​Come, sit beside me. Let’s rest a moment on this bench. It’s cool here under this lazy pine; life runs more slowly in this spot.

The breeze rustles through the leaves of the trees and the patch of nearby bamboo. Birdsong is everywhere, chirping and trilling amongst the canopy, cawing from the crows on the wing and the cocks compete to decide who yells the best.

In nature I am one, I am whole, and it is rewarding to share this precious glimpse with you. All shades of green present themselves in this place, the new, fresh, yellow lime of the emerging hazel, the brooding dark of the swaying bamboo, deep and sombre ivy creeps imperceptibly towards the sky, the fluffy clouds breaking up the royal blue, streaked only by wisps of hundreds of passengers scoring the air thousands of metres above.

A shriek breaks the quietude, the splendour of peace and tranquillity shattered for an instant but returned intact. The jay didn’t mean to upset you, it was only crying out a warning to those close by.

Foliage and fronds beckon from their shady homes, offering a fleeting view of another world, of life in its most varied but eternal form. Flies flit from point to place, interest on a different plane, but all are welcome here; all respected and revered.

Wrens hide, red squirrels gambol through the branches and blackbirds flick the old worn-out leaves to expose tasty morsels. The cooing of pigeons and doves reassure a tired mind that life goes on whatever the circumstances and that love abounds.

How can it not in such a place? A place where plants and animals of all kind work together in harmony, easing each other’s burden, but prolonging their own lives and those of their families.

Life can’t be anything but good here – it’s something we should never forget and something that nature teaches us every day, if only we’d take the time to listen to it and allow it to pass on its message.

Well it’s good news! I’ve kept dabbling with paint, and as mentioned at the end of my last art course post, I ended up working on two pieces at once after the first mixed media warm-up.

I’m happy to report that both creations are now ‘finished’ in my eyes. The ‘Mini Happy Planner’ bonus lesson from Andrea Gomoll (a German artist who runs Cre8tive Cre8tions) was the first to be completed, but while the pages for this were drying I was sketching for the following piece.

I loved the thought of a handmade planner, and the start of the year seemed like the best time to make one, so that was the idea behind jumping ahead a few lessons and doing this one in January. It also gave me a chance to work with watercolours again, something I took an evening class in, but that was at least 20 years ago, and I couldn’t remember anything about it.

The concept of the planner was to have somewhere nice to put upcoming, exciting events and goals – rather than including all the boring, work or worrisome tasks that we have do on a regular basis which go into a diary or on a calendar – and to make it a fun, pretty, joyful item so you have something lovely to look at and use.

I halved some small-sheet watercolour paper – that I inherited from my dad – which made perfect monthly mini planner pages, and we started off by just wetting and colouring sections of each side with a few simple watercolours to make beautiful swirls and splodges, allowing some of the paint to run or mix. Once dry, it was time to start decorating, mainly in black ink for me, with labels and little seasonal sketches, but there was also the chance to add cut-outs, stamping or stencils, and really just have enormous fun with prettifying the pages. When the decorating was done, I only had to get a hole in the corner of each page and tie them together with a ribbon, then I could write in upcoming, happy events, and now it’s hung on a pin on my noticeboard above my desk. Here are the final results before I started using it.

While paint and ink were drying on the planner, I started on the next main lesson, ‘Angels are Always with You’ from Tamara Laporte (who runs the Life Book course and Willowing Arts). This was the first time I’ve ever painted faces, and my drawing skills are seriously old, so my confidence wasn’t overly high, but the great thing about these lessons is that it’s explained, and shown in videos, every step of the way. There was the option available of using a template you could trace, a ‘traceable’, for the general composition, but I really wanted to have a go at drawing for myself. As you might be able to tell, the lessons are very comprehensive, and though I did take my time to get the basic sketch ‘right’, and I had some issues with some of my colours, once I’d completed each step to my satisfaction, the whole thing seems to have come out okay overall. There are layers of collage, followed by water-soluble crayon and pencil, gesso, acrylic paint, and a few added cut-outs, plus ink details, along with various types of shading; so plenty of work and texture. And I think I’m quite pleased with the result, though I’m not quite sure I believe it was me that did it! Of course, this being completely new to me, I’ve learnt a lot – and I love to learn, so that’s an added joy.

My experience so far is generally really positive and also of being completely absorbed in what I’m doing, and though everything doesn’t go flawlessly of course, you adapt and overcome, which is a wonderful way to take things in and (hopefully) I’ll remember it all for the future.
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The next lesson I’ve chosen is by another different teacher, and this time there’s going to be a section of self-portrait in there! (Now I’m really scared…) I’ve made a start and a basic sketch – though I’m not certain it’s finished quite yet, but the jury is definitely out on what the final result is going to look like, and whether I have the courage to share it with you… But as they say, onwards and upwards!