Water's Path - Willochra Creek "WIP" five

Moving on from the previous post my next stint on this work had me putting in a few twigs and timber in the mass of foliage to the left of the large tree trunks. I then moved down to the base of that collection of growth and attached them to the ground so that the group of trees and shrubs were not floating.

Progressing in a downward direction I worked on the bank of the creek at all times thinking about the light striking on this area. As so often these days my thoughts are constantly thinking about how the light effects the shadowed areas. They are NOT a mass of the darkest darks because of the reflective light that bounces around in them. There is a softer shadow in amongst the darker areas where a little more light finds it way through the growth of trees above. I also have in my own mind that the shadows further away from the object throwing the darker colour is softer than right up against it. For example a tree trunk shadow will be stronger near the base than the part of the shaded area that is further out.

Ok enough prattle about shadows.... back to the bank of the creek. As I did on the right hand side of the bank I worked the left hand side with my pastel stokes following down the side of the slope. In nature when there is rain, the water would run downwards into the creek with tiny little water courses and find that by following the banks downwards with my pastel strokes helps to imitate what nature does. Of course nature doesn't always play fair so I tend to help it along at times as well.

I have started placing in the middle ground to the right of of the large tree trunks so my guess is when starting work today that area will be continued on with.

Quick links:

• Free Subscription to Arts & Stuff by Email

technorati tags: Pastel artist, pastel, landscape pastel, wip

Water's Path - Willochra Creek "WIP" four

Progress is happening although slowly. This painting is all about the process and enjoying what I am doing rather than constantly watching the clock thinking about wanting to advance the work enough to post on my blog.





These close-up samples are an offering to you for your patience waiting for updates.





The scrubby area to the left of the tree trunk isn't finished but close to it. There will be branches placed in amongst the foliage yet.

Once I have all the areas caught up there possibly will be tweaks here and there as often is the case. Mmmmm....what area will I tackle next.....stay tuned on that one!




Quick links:

• Free Subscription to Arts & Stuff by Email

technorati tags: pastel artist, pastel, landscape, pastel landscape, artist

Nose, eye and mouth sketches

It is really nice to come across sketches that I had done awhile ago during my time that I was studying a Commercial Art Course.

These little studies are very helpful to get ones head around the shapes and size to indicate if the person is a child or an adult.

Well it is a short post as there has been a lot of coming and going in my household over the last few days although did manage to get some work done in my studio today. Until next time....happy blogging!

Quick links:

• Free Subscription to Arts & Stuff by Email
  

technorati tags: sketch, sketching, drawing, nose studies, eye studies, mouth studies

Mt Aleck, Elder Range

When fossicking around in my studio studio I came across a sketch book that had been using for an earlier paintings that I had completed. This sketch of Mt Aleck is part of the Elder Range in the Central Flinders Ranges. The resulting painting can be found on this page at my website.

Preparation in the way of a sketch is ideal to plan ahead to see if the main key elements will work before starting on a painting. It can save a lot of time and grief as you will see straight away if the design and perspective will work.

For those that do use reference photos; there can be a lucky shot of a scene where everything is located faultlessly. However nature isn't always accommodating with trees positioned perfectly to what you have in your own mind or the ideal place. It is up to you to replant it and what a better way than trying out new positions with a sketch. Works for me!

If you would like to try out some of my own photos for reference material for your paintings check out SnapShots and see if there is anything suitable..... you are very welcome to use these free images for your artworks. There are minor conditions for their use but for most people it won't effect them. Please read the 'Sticky Note' and 'Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License' on SnapShots before using these photos.

Quick links:

• Free Subscription to Arts & Stuff by Email

• Take a look at my SnapShots Blog

• Arts and Stuff with Susan Borgas website
• 
  

technorati tags: drawing, sketch, snapshots, images, photos, , free images

Love my Widgets

Computers without power just do not work and these outages have been happening quite a bit over the last 2 1/2 weeks in my local area, yesterday being one of them hence a delay in getting up a post about a new widget that I have been playing around with.

This widget all came about when Katherine Tyrrell from Making a Mark sent me a link for a relatively new blog called Tips for New Bloggers asking me to have a look at it and instantly took a liking to how this blogger explains in simple terms tweaks for blogger. Katherine has written about this blogger, which can be found here. Also she has some interesting news about Google and Blogger that is worth taking note of.

Well I am addicted to widgets and love to see what they can do. I think I need a blog just to load widgets up to display them to the world but then again I need another blog like a hole in the head.

I spotted a "JavaScript for Quote of the Day" at 'Tips for New Bloggers' and instantly thought it would solve an idea that I have been thinking about but didn't know how to avoid extra work each day with my blog. What is this widget I hear you impatiently asking? "I'm not telling!!! Ouch!... you twisted my arm enough!"

Ta da: Pastel Hint of the Day. Scroll down and check it out in the column. Tell you what I could write many posts in the time that it took me to remember all what I have learnt over the years and add them to a daily hint. Hints maybe edited if I think they can be improved although for now I do hope some of you pastel people find what is there useful.


Quick links:

• Free Subscription to Arts & Stuff by Email

technorati tags: Blogger, widgets, blog, geek, tips

Water's Path - Willochra Creek "WIP" three

I just love to paint Mount Remarkable bathed in an atmospheric light that gives depth to the painting. Using the flat end of pastels lightly applied to the tooth of the Art Spectrum paper allows small amounts of colour to mix. Each new colour is another layer (not all the areas are applied with each new colour), which in the end starts to smooth out. I have not done any blending; the application of pastel does the blending. I finish with a warm tone that is only touched in minuscule detail to give the Mount a ‘glow’. At the base of the mountain the colour is applied in the same way but with warmer tones. Also the tops of the canopies of the trees are highlighted a little more to give them more shape.

Coming down to the central area: For the most part the grass blades are short because the growth at this time is soon after much needed rain. I found it best to scrape pastel in a horizontal fashion further back against the tree line then as I come towards the creek; follow the bank downwards with short strokes of colour so that one crosses slightly over the other in a very narrow hatch technique. There are roughly six colours used in the grasses that are in sunlight remembering it is very short so some of the colour represents soil. The blades are longer in and around the rocks due to more moisture trapped so this will allow me to make the rocks look so much more grounded than how they would look when sitting on top of soil.

When putting the sky in and around the far right tree I was finding I was becoming quite frustrated with the slow process. Also I had to come back out over the sky with the ‘greens’ to soften the edges, which ended up adding more bulk to the foliage then having to brush pastel off and redo some again because the canopies are excessively heavy. Well I decided to put the sky in before going back into the canopy of the remaining foliage because my trees always seem to look more natural with this technique. I girl is allowed to change her mind isn’t she? My way of thinking, the darkest darks of the foliage are still best laid in before the sky or they will be contaminated by the lights then look pasty. Still plenty to do in this area and off to do that this very minute….. Catch ya next time!


Quick links:

• Free Subscription to Arts & Stuff by Email
  

technorati tags: wip, pastel, landscape, large trees, pastel artist, pastel landscape

Pastel Blogroll

Blogrolls for the most part offer quality links to blogs that quite often can be lost in the system. Blogs can also be hard for some internet users to find as not all are savvy seeking them out and for that reason today I am launching my 'Pastel Blogroll' on this blog so start scrolling down until you find it.

Many thanks to Katherine Tyrrell from Making a Mark, because it was your post called "The Pastel Journal's new blog" that prompted me to put into action what I had been thinking about doing for some time now. To quote Katherine from that post

"Maybe they'd like to start a blogroll on their blog for people who blog about pastels?"

Once the seed had been planted it didn’t take long for it to sprout into action on my part.

Because I don't want my sidebar longer than necessary a marquee will be used. It isn't ideal for visitors that are in a hurry nor do I particularly like the big gap from the end to the new start when displayed in Internet Explorer. The reason I have incorporated the text at the beginning and end, it allows you to catch the first and last link when using Firefox, especially if you are slow on the eye to hand coordination as I can be at times. When researching I have also learnt that many users don't understand how to use drop down menus so either way I don't think I will win. Because the movement of the marquee does catch the eye I decided I will go with it for now for something a little different and do hope it isn't too distracting when reading my posts.

Many thanks to Lesly Finn for sharing her marquee code with me. Also check out her "Tagged by the Queen of the World” post because she tagged me and you never know there might be a blog listed there that you haven't seen. Lesly has now been added to my "Tagged" post.

It will only be a matter of time and I will also have a blogroll for art blogs that I regularly read so watch out for that one.

So often my mind is thinking about a three column blog once more, as I have done for SnapShots only this time it might be better to have the two information columns on the same side so that visits can scan both at the same time....something for me to ponder about.

My blogroll will never be a link exchange, so please don't ask or you maybe offended when I say no. Don't get me wrong I am all for link love and that is why I started up a blog just for the purpose of exchanging art blog links. If you are interested take a look at Sue's Blog Links for your consideration. Some of these links may/will end up on my blogroll.

NOTE: I choose what appeals to me for a blogroll. Just because I have not chosen a particular blog for my blogroll does not mean the blogger isn't a good one.

What are you looking for to be listed on your blogroll?

1. Consistency with what the blog is supposed to be all about although some deviation is okay.
   
   
2. Make me want to read more
   
   
3. Post regularly
   
   
4. Honesty
   
   
5. Sharing your knowledge
   
   
6. Images; can't have an art blog without images and trust me I have seen them.
   
   
7. Humour is good although not necessary

Well I think this post will give you plenty to read along with more blogs to investigate so I will leave you to it. Cheers!

Quick links:

• Free Subscription to Arts & Stuff by Email

• Take a look at my SnapShots Blog
  
  
• Katherine Tyrrell from Making a Mark
  
  
• The Pastel Journal's new blog
  
  
• Lesly Finn

• Tagged by the Queen of the World
  
  
• Tagged

• Sue's Blog Links

technorati tags: marquee, pastel blogroll, pastel, blog, tag, tagged

Water's Path - Willochra Creek "WIP" two

Believe it or not there is three hours done on this work today...... slow as I am it will hopefully mean less mistakes to be fixed.

Studying the shadowed side of the tree that has been worked on today I may darken it slightly by one or two value in some parts. The trunk is very light so will give the shadowed side some more thought without rushing into it.

For those that wonder if I am using white pastel, the answer is no. I do not use pure white in my work. I do love the Art Spectrum Australian Grey for my lightest lights on the tree trunks. I will also sneak a few other interesting colours in just to vary it and admit to trying out new colours to see if they work and if they do, they stay.

Sigh!!! I just dropped a heap of pastels that I have for back-up stock. Lets just say that dropping soft pastels from a hight of 30 cm (12"), I now have a lot more pieces than I originally had.....grrrrrr!


Quick links:

• Free Subscription to Arts & Stuff by Email

technorati tags: pastel, wip, landscape, art

Water's Path - Willochra Creek "WIP"

Work is 47.5cm high x 68cm wide.
Burgundy Art Spectrum Colourfix

Working on a large oil painting I found that I am having withdrawals from my pastels so while I wait for paint to set some more I thought I would start a Wip.

I started this one by finding my lightest lights (as I usually do with pastels) and my darkest darks. The darks I normally don’t find all of them at this point of my work but found after working with my latest oil painting, which I used the grisaille method, I am much more aware of the tones. I recommend a grisaille to anyone that has trouble identifying tones in their work.

The taller eucalyptus tree on the right wasn’t positioned very well as it was dead centre. I knew this before sketching onto the paper and moved the tree across on what is hopefully a much better position. It will also allow the eye to travel through to the background taking away the feeling of being trapped when viewing the painting.

Golly I can't stop yawning...... I do find pastelling so relaxing and could crawl up in a corner somewhere and have a snooze but instead I will go and cook the evening meal for hubby and I....cheers for now!

Quick links:

• Free Subscription to Arts & Stuff by Email

technorati tags: pastel, wip, landscape, art

Arts and Stuff Carnival - May 14, 2007

Welcome to the May 14, 2007 edition of Arts and Stuff Carnival.

Art Creativity

Christine Kane presents How to Get Anything Done posted at Christine Kane's Blog.

myself presents Our Earth as Art posted at Acres Wild.

Lexi Sundell presents Creative Burnout From Unreasonable Customer Demands | Energies of Creation posted at Energies of Creation, saying,

"Burnout can result from unreasonable customer demands. The "Omigod Ring" reached ridiculous extremes in this category."

Miscellaneous Art

Lexi Sundell presents Regulating Puppy Energy Fields posted at Energies of Creation, saying,

"Integrating a puppy into a studio/gallery is a challenge solved by unusual energy work."

Ellen McDermott presents FINISHING TOUCHES posted at THE ART HALL.

Anja Merret presents William Hogarth exhibition at the Tate Britain posted at anja merret, saying,

"I was fortunate to be able to visit the William Hogarth exhibition at the Tate Britain."

Kathryn presents An Interview With Artist Judy Gittelsohn | San Fran Voice posted at San Fran Voice, saying,

"Interview with an artist who has just started a nonprofit organization bringing art opportunities to at risk youth and the developmentally disabled."

Michael Fowke presents Money is the way: Painting sells for $102 million posted at Money is the way, saying,

"I am interested in art, but this is just a humorous story about the prices some paintings can fetch."

Elvis D presents You Should Be An Actor posted at OneSmallWindow.

Michael Hwang presents Remikz: Starcraft Origami posted at remikz!.

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of
arts and stuff carnival
using our
carnival submission form.
Past posts and future hosts can be found on our

blog carnival index page.

Technorati tags:

arts and stuff carnival, blog carnival.

Quick links:

• Free Subscription to Arts & Stuff by Email

Tagged!

Katherine Tyrrell from Making a Mark has tagged me. How it works I tell you seven things about myself that most people don’t know. I then tag seven people to do the same and ‘they’ mention who tagged them in their own blog post, as I have done my mentioning Katherine’s name with a link.

Update: Lesly Finn from Pastel and Paint: Lesley Finn's Art has tagged me since posting here. I hope you enjoy what she has to say....... I know I did!

So here we go…..what little secrets can I tell you all…..mmmmmmmm

1. Many moons ago when I was a very young kid I remember hugging a tree branch from underneath when all of a sudden the limb broke. I fell to the ground while still hugging the branch and wandered if I was ever going to be able to breathe again because the wind was knocked out of me. When I could catch my breath I didn’t dare go to my dad for sympathy who was telling me not to climb the tree before hand because I knew I would end up with a sore backside as well for punishment. Now young adults, my own kids take great delight in telling me stories of mischief they used to get up too
   
   
2. I grew up in the outback of Australia and used to say to my grandmother that I would marry a farmer because it was as much civilization that I wanted and I did! No I did not run around the countryside looking for a farmer to marry; it was something I did not recall until my grandmother reminded me when I did wed my husband.
   
   
3. I like a ‘see food’ diet although not always the ideal diet for the waistline!
   
   
4. I rarely play a computer game but give me a ‘software or hardware problem’ or ‘how do you’ question related to programs and I just have to solve it – alas not always successfully.
   
   
5. I am a Chronic Fatigue sufferer but hey I choose to not let that weakness rule my life…..anyway it was the reason that I took up painting in the first place because it gave me peace of mind. To this day I am protective that my art does not become an unpleasant task and take that peacefulness away. Because of this I will step back some days from my art responsibilities and ‘smell the roses’.
   
   
6. About a week before starting my own blog I had little knowledge of what blogs were about. I like to think that my writing skills have improved since my first post.
   
   
7. I can not tolerate spiders of any shape or size and the hairy ones are the worse. My husband (Malcolm) once chased me with a huntsman spider to the point that I became hysterical and screamed. Thankfully he realises he does not want his eardrums puncture and now does not get his kicks out of scaring the sh*t out of me by chasing me around with a spider. Um one night he did wonder why I was belting him up while I was still sound asleep….. yup even dreaming about spiders I can’t stand them!

Ok here we go, now I am going to tag seven people if they also would like to play. Hopefully when checking your blogs, I didn’t miss a post that you had already been tagged.

1. Bart Westgeest from I landscape blog who from my very early days of blogging has been a faithful commenter on my blog.
   
   
2. Robyn from Have Dogs, will Travel blog who has some wonderful sketches and a variety of other posts.
   
   
3. Rita Woodburne from Purple Tastes Good blog; a coloured pencil artist who’s work I do enjoy.
   
   
4. Madelaine Fedorowich from The Art of Madelaine blog has been a favourite of mine for a very long time. Check out her Lighthouse Park WIP that she is working on. I am watching closely myself because I am using the same technique on my large oil.
   
   
5. Linda Blondheim from Landscapes from the South blog is a tireless poster and generously posts tips.
   
   
6. Karen Margulis from Painting my World blog is a wonderful pastel artist that I have admired for her beautiful work.
   
   
7. Penny from My Boots and Sketch Book blog is about an Aussie artist who I only recently found and do enjoy reading because it sometimes sounds so familiar to my own life.
   

Quick links:

• Free Subscription to Arts & Stuff by Email

• Take a look at my SnapShots Blog

• Arts and Stuff with Susan Borgas website

technorati tags: tagged, tag

Prints for Sale at RedBubble.com

For some time now prints of my work has been on the list of things to do but never had the time to get really serious about it to present them in a way that I was happy with.

Yesterday I came across an Australian website called RedBubble who offers prints of paintings, sketches, photography and so on. I did come across familiar names that have signed up and after some further research decided to give it a go myself. Click to see my Portfolio at RedBubble.

How does it work? It is so easy to do. Sign up, load up high quality images of your work, and choose the mark up price which will be your share of the sale, sit back and wait to see if there is a transaction.

I did have concerns with the copyright of my work but put that worry aside for now with a limited amount of work offered. Product previews are all low quality image files so it shouldn’t become an issue. I can delete works at anytime.

If you go to the questions and answers for uploading your images, it gives a pretty good description of how your work will be used.

Quick links:

• Free Subscription to Arts & Stuff by Email

• Take a look at my SnapShots Blog

• Arts and Stuff with Susan Borgas website
  

• Prints for Sale
  

technorati tags: RedBubble, sales, prints

Training your Brushes to Behave

Once upon a time there was pure soap to drag your brushes across and flatten or shape into points to help care for the tips after a day of painting. Well let me tell you there is another way that you can pull those wild brushes back into shape and the magic ingredient is….wait for it… Hair Gel!!!

Months ago I pinched my sons jar of Hair Gel to try it out. It is an inexpensive supermarket brand and does the job beautifully in controlling my brushes of all types. If we can put it on our hair without it falling out or change to a weird colour I can’t see that it will hurt and after months of using Hair Gel on my own brushes, I can recommend it.

After each painting session I rinse the brushes out in water or turps (depending on the type of medium used). I then wash my brushes out in warm water and pure soap, no matter what medium I have used. Do this by rubbing the brush onto the soap, rinse and rub onto soap again and rinse until the brush does not soil the soap. One last rinse than remove excess moisture on a cloth, dip in the Hair Gel, shape and allow to dry. It might be wise to rinse the gel out of the brush for watercolour painting but I don’t bother for oils.

It isn’t unusual for me to place a stubborn flat tipped brush that doesn’t want to be trained under the edge of a large cutting mat on my table. It is sufficient weight to hold the fibres together until the gel is dry.

If you would like to share by commenting to this post how to gain a longer life for brushes, I would love to hear from you.

Quick links:

• Free Subscription to Arts & Stuff by Email
  

technorati tags: brushes, hair gel, cleaning brushes, brush care

Wendy Prior Original and it's all mine :D

The Bay - 8 x 10 inches in coloured pencil on drafting film -
Copyright Wendy Prior

Doesn't this coloured pencil work add some class to my blog? I just wish I could say that I did this work myself because eyeballing the original that turned up by snail mail today just blows me away. I emailed the artist of this work Wendy Prior for permission to post her image to my blog, which she generously said yes.

How I came about buying this work, Wendy's decided to have a major clean out with a studio Sale. This post is where I saw "The Bay" and promptly made a purchase.

Looking at the image on my graphics monitor and comparing it to the original I can truly recommend purchasing Wendy's work from her website because the reproduction is spot on. I am astonished with the fine pencil work that she uses and know that I am going to learn so much from this piece.

Thank you Wendy for the opportunity to buy one of your original works.

Quick links:

• Free Subscription to Arts & Stuff by Email
  
  

technorati tags: coloured pencils, horse

Who we are and Chambers Gorge Rock Pool "WIP" eight

There is a get to know you thread in the Talk Pastel Forum at WetCanvas. For the artist that read this blog there might be someone there you know or would like to get to know better. Here is a quick link to Who we are at WetCanvas.

Below is my own contribution along with this photo in todays post. As you can see there is some glare on the painting, especially so in the sky. The sky actually does recede more than this image shows. I am wary about bringing in vegetation too quickly over the sky because I don't want any cracking of the darker paint to occur. I am constantly checking that mixing mediums into my oil paint is done correctly and once more this is where WetCanvas helps me enormously.

Ok enough of the prattle as there is enough to read below.

I have been following this thread with great interest and thought it was time that I added my own profile.

As a child I lived in the Pastoral Regions of the Gawler Ranges of South Australia. As station life meant creating my own entertainment, I spent much of my time doing what I loved most - drawing.

At the beginning of my high school years I moved to Quorn in the Flinders Ranges of South Australia to live with my grandparents. Even though I had visited my grandparents in the past, this was the beginning of a new era, where I would remain living in the Flinders Ranges.

I spent one year with my grandparents before moving with my family to Black Rock and eventually Orroroo. I stayed at Orroroo until I married in 1976, moving onto my husband's family farming property near Booleroo Centre. We still live there to this day. We have three children who are in the workforce.

Life was pretty busy on the farm, bringing up a family and the ensuing commitments. It wasn't until 1992 that I seriously considered taking up painting. Watercolour was the first medium that I ever used followed closely by oils. How times change as I am now primary a Pastelist. Even though pastel is my main medium that I now use, other types of paint and drawing materials and technique do embrace a large part of who I am as an artist. For example at the moment I am studying the Grisaille technique in oils, which is mentally quite taxing but oh am I learning such a lot! I have recently purchased coloured pencils and like other mediums that I have used, I won’t be satisfied until I know how to use them to the best of my ability.

My life does not just revolved around my art. Working on the farm; office duties often are calling me plus play a support role to my husband when the farm is very busy. One of my children is married with another wedding in a few months time. I like to share what I do when it comes to my creative side of my life as I do get so much in return. This is why I like to be involved with WetCanvas as much as I can. Putting all my work in one place and talking about it on my Arts & Stuff blog also enables me to interact with other artist.

Today I tidied up my face and hair ready for church and I thought here was a good opportunity to show you a ‘not so scruffy’ artist in her studio. I am still in my daggy clothes that I wear at home and apologise for the uneven light with glare spots. The painting is the Grisaille that I am working on and is taking forever to do but like I said, I am learning a lot.

Quick links:

• Free Subscription to Arts & Stuff by Email

technorati tags: Profile, wip, oil, grisialle, Susan Borgas

Hints for Staying Focused

Staying focused in your work isn’t always easy, especially if there is a daunting amount of work to do over a period of a year and the next and so on. Time management is so important to stay focused on what needs to be done. This is how I try to stay focused and for the most part it does work.

1. List off the main jobs that have to be completed for the year. For artists that would be how many paintings you need to complete as well as exhibitions you are exhibiting in. Be sure to list any other major events, including non work related ones. Once you have a list, pencil each job into the years calendar at a pace that you know you can handle comfortably with room to spare for any hiccups that may arise and trust me they will. You will also be aware if you can handle anymore additional work for that year.

2. Write out a daily task list. I started doing this when I read Maggie’s post How to Juggle & Other Parlor Tricks on her blog. It is a great way of staying on track for your day, which then allows you to focus more on what you should be doing, creating art or whatever else your job is.

3. Your time is important so learnt to say no when someone else wants a slice of your day. If it can’t be avoided do a trade off. For example because my husband and I own a business there is sometimes a task that I can only do that wasn’t on the agenda. If my husband wants me to do a job for him he ends up doing a mundane job or two off my own list.

4. Delegate jobs to other members in the family or staff rather than trying to be ‘super work hero’ that ends up coming to an almighty crash from overload. It takes a long time to climb back out of that hole that you created. I learnt that at an earlier time in my life where I ended up so ill that I was useless to those around me.

5. Consider using your answering machine to take your calls. This I have done when I see ‘private numbers’ showing up on the ID screen. 99% of the time ‘private numbers’ are either a fax or somebody wanting to sell me something; perhaps I should try and sell them a painting.

6. As an artist I know I lose focus when painting. This is when it is time to have some refreshments or do one of those smaller jobs on the list that take no longer than ten or so minutes. That break for me will help me refocus once more on the painting.

7. I love my email and the contact I have with family and friends but like phone calls, it is distracting from work and rarely touch my email during my work hours. If you have time, check your email & blog feeds first thing in the morning (I do while having my breakfast) and once more during the evening when finished my list for the day. Over my midday meal I sometimes will check my blog feeds. Once the clock says back to work, it really means back to work and I get on and do just that. On the subject of rss feeds, do you use a Feed Reader (for example Bloglines or Google Reader) to check your favourite blogs? You should! They save a lot of time as updated blog post drop into the same place and so much quicker to read. Many blogs offer email subscriptions if you prefer not to use a Feed Reader.

8. Listen to music while you work. It tends to help your mind settled on what is in front of you instead of all the other stuff that is going on in your life.

9. If you write to a blog, consider drafting your post rather than leaving it to the last minute then feeling rushed about what you want to write. I paint from the screen of my laptop, hence if an idea pops into my head for a post I make a note of it on the laptop. If the momentum takes off with that post, I do tend to go with it so that I don’t forget what I want to say, then once more able to concentrate on the main task for the day. This is especially so when painting WIP’s as it is easy to write about what I have done while I am painting. After all the blog is on my list of things to do for most days and can post without any loss of time then.

10. I do have a very messy studio but my immediate working space is very organised. This save me time and the most important factor is no loss of focus when searching for an item because I can lay my hands straight away on what is needed.

11. Don’t be a perfectionist with your ‘home’ chores. You will be the only one that knows if you missed cleaning the floor. If you do the cooking; a ‘gone out of your way to make’ meal will be appreciated more by not serving them up regularly. Cook in bulk when you can and place extra cooked meals in the fridge or freezer for ‘fast food’ meals.

12. For artist, keep the bookwork up to day so that it does not intrude on your creative time. My trade off with this is no blog posting for the day. As some of you know I have a real dislike for the GST bookwork that I have to do and because it is left brain thinking, it upsets my focus on the creative right side.

13. Don’t get bogged down with what this and that person says you should be doing. Listen and learn and weed out what isn’t suitable for your direction in life. Do what is right for you and you will have a very good focus on completing tasks that you have set out for yourself. This goes for anything in life, not just work. Sometimes your decision might seem selfish but if it means keeping your head above water, so be it.

14. Allow some time at the end of the day to reflect on what you have achieved. This will put you in the right frame of mind to get out of bed the next day and start all over again.

There you have it, this is how I stay focused for the most part. Yes things in life do get in the way of best laid plans but have learnt with maturity to step back and look at the bigger picture and reroute my plan of attack. If this happens to often I then become a very cranky artist, which my husband has found isn’t an ideal person to live with. Maybe that is the temperamental artist surfacing.

There must be many more ways to stay focused on tasks that need to be completed and would love to hear about them. Once more use the comments option to share your thoughts.


Quick links:

• Free Subscription to Arts & Stuff by Email

Staying Focused feed readers time management