A week later

Today is Sunday the 20th of July. I like a date at the beginning of a post so I can tell how current and relevant it is. Sometimes it is very difficult to get basic information about a piece of information on the internet. My daughter is studying her second last year of high school and needs to find information that is current and relevant and it is not always a simple task to verify.

It seems my posts will be weekly. I purchased a heater fixing the chill problem so no gloves this week and have put a chair and art desk on layby(lay away/payment plan).

 Here is my desk (or a similar one)and I am so excited about it. I am tired of using the window as my light box and I need a desk I can work on without having to pack up to eat dinner on it. All artists make do with what they have in the early days and I sure have done a lot of make do over the years so I am totally excited and grateful that this year I can afford to buy a new desk.

 The chair is something I have thought about for quite some time and after a week of not being able to sit or lay down or walk or do much of anything, I went out and paid a deposit on a really good one. It is a Testarossa office chair which looks like this

a perfectly beautiful and comfortable chair for anyone who might intend sitting for long hours typing up marvelous manuscripts. However I thought if I was going to have a midlife crisis and purchase a Testarossa it should look like this....

 or this

and because it is a mid life crisis I should have an attractive hood ornament draped over the bonnet something along the lines of

 this young man

or this young man.
There is no point having a mid life crisis without the sports car and nubile young personage draping themselves....oh well I must not be mid life yet. |So what I am doing is Summer school

except that it is winter here.

 This is the breakwater in Warrnambool taken by Angie while at lunch

 and the same day there was a good snow on the Grampians, taken from the verandah by Anfie

 This was shared by Denise and is in Great Western but I don't know if that is NSW or Vic.

 and this was Sharon's pic of Marysville

and so is this one.

Winter school it is however I am joining a lot of my northern hemisphere writing sisters for a summer school which I hope will boost my flagging enthusiasm for all things picture book.

http://nerdychickswrite.wordpress.com/ 

Kidlit Summer School 2014: Building Character!

 I will be learning how to build my characters into engaging and brilliant little plot drivers.

I have written a draft for 12x12 this month but have not done much revision of it and I pulled out of WOW because I was immersed in a novel and wrote my 81k last month. This month I am doing camp nanowrimo and so far have 6k of 50. If I write 4.5k a day until the 31st I should make it and I am quite capable of 4.5k a day when all it well in the sitting and typing department.
I am however learning a whole lot of things about art and working with writers to make art for them. It is a challenging process and because I am old school in my art skills I have to learn a lot of things about digital uploading. I have learned that I need very clear directives in the brief and a session to nut out the requirements of the book. I am not sure I will do this again and having said that I picked up another commission for art for a story going straight to e publishing.

The 52 week art challenge is growing and growing. There are over 2000 people joined and many uploading art, some sitting back simply enjoying the art and some bravely teetering on the edge of leaping in. This week's theme is Plane. I am disappointed that 99% of pictures have been aeroplanes(UK) or airplanes(US) rather than planes (tools) and plane (geometry). I have not yet made any art for the challenge this week.  I did have some more for feather which was last week's theme. It is titled The Dying Swan and inspired by the ballet Swan Lake.

I outlined my images in chalk on scratch paper then scratched out the dancers.

Okay well I have been sitting here in this chair for way too long. I am grateful I can sit at all this week and have diligently done my physiotherapy to be able to do so. Thank you for your kind wishes for my well being. It is such a joy to read supportive words from people far and wide.

Time to go.