C is for Colour Theory

Painting a Collage Background #collage #watercolour #acrylicpainting

Saving Shapes Before I Revert to a White Canvas

Community Posts and YouTube Reminder

Just a reminder that I post every day on my YouTube Community page.  It is easily accessible from my YouTube Home page from the options across the top of the page underneath the banner.   

My YouTube channel is gaining some momentum now, since I post twice a week.  I usually do a video with abstract art as a theme on Tuesday and on Thursday it is a post related to collage or something else.  It has been more than two years of refining, planning and consistently putting up videos and even showing my face sometimes which is excruciating for an introvert such as me.  

YouTube has been a wonderful creative outlet and kept me on my toes with trying to grapple with technology and the unknown whilst still being productive in other areas of my life.  

I recently shared the image above on my community page.  I was clearing away my art materials and was drawn to a newly primed  birch-wood panel.  Grabbing the panel, I quickly penciled in an outline of a profile and then set to painting with acrylic paints.  I was astounded with what I produced in minutes and have no idea where the image came from.  It was instantaneous intuition!  I still need to work on the painting but now I am scared of ruining it!  Ha ha!

Well, I think that is all I have to mention for now.  

                                                            Simone x

Developing Your Painted Papers #collageart #paintedpapers #gelpress

B is for Balance

Community Posts on YouTube

Did you know that I have a Community page on YouTube? 

On my home page https://www.youtube.com/@SimoneWhippArtist it is located on the tab on the far right next to Home, Videos, Shorts and Playlists.

I have recently been updating it daily so if you don't want to watch a video you can just click on Community and see a photo or a bit of writing, a poll or maybe an occasional quiz!

It is a bit like having a blog and you are able to leave comments as you are able to do on this blog.  

I miss the old days of blogging.  There is hardly any engagement on here but I can see people still visit.  Anyway, whether you comment or not it is nice that you still visit.

Check out my community page if you have the time or inclination! 

Want to Make Original Collage Artwork? Start Here. #paintedpapers #demo

A is for Abstraction

Summer Breeze Acrylic Collage

Watercolour Expressive Abstract Paintings

My Crafty Life Before Art

My New Inspiration and New Art Medium

Jersey Tiger Moth

 Jersey Tiger moth seen from the inside - looking outside the dining room window.

Taken with phone camera.

Cute Cut Paper Personalities | Quick and Easy to Make

Looking For My Art Genre│Where I'm At

Cut Paper Landscape│How to Cut the Pieces

Follow On Post

A few photos of last week's visit to the City of London.  I loved the sky in this photograph with the billowing clouds.  The sky looks huge even with the buildings towering up below  This was taken just outside Liverpool Street station on the Bishopsgate side.

The building above is Spitalfields Church.  My Great Great Great paternal Grandparents were married there.  Such an impressive looking church especially for humble working class people such as they were.  I didn't go inside.  I always feel uncomfortable in churches.

Outside another church I found this well maintained cultivated space secreted behind a hedge.  A place of reflection or respite perhaps.  I didn't notice a man sleeping on the next bench who my son pointed out to me before I got snap happy with my camera phone.  London is a place of extremes in fortune and misfortune and everything in-between.
 

Tentative Steps

 

I took a train to the City of London yesterday.  Less than half and hour from my house to Liverpool Street station.  I've not been on a train or any public transport since well before lock-down in 2020.

The trains are different now.  The seats run parallel either side of the train and you can see right down through the carriages.  There are information screens and charge points for digital devices.  There are bendy sections between the carriages.

The station looked different to last time I passed through.  Machines that once dispensed drinks, sweets and crisps and even longer ago - cigarettes,  now offered disposable masks, gloves and hand sanitizing gels.  Everything looked clean and litter free and - sanitized.

A surreal experience and although not exceptionally busy I felt as though I had woken from a long coma and entered a new reality.

I remembered the station toilets as being smelly places frequented by drug users.  There was a small change charge to use them and you had to go through a turnstile to gain access.  Yesterday I was pleasantly surprised to see that the toilets were easily accessible with no outer doors - just doors to the cubicles.  The toilet flush, soap, water and hand dryer were all touch free.  It was hygienic and well maintained.

Outside the station, I wandered around Spitalfields and Bishopsgate.  A market was taking place selling handcrafted items, clothes, vintage and antique goods.  A trader smiled and told me there was no charge for looking.

Towards lunchtime it started getting increasingly busy in the market and my son and I legged it across to the falafal shop where we had lunch and watched the world go by.

I stocked up on some Montezuma chocolate in the shop next door before we made our way back to the station.

An albeit brief visit to London,  it was my first tentative steps getting back into society again.  Overwhelming sensory experience had me sleeping like a baby on my return.

No Longer Crafting

 

It has been a long time coming  Long overdue, I am selling/disposing much of what I have built up over the last 30+ years. I am not the same person that I was when I first started 'collecting' craft materials.

I feel quite sick at the hours wasted on buying and hoarding all this stuff.  I no longer identify as a crafter.  Although I want to be shot of reminders of my past self, it is a wrench to let go products that were a buffer between me and my depression.  With hindsight, buying stuff made me feel better and I justified buying craft materials with the excuse that I could use them to make things to bring in an income.  What I should have been doing was working on my self image and investing in looking after my own mental and physical health.

I don't know who reads this blog anymore (apart from a handful of cherished regular readers) but I want to warn them about the craft habit.  If you talk to crafters a lot of them buy craft products and hoard them without actually ever using them.  They convert spare rooms into craft rooms and sheds into craft dens.  If you are young or have recently discovered craft don't be drawn into believing you need to have everything.  I truly believe my craft habit was an addiction.  We often hear about drug addicts and alcoholics but not so often about other forms of addiction.  Yes, excess drugs and alcohol is a form of self harm and can lead to death but I would suggest that any form of addiction is harmful to the addict and to those close to them.

This blog has been mainly about craft over the years but weirdly a lot of people that read it aren't particularly into craft!  I guess it is like people that watch cooking shows but don't actually do any cooking themselves!  

I don't know which direction to take this blog into now if at all.  What on earth can I talk about?  Any ideas?