Art

Weekend work in progress: animated sections for my Doc

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Here is a little extract from a documentary I have been working on for a long time now. I’ve been experimenting with different forms of animation and this one is pretty simple compared to some of the other things I am thinking about, but actually I think it looks really nice and clean. It could probably do with a few tweaks around speed and that kind of thing, but mostly this one has come together quite nicely.

Would love to hear any comments/ feedback.

Like what you see? I also make art. You can things with my designs on at my shop here. Could even treat yourself if you wanted to. Just saying.

Reasons to be grateful #5 – walking in the woods with my best one

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One of the things I’ve been doing with this blog over that last few months is trying to keep track of some of the things I am grateful for, following this post about gratitude. I thought it would be fun to build up a little collection of doodles to capture these. Finding the time to do this has been a bit challenging, but I have enjoyed thinking about what to draw.

Over the last few weeks we’ve had some unpredictable weather here in the UK, swinging rapidly between spring sunshine and flurries of winter snow. We’ve been lucky enough to have time to go for 2 really nice walks in the woods, in between the snow showers and rain. I find being in the woods particularly relaxing and refreshing, and love the curving unruly forms of nature. A few weekends ago we came across some beautiful mosses, which were intricate in form and all kinds of vivid greens.

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My fiancé (still getting used to calling him that) frequently have our best, most thoughtful conversations while out walking and not distracted by other things. It is often in the woods where we discuss what we would like to do together in the future, or scheme to create a joint project. So I am grateful to have that time and space with him whenever possible. I also find that when I am walking I have some of my best ideas. I think there is something about the rhythm of walking that may make different connections in my brain in comparison to just sitting in front of a screen or with some materials. So I am grateful for that different kind of ‘head space’ too.

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Like what you see? I also make art. You can things with my designs on at my shop here. Could even treat yourself if you wanted to. Just saying.

Objects with meaning – do you want to join in?

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A few weeks ago I started running a series of posts about ‘objects with meaning’, by which I meant objects that have personal importance to us, so that they may make up part of our emotional story or landscape. You can read that original post here should you want to know more. You can also have a look at some of the objects here and here.

Anyway, I found that something pretty exciting had happened at the beginning of this week when writer Scar (of blog SCAR) took up the idea behind this post and wrote her own lovely post about her own poignant ‘objects of meaning’. You can read her post here. I was particularly taken with the tale of her Ukulele and of her Happy Wagon. No spoilers – if you want to know more you’ll need to head over there to get the full story. If you like books, or ever have occasion to roam London looking for good places to hang out or eat, her blog is also for you.

So I really like the idea that other bloggers may want to write about their own ‘objects of meaning’ and the stories behind them. I think ideas are best shared. If you would like to join in I would be happy to host guest posts here, or link to posts on other blogs to direct some traffic. I really like the idea that we could together develop a web or map of stories through interesting objects, nearly forgotton pieces of clothing and long cherished toys – it would be exciting to act as a hub for that.

Please grab my attention by posting in the comments below, or you can email me at rose@magpieatmidnight.co.uk if you would prefer that.

I also make art. You can things with my designs on at my shop here. Could even treat yourself if you wanted to. Just saying.

New Design – pink flamingo

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flamingo portrait

I’ve been sitting on this design (among others) for quite a while. This one was made through hand cutting and arranging a sheet of pink flowers, and hand drawing and cutting a flamingo silhouette. I pulled the finished design together in photoshop. It’s been snowing outside here in London for the last few days, but I think spring is on the way. It feels like a good time to release this flamingo into the wild.

If you like this design, it is available as a print and on other things at Redbubble here.

What is it that I blog about anyway?

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I’ve been thinking a bit about what it is I am doing (or trying to do) when I’m writing this blog recently. Looking back over previous posts there are bits and pieces about my art, other people’s art and being creative, and sometimes (but not as much as I initially thought there would be) on trying to sell it. There are bits about being in nature (mostly in the woods), or out and about in lovely bits of the UK, and on appreciating the wonderful things we may have that may often go unnoticed close to home. There are also some thoughts on mental health, wellbeing and some of the tiny steps that may be part of the journey to getting us there. I think for a while I have felt a bit like this is a messy blog with out a central theme, which, while it may suit my messy brain, may ultimately not be of that much interest to other people.

I’ve been looking around at some of the ‘alternative lifestyle’ movements for a while and with each one found that it wasn’t quite for me. I like some of the principles of minimalism, but am far too (proudly) messy to be minimalist. I can see that living a ‘laptop lifestyle’ while travelling and living on a shoestring may be exciting, but I like my home and my friends and family too much to feel like swanning off into the sunset would be my thing. I don’t rage against my day job, which is meaningful and I think involves important work, but I do want to do a bit less of it. I have always been a bit anti-consumerist, but at the same time have a deep appreciation of (and am very happy to pay for) the sensuality and materiality of objects and food that have been made with skill and love. I find some of the writing coming out of the self help movement useful, but find they often promote an approach that for me is uncomfortably self absorbed. I like being with people, but also like my alone time too much to consider some form of communal living to be the answer. So I kind of didn’t really fit with any of the alternative lifestyle tribes that would require quite radical changes to my current way of doing things.

I think I’ve come to realise that the blog is all about me efforts in trying to carve my own pragmatic (and messy) path to living a creative, purposeful, connected, meaningful life.  While I may not be a perfect fit with any of the currently available ‘alternative’ tribes, I do think that what I’ve been trying to think about is living a different kind of life to one that is normal and heavily promoted in western culture (striving, ambitious, busy, individualistic, resource and spending heavy). I think that in particular I’m beginning to see the kind of isolation that kind of life can lead to, and how frankly unhealthy that is. There has got to be a better way that may involve slightly softer lifestyle changes. I’ve been pretty inspired while reading the blog of Mrs Craft of Craft and other crazy plans, who seems to be doing all sorts of interesting creative and outdoorsy things and generally enjoying that. And I’ve been thinking about more collective ways of doing things. I think over the next year or so I’ll be posting a bit more about this as I work things out as I go along. We may even start our own pragmatically, proudly messy, creative tribe, together. Would love to hear your thoughts on this in the comments below.

Taking the rail replacement bus

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This morning I went swimming with my sister for the first proper training session in preparation for swimming in the Great North Swim in June. I have signed up to swim 5k (which is just over 3 miles), which is the furthest distance I will have swam. Eventually I want to work up to swimming a 10k, which is a marathon style length for swimmers. We swam a mile, and it was pretty tough going. I think it will take 2 swim sessions a week, and an additional session in the gym a week to build my stamina between now and then. So we have work to do. I will try to keep track here I think.

On my journey there this morning, one of my trains was replaced by a rail replacement bus. I normally travel on the train, and which is a relatively direct route. The bus takes a less direct route, and as a consequence I was able to see parts of London that I do not normally see. London is a huge city that has developed and evolved over time, slowly swallowing up towns and villages as it expand outwards. This process has left a patchwork of buildings of different styles, sizes and ages, with different parts of the outer edges of the city having distinct atmospheres and styles of their own. While it took me longer than i expected to get to the pool, I was great to spend some time looking at these bits of this city that I do not always feel at home in.

It got me thinking a bit about doing things differently, or what I may try to do differently last year. Over that last year and a half I have been working on just trying to finish things, which has been helpful in getting me to a place where I feel my creative work has purpose. I have also begun to really appreciate that doing things slowly, and building things over time, is actually the better way for me. I can be comfortable with this. However some of the work has felt, if not trivial, at least a bit light, or thin. In the last few months I have begun working on some pieces that are emotionally more close to home. I’ve been avoiding finishing bits of work like this in the past, as putting it out there is a bit anxiety provoking. When you already have anxiety, adding in more sources of anxiety is a bit of thing. So this year, I will be trying, gently, to push my self a bit more in that direction. Stay tuned to see how that goes…

Is there anything you’ll be having a go at doing differently this year?

I’m ill, hopefully back up to speed next week…

/ The Magpie at Midnight / 2 Comments

I’ve not posted very much for the last few weeks as it was Christmas and since then I’ve been ill at home. On the run up to Christmas I was actually being quite careful to take care of my self, going to the gym and eating well, but I think it was a bit a a too little too late situation – for lots of us last year was quite a slog. At the moment I’m concentrating in just doing what my body seems to want – lots of sleep, watching trashy telly and eating good food. I have been very fortunate to have my boyfriend looking after me.

However, I did manage to finish the Christmas presents I was making before Christmas in time to hand them out at the appropriate time. Here is one of them below, minus it’s frame as the reflection off the glass made it difficult to take a photo. What do you think?