Feeling Down

During the last week, I have felt more and more depressed again.

First of all, it might be, because last of our rats died on July 31th and I was grieving (still am).

But my inability to earn decent income is pressing me down even more. Translation jobs are coming in slowly and are mostly very small.

Almost every day, I sent out my application to at least one employer, but none of them even invited me to an interview... Not that I wanted those underqualified jobs in the first place...

But, with every day without change, there is less and less hope in me...

Money is scarce, and the belief, that I'm actually living on the expense of my children makes me feel more and more like a useless burden to them...

When they were small, I felt like they needed me. Now, they might be better off without me...

Another thing, that depresses me, is the isolation. All my friends live abroad and so does half of my family. But the lives of my relatives, that still live here, are hard enough not to burden them with my heaviness...

This is not the inner state that makes me able to paint. I started and finished 3 more paintings, but was not happy with them, so, that's it for a while I guess.

For now, I'm barely keeping up with adding some paint to my diary pages like this, for instance.

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A Nice Week

This past week has been a bit easier on me in spite of the heat we are having here right now.

* I added a bit to my diary spreads every day. These are some of the "finished" ones.

* My daughter underwent the medical tests she needs to submit her papers to the next school.

* I visited my sister and we had a good chat. On the way home, I did some good shopping.

* The heat is still high, but bearable. Last night, I slept on the balcony. It felt really great!

* My oldest son helped me to reset his old iPhone he gave to me, so, now, I can use it.

* I had a tiny sale on Etsy.

* On Wednesday, I started to participate in the 5 week course The Chakra Effect: Evolving Into A Harmonious Human with GP Walsh.

GPs teaching resonates with me 100%, but I didn't have the money to take the course. When I said it to GP, he invited me to join for free and made my heart sing!

Now, I can get you in for $97. If you are interested, please, contact me via e-mail shown below.

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Hibernating in Summer

The heat is gone. There were a couple of chill and rainy days, but, now, it's sunny and warm.

It would be nice to be outside, but... I'm mostly sitting inside reading or watching movies.

And dabbing or doodling over my diary pages now and than. From the finished spreads, this is my favorite so far.

Thank goodness for the need to walk our dog (although those walks turn out pretty stressful sometimes) and to buy groceries, or I might not leave the house for weeks.

Have sent my CV to at least 10 employers. One of them even invited me to an interview. After that - silence... Didn't like most of the vacancies anyway... But how to live and feed my 2 youngest kids and our 4 pets without money in this world? And how to feel worthwhile without anybody ready to reward my services?

Listed another of my works in my shop on redbubble.com. But what change does it make? Depressing...

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Dabbing & Doodling

There is not much to show off. For the last 5-6 days, a heat wave is my main excuse. 

Temperatures next to +30C are really hard to bear here in the North. Thank goodness, it's starting to cover up and chill down today!

But I'm still playing in my diary at least a bit every day. This is the page finished today.

I'm not particularly happy with it, but I love, that after not touching any art supplies for almost a year, it all feels new to me again.

And I don't know, for how long I will do it in these old altered books, as the pages are definitely too fragile for my method of working in many layers and using a fair amount of water.

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Nature Inspired

I'm still not creating much. Would have plenty of time for that: I still haven't found a day job and am not getting serious translation jobs lately.

But not being needed and payed for it makes me feel pretty depressed and not creative at all.

So, most of my time is spent with sleep, books and movies. Would love to knit, but my left hand isn't healed enough for that.

So, I'm still playing in my diary. This is the page finished last night.

It is even good enough for the Journal52 project, as this week's prompt is Nature Inspired. :) Many flowers are blooming here in Latvia right now. And I love them all!

It is all super simple, and I'm not very happy about that. So I feel a longing for getting my hand on a "real" painting rising again. We'll see, right? :)

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Baby Steps

After months of not touching any art supplies, I'm starting to add color to my plain and boring diary pages and doing it more or less every day.

Nothing fancy, just playing with water soluble soft pastels and acrylic varnish. But it's a start, right? :)

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Going Deep

As I had not a single acceptable translation job offer since the beginning of the year, I have more than enough time to work in my 2 new journals and for other stuff.

Although the lack of jobs makes me a bit nervous, I'm really thankful for this time with less outside and much more inside work.

Art journaling makes me go deep, always. Or I don't see any sense in spending time and supplies for it.

It feels like this year might become a turning point in the life of me and my 2 youngest kids.

And these 2 year long art journaling projects are helping me: one of them mostly to deal with the past, the other - to make decisions for my next future.

These are some of the pages I have worked on during the last week.

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Loving The Process

So, I have participated in those 2 free year long art journal projects every day so far: pondering the prompts, selecting images, shooting pics, gluing, painting, brayering, layering, doodling, writing, interacting in the respective Facebook groups, and, generally, having much fun. :)

Yesterday, I even stumbled upon this great material about the therapeutic benefits of art journaling.

This is, how my covers and first spreads look for now.

(Sorry for the funny direction of the last one, but blogger wouldn't flip it back :D

As far, as I know me and my style, I'm pretty sure most of them aren't finished yet. And I'm taking my time, as I really love to be in this process again. :)

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Hooked And Happy Again :)

As my loyal followers know already, I had a dry period for about 1/2 year in my creative life. After a couple of months of feeling really depressed, I could at least start knitting again in September, but I still couldn't touch any paints, papers or canvasses, except for very short episodes now and then.

By the end of 2013, ladies in a Facebook group started to share about these two FREE year long art journaling projects some of them wanted to participate in:

The Documented Life Project

Journal52

And I totally got hooked! After I stopped art journaling in March 2012, now, I am preparing 2 altered books for these projects and picking up unfinished paintings whenever I can!

This is, how it looked in my creative space on January 1.

YAY! I'm feeling alive again! And hoping it lasts!

And you know what? You can still join me and the others, if you would like! And, if you feel a bit lost in those crowded Facebook groups, you can join the small one I have created on Facebook for a more intimate experience.

To see more inspiring creativity jump over to any of these sites

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And you know I'm always happy to hear from you, right?

Please, feel free to leave a comment here or contact me at ritajc(at)inbox(dot)lv

My Creative Space

The last week was a pretty busy one for me again, but I still managed to create something every day, that makes me feel really happy.


I started and finished a page for the Life Book class with Wyanne .

And did the first exercise for an on-line workshop with Jane DesRosier  :)

I started and finished two spreads in my art journal as well. With the first one, I was pretty much stuck, until a spirit showed up and wanted to say something. It was Julia, who is believed to be the receiver of the first Valentine's note. No wonder, she wanted to remind me, that: "Faith and patience bears fruit. Always."

And this is the other one, featuring some paper and cards sent to me by one of my Sisters of the Book, the lovely Becky Young.

And I even made a little spring decoration for our place using eggs, flowers and hearts felted by me and the first spring flowers from our garden.

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My Creative Space

The last couple of weeks have been pretty busy for me because of a school break and a course for German teachers in the town. But I have done something in my creative space every day as well. Sometimes, it was just a couple of details added to the front cover of my newest art journal...

... or a quick page to capture my mood.

But there are a couple of spreads with loads of experiments inspired by videos and gifts from my on-line friends as well...

 (If you recognize any of the cut outs on the left hand side of this spread, please, let me know!)

...and a page capturing my feelings about others possibly thinking I'm getting old :)

 I even managed to start using letter stamps making hearts and prayer flags for my sisters in the Book of Days by Effy Wild ...

... and started knitting a tussah silk pullover for a friend/customer in Russia. :)


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My Creative Space

Last week wasn't very productive for me: we're living like in an a storage room because of all the things my oldest son left here. I have started to sort them out, but it is a hard task for me, as dealing with things and having to make thousands of decisions about their use and place is a total energy drainer for me...


As I said last time, I have started a new art journal though. And this is its cover so far. Might come back and add something to it later.

This is the front inside cover. The initial inspiration came from a live stream with Tee Thompson, but than I started to see those images emerging from the background without any idea, what it was. Now, it seams to me, it must be Pan and all the symbolism connected to him.

And there is one more spread I consider finished in my art journal. It was inspired by this equinox doll I received from the lovely Palma Rea along with a beautiful tag, pieces of craft paper and some tissue paper in a gorgeous lilac color the doll was wrapped in.

So I started my spread gluing down pieces of that tissue paper, taping on the tag and playing with paints trying to capture all the different colors from the doll. Later I used a flower stamp made by myself encouraged by the 52 Play Dates' videos by Jan Fox. And the spread was finished on a sunny note boosted by the gorgeous spring weather here and my body starting to feel better after I restarted to take supplements it needed.

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My Creative Space

Last week was a really busy and stressful one: had a couple of technically tough translation projects and one of my sons was moving to Canada and visiting us together with his partner on Saturday (and leaving loads of his stuff in our tiny shabby place). And the capricious spring weather wasn't helping me to recover at all: I was feeling better on the sunny days, but have almost no energy on the dull and rainy ones :(
So not much of artsy activities completed in my creative space to show off today, just a couple of art journal pages

 Saying good bye...

Chapters begin and come to an end, but  the way goes on

 

Reminder to my freaking out ego: I am, who I am, no matter, what anybody is thinking of me :)

 Inspired by this video in Seed Journals with Milliande Demetriou

   

Feels unfinished, I might go back to this one some day in the future

And there is another old work book prepared to be my next art journal. YAY! 

I 'm sorry for the bad images again: not much of a good daylight here in the North for now.


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My Creative Space

Lately, I've been pretty busy with translations, so not much artistic creations completed in my creative space last week. Just a couple of art journal spreads:

Wording: 30 years... But we - the flowers and the crazy ones - don't care (my eldest son turned 30 last week)

Devoted to my 5 lost babies

A card for my only aunts name day

A needle felted angel for the Equinox doll swap on Milliande's art community for women

 I even tried to work at a painting over collage for a class by Tamara Laporte. But, also the technique is pretty familiar to me, it isn't easy, as too much of intention at the beginning really hinders my creativity... I want to learn to take the classes just as impulses and to let my creation to develop on its own way. So I'm behind, but not giving up :D

And sorry for the bad images: we don't have much daylight here in the North for now.


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