Saturday 23 June 2012

Scott's Guitar


Scott's Guitar, originally uploaded by Donna Nicholson-Arnott.

First real drawing on the iPad. Made during breaks at work today. Used SketchBookPro to make this, thanks go to Lynn Howarth for the app recommendation. It's funny, but since I've been drawing with this, I've found myself using more colour and smudging and blending more than I've done for a long time with real world pastels and stuff. I kind of wonder why.

Thursday 17 May 2012

this wall is thinking

I'm not sure I'll keep running this blog after all. I run out of time to post much to it, and I tend to prioritise flickr when I post anything nowadays. It might just be best to focus my energies there. This is from a blog type post I've been ruminating over and tagging like crazy on flick for the last couple of days...

Hello, my name is Donna, and actually I'm not very good at sharing. Most activity in the day to day requires sharing, in one way or another. I can do so much. And then I shut down. This is why I'm quiet when I'm quiet. Eventually I get lonely. Then I can share again. And I wonder, is everyone like this, more or less. Strange, stupid sort of see-saw pantomime.

It's been a odd couple of months. Something's altered inside my head. More day job resposibilities; but still variable and impermanent. A rash of full time work, then I've had a few weeks with very few hours' work (I have a no hours, no income sort of contract). The unsettledness this has created recently will need sorted; I have a plan for that.

However, the lack of day job shifts did give me time to tidy up and encouraged thought and reevaluation.
I met up with a couple of friends I hadn't seen for a while, and they gave me different perspectives on things too.

My studio had got messy and unkempt the last couple of months. A combination of activity and lack of activity, and absense. The actual desk work space had shrunk to about a foot square, and the wall above my desk had been looking pretty empty, disjointed and uninspiring.
I fixed it all.
Clearing out a box or two I bumped into some postcards I'd forgotten about, so I gave myself some pretty and interesting things to look at when I sat down at my desk; enjoyed snaking some of my favourites across the wall, with some of my own bits and bobs mixed in there too. There are things up there that I had on the wall in the King St Studio that I hadn't even unpacked. (Maybe I just never expected to be able to stay here; weird state of mind really). I ruthlessly (for me) organised the desk. And energetically moved some furniture around - swapped the red cabinet with the big weeping fig. Got more daylight in to the desk.

( But isn't it strange that except for Mackintosh I don't seem to have any postcards of drawers? It isn't that I had some and didn't put them up. I just don't have any. I've gone to drawing exhibitions and bought the catalogue, and no postcards. I love Schiele, and I don't have a little postcard to tack to my wall. That's weird. I'm going to end up printing something off!)

Monday 16 January 2012

Dark Crystal CLouds of Winter



Blue Hair, Blue Thoughts; featured on a chilly wintery treasury on etsy.

line drawing sketch

Via Flickr:
Forgot I'd done this.
This was from the snow flurry from the start of december.
I was hurrying along the pavement, and started following the wheel tracks in the snow. Hmm. Phone out; video on.

Sorry about the shaky hurriedness, I was trying to get to work too. Watch you don't get seasick!

we will happy !


we will happy !, originally uploaded by Donna Nicholson-Arnott.
And I forgot to share this here...
Oops.


Featured in Cathy Cullis's mosaic Monday!