photo a day & 12 secrets book club

thank you all so much for your caring comments re. my migraine yesterday. i so appreciated them. i woke up feeling much better this morning and i'm sure your caring thoughts helped.

JANUARY PHOTO A DAY - 15TH

today, i shopped til i dropped. i am attending a wedding this weekend so decided to treat myself to a new dress. you all know how that goes, right? i checked out local stores yesterday but just couldn't find THE one. so, today, i took the highway to another suburb.....

....and after much walking and numerous visits to changing rooms, i finally settled on one.

helen's comment yesterday prompted the next couple of pics. helen complimented me on the fact that there was no mess in my journal decorating pic but i just couldn't tell a lie. these pics show my work tables from a different angle.....

and the floor showing all the trimmed wool fibres...
not so neat after all.......i tend to get quite messy when i'm working. lol

BOOK CLUB - 12 SECRETS OF HIGHLY CREATIVE WOMEN

well, here i am, just skimming in for the end of week one in the book club. i did read the chapter on friday but this week has been quite busy so i didn't get a chance to post about it until now.

WEEK ONE - ACKNOWLEDGING YOUR CREATIVE SELF

my journey so far -

in my younger years, i was hooked on sewing. i studied 'homecrafts (cooking/sewing)' in high school and i found it to be very beneficial, particularly when married life came along. at that time, i sewed A LOT of clothes for my kids and my extended family. i loved the feeling of accomplishment in seeing a garment created from a length of fabric.

i had no idea i even had an artistic bone in my body until my early-thirties when another school mum had a minor accident with my parked and vacant kombi van. it turned out she was new to the area and was hoping to start teaching 'folk art' classes. i managed to organise a group of my friends together and we made up her very first art class. from the moment i picked up a paintbrush, i was totally hooked! art was my new found passion and sewing quickly took a back seat. we learned how to paint little wooden cut-outs and mastered the basic brushstrokes. after a few months, our teacher moved away leaving me devastated and craving more. having battled low self-esteem all my life, i didn't have the confidence to seek out another teacher so i decided to go it alone by teaching myself from books.

after years of painting florals on wooden, decorative items, i tried painting on canvas, and animals then became my new subject of interest. i loved the challenge of realism in my art.

not long after, i was approached by a few people to teach so i did. i taught from my home studio for two years and, then started teaching at someone else's studio for over a year holding weekly classes and regular workshops. it went well for a while but i started to feel the pressure of a domineering studio manager, who happened to be one of my students, and i also realised that i rarely had time for my own painting anymore. most of my time was spent prepping and painting example canvasses for students and workshops. i yearned to have my own painting time back as i greatly missed that. i stopped teaching at the other studio and taught solely from my own home studio for another year. by then, i was over the whole teaching thing and now, i am only teaching one student for one day a week until she has finished her current project.

i feel like i lost myself over the course of the past few years because i was so busy creating what others wanted to paint. however, in 2009, i plan on finding my creative self again....claiming my power back and releasing the creative goddess within.

positive and joyful change is in the air.