What a way to roll into November! Just come off a weekend that I wish had never ended. Feeling quite stressed at work as my boss is on holiday, leaving me as the only person in our department. And as I work in an advertising agency (i.e. the devil's hq) that makes for a lot of work passing through my hands. A lot of really important work *nervous shake*

Went to a children's home this Saturday, with a friend's church group, to help clean up and organise the home. It was sad to see how little some people have. We were sorting through these boxes of donated toys (second/third/fourth hand toys and books) and some people give away some of the nastiest, most useless rubbish - broken clipboards, actual old school notes! and pieces of toys that you can't really use (and I'm fully aware of the imaginative extent of children, so that I'm saying that, I really mean some of the stuff was crap). We cleaned out a shed that's going to be used as a kitchen, and packed donated clothes (there were some really filthy old things in there, people don't even have the decency to wash them before they donate) into different piles for children, babies, men and women. We also dug a firebreak around the property and did some landscaping. It was a mad busy couple of hours, and it still didn't feel like enough.

Sunday I picked up some new canvas and white paint (I seem to go through tubs of the stuff) and started painting a portrait of the beau. This one is smaller than the self portrait I've been attempting, so feeling a lot more optimistic about completing it. It's so much easier to work with, and make changes (especially because I'm not using an outline) since it's smaller. Spent about 6 hours on it yesterday! It was a good distraction from the thought of being at work today. Now just to see if I can get it looking enough like the person it's supposed to be of

So much for 'once a month' updates. But here I am! For all, um... 1 of you who probably read this journal
Painting is going really well. Not as fast as I'd like it to, but I could probably learn a little patience anyway. I'm working on several projects at once as well, so I spread my time and energy out accordingly amongst those. My canvases have progressively gotten bigger, haha. I think my ambition and imagination FAR outweighs my skill or ability, but I have fun anyway.
I now can't leave the art shop without picking up a new brush or tube of paint - my latest painter-porn is a portable easel and paint-box with palette. I've ogled it properly and decided it's definitely worth the money. So far I've been painting propping my canvas up against the table or wall, or *guilty look* on my knees (which would explain the neck aches being more persuasive than usual) so I could do with an easel.

In crazy long-distance relationship news, I am going to be meeting my guy in an undisclosed (to you lot) location in May next year, for two glorious weeks away from the rest of the world. I can't wait.
To make sense of what the heck I'm talking about (and because I really have no other place to talk about it), I am in a crazy long distance relationship with someone I've never met. I never thought I would be one of those people, and neither did he, but hey, lovestruck. What can I say. I guess we'll find out if it's all a big dream soon.
Meanwhile, adventure. Hahah. Guess I'm having to learn patience anyway.

Ok, that's enough for today. Especially since I'm pretty sure no-one reads these anyway.

New painting update, but it's a crappy cellphone pic - I'll get in a scanned pic when I have the time.

Ok, so I've decided once a month update is good enough - there's just so much going on in Real Life at the moment. Work, blogging, a new beau and various in betweens.

In art news, I've started a new painting, and it's proving to be more difficult than I first thought it would be. I'm discovering just how many different shades of grey there really are (lots). I'm still loving the flowers. I realised that painting is fun and relief for me, and it doesn't matter if the picture in my head doesn't quite end up on the canvas. It makes me happy, even if my message doesn't get across. Art is subjective anyway, and first meaning is always a problem when it comes to creating something. Working in advertising has made me care less about trying to finetune every other area of my creativity. I like that I don't have a target market to deliver a specific message to. It's just about beauty, and experience, and people getting what they can out of art, and that's good enough.

In other news, today is my 23rd birthday, eek! Life is moving nicely along I think. I'm definitely a lot less stressed than I've been in the past. Considering all the recent big life changes, it's surprising I haven't derailed too badly in the last while.
It was a bit of a scare yesterday, felt myself sinking into the unfathomable Bipolar depression, but I feel tons better today, so the plan goes as well, planned: Take each day as it comes.

So that's what I'm doing.

I've decided to start fresh over here, which seems apt since it was around this time last year that I joined devart. I think I'm going to be doing a lot more visual things, so I look forward to posting more stuff... And I want to be more involved in the community. So I've made some changes. Like deleting my old blog posts, changing some information, and once I've done it, changing my avatar.
I'd like to link to this devart account from my Wordpress blog so that I have a seperate space to keep my art and creative writing.

Excited to be a part of the devart world.

Nessie
xx

Sorry for the Harry Potter reference, but the latest movie is out next week, and I am quickly descending into fangirl-hysteria. Seriously though, I am very excited. The series is among my favourite books.

Anyway, that's the busting a gasket, actually.
The Luna reference is because I am quite a space-case these days. Must be all the Sigur Ros.

I posted my first painting on devart today. Feels pretty good to actually follow through with a project - I usually struggle with that.