Tuesday 30 October 2012

An afternoon painting with Dylan

Hello. Our household is riddled with illness at the moment (diarrhoea, nausea, sickness, eugh, it's so annoying how often they pick up bugs, anyhoo). No childcare, so hardly any time to work. Sneaking in bits of work and blog time while babies asleep! :) 

On Sunday, Dylan painted. I took pictures. :0) (Photography used to play a big part in my life, it was wonderful to reignite my inner photographer spark photographing little Dylbee, I even used my macro lens). For the interested, these photos were taken with a Nikon d80 and Canon 60D. The macro lens I have is for my Nikon, a sigma one). :) x 

 


Do you want to be as playful with paint as Dylan? Do you want to connect with your inner artist and make joyful art for a whole year? :) Express yourself, heal, uncover spectacular colours, shapes and possibilities within you? :) 

Then come join the 450 + people who have already joined Life Book 2013! We'll be making art the whole year long, with weekly lessons, 22 awesome art teachers, community, connection with like-minded artsy people and inspiration, inspiration, inspiration! 



Wednesday 24 October 2012

My bound Life Book for 2012 :0)

Hallo the world! Thank you for existing, thank you for being.  <3>
 
So much going on, so much to tell you about, so little time. Ah well! Let me share with you one very VERY exciting thing: my bound Life Book for 2012. It's the thing I've been working towards the whole year. It's the fruit of this awesome Life Book project, it chronicles my 2012, it contains bits of love, magic, beauty, wisdom, illumination moments and growth. It is awesome. :) My Life Book is awesome.

For the current Life Book students there are only a few more lessons left before they can start binding their own glorious book. It's a culmination of so much. We've been through so much all of us. I feel so blessed to have spent this year with such an amazing group of people, from all walks of life. We have people from so many different countries join us, it's felt so international, uniting, connecting. From China (hi Lucy!) to Iceland (hi Sigrun!), to the US (hi many many of you delicious ones), to Argentina, Europe, Oz, NZ, UK etc etc. It's been freaking awesome. :D

I've filmed a flip through of my book, watch it here:


And here are several photos: 


I feel very proud and accomplished. :)


And of course, if you want to create your own Life Book, be sure to join the 400 + students who have already signed up to Life Book 2013! 

Check out all the deets by CLICKING HERE

Friday 19 October 2012

Your Light is Big - Free Wallpaper

Hello beautifuls. Wowie, another post from me so soon! I know, it's impressive, ha! It's only a quicky. I'm feeling so inspired by the book I mentioned yesterday (Dying to be Me) that I wanted to make something beautiful in response to it and share with yousies for free! :) 

Here is a pretty screensaver which you can download for free, to remind you that YOUR LIGHT IS BIG!! :)) YES IT IS! (Just click on the image and then right click and save target as). x 

Lots of love
Tam x

Thursday 18 October 2012

Snow Queen

A lot is going on in casa del Tammo. ;) First up, a new painting! I call her 'Snow Queen'. White dots are love, so it seems. I hope you like her, she is for sale too, see details below. 


12 x 16 inches on hotpressed watercolour paper (140lbs)
Materials: acrylics, watersoluble crayons, graphite
£95 GBP
(+ £10 shipping)
Buy Now


Here are more details shots:


I really loved working in these darker tones. The purples and magentas really fitted my mood, autumn is here, winter on her way, the colours really fitted.

In other news: last week was not a great week for parenting. It was just so hard over here in the Mason-Laporte household. There was one morning where we went from one meltdown to Greek drama to screaming to pushing to simply losing our shit. By the end of it I was so totally going to give both of them up for adoption. There was a lot of this basically:

It's not been an easy morning ...
FYI: he was crying here because he couldn't get the chocolate egg immediately. He had to wait until we'd paid for it ...
 
Then, the week went by and we somehow got through all the drama and now everything feels so different again. It's amazing how changeable everything is. I never expected it to be this intense, this stressful and also: this amazing. This morning, I said to Dylan: "I love you so much Dylan" and he said: "I love you too mummy". That was probably the first time he actually said it like that with some sort of understanding of what it means, and the good old cliché welled up in me: it's all so worth it

But I didn't think that having children was going to be so emotionally exhaustive. Give me any - all of the physical jobs: changing nappy, feeding them, clothe them, read to them, play with them etc: no problemo, but dealing with their relentless emotional meltdowns, fights over toys, shouting, screaming etc, now that I find so so very exhausting. One melt down a day: ok I can deal, but 6 meltdowns before 9am: dude I so unsubscribe ... 

But yes, we're back to cute little toddler faces adorned by awesome bear hats, like so:

I'm rather partial to bear hats and especially on my big kid :)

One of my favourite pictures ever of him! :) I suppose you just gotta keep going (you can't not). 

In more other news. I am someone who's struggled with my health for many years, both because I have Rheumatoid Arthritis and I've always had weight/ food issues. After 2 pregnancies I'm now at the heaviest weight I've ever been and I'm worried about my health and fed up. I always try to get control of my health again, but I'm finding it very hard at the moment with the sleep deprivation, running a business and having the 2 little ones. The one thing I find that helps me a lot to stay on track with my food plans and not just mindlessly eat if I'm: angry, sad, tired, bored, happy etc, is to remain aware and conscious of what I'm doing. And I stay aware of what I'm doing by filling in a daily sort of journal. Well, at least: I try to do so every day. And when I do, it helps me a lot, but it's not enough. 

And so I've been thinking on how I can really make a radical difference to my health in a kind, gentle and loving way (rather than the: starve myself, over exercise, stress myself into being healthier) and I thought: if I do this with a bunch of people and we all encourage each other and keep checking in with each other, this might actually really work.

Soooooooo. I'm currently working on a 28 days Wellness Program called: "Radical Wellness with Willowing" which will include a massive PDF which participants can print out and keep a health journal in. It will be all pretty with positive affirmations, gratitude lists, meal plan options etc and then I'll be sending out daily emails plus we'll do art videos each week as well. Sound good no? If you're reading this, can you let me know if you might be interested in this? :) It'll probably be like £40 GBP for 28 days of emails, encouraging each other and weekly art videos. Eee. I'm excited to finally be taking control of my health this way and doing it with each other (not sure when I'm launching the course yet, but I'm currently already testing out the beautiful PDF and it's SO helpful). Anyway, I don't really even have time for this, but I'm trying to change some of my priorities so that it serves my health more. :) So, this is in the pipeline people! :) 

I'm also wanting to create another mini workshop which is likely going to be with a Christmas theme, I thought we could all make a cute Whimsy Christmas Character together and then I can also show you guys how to produce Christmas cards with your own creation through moo.com. Cool idea no? :) So more in the pipe line.

What else? Like this post isn't already long enough eh?! ;)

Oh, some more new art, a work in progress though and I'm kinda stuck, not sure where to take this next:

New WIP. Kinda stuck with it though. Mm.

I really like her face though, something wistful about her. 

Ok, lastly, I started reading this book called: "Dying to Be Me". It's about a woman who had a near death experience while she was ravaged by cancer. Then she came back from it and miraculously healed her body that was entirely given up by the medical people. I love her account of her experience while she was in a coma, it matches the experiences of some other people I've heard talk about their near death experiences. It makes me feel reassured and more at peace about death and what happens next. I'm also fascinated by the fact that many of the after death/ near death accounts share very similar experiences which for me confirms the credibility of it all. Anyhoo, I'm only sort of half way, but I recommend the book! :)

That's it for me today. 

Love & Light. x Tam x

Saturday 6 October 2012

Call of the Wild Soul

 
A page I create in Teesha Moore's class
 
Al right beautiful people. The house is a complete disaster zone, I am UP TO MY NECK in unanswered emails and comments and have tons to do before Monday when Life Book 2013 goes on sale, but my fingers, body, mind and soul are all ACHING to do a little write up of the amazing art retreat I went to last week! So I am going to do a brief write up here and let the photos speak for themselves!

I took the whole family and an awesome friend (Sarri) along with us (I don't recommend this as it means your energy is scattered but I had no choice in this matter as Elliot still breastfeeds, and it's also fun in its own way, but more about this some other time).

We stayed in a gorgeous place in Somerset called: Croydon Hall. On the way there, we passed Stone Henge:


Frustratingly, Dylan kept throwing up (car sick) on the way there, so we had a few stops to clean him up, but we made it to Croydon Hall in time to meet all the awesome souls there.

This was the view from our room:


It was truly an amazing place and they served the most amazing food!

Ok, then it was time for the art classes! We were taught by the most awesome teachers namely: Teesha Moore, Flora Bowley and Orly Avineri (if you've not heard of these people yet, go clickie their linkies as they will blow your mind!) :). Madelyn Mulvaney was also teaching but I did not take her class. She has the most wonderful energy though, so gentle and beautiful!

Though the look of their art is wildly different in style, interestingly, their approach to art making -in many ways- was quite similar.

Some of the things I've heard said by these teachers:

"It's all about intuition"

"Let the universe create through you"

"Try not to let 'mind' interfere too much"

"Let go, don't get attached"

"Go with the flow"

"We're just learning, don't get attached"

"We are all the same"

"Look at what works in your painting"

"It's all about the process"

And so on. I loved their open and authentic approach to the creative process so much.

Class specific.

Day 1 - My Class with Teesha. I was with Teesha on the first day. My impression of Teesha in a few words:

Raw - Authentic - Deep - Soulful - Sensitive - Beautiful - Caring - Passionate.

Teesha brought with her all her journals and to touch them is like touching a piece of her soul. That might sound a little, I don't know, contrived? But it was like that, there is so much in her journals, it really felt like an honour to be touching them and looking at them and taking them all in. Breath-taking.


While we worked on our pages, Teesha shared bits from her life and her approach to art. I was particularly moved when she told us how she has seen an energy healer who told her that she has 6 spirit guides and that she all of a sudden noticed that she had drawn/ collaged them in her journal through her 'stacking method'. But there was so much more that Teesha shared that was inspiring and moving. :) I enjoyed my class with her a lot and learned so much!

Here are the 2 pages I created during her lesson:


(Sorry pic a bit blurry)

Then, Dylan developed his dreaded wheeze again and on the Friday to Saturday night we had to call an ambulance for him (his oxygen saturation was really low: 86)! We were all awake at 3am. Don't worry, he's fine, but it meant that the sleep was even worse than usual! (The ambulance guys (NHS) were simply AWESOME btw!).

Dylan with nebuliser:


Day 2 - My class with Flora.
My impression of Flora in a few words:

Soul Deep - Beautiful - Inspiring - Spiritual - Playful - Expressive - Grounded.

Well now, Flora is something! From starting us off with a beautiful ritual in which we are invited to 'let go of that which doesn't serve us' and 'committing to something for the day' to encouraging us to 'get into our bodies through dance' (yes, we danced around the room together!) and then - I kid you not - making us paint with our eyes closed and - I kid you not again - teaching us non-attachment by starting on a painting and then passing it on to the person next to you to paint over (GASP!), this was nicely pricking forks into the edges of my comfort zone big time. And oh, don't you love it when people do that for you? Such awesome life lessons hidden in there.

As many of you know, I turn to zen, non-duality, Buddhism to ground and for my spiritual/ life needs and Flora melds her approach to teaching and creation so beautifully with some of the non-dual/ zen/ Buddhist teachings. :) A perfect reminder for me in many ways.

This is the -unfinished- painting I ended up with in Flora's class:


I wanted to work more on it, but there was no more time. I might work more on this painting here at home.

And here is a little collage of images taken during Flora's class :


On Saturday night I had a stall to sell some of my prints/ postcards and to let people know about Life Book 2013! :) I loved connecting with so many of the other retreat go-ers that evening. Elliot was meant to go to sleep in the pram but was HOWLING so ended up breastfeeding and sleeping on my lap, ha ha. Here is the proof of that one:


I ended up sitting next to the awesome Jeanette House a lot of the time! Her stall was next to me too! :) It was super fun to get to know her a bit better! :)


This is me and Jeanette wearing bindis which we were given in Flora's class. :) 

By the time Sunday arrived I was seriously exhausted. Sleep was hard to come by and everything was high energy for me (while I had none). I ran from class to a meal to kids to class to kids to try to sleep but getting none back to class etc. So poor Orly didn't get the best me possible, though she wisely commented on the fact that being tired helps with 'getting out of the mind', and boy do I need to get out of my mind! A 'problem' I've had most of my life.

Day 3 - My class with Orly. My impression of Orly in a few words:

Intense - Deep - Beautiful - Serious about Art - Humourous - Attentive - Caring.

Orly is deeply passionate and serious about art journalling. She tells deep soul stories through her pages and invites you to do the same. She "commands" students pay attention to their inner world but not through mind. Instead, through body, through feeling and work from there into the pages. She took us through her techniques step by step, encouraging us to build layer upon layer symbolising your inner layers. The theme of the lesson was 'maps' and it was like we were each mapping our souls onto the pages. I thoroughly enjoyed Orly's class.

This was one of the spreads I ended up with during her class:


Each class functioned as a mirror for me. Reminding me of deep soul lessons I keep having to learn. This is what made the lessons invaluable to me. The techniques taught were awesome, the camaraderie from all the other retreat go-ers was inspiring and the place it was held at was stunning.

I thank the amazing Erin Faith Allen for organising this awesome retreat, it was deeply magical! Just wish we had more time to spend with each other. I also thoroughly enjoyed meeting many of the people I'd known online before and now in 'real life' (you know who you are!).

Ok, that's it for now, a fairly shortish write up, just wanted to share at least *something* with you guys while it's still fresh in my memory. :))

Namaste and lots of love! x

LinkWithin

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...