annanotbob2's Diaryland Diary
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In the middle of the night
A very good day today, one that has left me content.
I decided after I'd finished writing last night that I was going to have to commit to achieving something, no matter how small every single day.
I've kept up the daily blogging for six years (whether I have anything to say or not - I have to do this to hang on to a sense of myself as a writer, having already had to let go of being a teacher. Writers write) So I do have a certain level of self-discipline, even if it's not been immediately evident in the rest of my life recently, and I must summon this up and put it to good use.
I hereby commit to doing at least five minutes sorting through things every day, with a view to not carting a mountain of useless fucking stuff any further round the south of England.
I know five minutes is sod-all, but I want to succeed in this, so I'm starting small.
Today I did the pile of paper that had grown around my favourite spot on the sofa. Then had a spliff, put the radio on and got stuck into the kitchen - all the washing up, dried and put away, and a proper clean of the counter all down one side. That was enough - I'd thought I'd do it all, but I could recognise signs of imminent droopiness so headed for the sofa and a bit of shite telly.
I haven't left the house all day and no one's been round, which has been great, just what I needed. I've spoken to both my girls and they're both in a good place.
Then I did some drawing:
and thought I'd add a bit of colour:
which I'm quite pleased with - though I didn't even attempt to include the thick layer of dust lying on the leaves of this very forgiving houseplant.
Seeing some of Frida Kahlo's paintings up close the other day made me really want to be braver with colour, specifically to do so on a bigger canvas than an A4 sketchbook. I've got a few canvases kicking around, from the first art group I joined when I moved here. They are rubbish, really, and looking at them now I feel quite cross with the teacher. All she did was provide materials, a topic and the time and place to do it - which, to be fair, is all she claimed to offer. She didn't bring things in for us to look at, to copy from, nor did she give much in the way of advice. I left those sessions confirmed in my status as a non-artist, a messer who liked mucking around with paints as it's quite soothing.
Anyway, I found one of those canvases ("apply a landscape using modroc, then paint it"), which I had made into a mountain range and painted in three flat shades of green with a flat blue sky - hideous. I blocked it all out with white acrylic, then after I'd finished doing the plant, I sploshed the leftover water colours on:
Still not great, but better than it was. I may go over it with acrylic in proper colour, even improper colour, or I may go and buy enough white paint to go over the bigger canvases.
The other thing that I took from the exhibition was that Rivera had "encouraged" Kahlo to paint in the early days. I feel encouraged, for which I thank you.
1:11 a.m. - 08.10.11
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