WOYWW 360–Technology and Narrow Boat Painting

Better late than never – it’s now Wednesday evening and I have yet to show the world my desk! I couldn’t seem to get myself going this morning and all I managed to do was some singing practice, and then this afternoon I was busy producing something to show you!

Here is the corner of my studio to the right of the window, with my main work area on the right, taken from across the room. I took this photo this morning.

Yesterday I rolled up my sleeves and decided it was high time I got my cutting machine going again. She is called Sheba and is a Black Cat Cougar from Thyme Graphics, and I haven’t used her for several years, what with everything that’s been going on in my life over the past few years – problems with elderly parents, moving house, illness. During the past year I haven’t used my iMac much and like Sheba, it was in the corner of the room gathering dust. When I got it, I had the cutting software licence transferred fro the PC to Mac but never got round to setting it up, so I had to start doing that yesterday. Open on the screen you can see Final Cut Pro X, the Rolls-Royce of video editing software (available only on the Mac, unfortunately) – this is something else that I haven’t looked at for ages and wanted to revise my knowledge! On the right is my old laptop which works OK for some things but was replaced a few months ago with the one I am using to type this.

Hopefully if I can get Sheba up and running soon, I should be able to start producing more flowers and butterflies, and make some stencils etc. for my art. Watch this space.

Last week I began practising my narrow boat painting skills and soon realised that I didn’t have the right brushes so I ordered some on Ebay:

They came a couple of days ago, so this afternoon I did a bit more practising.

I am very grateful to Diana Taylor for her hint about translucent acrylics – she suggested mixing a bit of titanium white with the yellow and this certainly worked. The square of yellow roses bottom right was done this way, and the randomly-spaced ones have another coat of paler yellow on top which I quite like. I thought the spontaneity of the single brush stroke for each petal might be lost if I added more, but it seems to be OK. I can always add more yellow if I want. The new brushes are much better, but I had to experiment to get the right size, and also the right flow of paint – too thick and you can’t tail off the small petals to a nice fine line – too thin and the paint becomes translucent and too watery. Anyway I think I’m getting the hang of it now. In some ways it’s a shame that the boxes are painted red because it’s not an ideal background colour for this technique – a dark green or blue is better. Anyway I think I shall proceed with the acrylics and not bother to get any Humbrol enamels which I might not use again.

Happy WOYWW everyone, and a good productive week ahead on the creative front!

2014–What a Year

WOYWW visitors – please scroll down to the first post for today.

The second of three posts for today, and the first of two “update” posts – I realised there was going to be too much for a single post, because such a lot has gone on this year. I have therefore decided to devote this first one to personal and health issues and other miscellaneous things, and to make a new post about my creative endeavours during the year, of which there have been many!

I can’t believe it’s that time of year yet again when I look back on the months that have passed and take stock, and look forward, hopefully always with optimism, to the year ahead. This is the fifth annual review post I have made – have I really been blogging this long???

We have celebrated our first year living in our new house, and reaped the benefit of so many months of upheaval, anxiety, stress, joy and fun that took place during the previous year, during the renovations, and this year we have been able to enjoy to the full all the carefully planned alterations which have made life easier for everybody.

One of the things which has been the most fun was finally to be able to move into my beautiful new ARTHaven and get it up and running and planned exactly how I wanted, so that it at last became my favourite room in the house, where I can immerse myself in art and creativity and shed the stresses of the day, in an environment carefully designed and planned by me, and brought to fruition by our wonderful builders, to enable the creative process to take place with the minimum of difficulty.

Heath Issues

The year 2014 has been characterised by a series of health crises for us all – myself, my hubby and my mum, who lives in a flat occupying half the downstairs of the house. Just when we seemed to be entering a more stable period, something else happened, until I got to the stage when I wondered, “What next?” I know that compared with some people, our trials have been light, but nevertheless sometimes they have seemed hard to bear.

At the beginning of the year, now that we were really settled in, my hubby went up country to pick up my buggy (mobility scooter) which had belonged to my uncle, and this was installed in the garage with its own power supply, and enables me to trundle forth at the magnificent heartstopping rate of 4 mph to do my local errands – church, shopping, visiting etc. This is liberating!

In February I caught a nasty throat infection which left me coughing for months, and eventually in the summer I saw the doctor about it, and it became clear that the cough was a result of GORD (Gastro-oesophageal reflux disorder) and I was put on medication for this (Omeprazole) and referred to an ENT surgeon at the hospital for a proper examination, which revealed that there was still evidence of inflammation so I was put on revolting Gaviscon which is a sore trial to take!!

In the summer I also had problems with an extremely dry mouth, but after seeing another hospital consultant, a disease cause was ruled out, and we came to the conclusion that it was just another recurring M.E. symptom raising its ugly head again. I was given some good advice, though, about nasal decongestion which has helped a lot.

I suffered very badly this summer with swollen ankles and again sought medical advice. Several pieces of advice bore good fruit, and I also invested in a Circulation Booster which helped a lot. The cooler weather helped considerably, later on.

Since our return from holiday when I was shocked at how much weight I’d gained, I decided to embark on the famous 5:2 diet, and am happy to report that having hit another plateau recently, with my weight remaining constant for several weeks, I have lost a total of 2 stone 3 lb (31 lb) in six months. I have another 2 stone to lose until I am at the optimum weight for my height, but it is great knowing that I am now officially “overweight” and no longer “obese”!

In the summer also, I was diagnosed with mild anaemia, probably as a result of my ongoing ulcerative colitis, and have been on ferrous sulphate ever since, although now on a reduced dose, with my Hg levels being checked monthly.

In August I had my regular gastro-enterology appointment at the hospital to check on the state of my ulcerative colitis, and I have a colonoscopy coming up in January 2015 (something that has to happen every 2 years). He is pleased with my progress and how I am responding to the medication (Pentasa (mesazaline)).

However, my main health event of the year was a coronary artery spasm causing severe chest pain at the end of July, landing me in hospital for a couple of days. I’ve had no recurrence since, apart from a few periods of much less severe chest pain, all of which have been brought on by stress. I have a nitro-glycerine spray for such events. Coming out of hospital I became a soggy emotional heap, and when that passed, I moved into a period of several months’ mild depression, feeling generally “out of sorts” with myself, which is apparently a very common reaction to any cardiac event.

My M.E. continues much the same. The condition appears to have “bottomed out” and while I am not improving, neither am I continuing to go downhill as I did at the beginning. I have many days when I am pretty well unable to function and need to rest, which can be frustrating at times, but there’s nothing to be done about it and one just has to go with the flow and try and be as sensible as possible. Having a new adjustable bed is giving me more comfort and better nights and I no longer hanker after my wonderful hospital bed that I wanted to take home with me! This is also helping a lot with the reflux. Life is certainly easier with the renovations we had done in the house to suit my needs and also that my hubby isn’t having to run around after me quite so much as in the past.

A few weeks ago my hubby had an accident on his motorcycle and broke his wrist. He was in plaster for several weeks, and is now wearing a wrist splint after the latest X-ray revealed that the bone had knit. He will have another X-ray in a couple of weeks’ time and hopefully then will be back to normal. It feels painful now the rigid support of the cast is gone, and it will take time for it to regain its full strength. The worst part of it from our point of view was that he was not allowed to drive with a cast, and with all the running around he has to do on our behalf, this added to the already considerable inconvenience for him.

Mum’s health has presented us with several crises this year – firstly the common occurrence of minor injuries to her paper-thin skin necessitating hospital visits and the regular and frequent re-application of dressings. She is now very deaf and also needs her ears syringing regularly. She has also started suffering a series of TIAs (mini-strokes) and has been diagnosed with AF (atrial fibrillation) and is now on warfarin, which necessitates weekly visits to the surgery for her blood to be tested to determine the dose. Her short term memory is poor, and since her most recent bout of TIAs she has become more difficult, which is stressful for me, and my dear hubby is trying to shield me as much as possible, by taking on most of the contacts with her. We both experience ongoing low-level stress, interspersed by the high-octane version brought on by frequent confrontations with Mum on various issues. How true it is that whatever one’s personality, this tends to be exaggerated in old age.

It wasn’t just us humans in the family who had health issues this year. Our senior kitty, Beatrice (aged 14), after being registered with our new vet, had four teeth extracted, and was discovered to have a growth in the back of her neck that had to be removed, which proved to be quite major surgery, but was fortunately proved to be non-malignant. In order to protect the wound, she wore a premature babygro!

Then followed a series of urinary tract infections which have become ever more frequent so that she is more or less constantly on antibiotics now, but keeping pretty well, and with a good appetite. She is too thin, and with her delicate stomach has to be on a prescription diet, and requires frequent small meals in order to prevent vomiting. She continues to be a great character and much loved by us all, and she and “Granny” have developed a strong mutual affection and she enjoys spending time with Mum in her flat. The vet, “Uncle Luke,” is extremely fond of her, and everyone down at the vets’ has a huge soft spot for this very unusual kitty who is bursting with character and a bit too intelligent for her own good sometimes!!

All these health pressures have definitely been helped by having my hair permed again in the summer! Luuurve the curls. Thank goodness for good hair days, fragrant baths, kitties, art, and my wonderful hubby.

Technology

I was devastated this year that my faithful old sewing machine (21st birthday present) bit the dust, but delighted to get a new Brother machine, which, as things have turned out, I haven’t had a lot of time to get up and running – just a few boring household jobs to be done, and I still have to look up in the book how to thread it!!

At the beginning of the year I invested in an iMac and after an initial trial period trying to run both the Mac OS and Windows on it via a system called Parallels, eventually came to the conclusion that Windows didn’t work well enough on this for me, and I would continue with my two (now fairly elderly but excellent) laptops for Windows, and use the Mac pretty well exclusively for video. I had a brief experience with an upgrade to the latest version of Pinnacle video editing software on Windows but as with earlier versions, was frustrated by its instability, and decided to bite the bullet and move to Final Cut Pro for Mac which has proved to be a very successful move indeed. With my new video camera setup I can now produce good quality HD videos and the program is a total dream to operate – makes me wonder why I didn’t stop messing about years ago and spend the money and get serious – I’d have saved a great deal in the long run! I have not had as much time to create videos this year as I would have liked – it is a highly time-consuming process but also very creative and enjoyable.

The House

Finishing touches to the renovations included the installation of solar panels in the summer. We had been at a bit of a loss to know which company to approach, but our visit to the County Show was very fruitful, as we were able to speak one-to-one with several companies and come home armed with fliers. It was not hard to make our final choice, and the work went ahead very smoothly.

Personal

The major event of this year was my hubby’s retirement in the summer. He continues to be quite overwhelmed by the tremendous send-off he received, and all the gifts, cards, letters, emails etc. etc. I was a bit worried that he might feel the loss of role quite badly but he has had an incredibly busy time since, being carer for both Mum and myself, and various other commitments, but I am glad that he has been able to fit in quite a few days out doing the things he enjoys the most, and spending time with his friends. In the summer, for the first time he was able to volunteer on the local annual archaeological dig on a full-time basis. Knowing how precious these times are for him, I guard them jealously and try not to add to his commitments by asking that he drive me to things that aren’t strictly necessary, but we have had some nice outings together, and had a wonderful holiday (our first for 4 years) in the summer, coinciding with my school reunion, and the opportunity to immerse myself in some fabulous art. Our major and best day outing was to Bristol to view the Kaffe Fassett exhibition (click on the link at the top of my sidebar for pictures).

Since moving here, I have found an excellent church to join, and was admitted to full membership in the summer. I am thrilled that is is right on the doorstep and takes only a few minutes on the buggy to get there. I have made new friends there and the quality of worship and teaching is excellent.

WOYWW 279

For information as to how to join in our wonderful weekly hop around to see how messy our desks are, click on the WOYWW logo in my sidebar, which will take you to our hostess Julia’s blog where all will be explained.

I haven’t had much time this week to do anything much creative, because I’ve spent about four days on the recliner resting and feeling exhausted. I think our recent busy-ness has been catching up with me. Also, being the first week of the month, I have been busy doing the accounts, which I have now finished. In addition to this, two or three weeks ago I had to apply for a new blue badge (disabled parking badge) and sent off the application to Devon County Council, only to have it returned and to be informed that I now had to apply to our local town council since we’d moved. The form duly arrived, and of course it was different, and required different documentation, so apart from the (quite embarrassingly awful) photo I had done in a photo booth recently, I’ve had to more or less reapply from scratch. What a pain it all is! It seems these days that you can’t move without having to provide at least 3 documents proving your identity, and I have nothing with a recent photo on it.

Anyway, to my desk. This is what that end of my ARTHaven looks like today:

On the left, on the curve, is my iMac. Balanced on top of my little rack of tapes is the gorgeous pincushion made for me by Lunch Lady Jan a few years ago when we did an ATC swap with WOYWW. My distress inks are all out because I’ve got fed up with them in a box, and have yet to decide how on earth I’m going to store them… On the main desk is my latest masterboard which I completed last night (see previous post). This is what it looks like now.

You can see the brown one I made, on the pulled-out unit to the right of the picture, beside my new envelope punch board.

The other night I spent quite a long time cutting up a new set of alphabet stamps that came with my recent new parcel of stash, and sticking them down onto EZ Mount Foam. Even with my Tim Holtz scissors that have non-stick blades, it was an extremely sticky and unpleasant job! Not my favourite occupation but it had to be done.

I am hoping to have more time and energy for art during the coming week. I have been finding it very frustrating that what small supplies of energy I have, tend to get used up doing things I have to do, and then there’s none left for any fun! I’ve had the result of my blood test and I am still anaemic, so back on the iron again. Shoshi pumping iron lol!

Happy WOYWW, everyone.

WOYWW 268

What’s on Your Workdesk today? Show and tell! To join in the fun, click on the WOYWW logo in my sidebar and go to our hostess Julia’s blog where everything is explained.

I can tell you in one word what’s on Shoshi’s workdesk this week – chaos! I do wish I was a tidier worker but the creative flow grabs me and I just dump stuff willy nilly so I can get on with the next bit. Fortunately in my new ARTHaven there’s plenty of space – and all-importantly, space to dry things.

I haven’t done anything in there for the past fortnight because it’s been such a busy time, and with Mum having her mini-stroke etc. I’ve been pretty exhausted and haven’t had the energy to be very creative. However, I realised today that I have a birthday card to make before Thursday so I thought I’d better get my skates on.

Here’s the main work area.

From left to right at the back: a pot of puff binder which I recently got but haven’t tried yet, and which I may use on this project; gel mediums of all shapes and sizes, acrylic paints, distress stains, ink pads, brushes, gesso, bubble wrap printing block, some unmounted stamps and scraps of card. In the foreground, from right to left: the card base, which has been inked and spattered with acrylic paint. Centre; the main background for the card, with more spattering. On the left, an offcut of the purple card which I’ve used to clean my brushes, which has made a nice background for something or other. On the far left you can just see my small circles stencil.

Just behind the gel mediums on the left you can see a piece of kitchen paper maturing nicely with a bit of a build-up of blue paint. Although you can’t see it on the photo, it’s also quite shimmery (as are the card pieces on the desk) because I’ve been using quite a bit of iridescent gel medium today.

Across the corner, to the left of the main area, in front of my iMac you can see my Perfect Pearls palette, and some gems, sequins and stickles for the current project. My Cougar cutting machine, Sheba (sorely neglected species these days!) is peeping out from behind the iMac and some external hard drives and my drawing tablet. In front of the blind you can see how my current scratch paper is progressing, with the addition of a lot of blue today (which will be toned down by the next layer) and my purple box containing the pens I use for drawing.

The pull-out unit to the right of the main work area is a mess as usual. There are scanned photos on there for the recycled mini-album (resting on top) and the paper stacks for the album I’m making about Dad (on the back burner while I work on the recycled mini-album).

In front of the box of acrylic paints you can see some wrapping paper with butterflies on it, which will be used for the current project, and also the narrow strips of inked kitchen paper from a Dylusions playtime I had some time ago. It’s all resting on more used kitchen paper which is ready to be used as backgrounds in projects. Back on the main work surface, on top of the guillotine you can see my heat gun and palette, and the desk organiser has all my stencil brushes and sponge applicators in it.

Beyond, on the other side of the room, you can see my guitar, which is now seeing the light of day again after several years (don’t my fingers know it! They are quite sore!) and a pile of teabags on the sewing machine. I’m really looking forward to getting stuck into the teabag art again but the mini-album has to take priority at the moment. Hopefully there’ll be another post shortly, about the card I’m working on.

Told you it was a tip, didn’t I.

Happy WOYWW, everybody!

WOYWW 258

Click on the WOYWW logo in my sidebar and visit Julia’s blog, to find out what this is all about, if you are not already part of the fun, nosing around other people’s work desks!!

Here is my desk this week.

I don’t know why it is, but each week these days, I seem to be between jobs when WOYWW comes around, so I never seem to have anything very interesting going on on my desk! This week you can see the mini-album I’ve been working on, now complete (the book at least – the pages have yet to be decorated). It is made entirely from recycled materials, and anything else (metal embellishments, paint, etc.) were already in my stash.

To the right of it, you can see the small piece of roofing felt with my test samples of different finishes – acrylic wax, gel medium and acrylic varnish – to help me decide on a finish for the half-binding of the book.

I tried to include my iMac in the picture, because on the screen there is a nifty little gear wheel that I have created in Inkscape, but it doesn’t show up at all! I’ve been struggling most of the afternoon trying to get Inkscape to work with the Mac, and it seems to be OK now. I am designing a gear wheels stencil which I intend using to embellish the pages of the mini-album.

The little purple box contains my Zentangle pens and other drawing stuff. The cream coloured tin bath is a convenient place to keep things tidy – on top is Lunch Lady Jan’s pincushion which I really treasure! Beside that is a selection of gel mediums, gesso and paint that I was using for the book, and a jar of dirty paint water. (Well, there has to be some sort of evidence of work going on, doesn’t there!)

You can see better pictures of the book if you scroll down to previous posts.

The rest of the room is, as usual, in utter chaos. Still loads of teabags hanging around feeling neglected!

Have a great week, everybody, and may your creative juices flow, your mojo reign supreme, and may you have lots of goodies to share with us!

WOYWW 256

Wow! It’s the WOYWW-ing day again! In case you don’t know what I’m on about, click on the WOYWW logo in my sidebar which will take you to our hostess Julia’s blog, where all will be explained.

Another week has gone by and I haven’t yet plugged in my new sewing machine! I did manage to do a few more rows on my knitting, though, but not enough to make an interesting photo.

Most of my time has been taken up working on my recycled mini-album which you can read about here and here, as I have now updated my blog with a couple of posts about it, slotted in in date order. I have also been working hard at the videos, and there are now 5 instalments of this project on my Youtube channel. I will be adding them to my blog when the work on the album is finished. I am now using Final Cut Pro X on my iMac, having got totally fed up with Pinnacle which kept crashing and not playing ball, and various other video editing programs I’ve tried over the years. FCP is a total dream in comparison – it just does what I want, when I want, and it is so powerful. There is loads of fabulous help online and I am now feeling very at home with it, and wished I’d made this investment years ago. It is all such fun, as well as producing outstanding results for me.

My desk isn’t looking that interesting now, but here goes anyway:

On the left you can see my iMac with FCP running. Moving to the right, the pile of white paper is copious notes and instructions gleaned from the Internet to help me achieve what I want in FCP. To the right of that is the mini-album, now with its pages painted black and the binding more or less complete. Behind it is some talc and a small bowl – I have been lightly dusting the pages with talc in an attempt to prevent them sticking together. Further right, black gesso and black acrylic paint. Just in front of these you can just see the end papers I’ve made for the album. Further right is my palette, followed by more piles of scrap paper with notes on them. These notes relate to the planning of the album and what photos I will need, etc.

Hopefully soon you will see something from my new sewing machine. In the meantime, the rest of my ARTHaven is cluttered up as usual with drying teabags! Nothing new there, I hear you say.

Have a happy and productive week, everybody, and a very happy WOYWW.

WOYWW 255

To find out what all this “wowwing” is about, click on the WOYWW link in my sidebar, which will take you to Julia’s blog where all will be revealed.

Two weeks ago I promised you that some Exciting News was in the offing Chez Shosh. Unfortunately it hadn’t arrived in time for last week’s WOYWW but on Thursday a Very Exciting Parcel arrived…

My beautiful new sewing machine! (For those of you who don’t visit my blog between WOYWW hops, you can read all about it here.)

So far, I haven’t even managed to plug it in, because I have a sudden deadline on a different project, which I really must crack on with – there’s a lot of work involved so I’m afraid my New Baby will have to wait for a while!

To this week’s WOYWW, and I have various things to show you around my ARTHaven. On the first work surface, under the window, I have laid out a large quantity of teabags for final drying off after they’ve been removed from the watercolour paper. They must be fully dry before I can extract the tea and use the bags – if I put them away damp, they will go mouldy. I’ve got the ladies well trained at church now, and I think they are becoming accustomed to the extreme weirdness of their newest member of the congregation! This week I was given a large quantity of teabags, not only from Sunday itself, but rescued from the bin; these latter ones are always covered with coffee grounds and I have to wash them when I get home! For the past couple of days this has been the state of things in my ARTHaven:

Anyway, back to my desk today – a couple of days ago I had a massive tidy-up and it’s all looking pretty organised now! To the right of the teabags you can see my small laptop, and beside it the iMac, which has now found its way back upstairs. I have been busy working on some videos and at the same time learning Final Cut Pro X, my new video editing software – because I’m on a steep learning curve, everything takes a long time to do!

My main work area:

On the left, the small grey square thing is the touch pad (mouse replacement) for the iMac. In the centre you can see the new project I’m working on, which is a mini-album made entirely of recycled materials – I have drafted several blog posts about it which I have not yet uploaded because I am still working on the associated videos. The stage I’m at today is covering all the pages with black gesso in readiness for the artwork. Watch this space for progress – one I’ve finished giving the pages their final coat, the exciting stuff should begin!

Moving further around the room to the sewing corner, you can see the new sewing machine sitting in its place of honour, with its cover on. In front of it is a small sample piece with teabags pinned to a tea-dyed piece of fabric, waiting to be stitched. To the right, more teabags drying, and an ever-increasing pile of watercolour papers with teabag stains on them.

Mummy’s Little Helper – earlier yesterday afternoon.

Phoebe is a good little girl and I’d be happy for her to spend time with me in my ARTHaven, but I have to ban them both because Beatrice is a total pain – she rummages in everything and pulls things out, and as soon as my back is turned (and often not even waiting for that) she’s all over everything, and she’d walk through wet paint given half a chance! She’s the nosiest cat I have ever known.

Final picture for today, taken one day last week – another shot of the two of them with four eagle eyes firmly fixed on my hubby’s supper again – not fish cakes this time, but pizza!

Absolutely no progress to report on the knitting this week – it hasn’t been out of the bag.

Have a great week, everybody, and may your creative mojo never depart!

Regarding my blog posts on the mini-album, these will appear on the correct dates, i.e. the blog posts reflecting the work done on that particular day, so they will appear before this post, chronologically. This is for my own  purposes, so I know when I did what. There will also be a post about creating substrates for the teabags, as soon as I have finished editing that video. It all takes a very long time and I’m getting quite behind with it all!

Teabag Art–Preparing the Teabags

Some time ago, I watched a Colouricious video on Youtube (I subscribe to their channel) – one of a series on making things from recycled stuff and rubbish.

I was really intrigued by this, and especially that they managed to achieve a look that was exactly like leather, and the end result certainly didn’t look like used teabags!

Recently I decided to have another look at this, and googled “teabag art” and was astounded at the amazing things people were making with these humble little objects that most people throw away without a second thought.

I started saving my teabags, and asked my hubby to do the same. We drink Lapsang Souchong or Earl Grey tea, both of which are quite pale, so we are not getting the darker staining on the bags that you’d get with regular “builders’ tea” – how I wish I’d saved the mountain of used teabags produced by our builders during the months they were working on our house!! Anyway, they are still stained, but more subtly, and being lighter, lend themselves to further colouring with distress inks etc.

My hubby also started saving his herb “teabags” – I don’t think they should call this stuff tea because it’s never seen a tea bush in its life, and bears no resemblance to that most majestic and restorative of beverages!! His bags were made of different stuff (not much texture), were a different shape, and the stuff inside went rather solid when dry, and was quite revolting when taken out – especially the ginger “tea” which produced some stuff like cement!! I told him not to bother keeping them any longer, but just to save real teabags.

To start with, I was drying them on the corner of my ARTHaven sink, until I discovered online that if you dry them on a piece of paper (preferably watercolour paper which is substantial enough not to fall apart when wet), you get some very interesting stains, and these papers can then be used subsequently in art projects.

This is what my piece of watercolour paper looks like now, after several weeks of drying teabags on it:

I have discovered that you can, to a certain extent, control the shape of the marks left by the wet bags by how you place them down on the paper. The most interesting ones are created by screwing the teabag up so that its creases make contact with the paper. Many of these initial patterns are reminiscent of roses, and I am planning to make a piece using this paper as a background, entitled “Tea Rose” and embellished with 3-D paper roses made from tea-stained papers, and keeping the colours brown and sepia.

I am also planning to create a more organised background sheet by laying the teabags flat in a patchwork design. This should give a chequer-board effect which will be suitable for embellishing in a different way.

With teabag art, you certainly get the opportunity to make art out of every stage of the procedure!!

Once the teabags are dry, they need to be emptied. In order not to destroy the bag, I made a little slit, close to the edge, with a pair of very sharp, fine scissors, and tipped out the dry tea onto a piece of newspaper. While I was working on the bags, I had time to consider to what use I might put all this tea – with such a frugal and recycling project as teabag art, it would be most pleasing to be able to use the tea as well, so meanwhile, I stored it in a jar while I thought about how I could use it.

The empty teabags are quite creased. Before using them, the Colouricious team ironed them flat, but I thought that for certain effects, I could make use of these creases, so up till now, I haven’t ironed any of them.

Here is the video I made of the preparation of the teabags for making teabag art.

I shall be uploading subsequent videos in due course, so watch this space to see where this train of inspiration takes me! I am finding it fascinating that you can make art out of anything, with a bit of imagination! – and a lot of help from the Internet – all those hours languishing on the recliner because I haven’t got the energy to do anything else are not wasted, as during those times, Youtube and a Pinterest have become my dear friends!!

A final note on my videos. Just before we moved, I purchased a new video camera (a Samsung) on the recommendation of Lindsay the Frugal Crafter who had recently upgraded her camera to this model. I have set up a rig attached to the shelf above the main work zone in my new ARTHaven and my technique is gradually improving! In order to produce HD videos I have had to upgrade my computer – my two Windows 7 laptops are not powerful enough, and for some time I’d been considering moving over to Mac, but was held back by the fact that I am heavily invested in Windows and have a lot of excellent third-party software for which there is no Mac version. However, with the discovery of the Parallels software, I have gone ahead and can run Windows 7 alongside the Mac OS on my new iMac, and can benefit from the ease of the Mac interface and the speed and power of an up-to-date setup. There was no way I was going to “upgrade” my laptops to that most horrible of inventions, Windows 8, and anyway, the hardware was not up to the job.

I have upgraded my Pinnacle Studio video editing software from version 12, which I have been using for years but is now becoming rather limited, to version 17, which has a radically redesigned interface and a much more professional approach, can deal with many more video formats, and from which one can upload direct to Youtube! It’s a sharp learning curve, not helped by the fact that the user manual is absolutely hopeless, but there is lots of help online, and I am now mastering such techniques as keyframing which are helping to develop my skills. I do love learning new things on the computer!

None of this would have been possible before we moved, where our “broadband” speed was a joke. We are now operating at sensible and usable speeds with fibre-optic broadband, which means that uploading even a SD video does not take all night!

So from now on, my video uploads will be in full HD. With the new setup, the brilliant new user-friendly camera and my growing familiarity and expertise with the new software and hardware, you can look forward to seeing more of Shoshi’s videos!

WOYWW 246

What’s on Your Workdesk this Wednesday? (Click on the WOYWW logo in my sidebar to find out all about this.) As usual, there isn’t much on mine, I’m afraid. I have had a bit more time and energy over the past fortnight and have actually managed a few sessions in my ARTHaven, and mostly I’ve been working on my teabag art. I am making some videos as I go along, and have spent quite a lot of time editing them, and once I’ve finished they will be uploaded.

On the desk you can see some dried teabags on the left, and some of the teabags which I have emptied and started colouring with distress inks on the right, some with stamping. I have also been experimenting with making acrylic film (I’ve made a video of that, too) and there will be more info on that in due course – you can see the piece I’ve made, and the design has been created using the tea out of the teabags! (Waste-not, want-not…) In the centre, in front of the little cream tin dish, is a collection of very pretty rubber stamps that I am using on the teabags, using a gold stamp pad.

As requested last time I was around, here are the pictures of the Zentangle Valentine card I made for my hubby. (More details here.)

Inside the card:

My hubby enjoys kite-flying when he gets the chance.

I have also been getting the software sorted to run Sheba, my Cougar cutting machine, again. She’s been set up across the corner in my ARTHaven for several months but I have not yet had her running. Now that I have my new iMac, I am going to run her from that, and I needed to get Inkscape (vector drawing software) and Signcut (the software that sends the cutting instructions to the machine) installed, now that I have the Mac manual for setting up the machine.

Other news – our older kitty, Beatrice, has had a lumpectomy between her shoulder blades and has spent the past week in post-operative sleep – generally cats sleep about 18 hours a day, but I think she’s probably clocked up 23 hours a day. She seems exhausted, and she’s been very clingy and can’t get close enough to us. Phoebe, our other cat, has spent much more time cuddled up with her when she’s on our laps, which is not something that usually happens, so she’s either jealous and doesn’t like all the attention Beatrice is getting, or she’s trying to comfort her and keep her warm!

The vet said that it was important that she didn’t scratch at the wound, and suggested getting a baby’s T-shirt to cover it up. My hubby went to Mothercare and bought the only thing that was small enough – a twin pack of prem baby-grows, which happen to have little frilly skirts on them! Doesn’t she look dinky?

We are still waiting for the lab results on the biopsy – the pre-op needle biopsy suggested that it was probably not malignant, but the lump was very hard and it was difficult to get enough of a sample, and the procedure caused her some discomfort. They needed to do a proper section to be sure, and we are hoping that now it is removed, she will make a full recovery and require no further treatment. If it was malignant, she will have to have a scan (a CAT scan perhaps??) to see if it has spread anywhere else. We really don’t want her to have to go through a lot of aggressive and unpleasant treatment.

Have a good week, everybody.

Edit: We’ve just received the great news that Beatrice’s lump was not malignant. The vet got it all out, and all is well. Now we just have to wait for her to make a full recovery, and hopefully several more years of her gorgeous company.

A Roller-Coaster of a Year

Here is my usual end-of-year roundup post. What a roller-coaster of a year it has been, to be sure! So much has happened that I scarcely know where to begin.Last December, I could never have imagined that our circumstances would change so much in a single year.

The most important event of the year was the death of my dear father on 6th December. I am so full of good and happy memories of this exceptional and wonderful person – a true Renaissance man with all his skills, interests and accomplishments – and I feel extraordinarily blessed to have had him as my father. His influence on my life has been profound, and as well as being a wonderful father, he was also my mentor and friend.

Eighteen months ago he first went into residential care with dementia, which had been slowly increasing over the past couple of years with his short-term memory beginning to fail, but with the onset of a severe UTI, its progress was exacerbated, and with each further infection which he suffered, he recovered less well, and his decline was steady up until the time he died. When he first went into the residential home, my mum was on her own in their cottage which was not ideally placed for an elderly person living alone with no access to transport – there were absolutely no amenities nearby, and with her increasing needs, my dear hubby was having to do a great deal of running around on her behalf, and for Dad, too, and we needed to centralise things.

Our original plan was to get both of them moved into more suitable accommodation, and then in 2014 when my hubby retires, we would move in with them, possibly converting the upstairs into a flat for ourselves, and we would continue to live there after they had both passed on, and for the past two or three years, we were house hunting with this scenario in mind. We looked at several houses that would have been absolutely ideal, but because we could not sell my parents’ house for some considerable time, we were not in a position to buy, and we lost them all. It was very disappointing at the time, but God knows best, and if we had managed to get one of them, and then the situation changed with Dad having to go into residential care, it would have been a total disaster! As it was, we then had to search for somewhere for us to move in straight away, and my hubby would have to commute to work rather than living more or less over the shop (which is not convenient, but workable, and it’s only for about 6 months anyway). It had to be organised so that my hubby and I would have the larger portion of the house, and Mum would have an annexe or single-bedroomed flat.

We were able to find the perfect place eventually, and things fell rapidly into place with an offer being made and accepted on my parents’ house, putting us in a position to buy. However, considerable work needed doing on the property, including the complete replacement of the roof, and so began the great adventure with Andy and the other builders – I was popping over two or three times a week and got really involved with everything that was going on, and had such fun! You can read the whole account with lots of photos if you look for posts entitled “Our New House” or “My New ARTHaven” in my blog archive. I had a major input into the design of the various alterations and renovations, and this has improved my own quality of life no end, with adaptations (including a stairlift) that mean that my hubby has to do far less for me these days – good for both of us as I enjoy more independence, and he is free of the burdens that took up so much of his time, especially as now he is having to spend more time driving, and of course there are always things that Mum needs doing.

The major renovations indoors are my new kitchen:

with its reduced-height work surface that I can sit at, to prepare food, wash up and cook. The other side has full-height units with cupboards underneath, and a new peninsula unit which makes the whole working area a lot more compact and manageable.

I have a new utility room which also includes part of the back passage, with access through a lovely new arch.

I also have a newly formed airing cupboard (made to my own specifications) with new bi-fold doors, and we have a new glass panel in the back door which gives a nice view into the garden, and lets in loads more light.

The new boiler replaces this one and its huge tank, which took up so much space in the old annexe kitchen:

The door from the annexe kitchen has been blocked off, and the annexe kitchen has been completely redone, using units from the original main kitchen but with much nicer worktops.

Before the door from the annexe kitchen was blocked off, there was access from the annexe to our back passage and out through the back door. With this exit being blocked, there was only one entrance into the annexe, from the hall in the main house, and for safety, and also to maintain our privacy, we had a new door opened up from the annexe sitting room into the garden.

Outside, we had a ramp built up from the back door to the garden steps, and sloping down each side, for easy access with the wheelchair.

At the top of the garden, the other main alteration was the building of my hubby’s magnificent new Man Cave, which he now has so well equipped that he could actually move in there – microwave, kettle, TV and radio!

He has graciously allowed me one corner to store my new buggy. This is something else new this year. Two years ago, almost to the day of Dad’s death, my uncle died, and since then, his mobility scooter had been sitting in their garage, and my aunt said I could have it, so a little while after we moved (mid Sept.) my hubby drove up to Staffordshire to collect it. My new-found independence! I can get to the shops on my own, and go visiting!

Upstairs, more magic! My beautiful new en-suite bathroom (which my hubby calls my “girlie bathroom”) was created from the original separate bathroom and loo. It is the last word in modernity and glamour, and with the addition of some very stylish grab rails and walk-in shower, it is well suited to my needs.

This bathroom, my beautiful new kitchen and utility room and airing cupboard, and all the other renovations, work so well for me! We both so enjoy living in this house now that it has been upgraded to our own specifications.

Last, but not least, is my fabulous new purpose-built ARTHaven. Ever since I semi-converted my office in the old house to double as a studio, neither use worked properly, and I hankered after a space built for my requirements. One of the features that attracted me about the upstairs of the new house was one of the bedrooms which had a partitioned off space with a washbasin (called a “dressing room” on the agents’ particulars) and I realised that this space could become my office, with the ARTHaven beyond. (By the way, the awful floral wallpaper in the hall and landing has now been replaced with cream emulsion, which shows off our pictures much better, and is far more restful on the eye!)

It was made to measure! My big desk fits across the end of the office with 6 inches to spare!

(The office is a bit tidier than this now. Not a lot, but a bit!!) The washbasin at the other end of the room has been replaced by a sink, which will be wonderful for my art work.

It has been left open at the front deliberately, for easy access for storage. There is now a small microwave on a corner shelf above, for dyeing and other procedures.

Into the ARTHaven proper, I designed the layout myself, and Andy the Magician brought it to life for me! The continuous curving MDF work surface is supported on el-cheapo open-fronted kitchen base units, and is divided into different work zones. I had a brainwave that since I could only sit at one work zone at a time, why waste precious storage space by having several empty spaces under the work surface? Andy put base units on castors, so that they can be pulled out when I want to sit there, and these units also provide another surface to put things on while I work.

There are wall units above the work surface, with extra shelves, and over the blocked-off fireplace is my display area, for showing off small artworks, both my own, and gifts from fellow artists.

On the final wall, backing onto the office, is an area of free-standing storage with a large, deep MDF shelf above for storing all those large flat items that we find so difficult to find homes for.

There is still a lot of sorting to do in there before I get it how I want it, but I have started working in there and it is an absolute dream… the window faces more or less due north, so I have none of the problems I had before, with dazzling afternoon sun. I have ample power points around the room, and excellent LED lighting over each work zone, and have I have also set up a rig for my new video camera. The original carpeted floorboards have been covered with a beautiful light wood laminate flooring which makes cleaning up easy. It is an absolute dream of a room and I keep pinching myself, wondering when I’m going to wake up!

The trouble is, with all the activity of the past year, and the tremendous amount of work involved in sorting my parents’ house and getting Mum moved up to my sister’s till the new house was ready, sorting and packing all of our own stuff, moving in while the builders were still here, and then all the unpacking, and then the emotional upheaval of my dear dad’s passing, and the work involved in planning and taking part in his funeral, have left me feeling exhausted, and not able to spend as much time in there as I had hoped, but in the New Year I am sure that things will settle down and I will get into a better routine at last.

We had a lot of stress getting Mum moved in and settled. She is better now, but we have had a rocky start and at one time I did wonder whether this arrangement was going to work at all. Things are better now, and she does realise that even if it’s not what she really wants, which is to be back in her old house, living the independent life she once enjoyed, it is the only possibility apart from a residential home which she won’t consider, and as her friends keep reminding her, that she is very fortunate to have us under the same roof. So many of her widowed friends live alone, and far from their children. We see Mum every day and help her with things, and take her out, and generally keep an eye on her and make sure she’s OK. She’s had several episodes of bashing her legs (twice on Christmas day!!) necessitating visits to casualty to have them dressed, but apart from that and her severe deafness, she is remarkably fit for 92, and is still cooking for herself. We share a delightful young lady who cleans for us, and my hubby has a much smaller and more manageable garden to deal with – it is so lovely, and when he retires next year, he will have more time to enjoy it.

On the health front, my M.E. has remained remarkably stable despite the stresses and the huge amount of physical work I have been involved with. I had a fairly big dip shortly after we moved, with extreme exhaustion and badly swollen legs, and a recent severe cold which has left me coughing still, but apart from that I am now quite a bit better. Back in the summer I had a positive result on my first bowel cancer screening test, necessitating a colonoscopy which revealed not cancer (thank goodness!) but ulcerative colitis, for which I am now taking medication which has reduced my bowel symptoms by about half.

We have moved from an area where “broadband” was a complete joke, to the outskirts of a town that rejoices in fibre-optic broadband, which is so fast that it leaves us breathless! For the first time we can now access catch-up TV, and recently got a wireless box for our Sky satellite TV setup, enabling us to watch this on our smart TV.

Because of everything that has gone on this year, I have been much less productive on the art front than in previous years, but I did manage to make myself a smart pair of mixed-media spoke guards for my wheelchair before I started packing up well in advance of the move:

These incorporated some of the fabric flowers I received from Judy in Australia, in a swap.

I also started work on an album all about Dad’s life. If things had been different, I would like to have had it completed in time for his funeral so that everyone could have looked at it and seen all his amazing accomplishments, but that was not to be, and it remained packed in a box for months. I have now got it all out again, and am beginning to scan material for use on subsequent pages to the only page I have yet been able to create, on his ancestry.

Since the move, I have made a mixed-media card for a friend, using one of Ryn’s moth stamps and angelina fibre, against an inked and embossed background:

I have also started making some door plates for the downstairs of our house, where the beautiful art deco originals have been removed. I took a mould from one from upstairs and have been experimenting with different materials to make them from.

When trimmed up and painted with a faux vintage metal effect, I am hoping they will be indistinguishable from the originals.

With everything that has been going on over the past two or three years, with my parents gradually becoming less able to cope, and culminating with the events of this year, my hubby and I have not had a holiday for three years. I am hoping very much that we will be able to get away for a fortnight together after he retires next summer. We could both do with it!

Plans for the coming year also include finishing unpacking the remaining boxes, and getting my big spice rack and various other things fixed up, utility room cupboards to be organised, and touching up bits of painting around the house. I am planning to continue organising my new ARTHaven, and as time goes on, incorporate my art into its beautification – I have lots of storage boxes which I would like to decorate, and I’d like to make some wall art, bunting and other decorative features. I also want to return to my Zentangle art which has been seriously neglected of late – this, along with my knitting and other sedentary activities could well have been done from the comfort of the recliner, but I have simply not felt inclined, with everything else that had to be done.

My most imminent, and very exciting activity for the New Year will be the arrival of my new iMac computer, and learning how to use it. I currently have two laptop PCs which are now about seven years old and starting to show their age with the huge demands I put on them with the video work I am now doing, and when I considered updating them, was put off by Windoze 8 which doesn’t appeal to me at all, as I believe Microsoft have lost the plot somewhat. I have been fed up with Windoze for years, with its constant security problems and the workflow being incessantly interrupted by upgrades of this and that, and the general lack of integration of the system. I have often wished I’d started off with Mac in the first place, but once I’d got caught up in Windoze I had so much invested in it that I thought it would be impossible to change at this late stage. However, I have now discovered that there are ways of running Windoze software on the Mac, and ways of integrating my data with the new operating system, and after a discussion on Boxing Day with our nephew, who has used Mac for years, and playing with his Mac Book, I have finally decided to take the plunge. It is due for delivery in the first or second week of January. I am super-excited. Watch out for progress reports!

Further plans include developing my mixed-media art skills and experimenting further with different materials. I want to pursue my interest in working with reflective surfaces, and I am really keen to get started with Gelli printing. Now that I have work zones set up, and my sewing machine can be permanently out, I want to expand the parameters of my mixed-media work and incorporate textile, fibre and stitch into my work, and begin experimenting with dyeing and fabric printing again – something I used to do many years ago. The boundaries between all these disciplines are increasingly becoming broken down, and it is a very exciting time to be exploring new techniques, with all the wonderful materials and equipment at our disposal these days. I just hope and pray for enough energy to be able to get really stuck in in my wonderful new ARTHaven during the coming year!

To close, I want to pay tribute to my wonderful hubby. Over this past year, he has worked tirelessly for our family – dealing with all the arrangements for Dad, having power of attorney, and organising everything surrounding his care and eventual death, sorting out endless problems with Mum, arranging removals, storage and clearance, ferrying me and loads of stuff here and there – the list goes on and on, and all the while, he has been working full-time in a demanding job, and sacrificing so many of his days off for the needs of the family. He deserves a medal, and so much more besides – not to mention a good long rest! People like my hubby are the unsung heroes of our society, who do not receive recognition in the New Year’s Honours List, but without whom our nation would be the poorer. I simply cannot imagine what we would have done without him. Thank you, my darling boy. You are a rock.

May I wish all my faithful followers, visitors and friends a very happy and prosperous New Year, full of stimulation and creativity, and happy relationships with friends and family alike. May God bless you all.