I'm getting my head around actually doing some drawing and painting again, the projects and ideas are finally being given some thought space again. I've been translating and dealing with the paper work and general horrors of being freelance. But I am at home, and I've finally splashed out on my spare room studio/office, it's not really finished yet but it's getting there. It's starting to look pretty good.

I haven't been drawing or anything but I've been trawling through blogs getting myself all jealous and inadequate looking at how sorted everyone in blog land seems to be. Jealousy isn't an attractive quality but it does remind me that I need to be doing some creative stuff myself instead of just despising others for doing it. I've been uploading stuff on flickr and getting into facebook, so I haven't been completely absent. But anyway, just now I've been reading some of my old posts and it was nice to see where I was then and think about where I am now. I feel so much stronger now than I was even just a year ago. I feel like a big strong version of Judy, it's good. That's what happens when you look after yourself a bit.

I started speaking Catalan this summer, but really speaking it and now I can't stop. I've been here in Lleida for 5 years and I'd studied Catalan from the first year I was here and everyone I know speaks Catalan, but I just kept clinging to Spanish, scared to make to leap over to Catalan. And then suddenly in August I just didn't seem to care anymore and it just started to come out, all the words and expressions I'd been internalising and assimilating suddenly decided they were ready to create my Catalan self, not that my Catalan is perfect but it did seem to come out like a butterfly, fully formed. It feels more natural to speak Catalan instead of Spanish now. It's beautiful the way things flourish when you just leave them alone and let them develop of their own accord. I think translating from Catalan to English has helped an enormous amount though, it's improved my vocabulary no end.

Better get back to work, I'm translating things about wine and the grape harvest so it's not too bad today :)

Here she is at the computer again.... looking at blogs and dreaming about future exploits. The printing by hand book, the painting on crockery, the home schooling for her future offspring, the knitting and sewing which she will one day do on a regular basis. The endless projects she will do at home in her small studio/office.
One day she promises herself she will make her own clothes and her children’s clothes and will have a huge wooden table for doing craft activities and science experiments and cookery with her children. Translation work has to done because you have to pay the rent and buy food and stuff for projects, but this is a good thing, translation is a good retreat also in its own way.
This is the distant plan. The children, the projects, and another thing; a stone house in a village that has been converted into a lovely weekend and summer home for her family. This is a long way off but it is not impossible. Nothing is impossible.
Nearer projects include the Studio: new desk, new chair, new drawers of varying sizes, two shelves for exhibiting pretty things and a mirror for reflection.
Nearer still is the October birthday card dilemma. Everyone is born in October and I need a Bday card solution. I’m thinking animals… collages of animals. Flamingo and Hedgehog… two animals I saw on my trip to Sweden/Denmark.

It's been so looong since I wrote on my blog, bad Judy, bad girl. Well I am now 27 years old and I'm a freelance Translator, I've been working from home for the last two months, actually since I last wrote on the blog, so unsurprisingly I've been very busy. It's hard starting anything new but I'm getting into my stride now. The long-term plan is to gradually do more and more illustration and less Translation. I still have to do the paper work for being a freelance Illustrator as well. But there's no hurry, I need to earn some cash first of all and start saving. I might have a chance to do an illustration for a magazine, this is a big deal for me as I'm still not spending enough of my time doing art. I'm currently working in the front room (next to the air conditioning) but I've been planing my combined art/translation work space in the spare room. I want to really do a bit of drawing and painting every single day to build up my confidence, I really feel so good working from home, it feels so right, I never thought it would be but I guess I'm a home person. I also really like being on my own, I do like people but I'm so sensitive they tend to upset me without even trying. I'm looking forward to creating my own creative space that I can be in everyday.

Well I took myself off to London

...and had a great time. We went to see A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Globe and managed to get through three hours standing up to watch it. It was great though, the costumes were good and the whole production was very impressive. The actors were brilliant as well, in my humble opinion. I saw friends and walked around the shops and took in the headiness of it all, and really missed my quiet little home in Lleida. It's good to get back now and then just to check that everything is in it's proper place. I didn't take any photos of my exploits unfortunately; too busy chugging around.

When I got home I found some new friends on the balcony. I'm told they were found skulking round the bins. So we have some a new project for the summer. It's amazing how many bikes are abandoned here in Lleida. Well we'll have fun doing them up and making them beautiful again.

I'm feeling pretty good at the mo, I've started looking for work as a freelance Translator and I'm having quite a pleasing response. A part from that I'm going home to London next week to see family and friends. Joy!!

In terms of my fight to do arty type stuff... I'm pretty much carrying on withthe course activities which are getting more and more fun.



After practising with mark making for a while I drew this picture of our mantle piece at home.





Then I started mark-making with ink and acrylic, using different things like string, a spatula, a stick of bamboo, an old rubber and bits of card... it's all good.







And then I did this:







Which isn't quite finished yet.

I've had my last two wisdom teeth taken out this week, I feel proud of myself because it was a very scary thing for me. But it's done now, I've been sleeping a lot because of the antibiotics I think and only today have I started doing some work for the course again.


Your supposed to draw a picture using lines only. It was fun to do, I enjoy being told what to do sometimes, I like feeling less responsible about what I do.
Last weekend was Festa Major in Lleida, so we were out three days in a row drinking and eating and dancing, I had a lot of fun, sometimes it's good to just let go.

Out of the woods

Hello, yes I'm here again, I've been avoiding the blog, I wrote in it the other day just to prove that I'm still up for it. Well now I'm really here, blogging, not hiding, or moping or moaning. Today I have done some work on my Creative Sketchbook course. I am learning a creative process through doing this course and it feels good. The creative process I had before, if indeed I did have one before generally consisted in getting over excited about an idea and rushing to the finished piece in my mind and then never getting round to actually doing anything because really it was already done and dusted in my imagination. Well not any more! A new and more profesh Judy is fighting her way to the front of my head. The practical, no nonsense Judy is getting down to business with this matter of creativity. Instead of dreaming away my time imaging the paintings and projects I would do if I weren't a blocked and sad artist I'm going to start enjoying the ride, not knowing where the journey will take me. I promise this to myself.

Exhibition

, originalmente cargada por judyfarr.

My work was in the exhibition Extrabarri last 25th April, and I haven't said anything about it or about anything because I've been in a kind of daze. After working so hard to do it and finish and letting it all wash over me and then it just be over and finished and nothing anymore I'm having a bit of a come down. I've been studying a city and guilds course on-line which has got me drawing a lot, which is good. I've also started looking for translation work, which will also be good. But at the moment I have to say, I miss my carfree Lleida project and I want to get back into it again. The course is teaching me processes of developing ideas, gathering visual material and producing. This has helped me to find new ways of working which will hopfully be more productive.

I started doing this blog as a way of recording my progress as an artist, but I just feel so much shame about myself and the work I do that I can't seem to find the courage to be really honest here. I write in diaries almost everyday, but less and less in this blog. I upload my work onto flickr as a record of what I'm doing, maybe that's enough for the moment. I have to believe that one day I will feel truely proud of myself and my work, because at the moment I can't look people in the face when the subject of my work comes up.

St Jordi's day

St Jordi's day, originalmente cargada por judyfarr.

This is my lovely Catalan boy Jordi and today is his Saint's Day. Here in Catalonia it's the equivalent to St Valentine's for us in the uk. Here on St Jordi you give a book and a rose to show you love someone. It's quite beautiful this tradition. So today I invited Jordi to a sumptuous lunch and then went walking around the town to find books. He gave me my rose this morning which was a lovely surprise.
I don't know why but it's always good weather on St Jordi, we were very hot as we walked through the streets crowded with people and book and rose stalls. I'm not into crowds but this day is different, when you see people buy roses for each other and looking through books it makes everyone seem very civilised and lovely at the same time. He's off watching the footie now so it's been a great day overall for him, bless 'im.

Car-Free Lleida

The last two months have been gruelling indeed. I have been up and down like a roller coaster but now the end is in sight, the exhibition is in two weeks time and I've found a translator for my text. The exhibition is part of a larger series of activities all centring around a neighbourhood in Lleida called Pardinyes. Our particular exhibition is about art work in the city, meaning the city in general not just Lleida.

My piece is the first part of a much larger project of urban design. I've been looking at the city of Lleida and trying to imagine how it would be if there were no cars, what we would do with the remaining space, and how our quality of life and that of our children would improve. It's been difficult because I'm not technical at all I just love dreaming and so that's all I'm offering really. I'm not giving any solutions just ideas. It all started when my mum got me interested in New Urbanism, which is about car-free cities and improving public space and such like. It's so exciting imagining cities full of children playing and people walking and all the trees and plants we could have in the streets.

So I've been spending the last few months reading and looking at Lleida with new eyes, imagining away. And when I started to find a way of expressing all of this it was just so hard but anyway that's the learning part and I have to give myself a chance. So the first bit is done and I have the rest of my life to continue with rest. I'll be gradually transforming the city in my mind and in my sketch book.

tower001.jpg

tower001.jpg, originalmente cargada por judyfarr.