Life is a difficult thing, none so much as I have found out in the past few years. As I have progressed through my life I have also progressed through my art and my business.
In these areas I am not entirely sure how things are ever going to turn out. I have gone from step to step sometimes unconsciously and then realised that I have achieved what I was planning  to do and other times I haven’t.

The beginning is often fun and exciting.
It’s where you get motivated, feel  invigorated and alive! It’s where you plan where you are going to go and take action to get there.

The end result can be satisfying and disappointing.
Either you have achieved what you had originally envisaged or you haven’t and your feelings are often based on that result.

The middle is where the tension lies and it’s the hard bit.
In the middle you sometimes get frustrated and want to get to your vision quickly but you know you have to do the hard work to get there. It’s also where decisions can be made based on how you are progressing -Are you on track for your vision?

If you skipped the middle part it wouldn’t be as satisfying when you get to the end and how would you know if it was the correct result if you haven’t been through the process? The middle is important!
If you give up in the middle which is easy to do,  you will never get to the end and I ask you this -  Where does that then leave you ???

Furthermore, if you haven’t envisaged  your desired result  in  the beginning  how do you know when you get to the end ? You will be in a never ending battle of endlessness. YUKKK! its awful .. trust me I have been there!

So, at the moment I am in the MIDDLE, in the middle of multiple things!
I am doing the hard work, my motivation is that I MUST continue I have no other choice.
If I don’t the artwork and *insert XYZ* will never end and there will be no result good or bad.
No satisfaction, no scope for learning on the next thing I undertake.

The middle is hard but it is necessary, I think the key is to try to appreciate the middle for what it is and KNOW that through the middle you will come to the end.. your vision will evolve and it WILL become a result….  and then maybe the key is to stop thinking about it and push on!

So, I have lots to update you with but its Sunday arvo and I am not up for doing that right now, what are Sundays better for than rest and a bit of inspiration for the week ahead.

Enjoy!

Here are a few flowers I created this afternoon.

This obviously is not supposed to be a work of magnificent art and its not particularly useful for anything.

It is what it is and it’s a creation.

We can look at a piece of artwork and find it hard to justify how can that 1 peice be worth so much money.

I admit it’s true art is not particularly a necessity in life like food or water we CAN live without it.
In saying that though artwork  challenges emotions – sometimes thoughts an opinions, sometimes just reminders -  for example Having a picture of a beach scene in your house might remind you of a family holiday or person you met at the beach or maybe a location you want to travel to.

Seeing an artwork can provoke a response in people that will mean different things to different people. Same in business having a particular colour, style as your branding or logo  or artwork on your product may also encourage your customers to buy your product over another.

For the person who creates, living a creative life means that you have many experiments and challenges that leads you to the 1 you maybe putting out into the world.

For the customer what you are investing in is all the years the person has invested in themselves to acquire that skill it doesn’t just come without commitment and work despite however talented  it takes work.

For the creative its hard but VITAL that you remember that everything you create leads you to the next, the creation exists because you have created it – it is not YOU nor  can it be your only investment of your skill. You must push on.

This not only relates to artworks but to systems, processes, projects other things you may also create in your life – i think it particularly relates to cooking myself.
If you like to cook you know sometimes recipes work sometimes they don’t.  Sometimes you might experiment and add a bit of this or that it might be great, next time you might try to add those again, or omit them depending on how it turned out. Doesn’t mean your going to stop cooking, next time in another recipe you may try the same ingredient in that to see how it turns out. That is the creative process.

So here are my flowers for today, what you see is the result of an experiment of trying new process and papers that didn’t work out how i wanted, so rather than push on and continue with the whole flower I stopped at one petal then turned it into a flower digitally and  then manipulated it by changing its colour and then I  added a leaf I created the other day.

Is it a masterpiece NO, is it a creation in itself – YES.
Is it less creative than if i had pushed on and created the whole flower? Will leave you to answer that one…

It is what is and tomorrow is another day and so there will be another creation.

When I started this blog in 2006 my goal was to become accountable for my art but also to help others by sharing my experiences and techniques for other people who are interested to learn.

During the past 4 years this blog has a been a source of expression, inspiration, direction, healing, therapy, connection with those on the outside as well as many other things.

During the past 2.5 years, I have been reluctant to post “too much” information on my blog on what is happening in my personal life,  i have shared some stuff regarding my kids, my family breakdown which has resulted SOOOO many life changes, decisions and basically uncertainty of who and I am what I stand for and what the hell am I supposed to do now?  - this isn’t at all what i had planned.

Part of my reluctance to share has been hurt and numbness, depression as well as thinking that the people coming to my blog wouldn’t not be coming to hear all this guff.. they would be coming to see my art and I do admit it was nice to have a “place” where I didn’t have to worry about all the other stuff and was just more or less positive when going through a personal crisis –I needed that.

As time and life has moved on,  I have continued to unconsciously  filter myself  it has become a habit, maybe in order to keep up appearances or more likely the only way I could tell myself that I was holding  it all together – i don’t know… WHY doesn’t matter ….  BUT it has suddenly occurred me that in doing this I may have lost the “essence” of WHO I am and why I started this blog in the first place -  which was to share – share my journey – so, yes Belinda this means ALL  the journey not just parts of it!!!

As  have been looking for I guess  a “purpose” or a “way” of making it all work, i have realized that “filtering” myself or being careful does not work it doesn’t push me or move me forward but has been necessary during the course of gathering the strength (see the story behind that piece) to move forward.

I have decided that  I HAVE to give it my ALL  for others to understand the full picture both on this blog and in life . It is necessary in order for me to push forward on the “journey” and thus doing what was originally intended which was to help others on their “journey”.  If i can do that – then it has a purpose and I am on the “right” track regardless of the fact that I don’t know where it is going, it is in iteslf “right” without need of clarification. It just is. Finding Courage.

At the moment I am in the middle of school holidays which I am enjoying so I am going to keep it short and sweet and post a really wonderful inspirational blog I have been enjoying lately.

If you have a few moments go along and check it out at the moment she has a wonderful challenge about asking a friend: http://blog.rachaelstott.com/2010/04/a-challenge-ask-a-friend/

Over the holiday weekend I was able to get stuck into a project that has been on my list for a while now – a  stylish new filing cabinet, doesnt it look lovely in its new spot ?

Here are some before and after shots of the work, as you can see it was covered rust and pretty ordinary looking and has been sitting in my office earmarked for a project for quite some time.

I love it, it really brightens up the office and i am happy to file I love that its recycled as well how awesome is that ?

]]> http://www.belindalindhardt.com.au/wp/index.php/1568/inspiration/feed/ 3 http://www.belindalindhardt.com.au/wp/index.php/rosie-saunders-video-inspiring/inspiration/ http://www.belindalindhardt.com.au/wp/index.php/rosie-saunders-video-inspiring/inspiration/#comments Mon, 15 Mar 2010 16:30:25 +0000 Belinda Lindhardt http://www.belindalindhardt.com.au/wp/?p=1495

I am currently inspired by this artist, posted on the Making a Mark site which i visit regularly but haven’t posted about for a while – sorry Katherine.

I have been playing with some watercolour recently, so this video is inspiring me to push forward with my art and experiment further with watercolour for a bit of fun.

Rosie Sanders Part 2: Rosie at work in her studio

Enjoy!

One of my hurdles for 2009 (and past years) has been trying to find direction for myself personally and my business.

It’s taken me around 3 years, and i still don’t think i am quite there yet. To be perfectly honest I  would never have thought it would be such a long process, everyone else seems to have found their direction did it really take them that long ?? Or maybe my direction changed so I had to re-discover that which others have developed over their lifetime? Maybe that’s’ it? Or maybe its just that I never really gave it much thought and thought I would just figure it out as I went along ?

Whatever the answer is, I have come to realize that having a purpose is the core to everything else that I do and such an important thing to find out about myself. It feels like now, rather than  jumping from place to place, “going with the flow” and feeling unsettled everything now just seems to falls into place in many various areas of my life.
If you are at crossroads in your life OR business, I definitely that you MAKE time to work through these issues. Once your focus, purpose, direction (whatever you wish to call it) is established, it will drive you, fulfill you and very importantly you will recognize when you are spending time, money on things that are not important.

So how do you / I do it ?

There is not one specific thing that has helped me like anything worth doing you have to do the hard yards and there is no magic bullet. However, here are 3 tips I can offer that have certainly helped me:

Trust your instinct and gut, if you are not getting passionate, enjoying or getting excited about things in your life: whether that is a task or project or event/person: listen to this and trust THIS.If you have a feeling there is something “off” with it or you simply don’t want to do it or put it off..
This is YOU telling YOU  that it’s something that needs to be looked at.

I am not saying that you ALWAYS have to be or can be doing what you love because that is not reality but maybe there is a way you can change what your doing. Maybe could can streamline the way your doing it, get your kids to help so its a task you can all do together, pass it onto someone else, or decide that you will no longer take on any more projects of that nature. YOU can decide if you let yourself!

Just the same if there is something that DOES excite you (as is the case for me as I was having so many negative things in my life finding something positive felt foreign to me), acknowledge and recongnise this thing and trust that this is something you SHOULD or CAN be doing.

Write in a journal – I have found that regularly writing has helped me immensely, it just seems to allow me to get all the guff out of my head so I can think clearly and concentrate. Writing any thoughts that are circling around up there just feels good, it could be connected with the kids, work, clients, life or nothing at all very important, just getting down on paper it means you can purge it.
Journalling varies to blogging, blogging is with a purpose, journalling doesn’t have to make sense and no one will see it but me. Sometimes i do it at home or take it to a cafe and enjoy a coffee with it, it REALLY doesn’t have to be about anything specific but sometimes can be about my worries or frustrations, usually by the end of that session I have worked out what’s bothering and have a solution to move forward – all by myself

Test yourself often and trick yourself, if there is something you want to be ie. An artist, test yourself out, call yourself an artist, if someone asks what you do say”I am artist”. You will be surprised how this works in so many varying areas, you will soon start thinking and acting like the thing you say you want to do or be.
Another thing is to pretend to write an article or an advertisement about you and what you do, even if you dont show anyone or do anything about it.  You will be surprised about how thinking and writing about yourself in this way will define your way of thinking in the future.
REMEMBER its all a process, its not something you will come out of believing 100% at the time, but slowly and gradually without noticing you will catch yourself out without realizing it.

I did this for my workshop this year, I had no idea how to hold a coloured pencil workshop, sure I had seen some demonstrations online, but all cp workshops are all overseas I have no point of reference to go from. So I thought about, ok, what would I expect if I attended a workshop, as I  teacher I would want my students to come away with XYZ.  So I tricked myself into believing I was a teacher and thus came away with the knowledge and became a teacher – and I loved it

So there are a few  things that have worked for me, as I said before I feel like I still have a bit of a way to go, but i definately now know what to focus my energies on, whats important to me whats not, and that gives me direction of where to go or at least a starting point – one foot in front of the other and all that

Here is a little illustration started as a concept for a client but didn’t end up being suitable for what they wanted (which is all part of the process).

Last night it was sitting on my desk and I wanted to finish it off so I did back to the original idea I had for it.

Today, though I wanted to show you all what can be achieved when we go from the original illustration, to the some finals. Keeping in mind there are a bunch of sketches and drawings and ideas that have come BEFORE the first illustration shown here, but this one is handdrawn on special paper and then archive quality pens are used to create the style of the illustration.

So its black on white, i personally like the cleanness of black and white and  I sooo plan  to have an exhibition of my pen drawings on day (but anyway), I totally “get” that this type of illustration doesn’t really work for a logo or a in a marketing material application unless you were specifically going for a certain look.

However if we use this illustration as the basis for other things we can then take what we have done here and apply a few different styles so it can be used in a bunch of different formats, for a bunch of different applications that can be suitable for different sorts of businesses.

They say “A picture is worth a thousand words”.

A picture is instant it conveys a thought, a feeling, an emotion without necessarily telling the person they should be feeling that. There is a bunch of reasons why you could use illustrations in your marketing materials which I wont go into but basically it can do something for you to work with your copy text to get your message accross without have to EXPLAIN it. It can also just be about having something about it that attracts people, a particular style might appeal to your target audience, if you want them to sit up and take notice of you, it might be worth while to show them something they like to see.

As an artist and illustrator i find it difficult I really would love to be able to provide these types of handcrafted illustrations to my clients, but i know that $ are always a factor for small business especially in these times, and i know its so easy just to wander off and use a product shot that you take with your digital camera or find one a generic stock photo one, but having something different really can make you stand out from the rest, and you can see that the one illustration really has a bunch of different applications that can be used and as I always say whats the point in spending time and money on marketing materials if no one sees you and/or your message does not reach its target audience.

2010 for me will have some exciting things in this area for myself and clients, I hope that this might have you thinking a little more creatively for your business as the new year approaches.

Regular readers of my blog will know that i have been on a path of self discovery of late, come to think about it when are we not discovering ourselves? Or on  path to at least somewhere in our lives… I don’t think it will ever stop, i think that’s the point that’s why life is all about!

Anywho,  i digress…., Part of my journey has been to try and find a happy balance life for myself where i can balance work, income, art, family, running a small business, feed my children, have some fun etc etc.

I often get asked how do you find the time for art ? The truth is I feel like i struggle constantly, but lately its been a “happy struggle” rather than a “stressed out mad struggle” because I am making time for the things I love and not so much of the things i dont!  No more excuses!

how ? I don’t watch much tv, my house isn’t always particularly tidy or clean, i sometimes forget important dates, i sometimes don’t catchup with friends or take my kids to the park… its not that i  don’t want those things i do, but i have decided that Art / Illustration is my dream and somtimes that is more important than the never ending housework , having a clean house, watching a movie etc etc.

That’s all well and good and particularly for anyone who has struggled with this you will know, it cant all be about me or art, the dishes still need to be done, the children need clean clothes i do have to pay the bills (grrr) and all those things that come with running a business still need doing… I  have identified a few things that i have been regularly doing that keep ORDER in this place and in my head and without them i think i would be lost, so i thought i would share.

Theres a few of them so i will break them up into 3 parts (in no particular order ) over the next week or so.

Formulas to help Work, Rest & Play – Part 1

1.Sleep - Sleep is so important, its something i can’t compromise on, but more importantly for me i have worked out a sleep pattern that works for me. I seem to be exhausted between 8.30 to 9pm. So if i need to work at night i restrict  until no later than 8pm. Any later than that i have a very restless and disturbed nights sleep because my brain seems to keep “switched on” for the rest of the night and the next day i am wrecked. If i want to do art, then i allow myself to go until say around 9 as its more relaxing and i can still be restful. If i am really pressed for time i will generally prefer to wake up and do work in the middle of the night or very early morning to get things done. It just seems to work better for me, rather than  working through it.

2. Journalling - I find if i am feeling overwhelmed, stressed or confused or depressed  it means i should get my journal out. I just pick it up an write. It allows me to get all the stuff out of my head without having to commit to anything, worrying about consequences or anything  overly much. It doesn’t have to make sense it can be completely random and always feel better for it later. It just feels like a release and even though i might not find a solution in my journal time itself it may come to me later on. This is a must for me lately particularly as my working life if here on my own it allows me to do a brain dump and just not have my head go around in circles.

3. Art / Drawing EVERYDAY - I tried the everyday matters challenge, i tried various sketch groups i find i don’t stick to it, as other things tend to get in the way, i seem to lose inspiration easily by trying to commit to the one process.  What works for me is to generalize it under my category of being creative / artistic as long as i do that i am on a winner! So it might be digital illustration, sketching, working on a painting, working on a coloured pencil drawing, it might only be for 10mins it doesnt matter i have done it! Doing just that little bit often helps calm me, i feel like i am working towards my goal and i can then move onto whatever other task i have to do knowing i have rewarded myself with something.

4. Keeping ontop of the housework, taking the TIME for it & doing “A little bit OFTEN!”
I feel better when i have some order in my house and it looks nice, but it rarely stays tidy for longer than 30mins after a whole day of cleaning.   Its frustrating, but it has to be done. I have certain days i do housework, generally its on the weekends when i can’t “work” as the kids are around me, thats when i get stuck into it, but i also find if i do a bit during the week and try to keep it up then there is less to do on the weekends. So if this means taking that extra 20mins to put the washing on, tidy the kitchen after breakfast etc at the beginning of the day, i need to make sure i do that and not be distracted by all the other stuff that needs doing. No brainer stuff really.. but something i need to remind myself of and not get caught up in all the stuff i need to do.

Hope your finding these of interest, that’s it for part 1, more to come in part 2.