🌼 For the love of Daisy
🌼 For the love of Daisy
Pandas, parenting and the joy of giving
As I wrote in my last post:
Motherhood is indeed a rollercoaster ride, filled with exhilarating highs, devastating lows, and moments of frustration that can leave one feeling emotionally drained.
Well, that ain’t changed much since I last wrote here! Together with the joys of midlife hormone imbalance that I can no longer ignore, well, some of you know how it is!
Lately, my concerns have focused on my lovely daughter Daisy, who has had a rather rubbish year 6 at school.
It’s been an exhausting year for her. Late night trips to A&E in inexplicable pain, various tests and scans, all alongside an awful teacher who made her feel stupid AND the usual dramas of an 11-year-old girl.
Yet she continued to tread the boards at drama, dance her frustrations out at street funk and delight us with her determination at auditions, drama exams and performances over the year. It's just bloomin’ awesome to see her showing such determination!
So this month, I wanted to make something, especially for her. Making something for someone is the most satisfying and joyful type of creating.
So this is a panda for my beautiful Daisy! 🌼 I’m so proud of her. She also loves this panda illustration and the Instagram video I made, which felt magical!
🎨 Creative Inspiration for your week ahead
🧑🏻🎨 The Festival of Creativity
I particularly enjoy the generosity that
of ‘While I Was Drawing’ brings to the artistic Substack community. She creates an inspiring space for creatives of all dimensions and backgrounds, sharing her beautiful illustrations and drawings. She continues her wonderful efforts and is developing the ‘Festival of Creativity’:I will be creating the festival here on Substack, gathering together Letters and Notes about creativity of all kinds to share with you.
We’ll explore inspiration and ideas, process and behind the scenes, tools and techniques and so much more. I have always loved to create and I am planning to try out as many different crafts as I can, just for fun, and share that with you too.
Emily is looking for contributors, so if you write about any artwork or creativity, from silk painting to woodcarving, modelling making to calligraphy and would like to feature your work at the festival, she would love to hear from you.
🎙️ Podcast Recommendation - Julia Gets Wise with Isabel Allenede
What can I say - I love this woman! Isabel Allende is a force of a woman. In this interview, she candidly talks about her life, loss, creativity and process, as well as sex and the joy of marijuana-laced chocolate-covered blueberries!
I love this piece of advice:
“You know what I get asked all the time. Some advice for young authors, for aspiring authors. And the best advice. I heard it from Elizabeth Gilbert. She said to an audience who someone asked in the audience the same question and she said, don’t expect your writing to give you fame or money. Because you love the process. And that’s the whole point. Love the process.”
Love the process - that pretty much sums up my approach to creativity.
💬 And Finally…A Quote to Live By
Fellow artists, especially those of you who feel you should be doing something else that’s more constructive/important/productive, always remember:
“Art before laundry.”
~ Kevin Kelly, writer and founding executive editor of Wired magazine
Stay creative, my friends.
A fellow member of the Daisy Love Club!
Your panda is beautiful 🐼
And thanks for sharing the interview with the amazing Isabella Allende ✨