6 June 2011

Pathways

Tomorrow’s my birthday, and then I’m one more step closer to the Big Bada Boom, which will happen next year. How surreal. I don’t see myself as someone soon-to-be-40. (And I can feel a long line of people before me who have said exactly the same thing…)

It’s also a new month and a new theme for The Sketchbook Challenge: Pathways. A good and inspiring theme. You see, with the Big Bada Boom approaching faster than I care to think, I’ve started looking at my life and choices with slightly different eyes. I look back, I look at the present, and I look to the future. And I contemplate what I see. About a year ago I realised that I’ve been a bit lost for a number of years. Somewhere along the path that I took things went missing. For instance, I stopped drawing and I stopped caring about mermaids. I didn’t stop being creative, but the projects I chose weren’t really the things I wanted to do in my heart of hearts. They were fun, useful and enjoyable, but in a way an ‘easy way out’. To my horror I realised that I had a habit of choosing my projects on the basis of whether or not they could be done in front of a TV show.

What I needed to do was to get out of my comfort zone, and to go back and pick up some of the things that I’d left behind. Such as drawing. And mermaids. I needed to find the magic and passion again. Let out that eccentric megalith-loving fairy-freak that's hiding behind the guise of a public servant. So I started treading myself a new pathway. I don’t know where it’s leading, but it feels good and it feels right.

Walk This Way
My first page for this month is inspired by ancient rock carvings. I visited Sweden last summer and was thrilled to come across authentic rock carvings and rune stones. Footprints like these could have been made simply by placing a wet foot on the rock, and then using the wet print as a guide when carving the rock. Please visit my Flickr photostream for the full image and a description of the techniques I used to create the page.

Rock carvings near Nyköping, Sweden. These would make great stamps!

A megalith-loving fairy-freak guised as public servant on holiday in Avebury, England
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5 comments:

  1. Jeannie6 June 2011 at 21:34

    Early birthday greetings! You are so wise. You have learned lessons that some much older than you still have to learn. It is always good to see where you are and where you want to go, to follow your heart. Wishing you a wonderful birthday and a life full of creativity and joy.

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  2. Annika6 June 2011 at 21:58

    Thanks so much Jeannie! I'm so happy that I discovered that the Internet is full of kindred spirits, such as yourself, and grateful for all the inspiration and support that is given so generously by people who are passionate about what they're doing.

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  3. Cheryl Razmus6 June 2011 at 22:14

    Be glad you have discovered that you really want to be passionate about the things you spend your time on while you are still young. I "wasted" a lot of years trying to fit in to the community of women I was in rather than find the community I needed. The internet is indeed my path back to the real me.

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  4. Melly Testa7 June 2011 at 13:30

    Happy Birthday! I think life gets better as you get older, and for reasons just like this one. We start weeding out the stuff that doesn't have meaning anymore. It's a great thing.

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  5. Annika7 June 2011 at 20:50

    Thanks Melly! I'm sure you're right!

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