back on track, budgets, books and stepping away from the screen

Am rather pleased to say that Hub and I have managed to have a very friction free chat about sticking to a budget.  We menu planned together the week ahead and we are going to stick to that and only buy what we need.  It seems so simple, but recently our weekly shopping bill has sky rocketed.  I know that prices have gone up and all, and that Hub is eating a protein rich diet, which is not cheap.  But still.  Its outta control.  For quite a while this bothered me, then I decided not to be bothered by it as it was a pointless exercise to try and deal with it on my own. I mean, what's the point of menu planning if Hub went and bought what he wanted to eat anyway.  We needed to both be involved.  And I didn't even bring up the whole sticking to our own cash budget in the week thing.  It was his idea.  Not that we are going to restrict it exactly, but we are going to track it.  Which should help us not be such spendaholics.  So.  In a whole celebration of that.  I shall be doing a tad of daily tracking here.  Sorry if tis dull to anyone!  But this is my personal blog and I can do what I likes!

Another thing I have done of late is switch off the internet at source.  I was finding myself mightily distracted by faffing about on facebook, ambling about finding new tunes on Spotify, blog reading,  checking email and sitting in front of my screen for TOO LONG all of that mallarky.   And it was irritating me and making me feel out of focus.  And given that I am now a Person Who Does and regularly dish out the tips of batch processing email and stuff, I figured it was time to do a little screen time management of my own.

It really worked.  I worked just from my next step lists for about the house.  I actuallly did the food audit I have been thinking of doing for - er - years.  And you guessed it, we have a lot of food.  So this week, as well as the Menu Plan, I am aiming to actually eat up some of it.  And am sure as hell not going to be buying any more of stuff we already have packets of (rice!!!).

I was very pleased to have done a few portraits for Mondo Beyondo folks which I had promised to do waaaay back in the summer.  And I think doing them has both loosened my eye up a little, given me some ideas to create a crafted, individual, portrait / photo / collage which is unique, but the style is replicable.  And I have some new ideas for new styles too.

Ah, and lastly I have been reading some interesting books about small business.  Well I have been reading one of the ones I bought anyway.  The first one is called The E Myth by - Michael E Gerber -  (who I am delighted to tell you did not even start to take himself seriously until he was gone 40) And the other I have bought and am yet to read, is called How to be Excellent at Anything by Tony Schwartz and Jean Gomez (yup, great title, lets see how I get on!) who run an interesting program called The Energy Project - which helps stressed out execs get their mojo back.  Or tries to stop them keeling over and popping their clogs aged 50?  Anyway, its intresting stuff.

Oh and lastly, lastly, am reading Betty Edwards' Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain.  As I had a fabulous brief chat with a friend who has an idea for a kind of 'step away from the screen' convention for web designers.  I am also rather excited by the whole idea of R mode (as Betty calls it) thinking.  Which seems to be very much along the lines of what Yoga does,   And creativity requires. And is how I think..... alot of the time.  All this organisation stuff, I love it, because I am the kind of chaotic lass that needs it.  Its not my natural state!!

Well, that's my catch up and NOW, I am going to STEP AWAY from the screen! 

Pleased as Punch: Art AND Money

This morning, I went to a catch up meeting with my new job at, People Who Do .  And its good news.... The focus for the next 3 months is on getting me (and the other associate) to take over delivery of Accelerated Productivity.

This totally coincides with my own aim of getting past the induction and onto fully paid as soon as possible.  We will have more training, and more opportunities to shadow AND we will also be paid more for that training time.  Win Win.

The whole process will be speeded up. I am very happy.  I am totally enjoying being part of helping folk Get Stuff Done.  It's such a good fit for me.  Am really pleased.  YAY!

Other than that, I am delighted to say that this afternoon I have managed to spend some time focusing on my art and portrait business.  It was lovely to spend the afternoon being creative.   Not finished yet but here is a bit of the work in progress.

Bub has been out all afternoon at Monkey Business.  An indoor play place.  With his best friend from preschool whose 4th birthday it was today.  Hopefully he will have worn himself out into an early night and I can get on with my art work.  x

I think I need a rebrand

Not me, nor this blog actually as its just my personal blog.  But I want to rebrand my portraits into something cooler and cuter and darker and more interesting.  At the moment they are just drawings of children.  And while that is FINE I just feel that it all needs a DIRECTION.  I have lately been utterly obsessed (in a good way) with the idea of THE DARK HOUSE.  Its like this total shift in the way I see things.  Hmm, I guess it has been growing for a while, but I so used to be about the beach house vibe, all bright breezy candy colours and now, this dark wood, slightly fairy tale sinister, cosy warm dark coloured thing.  And I want to up the price I charge for the portraits, and - well  - package them better.  Create a story around them, and more of a recognisable theme that is truly my own.  Maybe dark and twisted is not entirely the way to go with children's portraits.  But an element of darker colours, a touch of the fairy tale forest.  This is what I am thinking along the lines of.  And maybe starting a portrait focused blog.  Or a proper art blog.  And keeping this one as my own thing. I don't know exactly, I like being able to think out loud with this blog.  working it out as I go along. 

portrait commission

I am really pleased!As an experiment, I put 2 portraits up in an Artists Open House run by a friend of mine, just so they would be on display, and left my cards there.  All my cards went, so I guess there was an interest (mainly grandmothers apparentlly - good to know!) and I was kicking myself for not having left a visitors book so that I could contact people who were interested.  But I got emailed, and I got a commission!  WAHAY! This is proper someone I don't know at all.  I am really pleased.  Actually there is one more, but its landscape and I can't seem to get it so it faces the right way around.... hmm technical skills lacking...

now this is what I want to be doing....

I do enjoy drawing in the classical way that I do.... but in my heart I hanker after doing something a little more uniquely MOI...  (yes I am that pretentious!  ha ha !) Today I found THIS...... a brilliant website by the portrait artist Kim Scafuro

And its SO the kind of thing I want to aim for..... I do need to develop what i do and find my particular groove.  But I want it to be something along these lines.  Not copied.  Not imitative.  But slightly kooky and unique and from my heart.  INSPIRED