'll have an outing somewhere as my artist's date - I don't get out just for the fun of it nearly enough.
• Also every week I'll test which exercises to do, some may come from the AW but I've got plenty of other sources for suggestions.

One of the things that I really gained from doing the AW was a much greater appreciation of synchronicities.

Ever since I've been noticing them more and smiling at them.

So the first thing to notice is that Christmas is coming in the week called Abundance - a neat consequence of starting now.

On Saturday after I'd tested this programme I sold a spare copy I had of Julia Cameron's The Vein of Gold through my Amazon marketplace books. I'd bought this as a follow-up to the artist's way but never really got into it. In fact I'd got two copies and I'm only selling one so I can still check it for exercises.

And as a further synchronicity on Sunday we had a leaflet through our door on the North Bristol Art Trail 2006. Apparently this has been going every year for the last 5 years but I've never been round it and never seen a leaflet for it. I'd say I'd never heard of it but I find that hard to believe!

They provide a map with all the open studios on it and we are bang slap in the middle of the map - when we come to sell our house I'll be able to advertise it as in the Heart of Art (Sorry GG I had to reuse your pun!).

This year it is running from Friday 24th - Sunday 26th November 2006 - bang slap in the middle of the week I've just labelled Identity.

Below is the odd little picture I'd drawn in 1996 to illustrate prayers being answered through synchronicities. I have no idea what the foot is about... a variation on the hand of God perhaps or maybe its from Monty Python's Flying Circus...

Don't you just love Estate Agents!

Every Friday the local newspaper, the Bristol Evening Post, has a separate property section. In it the estate agents advertise those properties which haven't sold yet. I get it quite often to giggle over the descriptions. Here are a couple from last night's issue:

This one has been in the paper on and off for a long time now... maybe it really isn't visible:

Frenchay £439,950 A magnificent three bedroom detached cottage, located in the heart of Frenchay Village, yet not readily visible by traditional methods. This charming property boasts many attractive features, which one would not necessarily be aware of from its initial appearance. A secluded family retreat which must be viewed to be fully appreciated.

In one of the adverts written to look like an article we find this:

A FANTASTIC conversion of a 19th-century redundant church in the leafy suburbs of Redland is rewriting the property rulebook in Bristol..... The Cloisters is a fantastic development in the heart of Redland.

The road it is on is one of the borders of Redland with Bishopston.... So this rewriting of the rulebook must also include a redrawing of the areas of Bristol... maybe this is like wearing your heart on your sleeve... needless to say Redland is in general a more expensive area than Bishopston but Cranbrook Road is very busy and therefore cheaper. And it looked a lot leafier around there before the developement... they removed all the plants from around the church...

They are also doing something very odd to the images on the website - they seem to have taken many of them in portrait mode but are displaying them in landscape thus changing their proportions very weirdly.... including the picture of the actual church

Whoops I'm getting too serious here... here is another phrase from the same "article":

If you are seeking peace and privacy the Tower is unsurpassed - an intimate tower room is approached via a winding staircase where the owner can sit with only the Bristol skyline as disturbance in the distance.

I suspect that the noise and fumes of the road below have created this disturbance...

We have had a great view of this building's tower being cleaned up from our dining room window - this is what we see of it:



Leafy in front but with the new school still being built behind it. So reciprocally that means whoever gets that tower room will be getting a great view of the new school and of our dining room - maybe we are the source of the disturbance in the distance...

Update: Jim has been following up the whereabouts of Redland... and according to the Bristol City Council's wards we are in Redland, not Bishopston and at least by this definition of Redland the Estate Agents are right - Cranbrook Road goes right through the middle of it! However the area that they are calling Redland excludes Redland station and is not the normal definition used even by estate agents in Bristol.

Illustration Friday - Clear

A doodle done digitally in response to today's illustration friday topic of "Clear"

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By a strange synchronicity I've been attempting to do some physical clearing today. Not content with attempting to sell some of my old books I've also had a day of attempting to get my body clearer too. I wasn't going to blog about it but since the topic is so relevant I'll confess I've been here. My first time...

And I've also had a massage with the hope that will clear some of the tension I'm holding onto.

Still more clearing to do...

1987

Andrea has suggested posting favourite pictures of ourselves from 20 or so years ago. This is one I took in 1987 soon after getting the camera in the picture - it was a Ricoh XRX, my first SLR. One of the reasons this is a favourite is that it shows me looking serious - something that most people seem to try and avoid when taking pictures of me. I also like the odd colour contrast in the picture as it makes me look more exotic than I am!

Mug

Yesterday when I posted my first Art Escapes by Dory Kanter exercise Andrea suggested sharing the actual exercise as well as the result. So this time I've followed the directions a little more closely - a little... this is the same exercise as yesterday.

1. Do a 1 minute drawing of a mug
2. Scribble over it leaving large gaps between the lines
3. Colour in the resulting gaps - Dory Kanter suggested using watercolours but I'm playing digitally here - and she suggested working wet in wet with two different colours within each gap to get interesting variations - I've been using variable colour in Painter IX instead
4. Make sure you let one area dry before you work adjacent to it (use selection when working digitally)
5. Have fun with the colours - I don't think she says that explicitly here but its certainly intended!
   

Ebay versus Amazon

When I mentioned that I was selling some of my no longer required books on Amazon Johnny Norms asked

Is Amazon a better way to sell books than Ebay?

This posting is for him and anyone else in the UK wondering about selling their old books over the internet.

If you'd prefer to swap books, Ian Russell, recommended a swap site - which may be this one: Read It, Swap It - from my point of view the disadvantage of this is that I want to reduce my total holding not just swap some...

You can also choose to liberate some books via bookcrossing.com - this is fun.

Back to selling books.

The main problem with selling books is the cost of postage. And now that the Royal Mail has complicated the postal system by distinguishing not purely by weight but also by thickness, width and length its actually much harder to be sure that you are charging the right postage and packing. With some books that are very close, when wrapped, to the 25 mm limit it depends on the person on the other side of the counter whether you get charged say £1.09 or £1.77. I was told by one such person that the package is meant to pass through the 25 mm gap easily but one person's easy is another's forced. On that occasion I wangled the cheaper postage by saying I'd go away and repack it if he charged me the higher rate - I've no idea why he didn't just say "Okay - go and do that" - maybe he thought I might try a different post office...

Advantages of Ebay

• On Ebay you can list an item as either or both an auction or buy it now.
• You can research similar items and what they have sold for in the past few weeks using advanced search.
• You set what you want as the fixed postage and packing charge.
• You can attach a photo of your actual item. (If you want it to show in the listings you pay 15p more.)
• You get to describe the item yourself.
• If you list as an auction you may end up getting more than you would have dared ask - I once did - I got more than the Amazon new price for a book that I'd previously listed and not sold at all. (Don't get too excited it was only a matter of pence.)
• You can list anything, even those things whose ISBN cannot be found on Amazon.
• You can time when your auctions end - so if you are selling several things there is a good chance you will be able to take more than one thing to the post office at once.

Advantages of Amazon

• Amazon handle the payments.
• Amazon make no charge at all for listing.
• You can list at whatever price you like and you can change that price at any time whilst its listed.
• Amazon already have descriptions of lots of books and your listing goes into the used category (unless it is new or collectable... none of mine are).
• You benefit from the reviews that Amazon customers have left.
• For books in particular it is MUCH faster to list on Amazon.
• You can set a high price and drop it later if it hasn't sold - at no cost.
• The listing lasts for 60 days and you can re-list for free at the end. If you are going to be away you can use holiday settings to ensure that your books are not sold when you are not there to post them, but the listings are preserved ready for your return.

Disadvantages of Ebay

• On Ebay the only real protection you have is the feedback system. In general everyone attempts to give and receive good feedback and the best way to get that is by paying up fast as a customer and delivering what you've promised as a seller.
• If you are planning on selling much stuff you'll end up signing up for a business account with paypal which means they take a chunk of what you get paid too.
• You have to pay up front and straight away for your listing. You have to decide what to make your minimum bid and be ready to sell for that if only one person bids. You have to pay extra for your picture to show on the listings.
• To get money out of paypal you need to have either £50+ to transfer out or to pay for it to be transferred - or be ready to spend it directly via paypal of course...
• Ebay will make money out of you whether you sell or not.
• If you do sell then both Ebay and paypal will.

Disadvantages of Amazon

• The minimum you can put a book on for is 1p with £2.75 p&p - of which you will get £1.41 out of which you will need to find postage and packing, on Ebay (listing for 1p and £2.75 p&p) I think you'd get more like £2.30 - so if you have real cheapies to sell I'd try Ebay first.
• Amazon's conditions mean you cannot reuse old packing materials - this annoys me from an environmental as well as an economical point of view.
• If the listing on Amazon has no picture you cannot add one.
• Ditto if the description is inadequate. (You can of course submit a review to increase the information available.)
• Some ISBNs are not available via Amazon and therefore not sellable through them.
• Amazon have a system where they tend to let the money accumulate in their account for a fortnight and then on making the transfer tell you it will take another six to ten working days to reach your account!
• If you sell then Amazon will take a big chunk of the final price paid, including some of the inadequate postage and packing fee!

Summary of how I've done so far

Amazon have a ratings and feedback system but it is much harder to use than Ebay's. The easy way is to wait for an email from Amazon asking you to rate the seller but this comes so long after the item has arrived that it is very hard to recall how good the packaging was etc. The seller is entirely at the mercy of the customer here as there is no reciprocal feedback.

Looking at the books I've recently sold on Amazon and comparing Amazon fees and Ebay fees, if I had been able to guess that of the 70+ books I listed with Amazon that the 8 I've sold so far would have sold on Ebay, and if they had achieved exactly the same prices I got via Amazon I'd have been much better off (£12) selling just those 8 via Ebay. However when I have sold books on Ebay they have rarely got as much as the cheapest Amazon seller (the one exception mentioned above was that, an exception). However if I'd listed all of them and sold at the sort of prices I've usually got I'm actually much better off with Amazon (estimate around £40-£50).

Buying on Ebay

As a buyer on Ebay there are various unsavoury practices to watch out for. If you are overbid by one person and at the end of the auction quickly offered a "second chance" at your maximum bid - turn it down. Its quite likely that the seller used another account to bid you up and top you then having stretched you to your maximum are now giving you this "second chance" to buy. Also resist getting into a bidding war - that's how someone overpaid on one of my books, much to my surprise.

Buying on Amazon

As a buyer of used books on Amazon the biggest risks seem to be buying either a rough copy that is not really acceptable... and waiting an absolute age for books to come from elsewhere. Many of the sellers are selling from somewhere other than the UK and it can take weeks for your book to arrive. Look carefully especially if you want the book for something in particular. Quite a few of the sellers have deceptive names with UK boldly in them but are actually based in the US or some other place which will make delivery to the UK slow.

Buying second hand from charity shops

This is where most of my books come from - but if you think you should be able to make a profit buying like this and then selling on-line you'll have to very careful how much you pay. Even the books I've sold that I bought second hand are not making money for me; just recouping some of my original outlay.

Art Escapes

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A digital painting of Sticky Stuff Remover (which is fantastic for removing those annoying sticky spots left by stuck-on price tags).

Today a birthday present to myself turned up from Amazon:
Art Escapes: Daily Exercises and Inspirations for Discovering Greater Creativity and Artistic Confidence
The above colourful picture is the first exercise I've done from it. But the most exciting thing I've found so far in it is the idea of making my own portfolio and kits (drawing, collage and water colour) for making my non-digital art more self-contained and portable. She suggests ways to make tailored cases from felt. If I do make some I'll blog them.

Whilst looking for some sketch books to buy on-line I happened upon this empty promise:
Wheatsheaf Art Shop terms and conditions include:

Delivery Schedule
We deliver your order right away. We will normally send your order to you in business days . International orders are generally received in under days.

So that'll be some days will it?

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My current sketch book journal has pages which are fine for drawing on with pen or pencil but too thin for damp media - the author of Art Escapes, Dory Kanter, likes 9" x12" spiral-bound Aquabee sketchbooks but they don't seem to be available here in the UK.

Do you have any suggestions?

Update: I forgot to mention that the bright colour scheme above was inspired by the bright citrusy smell of the sticky stuff remover.

IF- Smoke

Digitally Mastered Smoke Elemental

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"Remember, remember the fifth of November,
The gunpowder, treason and plot ... " (see Wikipedia on Guy Fawkes)

In this country (UK) we celebrate Bonfire or Guy Fawkes night more than Halloween. Now this mostly involves fireworks. Some people are still sufficiently macabre that they make an effigy of Guy Fawkes to burn on a fire. Although technically the fifth of November there have been fireworks going off in the dark with even greater frequency than usual for the last two weeks - this weekend will be the peak. So despite living in a "smoke-less zone" (to avoid smog) for the next few days my skies will be full of smoke.