On numerous occasions over the last month I have thought about that particular question, 'Do you work to live or live to work?' For a lot of people this is something to contemplate. Most of us now spend a good proportion of our waking lives in the workplace out of necessity, and it is hard to see a way around 'living to work'. I am now working in a traditional 'office' job, on the computer for most of the day, and by the time I get home, don't really want to do much of anything. I realise that I need to find a happy balance between the 2 aspects of work and play, but this is much easier said than done. More than likely, this would be aided by my going to bed earlier, something I discussed here in one of my very first blog posts, and something I still haven't managed to come to terms with, particularly when it comes to my art practise. I am at my most productive, awake and inspired between the hours of 10pm and 3am, and so having to go to bed at a reasonable hour to wake just before 7am is somewhat cutting down on my creative hours!
Some day in the future I hope that I can look back on my life and find myself within that first category, although, whilst I don't wish to 'live to work', I want to be able to enjoy the time that I spend working, meaning that that time isn't viewed as wasted time. In my opinion, if you think of work as wasted time then you are bound to have negative opinions towards it, making the whole experience even more unpleasant, and it will certainly be harder to drag yourself out of bed every morning!
So with all this in mind, and whilst I continue to find my happy medium, here are a few of the art-related things that I have managed to fit into my new working life.
I have continued to experiment with glass painting, and have started some new jellyfish paintings on tealight holders, which will be in sets of 2 or 4. These are not yet complete but you can see them in their current state below:
Last month it was my brother's birthday, and as a special birthday present I gave him a glass beer tankard that I had painted on, depicting 2 of his favourite things - a VW Campervan and the beach. This was, once again, completely different to what I've tried before with glass painting, but I have again learnt a few things that do and do not work.
I slightly tweaked the glass jar design from my last blog post:
Finally, I hand-crafted the below leaving card for a colleague at work who has now gone on maternity leave. After what was an incredibly fruitless task of trying to find a card that was neither blue, pink or stated 'sorry you're leaving', I gave in and decided to make the card from scratch, painting the bear and text, and then adding in a mix of felt, ribbed paper, ribbon and gems for decoration:
I still have lots to do over the coming months; cards, drawing, painting, glass painting - the ideas are still all on-going, if a little side-lined by new working hours. Fingers crossed there will be plenty more updates coming soon!!
Caroline