Reclaim Your Voice

Reclaim Your Voice

Reclaim Your Voice
Who doesn’t want to feel confident enough to belt out a good song or two?
I struggle a bit with performance anxiety.
Okay a lot. It shows up mostly in my music, and has stopped me playing in groups,
orchestras and teaching, for fear of having to get up there out the front, on stage or even next to someone. It gets in the way of my day job too.

In a bid to stop feeling like a complete iceberg when it comes to playing music and singing, I went along to a Reclaim Your Voice weekend workshop with Nikki Berry and Gary Easterbrook.  You get to learn a lot about singing, but the weekend gives you so much more.
Nikki has a way of bringing the group together, to trust and support one another
that is very gentle and genuine but also honest and constructive. Before you know it you are holding a tune and singing in time, and wanting to make music and singing a bigger part of your day to day life.
I was so impressed with the first Reclaim Your Voice  workshop, that I went back for the second course. And that was brilliant too.
An amazing array of people attend these courses and it’s wonderful to meet such a diverse bunch of
people all on similar but different journeys. It’s also very reassuring to know that you aren’t alone in having a fear of singing out, even if you really want to.
check here to see when their next course is.

Using the internet as a place to journal

Well excuse me… okay so apparently I facebook to much and  it seems to be causing a few eyebrows amongst
the younger members of the family. Happily I can retreat to my blog, twitter and Pinterest.
The thing, is digital journalling is brilliant, I never loose my book or journal, and I’m always close to an electronic device.  This means if something moves me, within seconds I can capture the spirit and how I felt and maybe even an image. I especially love the image part, and journalling online means I save a fortune in printer ink.
As I get older I realize how easy it is to forget  all the stuff we do, and I always look back with gratitude at any moment I have recorded. I can appreciate that this probably was not what facebook was intended for, and I’m also aware that after a good few years of extreme parenting (numbers wise that is) I am undoubtably
reveling in working, painting, eating beautiful food and  living in pretty much
my dream house. In short, life is brilliant. We aren’t rolling in cash, and have to watch the dollars, but there is always the opportunity to make an extra buck one way or the other if need be.
I still love facebook for catching up with family around the country and all the long lost school friends I have found, but I will promise to curb my constant reporting at least for a few days, while  I remember….  or not. Perhaps I will just do as I please!
 

Shelly Beach Murals

We finished! 9 days of painting. Loved every minute of it.
Enjoyed painting on big walls with big (and small) brushes, enjoyed  creating art in public.
Facinated by the natural history aspect of the Kaipara Harbour, which is  an incredible
environment for fish and birds.
Stoked with the end result and hope the locals and visitors enjoy the large scale depiction of their abundant harbour.
Heres a link to a gallery of images from the project.

Shelly Beach Murals – the prep work

I have been working on the mural concept and plans for a few weeks.
It seems like I have done an extraordinary amount of work, on the sketch pad,
researching and on the computer, my printer has been working over-time churning out
ideas and outlines, I have bulging folders of underwater pictures and birds and fish….
And for all of that, I have a couple basic line drawings which really do nothing to convey
either my excitement for the project or the vision in my head. Rats.
I was surprised by how hard it was to hand over the concept plans and the final designs,
and in the end had to completely detach myself from them and realise that some people won’t like it and most people won’t grasp my intention. But despite all the worry and self-doubt
we are still on track.
So now I get to work on the individual birds and fish, I’m quite looking forward to up scaling the
snapper to its full on the wall size and bringing it to life.
Having the opportunity to paint an underwater scene is so cool, and I’m hoping to do some snorkelling over the next week or so to get even more inspired.

Shelly Beach Murals

We are working on a new mural project at Shelly Beach, and I thought it might be a nice idea to keep track of progress.
Especially seeing as  I decided to post some of my earlier mural works in my port folio and I couldn’t find any blimmin pictures.  So I’m off to hunt down, Te Hanna and the Kaukapakapa images.
How can you paint the sides of large buildings and not take photos. Honestly.
Looking back at the stuff I do have, I’m a bit shocked that I had the nerve to rock up to past mural sites with just an A3 bit of paper and a coloured sketch. By Crikey.