Natasha White Designs

December 3, 2011

Sea turtles and mermaids…

Amy is hosting the neverending story over here. This week is my contribution to the continuing saga.

Time slipped by, days barely perceptible from each other.

Memories of any past before where they were right now were almost completely forgotten except for a vaguely unsettled feeling the red haired girl could not put her finger on.

Days went by. Then weeks. Then months. Peg and the red haired girl spent their days drinking the sweet tea that the Goldwater’s always had on hand and eating marshmallows and other delicacies that grew freely on this cloud world.

Their days passed in a haze of sweetness and light with a tinge of the unsettled. But never enough of a feeling that the red haired girl could even put a tangible thought to. Peg on the other hand never seemed to notice anything amiss. Always well fed with her favourite treats, the temperature and light of the cloud world were perfect for her, and she forgot there was anything more than what she had right there in cloud world with the scent of cotton candy sweetening her thoughts to a level close to numbness.

At night however it was a different story for the red haired girl. Violent ocean swells dominated her dreams in shades of stormy teal darkness. Roiling and tumbling oceans, the girls very own subconscious telling her something was wrong. But she never remembered in the morning. Apart from the vague sense of unease that remained with her while she was awake. The only recourse her self-conscious had was her dreamscape, away from the tea, and marshmallows and scent of cotton candy.

In her dreamscape sea turtles visited her from the depths of the ocean telling her to find the mirror. Mermaids called to her and told her to break the mirror when she found it. Waves tumbled on to the shore of her subconscious, trying to wake her. Anything so that she would remember in the morning.

But when she woke there was her cup of tea and any chance of remembering her dreams vanished as she sipped from her cup of steaming sweet tea.

And then one day, months later, the Goldwaters were running late and her cup of tea was not there when she woke. And her mind chanted to her. “Find the mirror. Find the mirror.” And she looked around. And realized she had not seen a mirror since she arrived in this cloud land. And slowly she began to think of memories before she had arrived at cloud land, and she began to suspect she was under a charm.

Just then, she heard a creak outside her door, and she lay back down, pretending to be asleep. Without the tea-induced stupor she was beginning to think more clearly. She heard the soft steps of Mrs. Goldwater come across the room and smelt the sweetness of the steaming cup of tea curling towards her nostrils, and as Mrs. Goldwater began to leave the room she pretended to be just waking up.

And despite moments ago, thinking that the tea may be to blame for her forgetting her prior life, the tendrils of steam reached her nostrils and she went to take a sip. But as she held the cup to her lips she heard “Find the Mirror. Break the Mirror”. And in fright she dropped the cup. Thankfully it did not break, but in her panic to mop up the spill, she grabbed her blue scarf and soaked up the tea, hiding the scarf under her bed.

And without the steam of the tea, without tasting the tea, the voice in her head got stronger. “Find the mirror. Break the Mirror”. Repeating over and over. Mrs. Goldwater came into her room and the girl with red hair gave her a sweet smile as though nothing was afoot, and handed over her cup, commenting on how much she loved the tea. Mrs. Goldwater smiled saccharinely as she left the room.

The girl with red hair quickly got dressed, and trying to act as though nothing was wrong and there was no sense of urgency she went outside to find Peg. But Peg was munching on sweet cloud grass, which not only smelt of cotton candy but tasted of cotton candy too. And Peg did not want to move anywhere. And the girl sensing the urgency of the chanting in her head moved away from Peg slowly, towards the only part of the cloud world where the light was a little dimmer than everywhere else.

Not knowing why she felt pulled to that area, only drifting along to the chanting in her head. Walking along the cloud path, in the slightly dimmer light she felt her foot sink a bit in the cloud, and then she felt something hard stub her toe. She jumped back, realising that she had not felt any pain since she had first come to the cloud world. Sensing that she was close to something important, she reached down to feel what she had stubbed her toe one, and there was a handle.

As she pulled on the handle, she felt a little resistance and then up popped a hand mirror. As she looked into the mirror she gasped.

Her face was reflected back to her, but the landscape behind her, in the mirror was not the landscape of the cloud world, but the world she had come from.

Just then she noticed the Goldwaters and Mr. Panda running towards her, and the voices in her head were screaming at her. “Break the mirror, break the mirror.” She looked around and there was nothing to break the mirror with, but she could feel people closing in on her, and the voice in her head was reaching a crescendo and so she lifted her fist up and brought it down upon the mirror shattering her reflection into tiny pieces…

To be continued…

And I am linking to Butterfly Effect and Paint Party Friday as well.

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December 2, 2011

Nanojoumo Finished!

I am so pleased that I have finished Nanojoumo. Completely. Even an extra day, because I loved the prompts so much, and I wanted to finish them, and I also wanted to finish on a lighter note than the previous day has turned out to be. So my last day is just an explosion of playing.

This month has had some rough moments and having this has given me the opportunity to work through things where I have had to. To get the crap out of my head. And some days, I have been much lighter in my approach, one of the reasons I love art journaling is that it is so adaptable.

Nanojoumo 20

This page is an example on how we can have an issue, and work it through until it is a non-issue, because looking at this page I can’t even remember what motivated it now. But that whole spread has journaling underneath it, so there must have been something. And the picture is odd. But that is where I was at that day clearly.

Nanojoumo 21

This page is very simple. And clearly the day before I had resolved all issues. I am in a headspace at the moment of saying yes to any opportunities that come my way even if they terrify me, and even if life is a bit messy, and this was the motivation behind the page. And that strip along the side is some of my homemade scrapbook paper that I punched circles with. I am a hoarder and kept the strips! And the colours worked well on this page.

Nanojoumo 22

She has gotten a little bit raggedy since I did her, and before I took the photo, with all the opening and closing of the book. I like that look and think it suits her. She is not perfect at all, and the worn look adds to her. I did her one night, playing with my prismacolours, and I had forgotten how much I love them. I also put the front of a card I was keeping in, because I wanted to remove it from my use it or throw it pile. Finally there is some progress with that collection!

Nanojoumo 23

The prompt for this was “And” and as I got down the first couple of layers of paint I wasn’t sure what the page was going to be, and on the table was an alumni invite to a lecture at the law school, and I grabbed the photo from that and stuck it in, my son had a transformer tattoo up there as well so I grabbed that, though he told me later it was upside down, I like it. And then I decided the page could be the bits in between that fill our lives, and so I grabbed bits around me that were laying about. Some coffee dyed muslin, a bit of an old screen door I was using as a stencil. The quote from under my coffee at my favourite cafe, a blue flower left out from my daughters crafting, and the card that came with my prize from Christine, and the affirmation card. (There is another post coming about that). And the page got filled up. As do our lives. I love how it turned out in the end. There were moments though that I wondered what on earth I was doing!

Nanojoumo 24

This page I started with a clear picture of what it would look like in my head. Oceany, with a submarine window, and I had an image I wanted to be looking in through the window, and it wouldn’t happen. And bits got painted it over, and I really don’t like this page. It was so laboured over. And a reason why the process of painting should be more important than the outcome, because I think if I had just let my idea go originally I could have pulled this together, and done something else entirely. I was going to gesso over this page, but this is what I did for that day. And a record of my utter frustration. And there are lessons in this page for me, much like life, often our biggest lessons are when things do not go as planned.

Nanojoumo 25

Around the outside if you could be bothered you will find 108 beads. Inside the page will be 108 things I am grateful for. I have not finished my list, but I am over halfway. I just haven’t gotten back to it yet.

Nanojoumo 26

This page was painted purple while I still had no idea about what it was going to be, and then once the background was finished and it did look a little like a deluge, along came the journaling. Fast and furious and almost without thinking and the page was finished.

Nanojoumo 27

The prompt for this was recycle, and it surprises me even now, because my beloved tells everyone I am a raving hippy. I make my own cleaning products, I use soap nuts instead of laundry powder, have a kazillion essential oils for a kazillion of reasons, make my own skin creams and lip and feet and everything balms, and even cold balms for the children. I make whatever I can. I love feeling like a mad scientist and knowing that I know what is in what I am using. And I am a nazi about recycling and disposal of what we use, and how we use our resources. It is important to me. And I had an idea about this page, but when I went to get the supplies I saw the pile of stamps I was keeping from when I used to do ATCs, and so I “recycled” them instead. Soaked them off the bits of envelope they were on and glued them on to the page. I am not so sure this counts as recycling, but it worked for me.

Nanojoumo 28

This page was quick and simple, and says it all really. Sometimes it is important for me to remember.

Nanojoumo 29

This page was going to be a bit of a to-do list, of everything that I need to get done and finished up, but while I was painting the background, I saw this instead. So my to-do list was recorded elsewhere

Nanojoumo 30

Technically this should have been my last page. I did the background, and the red flower is something that Victoria brought home from kindy for me. She loves getting boxes and containers and filling them with stuff (sometimes rubbish)…sometimes literally rubbish, and lids and sticks and leaves and bits and giving them as gifts. All taped up using a roll of tape. The kindy loves her creative side I am sure, though I know she also makes the teachers gifts, so maybe not. But this flower was in one of my gifts that she proudly gave me a little while ago. And she squealed when she saw it on the page the other day, so I am glad I used it. And there was a lot of journaling, and the result of this journaling caused me to do something to help resolve something that had been bothering me, so I am pleased about that.

But this page was quite heavy going, and so when I saw the prompt for the last day, I saw it as an explosion of colour and fun, and thought that would be a much better way for me to end the month, so here is the final page.

Nanojoumo 31

And I am adding this to the Just Journals Link Party that can be found here.

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Filed under Art journal, Prompts

November 21, 2011

Nanojoumo update and bits…

Well the altered books class is going super well, so many people have joined and it is so exciting to see what people are doing. I am learning about recording and making videos and I am really enjoying the experience.

Nanojoumo is still on and I am working on it each day and am really loving the down time and space it is giving me working in my journal. And while I have so much going on, it really has been a sanity saver as I process things in the pages.

And I have a migraine. I haven”t had one for so long, and for the last month I have had a pretty low level headache all the time and not been sleeping, and then for the past week it has gotten a bit worse, but there have been some personal family things going on as well, so I thought it was just stress really. Combined with a bit of teary pms moments and some other blah, and then yesterday. Wham. The pain stepped up a level and all my other migraine symptoms stepped up so I had lights and nausea and dizziness and vampire-itis as any light hurt my eyes…and I retired to bed. And trying not to move. And it made sense because I had felt a bit off all week, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. And I just received a call to tell me about the death of an acquaintance, a very fit healthy acquaintance, not old, with a youngish family acquaintance. And so now I am also feeling a bit shell shocked as well.

And this morning, I am shaky and not well. Still. So I am writing this post. Posting my photos. Because I have been meaning to, but got caught up in personal family stuff and editing and making videos and this post has sat around long enough, and it is haunting me. And the longer I leave it, the bigger the update post will be! And then I am going to lie down and try not to move. So I can get better. Because I have videos and editing to do as well, and I feel like this down time is going to put me behind everything I have going on at the moment.

So here are my Nanojoumo photos…with some explanation for those that find it interesting!

Nanojoumo #7

The buildings up the top came last…and were painted with Twinkling H20s which I have been trying to use more, the rest was a bit of smushing and writing with ink.

Nanojoumo #8

Some pages have a lot of writing, others not so much. This did have writing for me, and things going through my head, these prompts this years have been good for sorting out things in my head and crystalising what is in there. And I love that elephant! And the colours.

Nanojoumo #9

This page was a bit messy to start with, though the writing came very easily. It was nice to stop and reflect and then write down whatever came to mind. I didn’t want to put a face there, but I saw her, bold and with no hair, and I was going to put hair on her, but I had this very strong feeling to leave her as is. So I listened.

Nanojoumo #10

This page is really hard to get a good photo of. It was fun playing with patterns. And this was going to get covered up with paint, but I decided not to. I like the roughness. And I love writing with sumi ink and a bamboo skewer!

Nanojoumo #11

I had an old frame I had made a couple of years ago for another journal that I ended up not using and it hung around so I chopped it up for this page. And I used my homemade alcohol ink and I I decided to leave this page quite simple as well with all the embellishments, I didn’t want to do too much else. In person it looks quite vintagey-pretty.

Nanojoumo #12

These girls were painted during Manon Visser‘s FREE live class that can be accessed over here. The one on the left is using chalk pastels, and the one on the right prismacolours. It was the first time I had used chalk pastels and I really love the look of them. More playing will be had…

Nanojoumo #13

This page, right down the bottom, you can see a part of the marmite label poking through from the previous page. It seemed somewhat appropriate to the message of the page about letting go of attachments, to rip some of the clean book pages off the page. I think I made a mistake, and the page makes me a little annoyed that I did that, which is the perfect sign that I did have an attachment to that page.

Nanojoumo #14

This page had a whole lot of writing in white pen. The flowers were kept simple with my Neocolours, but this question clearly sparked something and some of the things I wrote actually surprised me, and has given me much pause to think.

Nanojoumo #15

This whole page was kept simple, I used some of my home made graffiti paper that I have punched stars out of, and there is pink acrylics, and necolours and twinkling h20′s. I person there is more depth than can be seen in this photo. But I could not get a good photo of this page!

Nanojoumo #16

This is one of my favourite photos of my beloved and the children, thought it was taken a few years ago now. I remember where they were and where I was, and it was such a nice intimate family moment, that belied that 10 minutes earlier my daughter hot and dusty and tired had lost the plot completely outside our tent while we were camping. As we calmed her, and she calmed down her father sat down with her and her brother came up and we all just kind of sunk down. I always see such love in this photo. And because it has my beloved in it, who has no real online presence, with no facebook account or anything else, I did offer to put a post-it note over his devilishly rugged handsome face (which I scratched by accident on the photo), however he gave me permission to post freely!

Nanojoumo #17

This page was hard for me, I don’t normally plaster my photos all over the page, but it seemed somewhat appropriate to use at least one photo for this prompt. And what you can also see is that I have taken a lot of stupid photos of myself with photobooth. I printed out a stack of them this year to use in my journal, but have only used a couple so I selected a few that were calling to me and used them, and I like how this page came out. It sums me up reasonably well as of this moment in time.

Nanojoumo #18

I love the scarecrow that I sketched out with my stabilo pencil. The journaling on the page is all mixed up and in a strange order, because when I started writing I thought I would only write in one panel. Turns out I had a lot that needed to be said! What art journaling gives me really is sometimes a therapists couch. If I am feeling a little off or out of sorts but can’t quite work out why, I can investigate and generally find out the real cause of any discontent. And sometimes it turns out my head is the one suffering and telling myself stories and I need the space to see those stories for what they are!

Nanojoumo #19

I am not a doodler, so this page was really hard for me. When I am scribbling on the backs of envelopes and on the margins it is portraits or facial features or flowers or stars or spirals that I draw. But in no coherent fashion, and I always block myself by thinking that doodling has to look like some great zentangled masterpiece, so in this one I just started a drawing with a face where I didn’t lift the pen, and then I went back in with other details and even while I was working on the first face I put the word doodle into the middle of the hair. I don’t know that this is necessarily proper doodling, but is there even such a thing as proper doodling?? But it is what I did and I am happy with it. I did think about adding colour, but I like the black and white feel of the page.

And that is as far as my photos have gone, so I will get the other pages photographed soon, and upload my next lot of progress…but a whole lot earlier, because this has been a mission post and I really need to lie down.

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Filed under Art, Art Class, Art journal

November 9, 2011

BIG announcements

Wow. This birthday month of mine has seen me living my word of the year, much more than at any other time this year.

Bravery.

Putting my blog out there. On my personal facebook page where my family can see it.

Terrifying.

Making the commitment to do what it takes to be a thriving artist.

Terrifying.

Making my first vlog.

Terrifying.

Collaborating on an ONLINE CLASS.

Terrifying.

And yet that is what is happening. In this month as my birthday fast approaches I am putting on my big girl pants and getting brave.

So BIG announcement.

FREE, yes FREE Book Altering class over at http://flutterbye.ning.com/

There will be two lessons a week from both myself and Amy.

And it will all be free.

We are hoping people will spread the word and the class will be a creative juicy hive of community and learning and sharing. Where everyone has access.

FREE.

Huge exciting.

My first online class.

And despite the price tag, the value of this class is amazing.

Because we want people to get inspired and creative and to not have to worry about cost.

We will be altering books together. Little treasure troves of inspiration.

So sign up.

It opens tomorrow….

Amy already has free live classes each week that are usually recorded. You can find out about them here, and why she is holding them. Read the post, because it gets to the essence of who Amy is and why I think she is so freaking incredible.

And guest teachers are coming on board as well…like Manon Visser this Friday (or Saturday if you live in New Zealand )

Here is Manon’s information about the class.

FREE is taking on. Free and VALUABLE, no strings attached FREE.

This is a world I am happy to be a part of.

Come join us.

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November 7, 2011

Nanojoumo Days one to six…

This year I am doing Nanojoumo in my handbound journal (!).

just before I started I was thinking about this book I had when I was younger called (I think) “The Lettering Book”. I am not even sure you can still get it, but I loved it. Loved it too death until all the spiral binding fell apart. I remember I saw this older girl with it the first time and I wanted it, and when I got it from Father Christmas I was beside myself happy. And so I was thinking about this book and when Nanojoumo started I thought I would concentrate a bit more on my lettering, so there has been more emphasis than I necessarily would on lettering styles, but it has been fun.

Since I have a day ahead of Dawn (who is facilitating Nanojoumo) the first day of November was promptless, but on the other days I have followed the prompts. It has been such a good practice for me. I am so busy at the moment, or I feel busy and it is quite grounding to just play, and write and take some time out for me. You can see some days I felt a need to write more than others, but it has been so useful to my stress levels to make sure a page is done each day.

Here are my first six days (with close up detail shots…be warned )

Day one:

NaNoJouMo Day 1

Day two:

NaNoJouMo Day 2

Day two close ups:

Day three:

NaNoJouMo Day three

Day three close ups

Day Four:

NaNoJouMo Day four

Day Four close ups:

And look what appeared all by itself so I outlined it, and it seemed appropriate it appeared on the Hopes page!

Day five:

NaNoJouMo Day five

Day five close up:

Day six:

NaNoJouMo Day six

Day six close up:

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October 27, 2011

My first VLOG!!!!

Exclamation mark city, because taking a video of yourself and putting it out there is just scary.

And it is one of the most infuritating things to keep recording video to have it disappear into thin air.

Thankfully I have had good comments from the first two people to see it, so I have not pulled the video and pretended it did not exist

‘Bravery’ is my word for 2011, and this definitely felt brave.

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October 26, 2011

Street Art Exhibition Inspiration

WOW.

We went away for the weekend, and while reading the local rag I discovered that there was a street art exhibition on, where they had brought street art artists from all around New Zealand to paint the backs of buildings and you could walk around watching them work. We went around on the first day, and I really thought I had taken more photos, but clearly you will see I didn’t! I know on a couple I felt a bit embarrassed taking photos, so maybe that was the case for more than a couple as it turns out! And some had not yet been started when we first went around. But still this post is chocka full of photos as it is.

Before Photos:

I persuaded my beloved into going back on the second day to look at the progress, and oh my gosh. Some of the works were just knock your socks off inspiration that took your breath away. Some of the artists were really happy to talk about their process and I was so filled up. I was looking forward to the weekend away, but this just made everything perfect. Such a well organised exhibition on the face of it. A map was produced with where the artists were going to be, and you just wandered around. Looking and feasting on the visuals.

Such differences between all the artists. I loved it. The children loved seeing the progress and Sebastian especially was quite excited about how far the pieces had come. And somewhere I have the pamphlet with all the artist’s names, and when I hopefully find this, I will match names and photos on this post.

And now I am going back to work, felting and making cards and tags and sewing and making mini books, and plaster and burlap magnets, and mini art works ready to be framed and getting things ready to package up and send up to be sold. Why I leave these things to the last minute I will never know. A lot of it has been the thinking behind the projects and the preparation. Now it is starting to all come together.

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Filed under Art, Inspiration

October 20, 2011

Masks and bookbinding…

The last week of the school holidays have gone flying by, as Friday is nearly upon us, and Labour weekend beckons, with some sunshine scheduled which will be a welcome treat.

I have been bookbinding this week. I made two books, one will be an art journal for this, the other a traveling sketch book. They have been a learning curve. And swear words have been muttered as careful measurements were taken and then I discovered that they were taken from the wrong place. But next time I bind books like this, I will know somewhat what I am doing.

But I am happy with how they came out overall. And they look so professional, and should be able to be thrown in a bag and carted around and I love the way they feel so robust ready to be played in.

And I have worked on this painting for the Butterfly Effect…

The Masks We Cling To

I love all the texture and I am very happy with this, despite having another idea about how this was going to look when I first started.

I read this week, where another artist (I can’t remember who) mentioned in passing how much more confident they felt as an artist having the skills to bring their vision to life and make the painting look how they mean it to look. And I thought it was interesting given I feel I have gained more confidence as an artist by letting my original vision be changed as the painting develops and comes through on to the canvas. And how I love all the differences in this art world that helps us all develop our own styles and bring our pieces to life in a way that satisfies our muse. There is no right way or wrong way or one clear path to follow. I love that. The sameness and differences for all of us. All following our muse where ever she leads.

And I made a commitment this week to something that both terrifies me, and excites me to goosebump level, so will be some exciting news on the horizon. One of my big dreams is on the cliff top of happening thanks to connections on this huge small interconnected world online.

And I am linking to Paint Party Friday in advance as well.

Have a good weekend everyone.

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October 14, 2011

Busy, busy, busy

I have been so busy today. Playing with burlap and plaster of paris and paint and beeswax. Making magnets.

And card making.

And applying for exhibitions for next year.

And doing some more tinkering with this blog.

And finishing this painting..well working more on it at any rate. I haven’t signed it yet, so it possibly isn’t finished. But it is finished for today.

And I am linking it to Paint Party Friday.

I first posted the start of it here. The wing is book text covered in paint. And the rest is a mixture of paint and oil pastels.

And now I am going out to round up the children and do something before the rain sets back in, two weeks of holidays and the first week has been rain…good for the oldest who has had chicken pox, but I think cabin fever is setting in…

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October 12, 2011

Discovering what isn’t our style…and the power of the redo

Last year? I did a course over at Willowing on Mythical Magical Makings, and this picture was the extent of what I did. It has sat unfinished all this time, because though I LOVE art classes, I love art classes to learn new things and for inspiration, not to make what the teacher is making. And though this was not based on Tamara’s work at all, I just didn’t feel it. It didn’t feel like me either, and so it sat there. Just taking up room and annoying me. Completely unfinished and not looking to be finished anytime soon.

And this week over at the Butterfly effect the theme is wings. And I thought about this, but did not have a way forward. So I had another idea I was going to do. And then just before I went to sleep last night I wondered about scraping the wings and dripping sumi ink all over it.

And I did not get up immediately to do it, although I thought about it, because it is school holidays and I don’t need to add tiredness to the mix. But this morning, before sorting out the children’s breakfast I tried scraping the wings. And though I did intend to scrap all of the modelling paste off, I was done just roughing it up a bit.

And then I put masking fluid on her face and skin.

After that dried I dripped sumi ink on it, and then got lost in splattering and smearing paint. Just playing, because frankly it was hard to wreck something I disliked so much.

And after I had finished smearing paint around I peeled off the masking fluid, and did some more work on her. And I am so much happier…so much happier that I took multiple close ups!

She feels a lot more like me than she did before I started this morning.