Seduced away from C&G but will be back soon!!

14th January 2012

Last year's Distant Stitch Summer School was no sooner over, than my husband Moray developed a serious infection in his knee.  (He had a knee replacement in September 2010.)  To complicate things, some of the medication he was prescribed attacked his already dodgy kidneys.  Between the stress of worrying about his health, the exhaustion of daily 64-mile round trips to visit hospital and the added burden of other aging family members needing help, I found it a really tough time.  Fortunately surgery and a lengthy spell of antibiotics put paid to the infection and his kidneys eventually recovered.  Moray remained cheerful and optimistic throughout, did his exercises diligently and by November was walking, bowling and cycling again.  At that point the reaction hit me and I just wanted to curl up on the sofa with a book or my knitting.  The last thing on my mind was my City and Guilds course.  I did find the Summer Sketchbook Project a life saver.  It didn't demand too much time or effort and it took my mind off worry for a spell.

At the end of October, a friend asked if I could give her 14 year-old son some help with his art work for school.  He has an extraordinary talent and so we started painting together every Saturday morning.  I hadn't done any painting for some years and had kind of lost my confidence.  It turned out to be a real joy for me to set aside a time every week to paint.  I rediscovered my love of painting and found it better than meditation to calm my mind.  When I paint, nothing else exists.  I was also quite pleased with the results.  No, they aren't perfect, but they are good enough to please me.  I find that if I leave my Saturday painting out in my studio, then I re-visit it from time to time through the week.  Several times I've gone upstairs to the studio to put something away and three or four hours later, Moray is saying, "When are we having dinner?"  We've had quite a few pub meals or takeaways lately!

So it has seduced me completely away from my City and Guilds work.  However, I have been preparing some pieces of fabric for the Shibori for Module 2 Chapter 6 and I will get going with that soon (Honest Sian!)

Here are some of the paintings I've been working on:-

Glentanar  Walk January 2012



Still life in acrylics December 2011



Still life in soft pastels January 2012

Crathes Castle watercolour January 2012

Fun watercolour flower exercise