Day 5

Well today is Day 5 and I must admit I have loved getting back to my blog and getting all those creative thoughts going. I have had such a wonderful 12 months getting started and the only thing missing is finding the perfect audience and the way to share my work with people.  

I have been an artist for a long time but have never been able to focus time on what I want to do with my art.  Life is hard in that you still have to earn money to live and not just throw everything away and become a mad painter. But I have so many thoughts inside that I think can help people be strong in their life. Just reminding people how truly wonderful they are and can be.  I know that people need to be positive in life and I also know how words and thoughts have helped me during hard times in life.

 I  want to share  the beauty of life with positive words. My prints would be a great present for young people to believe in themselves. Or for a person of any age, just to remind you to keep believing in yourself and your friends and life. So if you have someone special in your life that maybe needs a pick me up, come over to my etsy shop and see if my words can make their lives just a little bit better.

www.etsy.com/shop/WendyWinstonDesigns

A special moment

Day 4 

I wanted to share a picture I painted that means hope for me. It  captured a moment of pure trust where such a small and fragile butterfly would trust a human many times it's size. This actually happened to me one day years ago and was a truly an amazing moment.

I was hanging the washing on the line and a butterfly began flying all around me, I decided to stop still and put out my hand. Within a few seconds the butterfly landed gently on my hand. It felt like a miracle. Then it slowly flew away and  it came back again . It landed three times on my hand and it was a feeling I cannot explain. Don't you love those moments that are so unexpected. 

It is like when you go whale watching and these huge animals come so close to you to let you see them and interact with them. I was on a boat at Hervey Bay whale watching when a whale came under the boat a couple of times and then it popped up right next to me so close I could smell it's breathe. I could look it right in the eye.  We have so many beautiful things in life to experience but most of the time we are just caught up in our daily life and sometimes just stuck in our heads.

I am planning on having more of these special moments and less of that stuck in my head stuff.

If you were reading my blog yesterday you might remember when I asked you all to have a go at something my birdie might have been saying.

I have had one taker Suzi Poland who said "Here's looking at you!"

Thanks Suzi

Day 3 and ready to blog.

Well if you have been following my blog since I started you would have seen that most of my paintings and prints have positive messages. Sometimes I start with a  message in my head and I then paint something to portray that message. Other times I start with something I am driven to paint and then I try to find the words that go with it. 

This little fellow has been sitting around while I have been having my little enforced break and he is just waiting for the words that match him. He looks so positive and happy. So this week I am going to be working out what he has to say that might be motivating for others (and for me).  If you have something amazing you think he would be saying, leave me a comment below. I would love to hear what you have to say. Let your imagination go wild.

My Four Legged Portraits

Well today is Day 2 of a week of blogs I am trying to complete. And  I thought I might share with you some of the commissions I have been lucky enough to do, of some beloved animals. I love the idea of painting things that touch somebody's hearts and our four legged angels, certainly fall into that category. Our pets let us behave like our true selves and know us like nobody else.

 It is always a challenge to really contain their personalities in a portrait. But I think if you can get the eyes right you can look inside their hearts. Some as you can see are soft, some proud and some are a little sad.
You may notice I have done blue backgrounds on a few of them and believe me I have thought of other colours and would be happy to do other colours if requested, but some how the blue brings out their coat colours and give them a really regal look. I hope you have enjoyed this look at some of my friends and will join me again tomorrow for day 3 of my week of blogs. See you then.

I'm Back

I can't believe that it has been so long since I have written on my blog but as John Lennon said

               "Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans".

 If you read my last post I was just preparing myself to get up every morning at 5 am for a new job I was starting. This was a huge change for me from night owl to early morning devotee - but guess what it happened. I now have no trouble getting up at the amazing time of 5 but the only problem is I cringe when it is time to go to bed. I haven't mastered the art of fitting much into the day when you have to go to bed early. And so that precious part of my life, the creative part has had to take a back seat. I have almost been scared to pick up a brush because the problem is that once you start painting again, it is what consumes you and you want to stay painting late into the night.You suddenly get into that zone where time just passes at twice the speed and the part that suffers is your body. It doesn't seem to function on less than 5 hours sleep. 

So to start getting back to painting I began with a different kind of painting- furniture painting. I have these 4 chairs that I have always called "Happy Chairs" because they have always been painted bright colours. I inherited them from a very precious great Aunt who also had a painting habit. When I tried to strip them back to the bare wood I found about 7-8 different colours on them and then started to worry whether some of it might be lead paint. I therefore decide painting over them was the best course of action, Each chair is a different colour and I am going to give them a shabby chic finish. I have to share them with you.

         Don't they just make you happy to see? They do me. And then I remembered some old stools that I had under the house and they will become some plant stands for the entrance or in the yard. Now I have had a paintbrush back in my hand I am starting back into my art. But haven't you got some piece of furniture that is old and tired and you could revamp with a lick of paint. Some little coffee table that might look lovely painted red or orange as a eye catcher and talking point. When we are surrounded by colour it lifts our spirit. And to do something yourself brings the love into it. 

Speaking of love my dog just loves to be around when painting is going on and I think she thinks she is a paintbrush (or perhaps a canvas) because she just has to help. She looks good in blue and purple.

 Now to get back into my blog and art I am going to set myself a challenge. To write on my blog every day for a week. I will really have to start working hard so I have something new to show for each day but we will see how it goes. So stay tuned.

A New Day

I am starting a new job on Monday and it starts at 7am which is an early start for me as I am a confirmed night owl. So in preparation for my early start I have been practising getting up at 5am to get my body clock ready for my new lifestyle. 

 I decided I might as well get a new view of the day at that time. I live near the water and have spent much time there in my life, because I feel it clears my mind and lifts my heart. But in all those years I have never headed to the water very early in the morning. Morning sleep has always been my most treasured sleep. 

This week however my heart has been opened in a new way by what I have seen. What a glorious beginning to the day seeing the light  change and the sun's journey over the water. Sometimes I get stuck in life and am not sure which way my life is going. But maybe I don't have to make big changes in life to become unstuck, perhaps I need to just look at my day and my life at a different time and see what is amazing. Mornings at the water or maybe sitting in the sun at lunch to re-energise myself. I should just sit in the garden I have created instead of working in it. It isn't just a place to plant and maintain but to soak in the beauty that is already there. 

We are always looking at the "Big Picture" of life and planning the future but how many sunrises and sunsets have we missed not revelling in their  beauty. My mother passed away a few years ago and she suffered from Macular Degeneration for those last few years of her life and could not see much. But I would see her in the mornings sit on the side of her bed looking out through the window and I remember asking what she was doing and she would say "I am listening to all the birds in the morning and how beautiful they are". Even though she was nearly blind and dying of cancer she still saw the wonder in life. 

So don't miss the amazing world we live in or maybe just start looking

at it from another view or time and let the wonder seep in. It might just get you unstuck. I hope it does.