Video showing the first few layers on 3 different canvases

This is a very short and simple video made up of photographs taken every 10 seconds as I worked on 3 different canvases. As I'm new to the video making process, this is less creative than I would have liked, however, it is part of a learning curve and we all need to start somewhere. I believe it's better to just do something, anything, as it can take some or all of the fear out of a process that we may be putting off because we are either techno challenged or imagine other obstacles that need to be overcome. There are various websites out there that offer free video making tools ) this was an easy beginners site) and some that you can pay for with more advanced tools. Having stepped thru this process, I am now inspired to be more adventurous and am about to collaborate with a young woman who likes to create music and video's in a similar way to how I like to paint - intuitive, spontaneous, letting go of outcomes, exploring an evolving process etc - you get the picture :) I'm excited about the possibilities and opening up in a whole new way creatively. Stay tuned to this space!!

NEW heART

Oh how the months are flying by. Paintings anew have been unfolding in the studio and I've done further layers on some paintings that have been leaning up against the walls for some months. Re-inspired recently by nature or watching a moving video of a black leopard communicating with an animal whisperer, or a dream or vision - sleeping or awake. Renaming these resurrected canvases seemed appropriate - Wolf Medicine, Seahorses, Hidden Leopard and one still to come - undecided. It intrigues me that as I change and shift internally it seems like the painting has been waiting for me to catch up and already has the elements of my newness of being there on the canvas, or maybe I was just unable to see that, in my before state. It's like forward engineering - I lay the first few layers down and then when I come back to it and start painting again it's like I'm ready to see what was already there but seemed hidden. Always a delightful suprise, whatever turns up and then I'm a bit like a kid in a candy shop - I want all the colours and shapes and textures and stay awake till all hours as a result. LOL! I've also met some absolutely lovely people over the last few months and attended another wonderful Dawn Meader workshop - The Art of Happiness, as well as being invited to sell my art at a one day art sale and exhibition by Artinvesta.com owners, Deana and Mauro. I think the biggest change for me has been an awareness of my thoughts and how much time I spend pulling in and following thoughts that no longer serve me but have been habitual. Retuning the radio waves, so to speak has been an interesting adventure - up hill and down dale and through some mud and potholes and then turning the mud into warm, natural, hot pools of ideas and the potholes into creative cooking vessels (where I get to choose the ingredients that I want to throw in) Never a dull moment and mostly a LOT of fun!! What a delicious life. I love this new heART existence, experience : )

Studio and Balance Space

It's the middle of July - WOW! faster than the speed of light and all that. So much juicy stuff has happened since my last blog. I journeyed to Melbourne town for the first two modules of a Healing Touch Clinical Aromatherapy course ( powerfully humbling ) a mind, body and soul pot pourri of theory and hands on learning and experiential training that left me, simply, in awe of the beauty, goodness and healing available to us on this human journey. All this and more, as I took a leap of faith into the unknown and had wonderful adventures staying with a Dutch Couchsurfer ( who turned out to be a Dr Who fan, a Foodie - specialising in cheese connoisseurship and a fellow traveller). I then moved on to stay with a lovely woman in the quirky suburb of Brunswick ( where my course was situated) - turns out she has the voice of an angel, sings Irish ballads ( operatic trained ) and is a masseuse and Feldenkrais practitioner by day. We cooked yummy food and wrote a song together while roasting slices of Camembert cheese on freshly picked rosemary skewers, over an open fire. One of my contributing lines was " muscat woman with the flowing hair, playing her basouki in the peacock chair". ( New to me - a Basouki is a roundish looking guitar-like instrument of possibly Greek origin). Needless to say a lot of fun was had by all. No time for painting but everyday the street art and multicultural diversity fed my creative appetite from a visual smorgasbord of colour, architecture, people and nature. I then came home to find my ever loving and supportive husband had transformed my son's old bedroom into a studio/balance space for me, as well as re-plastering and painting our hallway and adding 9 glass blocks into a wall in the smallest room in the house, bringing in a wavy, watery light that brings me immense pleasure every time I look at it." Thank you" seemed like such an inadequate way to express my gratitude and joy - especially when I now walk in to these love filled spaces in our home, so I painted the cupboard in the hallway - an expression of the love I feel amongst this gift I've been given ( and it just happens to be outside the bedroom door, so it is one of the first things my husband sees in the morning when he gets up). Pottering and nesting into this new space has been a delight - using some old wooden drawers, I measured and fitted some of my older paintings, like drawer liners, to be framed by the wood and we mounted them on the walls and I lovingly placed my oils onto the shelves they created (recycling fun). An old set of comfy chairs, a pot plant in the corner, a borrowed screen from my daughter and voilà! the space it is ready : ) So so much to be grateful for - the studio has a peaceful, tranquil feel to it and overlooks our garden and pond. Mango the cat loves to sit in a sunspot at the window looking out. I am now off to bed and dreamland. The heArt centre of our home

Studio space to create and Balance

It's the middle of July - WOW - faster than the speed of light and all that. Sooooooooooooooooooooooo much juicy stuff has happened since I blogged last. I followed my heart to Melbourne town for the first 2 modules of a Clinical Aromatherapy course. I decided to take a leap of faith and instead of booking into a motel, I put out to friends and friends to be and ended up staying with a Dutch Couchsurfer (who it turns out is a Dr Who fan, as well as a foodie, specialising in cheese connoisseurship) for the first two nights.(Gotta lurve Couchsurfing) Then I moved on to a lovely house in the quirky suburb of Brunswick ( where my course was situated) to stay with a lovely woman ( who it turns out is a beautiful singer, who doubles as a masseuse and feldenkreis - Spelling?? practitioner by day). I had lots of wonderful adventures among the backdrop of street art, multicultural, Sunny!!!! Melbourne. The course was a mind, heart and soul pot pourri of theory and hands on learning and experiential training ( intensive and powerfully humbling) which left me, simply, in awe of the beauty, goodness and healing made available to us on this human journey. No time to paint but the art everywhere in Melbourne, both on the buildings and in nature was as balm to my creative passion and fed me daily, like a delicious smorgasbord. I then arrived home to find my forever loving and supportive husband, had transformed our son's old bedroom into a studio/balance room for me, re-plastered and painted the hallway and added a row of glass blocks to a wall in our toilet ( bathroom for USers), bringing in a wavey, watery light to brighten every bathroom visit LOL. I was so full of admiration and love for the enormous amount of work he managed to get done in ten short days - truly a labour of love. 'Thank you' just doesn't seem adequate enough to express my gratitude and joy. The studio has a peaceful tranquillity about it that draws me in, where I can look out onto our garden and pond.

Internal transformation is a wild ride

This painting, called Transformation, is a reflection of the internal changes going on at such a speed right now, within myself. A beautiful, wild ride of wonder and action and simultaneously a point of stillness and place of rest that is present also.

For anyone who would like to order one of my paintings as a print, card or canvas print, You can now go to my Fine Art America gallery and order and pay online. Alternatively you can purchase original paintings and Prayer Flags from me through this Blog page or my Facebook page. Copy and paste facebook.com/ShonaHutchings into your browser's URL line.

City of Light

City of Light is a painting which I started early last year. I left it sitting in the corner for several months and recently brought it out again and added more detail to the buildings and painted the little girl and the pigeons in the piazza.
It feels like a celebration to me and the little girl releasing the balloons almost looks poised to fly off herself.

LandFillHarmonic orchestra - creativity at it's best

This is a must watch video about orchestra instruments being made form recycled trash in a slum in Paraguay. Inspiring stuff.

Landfill Harmonic 

Enjoy!

Swimming in the current

These little fish are swimming in the current and letting it carry them - the prayer on these flags is along this theme.

Heart prayer Flags

These are my Heart prayer flags - the prayer on them is - Let our hearts shine out to the world like little beacons, welcoming love and dissolving fear. Let our hearts join as one, that we may harness this power in unity.

Yummy Prayer Flags

Hand painting Prayer Flags has been my primary activity lately. I painted a parrot holding a string of flags made from material scraps and a little clay love heart that I had made and decided to use this as a logo.Then I have been painting flags, sewing them and painting prayers on them.

Letting Go

Letting Go has been one of the quickest paintings to emerge off the canvas that I have ever done. Mind you the last few weeks leading up to this painting, I have moved through some of the quickest letting go of deep emotional wounds that I have ever experienced, so I am not sure why I am suprised ha ha ha. I am loving working with these Hydrocryl paints - sooo saturated and yummy. The Golden brand liquid paints are also a dream to work with. I painted for about 10 hours yesterday, with a few breaks here and there and then added a few final touches this morning.

Heart Tree

Just finished Heart Tree. I added some deeper purple to the surrounding background to make the falling hearts pop a little more and coloured some of the surrounding whites at the bottom of the tree, to give more light at the top. Such a different painting now with only those few changes. The photographs just don't do it justice - needs to be seen in person : ))

Heart Tree

Heart Tree has been a lot of fun to do - still not finished  - soon I hope to get back to it. I just love working on such BIG canvases : ))

The Value of Resting

Yesterday I was feeling unwell and my body was definitely asking for a rest. I listened, rested and nurtured myself  -  and today my body is getting rid of all the unwanted gunk : )) Yay! It got me thinking this morning about rest and how incredibly intelligent our bodies are. How, given the chance, our bodies ( minds and spirits too) can recuperate . I started wondering why it is so hard for me and so many others in our culture to just simply rest. I usually only rest when it is enforced by becoming unwell. Sound familiar? I was reminded of one of my favourite bits from Leunig's book, The Curly Pyjama Letters  - "What is worth doing and what is worth having?" asks Vasco of his friend Mr. Curly. " It is worth doing nothing and it is worth having a rest" advises the sagacious Mr Curly. " In spite of all the difficulty it may cause, you MUST rest Vasco - otherwise you will become RESTLESS". How true! When I look around at others and when I feel my own self - there is this constant rest-less-ness - I've noticed it seems to increase, initially, when I am TRYING to rest ( me thinks that is resistance to resting). Not surprising when adverts, like the one for cold and flu tablets telling us to "soldier on", are in our faces. When we are faced with friends, family, work colleagues and all the other 'Restless' people we encounter - giving us and themselves pats on the back for ignoring or pushing through anything that looks or even sniffs of rest. It seems to be perceived as weakness, laziness, valueless and definitely detrimental to the smooth running of production and the business of making money. After all, there are deadlines and clients waiting and and and and and................I think I'm gonna go out on a limb here with Mr Curly and suggest that it's possible that taking a little rest every now and then might be very efficacious to our bodies, minds and spirits. There is the possibility that it may prevent us from getting unwell and having an enforced rest but it may also be the the place where creative ideas and solutions bubble up to the surface - because we ARE taking time out. Time away from the cacophony of busy life, where we can actually hear the quiet voice inside ourselves and have the time to listen. This begs the question of what is the definition of rest? Most peoples eyes glaze over when they even hear the word REST mentioned. I would imagine each person may have a different answer. For some, it may be sitting on a garden swing in the sunshine staring off into space and eventually falling asleep, for others it may be knitting while listening to their favourite music, for others still, it may be reading a yummy book and sitting, pondering after every paragraph or sitting on the beach listening to the waves crashing and the gulls overhead. Whatever 'rest' is for you - consider taking some NOW and enjoying the many benefits it has to offer. On that note, I think I will rug up against the crisp wind and find a spot of sunshine to curl up and rest in : ))

Devine has just gone up on my FB business page facebook.com/ShonaHutchings with the other finished paintings I have for sale. It was simply a daisy chain of hearts on canvas with a few of my favourite colours - blues, turquoise and red and gold. I left it on the easel for some weeks as it didn't feel finished. There was a place in the centre that kept calling to me but I just couldn't quite hear it - like this elusive sound just at the periphery of my awareness. Last week a friend came over for a couple of hours so we could paint together and listening to some music and working on another canvas - I suddenly got the impulse to work on this one again. The woman's face then materialised really quickly on the canvas and I added some other details and changed a few colours. Still she wasn't finished. Then on a trip with my husband to a warehouse he had to go to for his work, I was introduced to Hydrocryl, artists acrylic paints, in these little glass tubs. The guy said they had ordered them in, in quantities, to sell to big companies and the orders fell through after the first one. They had lots of paints and some were drying up because their shelf life was coming to an end. He sold 3 good ones to me - the most saturated colours I have seen in acrylics. I was in love - Ultra violet, Pthalo green and Alizarin were my three choices. My husband raided their wheelie bin for the ones that had been thrown out already and I have been through them and added water to see if it revives any. They are called Interference or translucent colours, which I don't use as much. Anyway, I digress. I carried my bootie home - excited and eager to try them on canvas. When I walked in to the room I paint in, the woman on the canvas said " Yes, I want those colours on me". A week later and I still have the purple under my finger nails . The colours are so deep and rich and I love them even if they are really difficult to clean off skin, never mind nails - a small price to pay for how absolutely divine they are - There we have the name for the painting - but I changed the i to an e, so it is more like a name for her : )) Deeeeeevine : ))

Welcome to My World is a fun painting for me. It's really so cartoonish and just evolved from a sort of dream like city scape into a lets jump out of our cars and dance in the street just for the pure joy of it - Now that's the kind of world I envision - it's started already, the movement grows stronger every day and I would much rather dance than drive anyday : ))