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pre-orders for Zentangle Untangled close this FRIDAY!

2012-05-30T06:31:04Z

Aussies: If you want to pre-order my book from me, signed and with an original Zentangle® included, you need to order by

5pm FRIDAY 1 JUNE.

This allows me to ensure you get the book upon release!

Go HERE to order your copy now!

Mary Jane's Farm Magazine features Zentangle Untangled

2012-05-28T06:51:37Z

I am so excited - today my copies of Mary Jane's Farm Magazine arrived from the US and it features an article about me and my new book Zentangle Untangled (which you can pre-order until May 31st here). I met Mary Jane and her daughter Megan at last year's Creative Connection event and they are beautiful ladies, inside and out.

This magazine is really unlike anything we have here in Australia (and hard to get here too) but it's so lovely to read! There are so many gorgeous photos and artworks in it.

Thankyou to the delightful Ardis Eckel for her lovely article and our Skype chat! It was so much fun!

And thankyou, Mary Jane, for your kindness and willingness to feature me, my book and my passion for Zentangle in your lovely magazine. It truly is an honour to be part of it. ONE DAY I will get to the farm itself and stay in Mary Jane's B&B - check it out on her site. I think I could easily live there!

click on the thumbnail for a full size of the article!

not having much luck here

2012-05-23T04:49:59Z

I've now managed to develop a throat infection laryngitis. I have no voice (some would think this is a good thing!) and I am still very fatigued and lethargic - not sure the iron infusion is having the desired effect!

I'm around - just quiet. I'll be back full steam soon (I hope!)

Edited to add: not allowed to speak for minimum 2 days. Good times for some!

looking for my article from Mamamia?

2012-05-21T04:38:13Z

You can find it here.

awake....just

2012-05-15T10:35:10Z

Still very tired and lethargic so I wont be posting much this week - but I do want to say HI to all the lovely people finding their way here from Mary Jane's Farm magazine, especially those who've made contact!

I'll be back in the swing of things soon, I promise!

slow

2012-05-12T00:34:33Z

This week has been a slow one for me, quite unintentionally. I've been feeling more and more tired recently - for several months I put it down to surgical recover but 7 months on, I wasn't feeling any better. So I had a blood test and (surprise, surprise) there was a reason for feeling so tired - my iron levels were critically low.

So on Thursday morning I reported to Cabrini Day Oncology for an iron infusion. I used to take iron tablets when I was young but they made me quite nauseous. With the significant reduction of size in my stomach, it's also likely they would not be well absorbed anymore. So infusion it was.

As you can see, they used my right hand. Not so great for a right hander so surf the net/work with over the five hours the infusion takes (no I am NOT joking!). I am not very ambidextrous either so this made my plans for the day rather difficult to achieve! My left arm veins are pretty much stuffed after the port I had in it for chemo back in 1990-91. They could get the IV in but it would blow within minutes so kind of pointless and I would rather not be a pin cushion. So the right hand it had to be.

It was, however, hard to feel too sorry for myself. After all, I am sitting in the Day Oncology unit. Yes, I am still considered a cancer patient but I am not having treatment. There would have been about 30 people come in and out during the course of the infusion who WERE having chemotherapy. I don't remember much about my treatment all those years ago but I do remember the general feeling of unpleasantness (understatement of the year!). So it's hard to not have some perspective about my little iron infusion - once again I felt like, despite everything, I've actually got out of this hell pretty lightly by comparison to others!! A little IV for a few hours is nothing to complain loudly about!!

The iron hasn't kicked in yet - I'm told it could take a couple of weeks but I'll know when it has. My Dad has had single iron injections and said they had him bouncing off walls. This should prove interesting since I had the equivilent of about 12 iron injections in one hit. I might be bouncing off planets. Until then, I am still quite sleepy and lethargic, hence I've kept a pretty low profile this week and next week may not be too different.

In other news, I believe the article about me has appeared in MaryJane's Farm magazine in the US! How exciting! I haven't seen it as it's impossible to get the magazine here in Australia but I will somehow get a copy and show you when it arrives. I am so grateful to Ardis Eckel for writing it and for Mary Jane and Megan's kindness in doing the article about me. I met Mary Jane Butters and Megan (her daughter) last year at The Creative Connection. Truthfully I thought they'd be the last connection I would make but I was wrong! They were beautiful women and their website and magazine is fantastic. And check out the B&B on Mary Jane's farm - I would KILL to stay there one day!!

creative sweet

2012-05-08T08:40:53Z

When I did my undergrad in art and design, we did three units of graphic design. I absolutely love great design but my ability to use the Adobe Creative Suite was limited. I had a copy of CS3 at home and I could do the basics but it was never my strength. It was kind of all a bit too hard for me and with only one class a week, I really wasn't retaining information I was learning (and we were not given handouts or notes to remind us).

I think the worst part was that, for the first two units, we had a teacher who was a creepy version of David Bowie to look at and didn't actually teach. If I had a problem, rather than talking me through solving it, he'd simply do it for me and move along.

Not helpful!

I felt a little sorry for the lovely lady who took our third unit when she realised that most of us were completely clueless on using Illustrator particularly. I for one did not even know what a vector was. We had mostly worked in Photoshop and InDesign. Funnily enough, InDesign seems fairly straightforward to me, even now, and is the program I am strongest in.

Thankfully the course I did has changed significantly and the graphic design stream is much more professionalised and the creepy teacher long gone. Students graduating from the course can/should be much better equipped to apply for graphic design jobs. I would never apply for a graphic design job because, although I can say I am familiar with the programs used, I'm not a pro or even close.

Fast forward to now, I upgraded to CS5.5 late last year but every time I turned on Illustrator, I became quickly frustrated. When I recently started The Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design course (see the sidebar), while there wasn't a requirement to have these programs, there are technical workshops that teach you about surface pattern design using them. All was going along well enough until I hit the Illustrator session, and, after following the instructions, the image was not doing what I wanted it to do.

I am 110% sure this is the fault of the user (me!) and not the instructions!!

So, last weekend I cracked it (for non Aussies that means I had a little tantrum with my Mac!) and decided I needed to learn this program properly, once and for all. I looked up online courses, books, short courses through universities and TAFE. I couldn't find anything that looked right for me and that was affordable right now. So I sent my BFAM (brother from another mother) Brad an email. He is is not only a top-notch graphic designer but super generous with his time, knowledge and patience with me on these issues, and asked him what he thought I should do. He recommended this DVD/book combo.

I've linked to the Australian Borders online store because I ordered it on Sunday night at 10pm and by lunchtime today (Tuesday) it was delivered. I always like to acknowledge great service when I get it because all too often we DON'T get it! Thankyou Borders!

There is over 17 hours of video on this thing. So far I've watched TWO and it already feels like someone has switched on the light and made things clearer. I'm already prepared to say I highly recommend it.

I am definitely not being paid by anyone to say nice things about this product or Borders. I just like sharing the love.

As a sweetener, I thought I would also share my very first pattern design - in Photoshop! - I did for the course. It's pretty basic but I am happy with it - the nuts are hand-drawn and scanned.

P.S. Just a little footnote from a proud little sis, Brad has also recently published a fantastic e-book called Ned Kelly: A Pictorial History. His knowledge and enthusiasm for all things Ned Kelly is famous and he is most certainly a modern day expert on the famous bushranger. While I am no fan of Ned Kelly, I am a HUGE fan of Brad and I am really pleased for him that this project has met with the success it has. If you like Australian history and you have iBooks2 on your iPad, you can buy it here and know you're reading the work of a true historian on the topic.

Love you, bro.

introducing - my writing

2012-05-07T02:56:31Z

After some discussions with friends and some thought, it's time I got back to some writing - not necessarily about art, but articles and thoughts about what's happening in the world at large and sometimes my own little world too. So I have created a page to post these articles and I hope you'll check it out from time to time and comment and engage with it.

There is a tab above you can click on at any time otherwise click HERE.

happy weekend!

2012-05-04T07:41:19Z

It's Friday night here in Australia - have a great weekend everyone and thanks for all the support this week!

so, it's about one step at a time, huh?

2012-05-03T06:53:19Z

Wow, my humble little blog has kind of exploded the past 24 hours! I have had some lovely comments both on here and on Facebook, as well as some emails and they have been 100% full of kindness, love and support. Thankyou, thankyou, THANKYOU.

So the theme that is coming through is to stop, take a breath and then take one step at a time. They are allowed to be small steps too, right?

I'm still feeling a little flat, a little confused, a little paralysed. But I breathing deeply and doing this.

The Victorian Government business info I picked up at an expo last week.

The Penguin Small Business Guide - an Aussie business book. Great resource.

My Hello Soul Hello Business workbook - full of exercises, ideas and dreams

the Kelly Rae Roberts journal I was given at the beginning of HSHB - time to start filling it with plans!

It's time to get started, right? Well - here I go.