I am making art

Today is a snow day - horrah!

I didn't sleep properly last night as the uncertainty regarding whether or not I'd be ploughing my way into work in my wellies was too great.  I still woke up at the usual 6am and waited until 6:30am for the email stating that the school that I work at is closed today.  Snow days are a rare and odd thing.  I must be honest and say that an extra day off is nothing to complain about (especially after all those long hours I was putting in to get work complete last week, karma appears to have balanced things out), but a lack of routine really throws me!  I have no timetable to abide to today.  After a leisurely time getting myself out of bed, washed and dressed, the most obvious thing to do seemed to be to have a cup of chai tea and a piece of the chocolate cake that I baked yesterday (we were snowed in and we craved chocolate).  I then made the executive decision to get on with some of my own artwork.  For myself and not for work (just for a change :) ).

I finished an oil pastel picture of myself and Steve first of all, not greatly pleased with the result but I am enjoying using the media again.  I created this portrait of our friend Mike a couple of months ago and was far more pleased with this one!

 me and Steve

I then moved onto working on my painting of my Dad.  I have noticed that my style seems to be to make everything look sort of.... purple.  Not sure why or what this says about me.  Perhaps this is my version of Picasso's 'blue period', anyone know what purple represents?  Maybe it would be best not to know!  

I am quite pleased with this so far, although I have a real problem with drawing and painting eyes in the correct place (hence my strategically copped image above!).

I never really developed my 'core skills' in art (painting, drawing etc) to a point where I felt that I had my own style.  A way of doing things that is not only mine but also skilful.  It's pretty fun simply having he opportunity to play at the moment and trying to work it all out, but it's also very daunting.  It is a scary thing to put your artwork out into the open waters that is the internet, but compliments will only encourage me and criticism will, well, also encourage me!

As you can see, I have no definitive style at the moment - although I suppose my colour pallet tends to be the same.  You may notice that I also have a habit of using my paper duel purposefully as the artwork and a pallet...

Another example of my spontaneity/laziness - the cereal box pallet.  

I really must buy myself a proper paint pallet...!

It's incredible how quickly time flies when you are being creative.  It's now 1:30pm and I'm sure it was 11am just a short time ago...  I suppose I should really do some lesson planning for tomorrow as I am not going to be so optimistic as to think that school will be closed for a second day!