Starting again in 2014....Unearth Gather Create

Ok....I was not here all year.   Well I was but for some reason could not or did not post what I wanted to at the time and the longer it went, the less inclined I was to make the effort.   So here I am.
I think it is important to start now and leave what I have done in the meantime alone.

 I am taking a different route in my art.    I just want to get into it more....into my art.   I lost that over the last number of years if I even had it.    One of the things that is helping me is Gillian Cox's course 'Unearth Gather Create'.     This is not about me trying to paint  like Gillian, even though I would love to, but about doing it in my style.    She encourages us to write about everything, our lives, stories, our art, other art we love.    That is not easy, asking myself questions I may not want the answer to.   But I have made a start.

Gillian is also almost bringing us back to the basics.    I do love that about what I am doing now.    I am just drawing with different materials, pencils, charcoal, conte, stabilo marks all and crayons.     It is a lot really.   We are also using pastels which is one of Gillians' loves as well as her oilbars.   I am not so sure but I am trying.   I am making progress, I think.   The pictures below are from my notebooks and can certainly see a difference with them.

I am also starting back at the beginning with the colour chart in pastels.   Some of the exercises ask us to draw in the style of Jim Dine with lost and found edges, dark and light, etc.    In the beginning I think there will be a bit of jumping around from one thing to another, I am hoping that there will be some flow or connecting thread in my art.    I would like to know that I am going in some direction.   It may also help me to see my progress as well as the issues, the subjects and the emotional states that keep cropping up so I can see more clearly where to stay and practice and what to let go of.