Life is not that smooth. So when working hard, stop, breath and celebrate.

pretty patterns on a grass carpet created by light and shadow

We took a week off, not for a holiday but to concentrate on building my studio-to-be. It’s been ultra busy so far, spending all day out in the garden (the studio was originally a garden shed) under the sun. The thing is once you start something, you find another thing to be done and keep going off the track.. but I know it’s moving forward slowly but surely. It is in a way frustrating process, not being able to see WHEN I am actually in the studio. Wanted to get it done by this September ready for the next term, but it seems not possible. This is unfortunately the fact as we (husband and I) are doing all by ourselves when we could find the time off from work. And of course the cost matters too. So far, we did the floor and roof last year, which is now need re-felting. Sorted the gutter and entrance area. I am doing the ceiling at the moment, keeping air space and layering insulations. Then we found tons of other jobs to pick up in between... like the part of decking to be sorted out, garden allotment, oh let’s wash blinds while it’s sunny, sorting meal for my stepdaughter’s graduation, helping out the neighbor’s garden before his 80th birthday do etc etc...

Life does just not that easily follow as you wanted it to be. But I am learning to embrace that all. Stop and breath here and there, looking back what you have done so far each day and celebrate. That keeps a smile on my face and soul I believe.

This morning as I got up early, I took my skecthbook out for "doodling" during my breakfast. I popped into the local RHS garden on Monday morning using a "half-price" voucher that I kept from newspaper cut-out. Getting inspirations from some photos I took, I drew new ideas of my work on ceramics and prints.

When I see a garden, although I love the colours and flowers, I tend to more focus on something like, the shape of leaves, seed heads, outline created by shadow, roughness of the meadow etc etc. I guess this is simply because I cannot paint! If I can paint well (and I wish I could) I would love to catch those beautiful contrast of colours in this garden. Instead, I usually do line drawing. This seems working for me and easy to visualise how I can translate onto ceramics surface or screens. Anyway, this is what I “doodled”. I enjoyed ten minutes of “breathing” . Let’s get back to work. Start again.

stop, breath and celebrate!