Yellow...

I have a dilemma of the nicest kind.  After my trip to Bali and camping trip to 80 Mile in July I may have decided to give alcohol a miss for a couple of months.  Don't get me wrong - generally one or two drinks is my limit anyway.  However, recently I may have overindulged to the point that my liver and my mind were in total accord that a bit of a dry out would be ideal.

But I have just finished my forth book and now I am wondering how I am going to celebrate and 'launch' Yellow without my usual glass of champers.  It doesn't seem right not to mark the occasion somehow and having a bubble bath or something equally girly isn't going to cut it. 

Oops - wait!  If I can't have champers maybe I'll turn to my other great loves - coffee and chocolate!!  I can have a morning tea launch with some really good coffee and lovely chocolate.  Excited now and must go and source some supplies...

Art awards season...

With time everything settles in.  Twelve months ago I was making the transition from scared art student to person seriously considering trying to make art / writing part of my future. 

The other day, when I was grumbling about how I wasn't totally happy with the artwork I am submitting for the Hedland Art Awards as well as chasing up whether my artwork for the Cossack Art Awards had sold, I had to stop and laugh at myself. 

When I put my book into the Hedland Art Awards last year I had to drive around the block a couple of times to get up the nerve to stop at the Gallery and hand it in!  I was almost physically ill going to the opening I was that worried about it all. 

I still feel like I am pretending just a bit but most of the time, particularly when I am in a hurry to get stuff finished because deadlines have to be met, it really feels like work.  My work. 

It'll be interesting to see what I am feeling next year!

My entry for the 2010 Hedland Art Awards

Introspection!

So much is going through my head at the moment it is a wonder it doesn't explode.  Unfortunately I have been a bit sick lately so my poor body isn't keeping up with my brain...not a bad thing really as then I probably would actually explode. 

The thing is I have a hard time setting limits on myself and I have a hard time relaxing.  Particularly because my work is self determined and self income generating.  I come up with the ideas and implement them which is great fun and I love it.  But I tend to put unrealistic demands on myself as to how quickly I can get work done and really all that then does is stress me. 

So today, being Sunday, I am officially 'off'.  As much as I would love to get stuck into heaps of different things I am actually just going to make a coffee, eat some chocolate and sit out the front and admire my sea view.  Sure my thought processes will eventually swing back around to 'business' but in the meantime relaxation is the order of the day.

Before I go here is a sneaky peak at the first finished image for Yellow - the latest Pilbara Pixies book.  Seriously - no wonder I can't stop working!!

Distractions...

I haven't been in the mood to write lately which is very unlike me. 

Part of it was sheer exhaustion I think - school holidays will do that to you.  Particularly when you chuck an overseas holiday and a week long camping trip in there.  Then there was my son starting a new school.  He of course took it in his stride but I worried enough for all of us combined. 

I think the main part of it though was that I was completing the art work for the forth Pilbara Pixies book Yellow.  I have to confess that when my mind is on a job like that that nearly everything else gets dropped.  Except reading.  Reading is my guilty pleasure and the busier and more crowded my life gets the more I need to escape into books.


Still - Yellow's images are now printed and drying.  On Friday I will scan them and then start colouring them in.  Next comes making the covers and with any luck Yellow will be ready to make its first public appearance at the West End Markets on Saturday 27 August.  By then I will be back in the writing, friendly, chatty zone...before moving straight on to book number five!!