3 months of Elliot - 2.5 years of Dylan & new art!

Well hello there faithful reader. :) It's been a while, I know, but what can I say: things have been busy. :)

I'm sitting here, unwashed with my trousers inside out. True story that. This be life with kids under the age of 3. Things like showering and wearing your trousers the right way out become lower on the list of priorities. Haha. Also, you become a bit frazzled and absent-minded on very little sleep. I didn't notice until quite a bit after I'd put my trousers on, that they were -in fact- inside out. But I'm now just deciding it's a fashion statement. Ha.

So, Andy is back! Yay! All is well in the world again. Dylan was over the moon to have his daddy back and me too! Elliot didn't really notice it much though he smiles big grins whenever Andy holds him.

Elliot was 3 months old this weekend! (And Dylan 2.5 years old! Eeek, time goes by so fast).

So, 3 months of Elliot. A huge smiley baby. Started smiling pretty much the first week he was alive. Doesn't like lying down much, wants to see things and get going, stands on his legs and kicks them hard if you hold him upright. He's already trying to roll over (Dylan couldn't be bothered at this age). Sleeps pretty well, though lately wakes up more at night. Has a droopy eye lid (or the other eye lid is open too much, not sure). Likes chewing on his fist. Is happy to lounge in the baby björn, as long as you face him outwards. Needs entertainment. Is very alert, takes everything in. When he is unhappy, he lets us know through either squealing or screeching. He's very good at expressing his unmet needs at this point. ;) His skin is soft and beautiful and his head smells of daisies and snowflakes, they should bottle this stuff! ;) He's pretty much the best, awesomest addition to our family. :D

Art Stuffs:

I've been working on a new portrait which may or may not be added to my Life Book, I might mount it onto wood and put it up for sale if it doesn't go into the Life Book. If you follow me on Facebook, you would've seen the progress shots already, but here they are again:

This piece is still not finished yet, but I was much happier with the 3rd version. The 2nd one was much too busy! Will post the final piece soon. I was very happy with the shading on this portrait. I feel like my shading skills are developing more and more. :)

I was also very inspired by something Alissa Burke did, she posted it HERE. She'd basically done this creative doodle and then pasted a picture of her baby in it! Awesome idea, so I did something similar and pasted lil Elliot into it:

Very fun to do! :) Here are some more detailed photographs from when I was working on it though it was mostly finished at that point and I used another pic of Elliot. The paints you see there are gouache. I used gouache, watercolour crayons and some of the letraset watercolour markers (which I've not found as great as everyone else seems to find them! They're ok but I was expecting them to be more watersoluble, anyhooz):

 

Lastly, I'm super excited because I found this AWESOME art journal! It has actual hot-pressed watercolour paper in it! I've been looking for a journal like this forever and could never find journals with watercolour paper in it (so I bound my own, but it's time consuming), but I found one now! It's the "Saunders Waterford Series" (tried to look for a link online, but can't find one, I bought mine in my local art store here).

I love the size of it and it's got these awesome frayed pages at the edges. I'm so glad I found this journal because I've not had one that I liked recently which means I don't do much journaling and therefore less emotional processing. Glad to be able to start journaling properly again!

Anyhoo. That's me for today. Ta-rah lovely people! <3

Self-connection through art.

New work in progress.

I have no art journal at the moment. The one I created on Rhomany's course a while ago is full up and I've got a pile of new beautiful papers lying here waiting to be bound into a new journal, but I can't find the time to bind them together. And I don't just want to buy a journal as none of the ones they sell have the exact paper I want! So I'm doing art journalling pages on separate sheets and considering adding them to my Life Book at the end of the year! I'm realising that I really need to do more art journalling. Art for the sake of processing emotions and I don't get to do that a lot lately.

I get so much out of just arting and letting the colours & paints speak my feelings. It's so therapeutic and soothing. I'm a poor processor of emotions, per default I don't process them well, but through art I do. So, I'm back to trying to make sure I do a bit of art each day, for my psychological and emotional health! :) But of course, with 2 babies, trying to run a business and no husband around I don't have a lot of time. But I really am committed to just take some time out each day to self-connect through art. Yes yes yes. :) 

The magical husband is back in 8 days! Whew, what a couple of weeks it's been without him. It was our 7 year anniversary yesterday! 7 Whole years of Andy and Tam. Wow. Amazing. They have truly been the best 7 years of my life. There has been so much beauty, love, transformation and growth in my life because of Andy. We have an incredible depth of connection. I consider myself so so lucky to have him as my soul mate. It's incredible. <3

Things have been chaotic yet really fun and manageable too with the 2 boys. Elliot is still pretty easy going though he's also had more difficult days. He likes 'not being bored' and is starting to need more entertainment now, though today he pretty much slept throughout. On other days, he's awake a lot and won't lie still by himself for more than 5 mins.

Dylan is incredible. He's 2.5 years today exactly and I often look at him and wonder how and when this little person started to get so independent already and is completely already 'living his own life'. I thought that would happen later. Like, when they are so tiny and still babies, they are simply an extension of yourself, they are, of course, someone else, but also not, they are mostly still part of you, and then all of a sudden, they turn 2-ish (or something) and they are so very much their own person, someone who is so independent from you, it's so odd. And it reminds me of the quote of 'the prophet': 'your children come through you, but they are not from you'. And I've always known/ believed that, but didn't think that that would become so obvious so early on in your child's life.

It's like Dylan, at 2.5 years old, is already half "leaving the nest".

On Children
 Kahlil Gibran

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

Introspection

 Detail from a Life Book page I did today  So, since I last wrote, things are a bit more in control and balanced around here. We've found some kind of groove. I have the most amazing support from my friend Beatrice and me and Dylan have a new thing going at night (he's basically sleeping in my bed with Elliot and I instead of his own bed and that is going well).

Though I still feel very tired, overall I feel less frantic and frazzled an just more in control. Yay! :)

Elliot is sort of a dream baby. He sleeps really well at night and is easy going during the day as well. Plus, he keeps smiling and giggling! Look at his little facey:

I'm entirely in love with him. Utterly devoted. He's just such a blast to have around and so so easy going. :) Dylan was much less easy as a babe, I am also devoted to him, of course, nevertheless! Ha ha!

I also found some time to do some art. Woohoo! Kylie's lesson was a paint over acrylic's transfer technique which I did quite a few of the month before Elliot was born, but I'd not done it with one of my ow photographs before! The idea was that were going to do a self portrait and surround our portrait with positive words/ qualities that we think describe us. This is mine:





:)
Here are some details;







  

It was really odd for me to work on my own face and it felt like all my features were so small compared to the faces I usually do! :) but I like the final outcome although my face feels a little stretched. ha ha!

And today I really wanted to do some art for the sake of art but still include it in my Life Book. And I worked with just feeling what was going on inside, asking myself what I was needing and creating in response to that.

And this is what came:











I liked working with the dark shadows and more contrast than I usually do. I used my graphite crayon hence a lot of grays, but it suited my mood and what was alive inside. Not that I'm feeling gray inside, just sort of introspective and calm and gray fits that for me. Underneath are loads of layers but they sort of disappeared.

Anyhoo! That is me for today. Oh, Life Book has just started on its second month, for my lesson we're doing my paint over collage method. Students are coming up with such amazing art work! :)

Love! <3