making decisions ....

I've finally finished another page in my art journal. It seems I always work in stages, I have my journalphase, my sketchphase, my doodlephase, my boxphase, my rockphase, my mosaicphase, etc ... and sometimes all of these together when there's a market or a show coming up ;-)

The only phase pretty much constantly there is my canvaspainting-phase. And I have come to the difficult conclusion that that phase will have to be put on hold 'till the end of the year...

*gasp*

Why? you ask. Well, because there is too much going on at the moment. After living in Australia for 3 years, we have decided to move back to Belgium in October. It was a very tough decision, because we love Australia and we love the people here. And the climate. And the beautiful nature. But all that beauty and all that kindness cannot replace the people you grew up with, your family and friends. Our family is very important to us, and we've come to the conclusion that we don't want to be so far away from them anymore. We want the kids to grow up in a big extended family, instead of just the four of us. And we long to speak our own language again, to not have to search for words or completely miss the point of a joke. We had a fantastic time in Australia, but it'll never be really "home" for us.

So, moving from one part of the world to another is pretty time-consuming, with everything that needs to be sorted out and packed and tossed away, not to mention the administration, oh my, .... I have a todo-list that is now 9 pages long ....

The last months have been really stressful and frustrating, with me trying to do everything: keep on making art, trying to build my artbusiness, working part-time, and preparing our move back to Belgium. So in order to keep sane I've decided to cut back on my painting. My big paintings that is. I need at least a few hours to work on these, and I get so frustrated when I can't find that time. I will still be making art of course, that is something that I need to do, also in order to keep sane, but it'll be the small things, like sketching, doodling and working in my artjournal. Things I can do in between, that I can easily leave and go back to.

So today I started a new mosaic figurine. Whenever I pass the table I can put a few pieces down. Easy-peasy. And nothing too stressful :-) Plus it fills my need for colour.

At the end of October we will move back to Belgium, and it'll be another 2 months before our container arrives. Which means I will only be able to get back to my beloved canvases in the new year ....

(although I secretly hope in the next weeks to suddenly have lots of free time in which I can paint ....)

I will be making more pieces digitally, like products for my Society6-shop, new postcards, a new calendar and maybe even a diary. This week I decided to try out a little poetrybook. I finished it already, but have to wait for the printout. I've made 5 and will (try to) sell them in the gallery. If they sell, I might make new ones and put them up in my Etsyshop.

Here are a few pages:

And because this last week has been such a horrible week in terms of loss of human lives due to senseless violence, I thought this page was rather fitting:

Well, that's it for now. Another decision I've made is that I'll only blog one day a week anymore, on Friday. But I will keep on doing that, no matter what. Can't leave my friends from Paint Party Friday, right ;-)

Next Friday I'll link to Andrea and Dia, who will answer the questions for the round-the-world-bloghop some time next week. My answers to these questions are in this post.

Thanks so much for visiting! I hope your day is beautiful and peaceful, and let's hope this weekend we'll be spared more horrible news from around the world ... See you next week ♥ ♥ ♥