Art in August #20 – Kingfisher Doodle

Doodle kingfisher

I spent most of the day at the park today. We haven’t been once this holiday and, as the kids were playing nicely, I tried to work out why. Then I remembered that even walking from the car and sitting on a bench for an hour would have exhausted me a week ago. Let’s hope our three-hour visit today means I’m getting better.

Daughter also went into her holiday club without tears today, making me very proud. I got to have a couple of hours with my son on his own for the first time in weeks and, I admit, it was nice. I love my children equally, but I fight less with my son and we see the world more the same way.

I’m hoping a little bit of one-on-one might curb the increase in tantrums, too, though I doubt it. If it fixed his new habit of going to the toilet every ten minutes (and I mean every ten minutes…) I’d be ecstatic. I’m taking him to the docs about it later in the week, but I’m 99% certain it’s psychological. When you and your hubbie have a history of mental health issues, even little hiccups like that can be frightening. I dread my children ending up on meds too.

Anyway, I did some doodles at the park and while the kids were eating ice cream in the Kingfisher Cafe, and this was my favourite.

Art in August #19 – Neon Rothko

Neon Rothko

Today was all about my little girl growing up and being brave so I thought I’d do some doodles based on her old class name, Rothko. Much like any abstract art, this was much harder than the end result would suggest, especially as you get a different colour with every tap when using the KidsDoodle app.

I don’t know much about art – I only studied it to age 16 at school and we didn’t cover art history – which always comes as a shock/disappointment to people when they find out I paint but haven’t heard of their favourite artist. A bit like when you study history at uni and everyone assumes you can answer any pub quiz question regardless of time period. Or like being a writer and having people say, ‘will I have heard of you?’ when you tell them what you do. Anyway, I digress.

At my daughter’s school, all tutor groups are named after famous artists and I’ve heard of only a handful. Thankfully she’s in Picasso next year although I only realised I was telling her how to spell it wrong when we parked next to a Citroen Picasso at the supermarket (I’d guessed at one s and two cs).

‘Blue, Red, And Green’

However, as it happens, I had heard of Rothko before it became my daughter’s tutor group. Ironically I found out who he was several years ago, via an analyst I used to work with, who asked me to paint a Rothko replica. I wouldn’t, because he was paying me, and that felt wrong, but my style isn’t a million miles away from Rothko so I did something in the spirit of the picture he was after, after Googling who on earth Rothko was.

I have to say, I do love Rothko’s style. Deceptively simple and incredibly soothing. I’d have them on my wall.

So, today, for my daughter who went to holiday club, despite dreading it for weeks, and didn’t hide under the table (as threatened), and stopped sobbing and screaming almost as soon as I left (I thought she would, but it’s still hard leaving a near-hysterical child), and who came out three hours later all smiles, this is for you. Mummy’s twenty-first century interpretation of Rothko’s ‘Blue, Red and Green’.

Art in August #18 – New Class Act Cover

New Class Act Cover

I finally decided on a new cover for Class Act (because I’m impatient like that). It’s by the same photographer as the most popular of the six I posted before, although in this one the daisies and heart are a bit clearer. Yes it doesn’t have people on, and doesn’t really scream romance, and yes it doesn’t explain the title (Sorry, Rinelle, your advice was good and I did try to find my perfect shot, with paint brushes and theatre tickets and daisies and people holding hands, but after four hours I admitted defeat.).

It does at least have daisies and a heart, so hopefully says romance a bit more than the previous cover, and I think it sits nicely alongside Baby Blues & Wedding Shoes, so it will do for now! It can’t do any worse than the current one, I haven’t had so much as a borrow this month, despite the new Kindle Owners Lending Library. The only question is whether to change my Goodreads Giveaway, or let it run with the original cover. I’ve had so few people sign up so far, I’m thinking of the latter.

That’s about it for the art today. It turns out my mum doesn’t have a virus, she’s just topsy turvy on sleep from watching too much sport (she says she’s regressed to being a teenager) so I have to accept I’m not ill either. Just stressed and all-parented-out. At least hopefully that means I’ll feel better when the darlings go back to school. Only nineteen days to go, not that I’m counting. 😉

Art in August #17 – Loomband Hot Air Balloon

Hot air balloon and passenger

I had so much fun making my loom-less flower (using only the hook) that I decided to make this hot air balloon using a tutorial by the same person, FeelinSpiffy/Crafting Fantastic.

It took quite a long time for me to get the hang of it, and even longer to finish (it uses a lot of bands). Mine doesn’t stand up too well, I think because the jelly bands are so bulky. I wouldn’t have used them, but they were all I got in my last bulk order – unfortunately the cheaper the bands are, the less choice you get about what turns up!

In the original tutorial, Ellen (I think that’s her name) uses one of her super-cute turtles as passenger (and weight, to help it stand up), but my kids insisted on these penguins instead, using a DIY Mommy tutorial. They’re much easier to make, but the black doesn’t show up too well.

Hot air balloon with penguin

Of course my son wants a hot air balloon now, in green and black, although I doubt he’ll ever play with it. I’m having to take it easy though, as, even more than using the loom, this hook-only stuff kills my neck and strains my eyes. I feel 100 years old today.

Actually, hubbie and I are both shattered. Hubbie finished work on Friday, so has that post-handover exhaustion, and I’ve definitely discovered the limits of my childcare ability. Three weeks and I’m ready to do pretty much anything other than listen to twelve hours of squabbling for another three weeks. At least I still have my loom bands!

I’m trying to decide what to make next. There are so many cute things on the tutorials, I want to make them all. Suggestions? 🙂

Art in August #16 – Scary Sketch

My kids in a few years?

When I did GCSE art, age 15-16, pencil was my medium. My favourite thing to do was pencil portrait sketching, preferably from posters and photos (I have a gorgeous one of Kevin Costner somewhere!).

One of the reasons I dropped art for A Level (aside from being convinced I wouldn’t get the grade I needed for uni) was that the art teacher kept trying to get me to use colour and I’m nothing if not stubborn. Ironic, then, that my solo abstract art exhibition in 2011 was titled It’s All About Colour.

Today I decided to try a sketch for the first time in about half a decade. I have to admit I was nervous and excited in equal measure. I couldn’t find any of my expensive pencils – long since lost to the children. So, using a broken HB pencil and a tatty rubber, I attempted to draw my children (from a photo).

The original

It had to be both of them, to minimise arguments, so the choice of picture was tough: these days it’s hard to get a picture of my son where he isn’t sticking his tongue out. Hence why my son has a Christmas hat on: this one is from last December.

I really enjoyed sketching again, although it was frustrating to have a hard pencil, and a chattering child for company. I have to say, though, the holiday is certainly letting me do things I never normally allow time for. There has to be an upside to six weeks of relentless parenting!

What’s a bit freaky is that the end result looks sort of like my kids, but like they might look when they’re older (and my daughter has a hint of Emma Watson as Hermione about her!). An artist’s sketch of their future maybe. I wouldn’t have shared it – I’ve done better – but this Art in August challenge is all about having a go! Time to raid the playroom and find my 2B pencil…

The Art in August challenge was started by the Laptop On The Ironing Board blog.

Art in August #15 – Loomband Crochet Flower

Loomband Flower

I had a loomband crisis today, after reading all the news articles on cheap bands potentially being carcinogenic. Especially after 4,200 cheap bands turned up in the post. As usual I panicked and thought about throwing all my bands in the bin. Rationality – in the shape of my husband – suggested it probably wasn’t that bad. None of the things I make are worn, and I’m the only person who does much looming.

I have suggested my daughter wash her hands after looming, and I have ordered some official bands (10x the cost!) for the gift creations I’m making, but I’ve kept all my cancerous bands. I get through that many bands a week, pretty much, so I’ll just try and limit my looming when these are all gone. I can’t afford to make big projects with official bands! I can only assume they’re cheaper in the US.

Anyway, today I’ve been experimenting with loomless banding, using a crochet technique as demonstrated on FeelinSpiffy/CraftingFantastic tutorials. The flower is a bit wobbly but I think that’s partly because some of the bands were different sizes. I have to say, crochet has always terrified me but, when my loomband obsession has worn off, I might have to see if there are crochet tutorials on YouTube too. At least wool isn’t going to give me cancer!

Art in August #14 – Book Covers

Proposed new covers for Class Act

I released my fourth novel, Class Act, at the beginning of June and to say the going has been slow is an understatement. I have struggled to even give the book away. When I ran a free promotion the numbers were a quarter of those for Baby Blues & Wedding Shoes. I put it down to having no reviews and didn’t panic.

But now, with a couple of good reviews (and a couple not so good!) I am running a Giveaway on Goodreads and still getting a fraction of entries compared with the Baby Blues Giveaway. I’ve decided that the cover and blurb must be failing me.

I’m not surprised. I mocked the cover up last year, when I decided on a new name for the novel (it’s working title was The Real Gentleman, as the novel was written as a modern day Georgette Heyer style romance) and I do like the design, especially the bold red paperback. Unfortunately the current cover doesn’t give anything away as to genre, all it does is explain the ‘act’ part of the play-on-words title.

I love the pastel covers of Joanne Harris books

So I’ve spent this week, in between making loomband pets and ignoring the children, looking at images on my favourite site istockphoto to find something more in the woman’s fiction/romance genre. I know that half-naked bodies is what the genre seems to dictate, but that really isn’t me. Besides, the novel isn’t at all raunchy, and I don’t want to set a false expectation.

When I designed the cover for Baby Blues I used the books of Joanne Harris as my inspiration. Her pastel covers are lovely and she is an author that I admire greatly. It also gave me a style that fit within my capabilities using Adobe Photoshop, as I don’t know any cover designers and my experience of hiring freelancers as an author hasn’t always been successful.

Another Joanne Harris

As I couldn’t find any images relating to the theatre and acting, I decided to focus on the two other ‘themes’ that I feel run through the novel: art and daisies. These are the covers I came up with (I only had an hour before little lady got bored, so I know the font doesn’t stand out well on some of them).

As an aside, these are all based on composites from istockphoto and I haven’t purchased the rights to use them yet, as they’re only mock ups. I will purchase the final image once I’ve made a decision.

So, do any of these stand out? And, for those of you who have read the novel, do any of these fit within your experience of the story? Do these set the right genre? I feel they’re all much more in keeping with Baby Blues (although I have had at least one reviewer say the title and cover put them off that novel! I guess it’s difficult to win without a big budget marketing department to do customer research!)

Once I have some feedback I hope to make the change and extend the giveaway, so hopefully I’ll see immediately if it makes a difference!

Art in August #13 – Cookies

Iced Biscuits

Today’s plan for school holiday survival has involved craft and cookies. The children were booked in to do craft at our local library, as part of their summer reading challenge.

We were going to head to the park first but it took two hours to hustle the children into the car. I’m not looking forward to being back on a strict timetable in three and a bit weeks, even if I am longing for five minutes by myself.

The library craft involved decorating scales for a giant dragon. These days I let the kids get on with it and listen to the more controlling parents getting frustrated with trying to steer the production of something beautiful.

Son’s cookies

It’s one of the many things I’ve learned to let go in five and a half long years of parenting wilful children. I still offer guidance and encouragement and occasionally, when they’re not looking, I’ll cheat. But what do I care whether their creations look like scales or not? It’s the doing, not the end product. (I almost didn’t even mind when I saw some of the neat, colourful and inventive designs the other children did! Hehe)

Ditto goes for the cookies. My plan for today involved buying gingerbread men (and picking up a Waitrose coffee) before going to the park. As that didn’t happen, I decided we would make some. I’m pre-menstrual: cookies are essential. Besides, it meant another couple of hours filled and a tick in the Mummy box, to off set the hours of TV they’re watching these days.

Daughter’s designs

I no longer supervise, except to put the finished products in the oven. We’ve made them often enough to know what to do. I love that lazy parenting is sometimes the best sort!

I decided icing biscuits might as well be today’s artistic effort. Except I don’t do baking. I look at pictures of fancy birthday cakes made by Mummies I know (they seem to be never ending on Facebook) with envy, as I buy mine from Tesco. So I don’t have any of the kit either. Icing is done with bowls and plastic cutlery.

As a result I’m especially proud of my dribble-design iced biscuits. Artistic (after a fashion) AND tasty (sort of – I ran out of syrup), what more can you want?

Art in August #12 – Loomband Octopus

Loomband Octopus from an Izzilicious tutorial

Loomband Octopus from an Izzalicious tutorial

There’s something cruel and sod’s-law-ish about getting a virus in the school holidays where the only symptom seems to be chronic fatigue. I am only keeping the panic that I’ve got CFS at bay by the fact that my mum seems to have the same virus.

I took the children to the Farm today, after a lazy morning looming while they created chaos. Normally the Farm is an easy trip. We feed the animals, go on a tractor tour of the fields and have a picnic. Today we also got to watch a ferret race and have a cuddle with the elusive farm cat. We were there for three hours.

When we got home we had our usual hour watching TV. And then I went to plug the iPad in to charge, lay down and barely moved for the next two hours.

For the first hour the kids watched more TV, and yelled for me a bit. I couldn’t even get up to stop the noise. I heard my daughter say to my son, “just go upstairs and ask her,” so I knew it wasn’t serious. When he did finally come up, sobbing, it was to say, “but Mummy I didn’t want to watch that programme.” I think you call that a First World Problem.

Sick or school-holiday-itis?

For the second hour they came and wriggled in the bed with me and, when they’d had enough of being told to lie still, went off to play. It seemed to involve much shrieking, running and giggling, combined with, “he hit me!” “she pushed me” which I ignored.

I managed to go down for an hour to do some writing and numbers with them and play board games. But as soon as I’d cooked the kids’ tea I had to hand over to hubbie and come back to bed. Poor hubbie, he’s having a rotten time at the moment – he’s barely over his tonsillitis and he’s having to play tag-parenting like he did when they were babies. Only they were less annoying then!

He also informed me that he’s felt this exhausted for the last two years, which made me want to get up and stop being pathetic. But I couldn’t. So much for all our summer holiday plans, all the house projects I intended to get done.

It’s a weird sort of exhaustion. Not the kind where you’ve been up all night, or you’ve been digging in the garden all day. This feels like I’ve been drugged, like the tiredness is a heavy coat I must wear. Kind of the opposite of depression, which is a heaviness on the inside. Anyway, I just about managed to finish this octopus. Now back to bed.

[I moved this pre-written post a bit later out of respect for my previous post on Robin Williams]

The Rest Is Silence

*Trigger alert – talk of suicide and depression*

What terrible news to wake to, that Robin Williams lost his battle with depression. I write it like that on purpose, rather than ‘he took his own life.’ He didn’t. Depression and addiction took his life.

I have read so many heartfelt posts and social media statements this morning, saying ‘what a waste’ and ‘if only he’d sought help.’ And I can’t help but feel the need to defend his actions. He clearly did seek help, just as a cancer patient will seek the best care. But sometimes it isn’t enough.

My father died of pneumonia when he was 58, after battling cancer for several years. I believe part of him gave up the fight. But no one would say he took his own life, or blame him for refusing to live with the pain anymore. We think depression can always be treated but sometimes the drugs don’t work. Therapy doesn’t work. Knowing the world loves a version of you that maybe isn’t the complete you surely makes it worse. Knowing you bring joy to millions but not to yourself. I can only imagine how lonely and painful that might be.

So I will mourn his loss, and celebrate his greatness, and hope his suffering may cause others to seek help and live to celebrate another day. I hope people will recognise Depression for the debilitating illness it truly is, rather than a weakness of character.

Many speak of failed suicide attempts giving them new life and new purpose, and I am glad that is true. Matt Haig often writes of surviving suicide and I am grateful he lived to pour his pain and experience into The Humans. But how many more woke determined to try again? There should be no blame, only an attempt at understanding. Robin Williams battled an illness and lost.

Rest in eternal peace, Robin Williams, I hope you have defeated the dark dog within and can walk free.