What do I think up next?

So we are reaching to the end of the year, and so far I have accomplished all the goals I have set out to achieve this year save one. Hey four out of five isn't bad!
Other things have happened this year too, which put me heading in a different direction. Not exactly as I planned, but hey, when the Universe gives you lemons, make sweet delicious lemonade with a touch of bitters and an umbrella. Then sit back and bask in the sun........

I sat down the other morning during my quiet time trying to analyze what I truly want. And I realized that it was not material things, but experiences and feelings. I pinned it down to just a few:

1)I want to never have to care what people think of my decisions. I want to be able to choose the way that makes me happy, without having ghosts of guilt trippers echo in my mind.

2)I want to have a place of my own. A place which I can call home. And no matter what journeys I go to, I can always return home to rest.

3)I want to have days filled with enlightenment. Days when I always feel connected to my inner self, and connected to my higher self, and know that all is one, and one is all....and the now is all that matters.

4)I want to love and be loved in return. I want to interact with people who enrich my life, and enrich theirs in return.

5)I want to never have to worry how I am affording things. I want to just be able to get them. I want financial power.

6)I want to be sure on life's path, to be confident that every step taken is bursting with fulfillment and happiness.

7)I want my heart to soar with life's experiences, and to never wonder “what's the point of all this.”

Now my only challenge is to figure out how to create these emotions inside me. How do these goals translate into actions which would generate the feelings. Hmmm goals for next year will be harder to figure out.

Unfinished

Just to show you that I have been trying. Here are two paintings, unfinished, that have been sitting on my living room floor for about..say...two months? For some insane reason, the excitement to finish them has gone. I want to finish them, but everytime I make a brush stroke it looks all wrong. Maybe its a psychological fear?

Also, what the economic downturn has done to the art market is that supplies are short, and expensive. Paint has gone up tremendously....when you can get at all. There are so many empty gapping holes where the tubes should be.

I haven't been able to feel that connection to higher being either. The thing I feel when I paint. I was reading a site about brain waves, and the most creative brain waves are the Alpha Waves. The same site proffessed to be able to teach individuals how to produce and use these brain waves, but there was a fee....and I got turned off.

I am so concious of missing out on the peak season for painting sales. Its Christmas into Carnival, and I have nothing to sell, and no urges to paint.
Clearly there is unfinished mental businees to attend to...if only I could figure out what it is???

Painfully painting

A couple of weeks later and a painting is eeking out itself painfully in my living room. The pace at which I am working on this is slower than a snail with a ten pound barbell to pull.
Being a single mom again leaves you with so much to do, that there are days when I just want to collapse in bed with a good book and think and do nothing. And I do just that. My sanity is more important to me.

But the painting sits on an old chair, as my easel has been thrown out (After 16 years old faithfull was attacked beyond recovery by ravenous woodlice) and every so often i chook at it a little.

Creativity on Pause

Sat in front of a piece of canvas recently, and painfully realized that nothing was coming. Has Inspiration turned her back on me. Maybe I haven't been giving her enough attention. So like a spoilt child she has turned her back. A couple of sketches later on a piece of paper, and she still was elusive. "Where did you go?" I asked the wind. "you were always there. How is it that I cannot find you, Inspriation?"

"I know. I need to woo you again. I need to play with you, spend some time learning what you have become. Then you will feed me with your thoughts again, and the paintings will begin to emerge as we meld our minds and play together."

Breaking the Block

Oh Fadda Head!

So it happened again. The dreaded Artist Block Syndrome. That bastard of a disease which you never see coming until you sit down and try to create. You can have the perfect scenario...nice music....all you materials...pencils sharpened and become so creatively constipated that your brain hurts just trying to conceptualize.

All the methods that have worked before seem lame and tired. All the reference photos that you have don't excite you anymore....and your mind is as turned on as a ninety year old nun counting raffle tickets. (no...wait, that might turn them on)

One way to combat your artist block, well at least for me, is to become a kid again. I have to go down to the craft store and buy some colourful sparkly things and begin to create for the fun of creating. It takes a load of pressure off your mind when its for sheer fun. The pressure of creating for sale sometimes causes anxiety for it to come out just right...and the flow disappears....you literally get anal.....LOL

So I have to go back to my inner child, and play a little with stuff, and find back the flow that I have lost by not creating in the first place.....baby steps only, baby steps.