The CreativeLife in review - BuJo, art exhibition, and water

 Hello Creative friend!

This post covers about two weeks, but I am sure that you will appreciate it more for me keeping (or trying to) it short and not bore you with the minutiae.

Living in the beautiful country of South Africa does come with serious challenges these days. I am sure that my fellow countrymen and women are just as frustrated as I am with the constant problems with our power network. If you are a regular reader of my blog, you know that we resorted to installing a solar power system at home. While lack of power can and do create a lot of frustration there has always been another problem that bothered me more: no water.

Living in an urban area means we are dependent on our water to be pumped to reservoirs from rivers and dams via purification plants. For that to happen, we need power for those pumps (and they are power-hungry monsters). We have load-shedding schedules (which we can use for planning) to help with those power cuts. When there are multiple failures in the generation plants, we often find ourselves without power between 8 to 12 hours per day - for days on end.

No power at home also means no power to pump water. And then recently something seriously went wrong in the water supply network and we were without water for 4 days. In some areas, people didn't have water for almost a week. I never thought myself to suffer from anxiety, as a practising Stoic resilience training helps a lot, but being without water created a level of anxiety that I didn't expect...at all!

It also made no sense. I have about 20 litres of water in reserve for filtering our drinking water. Nothing to do with a crisis, I happen to have space for the four 5-litre bottles that I rotate for daily use. We catch rainwater in two large tanks outside, which we use to flush the toilets. Since it rained a few days before the water crisis, I knew those tanks were full. So it was only water for showering. So no rational reason for my anxiety, but rational thought notwithstanding, I was not myself for those four days. I think it has to do with control. With power outages no longer a problem in my home, water became the issue. Something to think about for the future.

My podcast listening this week Rafi and Klee

You might be familiar with Bullet Journaling (or BuJo for short) with all those YouTube creators and their hours of creating beautiful setups. I tried a BuJo a few years ago and didn't like it. Recently I have reread the book and decided to try it again. When I looked at my planner, I noticed that despite not being a formal “BuJo” I have been using the basic concepts anyway. So I got myself a dot grid journal and set it up to use from July. My current planner ends in June.

With the upcoming art exhibition and my book projects, my current planner didn't have enough space to plan and organise everything that I have on my plate this year. And no, no pretty pictures and drawings within sight. I used a bit of washi tape or a water-based marker to underline a heading or two, but this is the extent of the creativity I added. I would rather spend time drawing or painting than decorating a planner. My journal will remain separate, but if you read Ryder Caroll's book, you can also use the BuJo for long-form journaling. I am not.

Connect with me on Substack

I did transfer the ideas from my Ideas Journal to my BuJo. It made sense that is why I did it. So one less journal to keep up to date. I had already used some of those ideas, I just never bothered to update the Ideas Journal, so it had to go.

The new paintings I planned for the exhibition are making slow progress. Too slow in many aspects and irritates me to no end. I am tired and find it difficult to stand for even a short time to paint. I have not lost interest in the paintings in fact, I am excited to see how they will look, so I am hopeful my energy levels will improve soon so I can get back to painting.

I have been working on an abstract portrait graphite drawing and it is looking good so far. I had not planned to put it in the exhibition but if I can get it done I might do that.

I think this post is getting too long, and I need to wrap it up before you fall asleep. LOL!

Wishing you a creative week.

Until next time!

💜🇿🇦 Linzé

The CreativeLife - abstract painting #2

 Hey there Creative Friend!

Today's post has some more info on the materials I have used so far plus a close-up of the painting after adding the blue layer.

Note that I purchase my materials from my local art supply stores, or online from South African art materials suppliers. Any good art materials can be used to create similar effects.

The background colours

I painted the background with Mars Black, Neutral Grey, Titanium White using these brands of paint. Zellen is a local brand and their Zelcryl acrylics are thick and very nice for impasto work, but I thinned it down for this painting.

Iris is another brand from a local company Prime Art. I am not sure if the paint is actually made locally.

Mont Marte needs no introduction, I am sure. Their dimension acrylics are really nice to work with too.

The texture mediums

In my previous post about this painting I mentioned the textured mediums. I like both, but for this painting the smooth medium didn't dry as expected even after I added the additional textured effect with the sponge roller, so I use the coarse medium as a second layer.

Atlas is a local manufacturer.

Dala is more well-known internationally. This medium actually contains grains of sand which provided the texture I was after for this painting series.

First 2 layers of colour

Next up are the first two colours I added to the paintings. Both are my darkest shades of these paints without adding any black. The first layers were unmixed, but I plan to mix the colours for the next two layers - which I will share in my next post of this project.

Another Zelcryl colour - permanent violet, and phthalo blue from Daler Rowney's System 3 series. I have recently started using the System 3 paints, and so far I really like the rich colours and the thick consistency of the paints.

And here is the promised close up. The texture is visible, although the colours appear more subtle. But these are the first layers. Stick around to see how I add more layers to achieve the effect I have envisioned for the paintings.

Until next time!

💜🎨 Linzé

The CreativeLife - abstract painting #1

Hey Creative Friend!

About two months ago I pulled out the last three square stretched canvasses in my stash and put them out on the table in my studio. At first I just painted the background a plain neutral grey. Then added the black and white blocks with palette knives. I liked the result but it was not yet a painting, or three.

Holding the 3 canvasses next to each other

A few weeks later, the muse tweaked my ear and the first layer of texture went down. When it was dry I was rather disappointed with the result. It was too smooth. Then I pulled out the heavy stuff. And that texture is really rough, I tell you. Had to stop myself several times from touching it while it was still wet. But I love the result! Now I can start painting.

Disappointment :(

   

That's more like it :)

The purple is a favourite colour of mine but it is just the first layer of many. 

Purple 😍

Stay tuned, as this project comes to life over the next days.

Until next time!

💜 🎨 Linzé

The CreativeLive weeks 41 and 42 in review

Hello creative friend!

I hope your October has been a creative one so far. Mine certainly has with inktober on my daily to do list. A few of these prompts were definitely a challenge and some of them felt like they were picked by a child. Maybe they were? Hmm...

On a more adult note: I had applied to take part in a curated Christmas art market show at the end of November. Applying was a lot of work, and I decided that whether or not I got in, would make no difference. I decided to put my work out there and that to me was a victory in itself.

Dates and times of the art show in
Pretoria, South Africa.
Gallery address to come.

A few days later I got a weird WhatsApp message: I was added to a group by an unknown person. Upon further investigation it turned out to be the host of the show. Five minutes later the emails popped into my inbox: my paintings had been accepted. Good thing I was sitting down at this point because my first thought was how on earth was I going to deal with this on top of everything else?

I have a book to finish and publish. I have lots of work already on my plate and more coming in, and now an art show? A slight feeling of panic set in. I recognised this feeling because I have been there - it is the feeling of being overwhelmed. At this point I was tempted to say no, but decided to take a day and reassess my schedule against my to do list

I am only committed to take part in the show when I pay the small fee for which I still have a few more days until the deadline.

As I sit here writing this post, the feeling of helpless overwhelm has receded. The first time I felt this way I had no idea how to deal with it. In fact I was so out of my depth that I simply took a few days off and did nothing except to watch YouTube videos or series on Netflix. It hadn't helped, because the reason for the feeling had still been there.

Since that first time, I have realised that not doing anything is not a solution. For some things like mental or physical exhaustion it might be a good time to step back from work and other commitments, but this time there is no such need: I simply have too much to do and no time to do it in. Or do I?

That question made me pause to think about it. Nothing on my todo list was due tomorrow, except one thing. Neither was everything due this coming week. I have one thing to finish this week: the book. Even my work load is light this coming week. Sure the art show fee is due, but what do I have to do for that takes any more effort than authorising a payment which takes less than two minutes? It was the decision that needed the “task” to be done.

Then it hit me: take some time, and it doesn't have to be hours, and sit down to look at my calendar for the next 8 weeks. I don't usually have my tasks planned that far in advance, but what can it hurt to do it this one time?

I am still working on that planning but I know when which things are due for the show, the organiser was very clear about deadlines. Deadlines are good. Art show? Check.

The book's editing is very nearly done. And I will finish the last chapter this coming week. So that is a check, or soon will be. The next step is to work through the edits from my editor, and I have already started doing that. The cover is done, and I am very happy with the result. No, I didn't use my painting, it turned out to be too dark for what I had in mind. Maybe next time. Cover? Check.

When I made a list of all the deadlines ahead, and the tasks I have to make those deadlines happen, I knew I could make them work. If I couldn't have? My first priority would have been the book, but now I can do both and I am satisfied that there is enough time to do what I want without sacrificing any sleep, or letting my engineering clients down.

It is late in the year and tiredness do start to set in, but that is not unexpected. I still have December and about three weeks of rest to look forward to anyway. So I am not too worried about that happening because of the added work for the show.

I was reminded of the quote that says something in the order of - if you don't have a plan, you plan to fail. Since no one plans to fail, having some kind of plan in place can only help you to succeed. I have my plan, and that helped to deal with the feeling of being overwhelmed.

I hope that you plan to succeed in the coming weeks.

Thank you for taking the time to read. Until next time!

💜🇿🇦 Linzé

Cost effective storage solution #1: Oil pastels and Gelatos

 One thing I love about my journey as an artist is experimenting with new materials. Good quality art materials are expensive, so I usually start with a small set and then expand if I like the medium. This means that keeping the materials in their original packaging becomes a pain.

Every time I am in the mood to play with the medium, I have to take them out, “unbox” them, sort the colours, and only then will they be ready to play with. Trust me by this time, I am either bored, frustrated, or found something else to draw or paint with instead.

I am also of the opinion that I would rather spend my money on the materials, and not the means to store them to make it more easily accessible.

So finding a supplier (actually the manufacturer) of these wooden boxes made my life much easier.

I didn't buy all the boxes at the same time, so I can safely say that their quality is consistent and that is good thing of you need to expand your storage space.

Wooden box with Faber-Castell Gelatos

As you can see my Faber-Castell Gelatos found a prefect home outside their original packaging. I have two of these boxes for my Gelatos. Since each box is sub-divided into four sections, it works well for storing the colours. You can comfortably fit 12 Gelato sticks in each section (3 layers of 4).

I sort my colours into 8 groups: 1) blue, 2) green, 3) yellow, 4) orange, 5) red and pink, 6) purple, 7) brown, and 8) the neutrals (white, grey, black), so two boxes do the job.

Wooden box with oil pastels from 3 brands

Since the oil pastels are a bit shorter than the Gelatos, they fit the box's sections the other way.

A few months after I bought the boxes for the Gelatos, I started an oil pastel project and the struggle happened all over again. This time it was worse because I have many more oil pastel sticks that I had to sort in separate containers before I could work on the painting.

The Gelato boxes were close at hand, and I decided to see if they could also be used for the oil pastels.

To my happy surprise the oil pastels fit perfectly too, so I ordered some more.

I have oil pastels from 3 different brands: Faber-Castell, Mungyo, and Mont Marte. They are all the same length although differ slightly in width.

I used the same colour grouping mentioned above, and could fit 24 oil pastel sticks in each section. (3 layers of 8 sticks)

If you need more space, the dividers inside the boxes can be removed to make halves in either direction.

The boxes are made from MDF, so if you are concerned about water exposure, I suggest that you varnish them inside and out before stocking your materials. They can also be decorated if you prefer a more colourful look to a plain wooden box.

The boxes are available from BidorBuy.co.za or directly from the manufacturer's website, BuzzCreations.co.za - I don't know if they ship internationally, but I suggest you contact them to ask. Right now they are closed for the festive season so no orders will ship until next year.

Keep an eye out for more useful product reviews and suggestions from this supplier in future blog posts.

Art skills in lockdown: a personal story of 2020 #CreativeLife

Many people have mentioned that lockdown changed some if not all aspects of their creative lives this past year. It has been the same for me but in quite a surprising and unplanned way. I spent most of my available time writing and publishing books for the past ten years or so, but at the end of 2019, I decided to use 2020 to focus almost exclusively on improving my artistic skills.

I have been drawing and painting since 2015, but my primary focus had been to write and publish my books. With 25 books now published, I felt the need to change focus. Udemy courses, and TheVirtualInstructor.com, have been my primary sources of training and practice, but it was inktober52 that provided the challenge to take my ink drawing to another level with a weekly prompt for the entire year.

Then Covid-19 struck, and another dimension of art made its way into my life: teaching art to others. The teaching part did not scare me, as I have been training engineers over the years, but art? How does someone who is still learning herself going to teach others, and within the constraints of hard lockdown too? Although I was still learning, I have also learned that I preferred dry art mediums, except ink and wash, where I like the use of watercolour for urban sketching and landscapes. Now I was asked to teach others who might prefer painting. You might say that I could have declined, but it was lockdown and they are my friends, so I decided to do it to see how it would go.

3D dragonfly in my art journal

The first obstacle was the lack of face-to-face opportunities as I would have preferred to teach. It makes the feedback and personal attention so much easier to manage because they were all at different skill levels. One friend is more skilled than I am, but the others were real beginners, so you can understand my predicament. The experienced friend helped out where I needed help when it came to the painting mediums.

Of course, the most basic skill is to learn to draw and while I focused on that, everyone was itching to use the mediums they had, received from family, or could purchase online. A day or so of contemplation on how to do this, I came to the idea of using art journaling to get the ball rolling.

Quote from Marcus Aurelius
printed on acetate

Lockdown was extremely stressful especially at the beginning when the feelings of being locked in, and restricted movement had all of us experiencing a new level of anxiety. Journaling seemed to be the perfect solution to the situation. Everyone could learn to draw and paint and benefit from the process of journaling at the same time.

And it worked. The first six weeks were the hardest and yet we all came through it with our sanity intact, and a few more skills.

Teaching art skills during the lockdown

At first, I used WhatsApp and email. Since we are friends, it was a simple process of coming up with an idea, provide everyone with an example that I drew, or a link to a video from a website like YouTube or a free Udemy course. Videos made up for the lack of live demonstrations.

As lockdown progressed and people became more comfortable with online meetings, we moved our daily challenges to a weekly online meeting where I could demonstrate a new technique they were not yet familiar with, or we could chat and come up with new projects or mediums to tackle.

Before the online sessions, I found several photographs online (not always royalty-free, but I warned everyone about sharing their projects on social media) with increasing levels of difficulty to draw.

With the online sessions via Google Meet (thank you Google for keeping it free!) we made our challenging project to date: a lapbook where we can add a journal and another book such as a sketchbook, to continue our creative practice.

In South Africa, we are now on day 277 since lockdown started, and as I look back over this time of stress and anxiety, I think that our time was well spent in dealing with the effects of the pandemic by doing something of value to ourselves.

The road ahead: 2021

From a personal perspective, I am busy learning oil painting (and not yet sure that I like the medium, although it might too early to tell), finished the last of the weekly inktober52 drawings, after completing the inktober 31 daily drawing challenge in October.

My almost daily creative practice will continue with more art journaling, drawing and painting. I may even write another book!

You can also follow my #CreativeLife with regular updates on Twitter (#TheTinyBroom).

Stay safe and healthy, until next time!

●︙● Linzé 🇿🇦💜

Art Journal 2020: Resilience

I think this art journal entry speaks pretty much for itself. Took me a while to find the right quotes from the Stoics. It is an ink drawing over a gouache painted background.

Until next time!
💜 Linzé

A to Z Challenge: Day 26 - Z

Zucchini flower by Linzé

Not one of my favourite vegetables, but I have to say that I do like eating the flowers. But here is a gouache painting (using it like watercolour paint) on watercolour paper.
 

And with this painting, I have to say goodbye to the #AtoZChallenge for 2020. I hope you enjoyed all the creative posts and that you will remember to pop around in future for more posts about my creative life and those of other authors and artists.

Until next time!

💜Linzé 
  

A to Z Challenge: Day 29 - Y

Yellow Fungus by Linzé

This yellow fungus appeared after a few days of rain in September 2017. It grew out of the wooden structure supporting one of our rainwater tanks. I have only seen it that once and never again.
Drawing done with Caran D'Ache museum aquarelle pencils on white paper.

A to Z Challenge: Day 22 - V

VIOLET by Linzé

Violet is one of my all time favourite colours. For the letter V I decided to play with pencils that I have that do not belong to a set. Most of them are purple or violet - no surprise! 😂

I found two Faber-Castell Albrecht Durer pencils and one Caran D'Ache Supracolor II in my pencil cabinet and decided to use them. The CD pencil was still in its plastic package. Mixing colour pencils from different manufacturers are usually not a good idea since the pigmentation and lightfastness will not be the same.

This time I just played a bit to see how they would look when activated with water especially since I don't have any more of them to do a multicolour drawing. I found a stencil in my collection and used that instead of drawing from scratch. I think the end result looks rather nice.

I used Monte Marte Premium watercolour paper, and a Monte Marte 16/0 brush to activate the pigments since my watercolour brushes are too big for the fine detail in the ropes.

A to Z Challenge: Day 21 - U

UMBRELLA by Linzé

I did this all ink umbrella frame for a miniature art exhibition last year. It is a card 7 x 7 cm made from fine art paper with its own envelope.

A to Z Challenge: Day 20 - T

TIME by Linzé

My next art journal entry in my Stoicism series this year of #JournalArt2020. It was done with Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils and a Faber-Castell PITT marker for the text. The size of the leaf is 100% since I picked up the leaf and then traced it directly on the journal's pages before colouring it.

A to Z Challenge: Day 18 - R

Red by Linzé

My first colour drawing for the Intober52 challenge was a bit of a fluke - I didn't want to draw something similar that I have been drawing since the start of the challenge in January. In April the prompts are colours because of a sponsor of the event, and the illuminated letters were born. I have always loved old books and these really old books were copied and decorated by hand.
   So I have continued with the theme of the illuminated letters for both RED and BLUE. They are both featured here today for the letter R in the #AtoZChallenge.

A to Z Challenge: Day 17 - Q

QUIRKY bird by Linzé

I did an online Sketchbook Workshop while in isolation and one of the lessons was this quirky bird. The artist/presenter of this lesson was Tamara Laporte (https://www.willowing.org). I loved the concept and shared it with the artists in my writers' group who also made their own quirky birds. But here is mine. Enjoy! 💜

PS: Thank you for visiting my blog today. I love reading your comments, but I am still having difficulties replying. I do apologise and hope I can get this sorted out very soon. 💜 Linzé

A to Z Challenge: Day 16 - P

POT by Linzé

One day I was itching to draw something a little more challenging, so I decided to compose a still life. I photographed the greyish pot standing on a draped piece of black fabric I found in Francois' studio. I used my phone to capture the still life.

It was done with Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils on black paper.

A to Z Challenge: Day 15 - O

Oryx by Linzé

A drawing I did a while back - white pencil on black paper. The photograph was taken by an ex-colleague who kindly gave his permission for me to use it.

The Creative Life during #LockdownSA (with 20 days still to go)

The Challenge: 2020

I am sure you will agree that 2020 has not lived up to the expectations that we have set for ourselves on 1 January. But has it been that bad? Of course, for the people who were infected by the Covid-19 virus, it has not been fun at all.

For those families who have lost someone they loved to the infection, it is heartbreaking.

And for the politicians and world leaders trying to figure out how to keep their countries' economies stable (at least) and fight the impact of the socio-economic issues (still not yet determined) it is a nightmare.

But for those of us everyday citizens trying to make a living to keep ourselves afloat in this time of crises, how bad has it been, really? Did you have to tighten your belt because you are self-employed like I am?

Being basically a level headed and fairly optimistic kind of person, I have not done too badly I think. I did have some work to do, which I will be able to invoice soon, and thanks to two of my writers' group friends, have been kept busy artistically as well. Like me they are artists and I have challenged them to a few creative projects during #LockdownSA. It helps to keep busy, but more than that it helped us all to keep our drawing skills sharp.

The one thing that I often forget - despite putting it on my to-journal list - is a gratitude journal or art journal entry. Last week I made it one of our creative projects and to me, it was something to remind of all the things that I am grateful for. Especially now as we are entering an extended lockdown of an additional 2 weeks (until 30 April).

Do I look forward to going back to work? Of course, I am. Being self-employed as a test and certification engineer does not mean that I work from home 24/7. I need facilities to do my work that I simply cannot accommodate, nor afford, to have at home. I am fortunate though that my work environment away from home is with a small company where any physical interaction with other people can be easily managed - mostly because we do most of our work as individuals, not teams. I am still training a newer member of the team, but he is not that green anymore that close distancing is required all the time.

If you are in isolation, self-imposed or otherwise, I trust that the need to be so will soon be over so that we all can start working together to recover from this situation. Recovery will take time, and teamwork on so many levels that I simply cannot even comprehend the difficulties associated with such a strategy.

Right now all I can hope (and pray) for is that the leaders of my country, and those of your countries, will set aside their political agendas and work together with their people to move forward from this. And perhaps even have a good and hard think on dealing with such a pandemic in future. Because it will come again, the question is: how soon and how bad will it be the next time?

On a more joyful note - here are links to the A-toZ Challenge posts on the Broomstick so far, with a hint of some of the posts to come. Enjoy! 💜

ART by Melissa a guest post about performance art
BFF by Linzé
COVID-19 by Linzé
DINNER by Linzé EDINBURGH station by Linzé FUN art by Linzé
GREEN by Linzé
HOLISTIC health by Vanessa a guest post and art journal
INKTOBER52 by Linzé
JOY by Linzé

Looking forward this week ...
Tomorrow: K by Kayelle a book release
Tuesday: L by Carmen a guest post
Wednesday: M by Andrea a guest post
Thursday: N by Charlene a guest post

Until tomorrow!
💜 Linzé

A to Z Challenge: Day 10 - J

JOY by Linzé

What makes you happy? The one thing that always makes me happy is rain. I love the sounds, and smells. Especially after the rain has gone and the world seems extra clean and green like being washed from all the dust and pollution of our modern world.

Rain drops on frangipani leaves and flowers
 - drawn by Linzé (ink on Moleskine)

A to Z Challenge: Day 9 - I

Inktober52 - a 52 week challenge for sketchers and artists alike

The challenge runs on Instagram and if you follow the #Inktober52 you will see the amazing things people are drawing for the same prompt.

For me this has been a terrific experience to practice my ink drawing skills every week. I have managed to keep up with the challenge - get the prompt on Thursday, and post to my Instagram before the next Thursday. Sometimes it was tough, but I am committed to do this challenge for the whole 52 weeks.

Until tomorrow!
💜 Linzé

💟 PS: Thank you so much for visiting my blog and leaving comments. I am still having difficulties replying but will keep on working to try and figure out how to fix it.

A to Z Challenge: Day 7 - G

Green by Linzé

Inktober52 had it first colour prompt last week (due this week). I have been drawing several nature related prompts, so this time I went abstract with my drawing.
I bought a book about the medieval practice of decorating books and used that as inspiration to tackle this prompt. When I was done I noticed there was a second G in the background. Just goes to show you that sometimes the creative process can produce surprises too! 😁😁

From Linzé's Moleskine sketchbook