why I'm spending intentional time alone & my pre raphaelite watercolour painting

I think especially over the last couple of years I've really learned that prioritizing rest, time alone, the return to myself, is the greatest antidote to the great hustle. Focus is inwards, truly listening with integrity to our own inner voices without noise or influence from out there. Sometimes we can get distracted by other people's needs and forget to listen to ourselves and we get waylaid upon our journeys. We forget to treat ourselves with the grace we deserve or indeed offer to others. We are deserving, we are worthy of this self-love and compassion. Being alone allows us to rest deeply which I feel especially important in our current world of multitasking madness and the great overwhelm. And let's not forget what we've all been through in the last few years. A time of distress, uncertainty and confusion. Once we are quiet and alone our mental capacities can recharge and restore. We become better at solving problems, making decisions, especially the right decisions because we're not making them in a rush or under pressure. We can get truly clear on what we wish for and even uncover new ideas and desires which are usually buried deep as they have a low priority compared to the out there world. For me, being a creative like many of you out there, I believe it allows me to find an energy or direction that I wasn't seeing before. It can fire me up ready to leap into the next painting or project. Science tells us it's good for the brain even leading to neural changes which makes sense to me as a brain exercise. Meditation, mindfulness all go hand in hand with quiet time. Something like reading a book for distraction and peaceful time is very different from the usual hustle of everything going on both on a physical level and online. The pressure is off, we can hibernate cocoon like the caterpillar to emerge refreshed with a full cup. I learn new things about myself every time. Who am I is such an infinite and interesting question to ponder and I never come up with the same answer. In times of stress, especially of the last few years, when I spend time alone going within, I can deeply grasp my spiritual centre and sense its infinite connection to the universal wisdom. Reaching out for the stars if you like. Being quiet and completely alone brings out a soft confidence in me. I'm not looking out there for anything knowing I have everything I need within and carry it with me always. A self-reliance and trust evolves and a reassuring feeling of safety grows. More affirmed every time I do it. You'll have to let me know in the comments below if you relate to any of this. How do you like to spend your time alone and what gifts does it bring you when you do it? And often just before I go to sleep at night I repeat my little mantra of I am calm, I am safe, I am loved. After many years of going within I found it even more true and feel it even more deeply than I ever did. So I haven't talked too much this week so sorry about that. I've just taken some time to be alone. Have some time, just quiet time, just to sort of potter, paint, meditate, do yoga and just really slow down and be really mindful as well of doing some slowing down every single day and I think it's really important that we remember that it's not just a one-off thing, oh yeah I've slowed down. You have to remind yourself all the time don't you? Anyway, it's been absolutely bliss and it's done me the world of good and it's putting me in a in a good practice, in a good ritual if you like, so that I remember to do it and I'm a creature, I have mentioned this a few times on here, but I I like things in a routine and so if I can get myself in a good routine often that's what it takes for me to sustain it if you like and then I can be consistent and I get into that zone of you know not even thinking about it then and I'm just you know going through the motions every day and before I realized it I've done all the things that are really good for me before I've even started my day and I love that. But it has meant this week that I haven't really vlogged, I haven't recorded anything and talked to but it's good and if anyone's on YouTube as well out there you will know as well that you know it's finding a balance to you know what you film and what you don't film and sometimes switching the cameras off completely is a really nice way to have a break and recharge your batteries properly and you know I love making these videos and I love editing them and I love putting them out and I love the community that that's created and it's a real joy for me and you know if that wasn't there I wouldn't do it but at the same time it's even when you do what you love you need to take your time off as well and we need to remember to do that basically and the main thing I've been doing this week is actually painting so everything's in a bit of chaos in a way but it's creative chaos so it's all good it's just the way I work I like to get a load of stuff out and then I end up with stuff everywhere but if I'm in my flow I'm sort of burrowed into it and I know where everything is so it kind of works for me and that's it's the way I've always been really so it's been really good and I've been dipping into some art history and I'm doing a project at the moment with pre-Raphaelite artists and I've been doing a study of Lady Godiva and yeah I really got completely engrossed in it and it was absolute joy to do but not only that you know when you are making copies and studies from the great masters you learn so many unexpected gems if you like and so yeah it's been a really great process and I've loved it and I've just yeah switched everything else off I've not been talking to anybody I've not seen anyone I mean I have obviously seen James but even then you know I can still retain my quiet time I think for me it's it it's become much more apparent during my penamores It feels more to me than just a practice it's more like a shepherding really protecting my inner stillness and maybe sometimes that appears antisocial Yeah I think it's that cocoon element for me where I just want to hide away hibernate and go into my cocoon for whatever transformation is is going on and painting and this room is is a perfect place for it and yeah some people have said to me about the feng shui of the L-shape as well and the fact that I need a mirror there I do have a little mirror but I've been taking it camping in in the van with us so it's not living there at the moment although it will come back but the other thing I do that's you know I can really switch off and feel like I'm in my cocoon is just lock the door so not that anybody comes in anyway but it just reassures me that that nobody can come in which is you know really nice when I'm lost in my process and I just switch everything else off sometimes I have music on but most of the time I'm just yeah on my own quiet in my head or out of my head as it were and lost in the process but I've really been enjoying my Lady Godiva I don't know if you can pick that up and I got this it's a print it's not the painting obviously I got this John Collier painting from a charity shop when I I think when I first kind of landed after van life and so it's been something that's with me and I was trying to work out where in the room I wanted to put it in relation to all the feng shui corners so yeah I was having a good think about that and that sort of led me to being fascinated by the painting and wanting to make a study and in in the Patreon we've been looking at how to create depth in our work as part of that I thought well this would be a nice study to do to investigate depth and so that's what I've been doing but I've learned you know all these unexpected things by doing that and fascinated and it's great because it's like beautiful palette some lovely colours so I really enjoyed doing that anyway it's a bit weird when you haven't been talking to the camera all week and you switch the camera on it's kind of like yeah you get a little bit shy I think you have to let me know if anyone else has that so yeah I've been doing a little bit of the art history and a little bit of fun background if you like looking into the Lady Godiva painting and so that's been really fun and yeah I guess you know looking back into my own history as well so looking back into sort of the development of my own artwork and going through some older paintings to see what I've got I'm kind of taking part in a really small exhibition in a month and I want to put up some of my little paintings definitely and I've got a few finished and so I can use those but I was wondering yesterday if I dipped into my own history and I had had a good rummage basically to see what I had we can truly get lost can't we in the process of rummaging through old things and I remember packing this A1 portfolio with some of James's work in here and some of some of mine from yeah life drawing class or some old mono prints I did quite a lot of printmaking at university and then this little gem and yeah I still have the the Holly Hobby book that I got this I copied the drawing from and unfortunately it hasn't got a date on it but the writing I know I was pretty young because I know my family were pretty impressed with my skills there so and then I've also been having a look at some of the self-portraits the old self-portraits that I did I think on my degree I've been looking at some of those I mean I used to jump about a little bit between abstracting and then more realism more of an observed studies yeah looking at those because I plan to do some self-portraits coming up James and I did a little fun photo shoot that last weekend in a very magical place quite a dark forest and so it looked quite ethereal and mystical and I quite fancy painting them but yeah I think they'll probably turn out very differently to those so yeah this was the um the book Holly Hobby book of 1979 and uh yeah if I just flick through you can see my mum wrote in this one she used to write oh £1.50 she used to write a little thing in the front so it's a bit of a shame that she hasn't written but this is a really early influence of of my artwork my cute little girls and yeah there it is you can go near the water and wade or just play and make it an extra nice fun sunshine day and there is mine as well perhaps I should redraw one day and then have an updated version but I think I did rather well with the with the rocks as well and the shape of the the coastline critiquing my my work from the past I like the pink drawers very nice edition Wendy I've got a few things that I've had going for a long time that I feel I could finish now and I think you know where before I wasn't really sure how to finish certain things I could I can I can see how I can finish them now because obviously we develop and grow and learn as we continue through our process and well that's the way I kind of look at it anywhere I'm like an ongoing work in progress I'm never complete if you like I am always learning new things and challenging myself to new things and pushing myself a little bit here and there out of my comfort zone and um yeah and and having things up on the wall it it really reminds you of you know what you've got going on and what was going through your mind and in those times as well so it's really useful to sort of have a rummage through and I've got things in boxes and folders and then I've also got my larger canvases so I've been having a little look to ponder and see if I want to put anything up in this little exhibition so we shall see so yeah I was looking for a space for Lady Godiva and I kind of thought you know what's the story of her and I've always loved this painting and you know if you've been around a little while you know that I absolutely love the Pre-Raphaelite movement and this is by John Collier and he was an English painter and he was really interested and enjoyed the Pre-Raphaelite movement I wouldn't say he was like a major part of it but he liked the style and so he did quite a lot of his paintings in that style and it's obviously got that magical fairy tale feel that I really love as well and so I thought oh you know what what is the story and I knew basically there's a there's a city right in the middle of of England called Coventry and I knew it was the streets of Coventry and whether she was a real figure in history or it's more of a of a mystical figure nobody quite knows for sure so there's a little bit of mystery around that which I which I really like but she was married to a very important and rich earl who wanted to put the taxes up in the town and she was protesting against it and said you know if you don't put the taxes up she was basically standing up for the for the people in the town if you don't put the taxes up I'll ride through the streets of Coventry naked and so he was kind of like go on then and so in order to sort of retain her dignity she asked the townspeople and said you know can everybody I'm going to do it early one morning in the streets and I'm going to ride naked through the town can you stay in your homes and shut your curtains shut your shutters and I'll ride through the streets at this time but apparently one person called Tom was peeping and that's where we get the phrase peeping Tom from so it was all in deep honour the meaning of what she did I really loved that so I was I was wondering where to put it in my room as I say in relation to the um the feng shui of the room that we did a few months ago now and yeah I was wondering whether to put it up here and this is my reputation area place in the world self-esteem self-confidence and self-love and so I thought that would be the perfect story to represent that you know honour of reputation and that would speak really well so I thought that might go here so I might pop that up see I'm still growing into my studio and as I say having this rummage was really good because it meant that I found all sorts of things little paintings I've got a sketch of Rick Mayall that I did gosh when I was on my degree I think I used to go to theatres and sketch moving characters and I went to one of his my sister treated me for my birthday because I loved Rick Mayall and um he's a UK comedian and he unfortunately passed away and um in the last few years really and it's such a shame but I really really loved him I remember hanging around after the show this theatre show that I've been sketching him the whole time and I showed him my sketchbook and he signed my sketchbook and I was like oh can I give you a big kiss and so we had a big cuddle and a kiss like just a kind of kiss it was really sweet he was he was a lovely guy in real life as well and I thought you know signature there so it was March 95 so yeah long time ago and he kind of had this bottle of wine then he was on stage and everything and was doing really quick sketches because you know obviously the scene was moving really quickly and I thought you know I'll frame it and put it on the wall because you know it's even more special now because he's passed away so I love that that's one of my treasures and it was just in one of my boxes so that was nice to find and then when I was at uni I did some etchings and this was one of my first attempts at an etching plate yeah I kind of giggle at it now in a way but it's got a certain charm and it's a Parisian street some lovely buildings in Paris if you've if you've ever sort of seen pictures or been there so it's a really gorgeous place to just to draw and sketch and take it all in really and yeah so that was a street view in Paris with all the things going on on the rooftops and stuff I think I did I did a pencil sketch a whole sketchbook full of drawings I did on that on that trip to Paris and I was drawing it from from the hotel bedroom that I was staying in so it wasn't from the ground and yeah I did a whole sketchbook tour on my Patreon ages ago now shared that one quite a lot sort of intimate little sketchbook that one but yeah I found that and I thought you know what I'd quite like that on the wall as well and then you know just some old kind of drawings that maybe I dip back into and rework so there's a sort of fairy queen there that I did a long time ago and so I want to improve the drawing and she's got like a wolf and yeah I don't know so so yeah really sort of going within and because I talk about that all the time don't I so I thought I would demonstrate it for you in this video because it's what I've been doing all week I think looking at art history and looking at the history and the development of my artwork and then also looking at you know things that have come up you know from my own history like for example the the Rick Mayall sketch so it is sort of how it all interrelates with life and how I'm feeling right now with this kind of processing of any unfinished business if you like which I think is part of the penamores process and transition and I don't just think that's for women as well even obviously men don't have a physical menopause as such in the same way I think we go through mental processes when we kind of hit middle age and yeah it's a really beautiful thing and what I'm doing as well is sort of you know everything I see out there really about menopause is so negative and it's so like oh you know over the hill and past your prime and all that stuff but I'm noticing that I feel you know more more confident much more contented and happy I'm much more able to flip things around for myself and see things in a perspective and you know like sit on it from afar and look down and be the observer so that I'm not too involved and stuff and I'm noticing the gifts that are coming out of this time in my life and yeah I always think about a meme as well I saw years ago which was like two really old wrinkly old ladies and it's like a black and white photograph of them and the meme is we used to be young and beautiful and now we're just beautiful and they're giggling away together and I thought yeah that that's kind of how I feel that is how I feel and you know it's not about outer beauty it's more about an inner wisdom and the beauty and gifts and treasures and gems that you find in that so I may have to do a video about you know that whole other side of menopause that I'm having and it's not that there aren't challenges there because there are physical emotional spiritual and I'm finding quite a lot of mental challenges with the I've talked about my cotton fuzzy brain haven't I but yeah there are gifts in there and they're beginning to show for me and so very interesting I had a few comments on a on an older video where I talked about menopause a little bit and it was from a younger woman someone who said you know I'm not there yet and how scared and apprehensive she was about going through it so if anyone out there is younger and isn't going through this yet but obviously one day you will and so yeah don't be put off don't be put off and think about you know you're drying up and you're going to be an old prune and this that and the other there are changes we change and we grow and we get older every single day that we're alive don't we but don't be hesitant about it don't be put off by all the cliches and all the hearsay about it wait till you get there yourself and be reassured from me that it's a really magical intuitive time I know as well from the comments I get from people that are more my age or older that they feel the same they have had gifts and a lot of surprises come out so you'll have to let me know in the comments as well if that's you because I love reading about all your comments and experiences which is a big part of why I love doing the YouTube so suffice to say thank you so much for keeping me company in here even when you know everything's in a pickle I'm in a pickle or the studio's in a pickle and nobody seems to mind and I really appreciate that so I hope you get some alone time too and then maybe if you've forgotten to have some this has reminded you think oh yeah I need to carve a little bit of time out just for myself and even if it's just five or ten minutes here and there it really does make a big difference doesn't it and so I better leave you in peace for now thank you so much for watching and keeping me company as always try to keep your tea cups full so you can give from your saucer and try to keep your lights shining bright and I will see you in the next one bye for now I wish you could see yourself just sitting there on my chair I'm staring at you you don't even notice should have told you straight away you don't have to be afraid and anymore