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A year in the planning with fellow artist and sister Ekua Bayunu, we were joined by other creatives during the 5 week artists retreat in the tranquil farming valley of Tasarte, in South Western Gran Canaria. Here is 1 of 5 blog entries taking you on a visual journey of each week. Week 1. Needing…

 Friday 16th 30 mins Bouncing back to my Creative Mornings. Well, more like crawling. The past few days, my routines have been disrupted by final clearing of my apartment ready for builders then packing a suitcase out of which I will live for the next 2-3 weeks. I’m not used to this. Holidays and short…

Saturday 10th, 1.5hrs After taking a couple mornings break then recovering from a bout of anxiety and sleeplessness, I’m back on the creative horse. Tackled the hand in the acrylic portrait of my son. I learned a major lesson with this, my very first painted portrait: rub out the grid lines BEFORE you begin to…

Monday 5th 2 hours Today was a struggle to get started. I had ideas but couldn’t decide which medium to use. Began with charcoal then used watercolour as I was looking at figures painted in watercolour the night before. Working from just my imagination (so excuse the weird proportions!) I wanted to capture bodies experiencing the pleasure…

Sunday 4th, 3 hours work. Spent first hour completing pencil sketch portrait. Here’s what I learned from doing this drawing: keeping going kills the gremlins. paper texture is REALLY important when working with pencil. I need decent erasers! Its ok to decide a piece is complete even though it’s unfinished. Next 2 hours I returned…

Saturday 3rd Sept 2.5hours work. This morning I set up my easel. I was resistant since I moved over a month ago thinking it’s not worth it, I won’t have time to do anything worthwhile. Well my lesson learned today is using this way of working – spending 1-3 hours making art first thing in…

Thursday 1st September Another early morning that I wake at 3.30am! Likely tension related to new job as its only happening when I have to go there. Perhaps a coincidence. Despite my mind racing I managed a short snooze before beginning an hour of creativity. Armed with 1 litre of hot water and lemon to…

Wednesday 31st I woke up with still no idea as to what to do. I felt like I needed a plan, but hadn’t one so picked up from yesterdays drawing and worked on the proportions of the figures – 3 interlaced in an embrace. I did not have a protein shake today. Mondays shake triggered…

Morning 2, Tuesday 30th: I went to bed at 10.40pm on Monday night and set my alarm for 5.30, intending to get 60min of art time before preparing for the day and leaving to get 7.30am train. I awoke at 3.30am needing to pee. When i reached out to put on the light, I spilled…

Morning 1, Monday 29th Despite not going to bed until 3am the first night (stuck in a ‘frozen’ mode in front of laptop after a busy week of visitors), I awoke at 8am, remembering snippets from the article Im following This Morning Routine will Save You 20+ Hours Per Week, I threw together the fullest amount…

  After reading: This Morning Routine will Save You 20+ Hours Per Week shared by a good friend of mine and life coach Gentle Warrior, I decided to give this new type of working schedule a try. Why? I already am a morning person! I have always woken up with the dawn chorus since I was a child, no matter…

Depression. Sometimes the hugest battle of all is to choose joy over suffering. Especially when living with depression. Once I transform the cycle, it’s liberating. Tony Robbins video (see link further down) about the figure of 8 and how I can master my moods that can lead to depression. It was quite scary realising this…

I was very excited to have been given the opportunity to share a creative activity at this festival 🙂 Queeristan is an annual festival, now in its 5th year. Held in Amsterdam, it is “…a DIY festival about exploring and countering the normative workings of gender, sexuality and identity in an autonomous space that avoids capitalism,…

After about 7 weeks without drawing portraits and as long without updating this blog, I dove in again this week. I am aiming now for short blog entries along with evidence of my work-in-progress. This week I sat down to begin drawing in my sketchbook when i got a FaceTime call from my sister. I didn’t…

Letting go of my need for perfection was just one tower of belief whose foundations I needed to shatter in order to feel confident about sharing recent portraits I sketched from friends selfies. As my regular readers may know, over the last 6 months since my move to Amsterdam, my full-time job has had two…

Here in the Netherlands it is Korkusvakantie, the crocus flower being a common sign of the seasonal change. Something is definitely shifting for me too. I find the words ‘epic’ and ‘seismic’ quite fitting for my change. Why? Because this cycle of change has felt like I have fallen in with my hugest inner demons and done battle…

I unpacked the last of my sculptures this week and I am pleased to report that each one is still intact! 🙂 I am so very HAPPY about this 🙂 They still feel like little babies to me. It took me a while to feel safe with packing them just a few months ago. Unpacking them…

So whats been going on in the shed-to-studio conversion? My last blog about the studio is that I completed the flooring in my premier laminate flooring debut. Since then. I have put together a cutting table using an old door and a couple of trestles, made a sewing machine table with some Ikea table legs…

Hi folks. A very quick update as i realise I have not posted a blog entry recently. I’ve been slowing things down a bit as i hit a huge emotional wall over the last two weeks. Everything was coming to a head and got quite overwhelming. This week, things are improving. I’ve been getting back into…

…and what you really need is just 5min to relax with a hot drink. An article posted by Independent newspaper raising the issue of NHS banning their staff from drinking cups of tea whilst on duty, found me drawing comparisons with the rules I’ve faced in my career as a teacher. http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/nhs-hospital-staff-banned-from-drinking-tea-or-coffee-on-the-job-because-it-looks-like-theyre-not-working-hard-enough-9806903.html In my teaching career of…

I always encouraged the children I teach to question everything – yes, including what I teach them 🙂 Here is my answer to the question “why?” I believe it feeds our curiosity (many of those I taught 11-16 yrs had already had their natural curiosity for learning dampened); stimulates our inner fire (we are not…

“Fear is there: accept it, note it…” This has been a week of confronting and overcoming fears. From the threatening advance of cockroaches, fearing failure, fearing success , to fears about my finances. I no longer see it as a battle though, so ‘confront’ is not appropriate. A couple of images and quotes appeared to me…

Hello everyone 🙂 As some of you know, I have moved to live in Amsterdam. I plan to set up a studio from which i will do my sculpture work in clay, sewing soft sculptures and create bespoke clothing and soft furnishings. I have decided to return to this blog in order to record the…

I’m so excited about finding this doll book at a bargain ‘jumble sale’ price while browsing in The Book Warehouse in Waterloo. Doll Fashionistas gives very clear instructions for doll making, including how to add dye to create a range of skin tones and how to paint on facial features then stitch in certain places to…

With a challenge set by my partner to make a kilt in time for New Years eve party, I throughly enjoyed the challenge of dusting off my pleating skills! I’ve not made a pleated garment for many years. It took much less time than I anticipated and my now very rarely used iron did a…

Current work signals a return to my couture dressmaking past, dusting off skills I have not used for some time. Two of these soft sculptures can be seen at Kensington and Chelsea College, Hortensia Road Gallery from 28th Feburary to 4th March 2013.