It has been quite a while now since I was here last.  
I logged in to find I had over 8000 deviations I had not looked at.  Eep!  I am working through them now, but it is seriously going to take a long time, and it is very likely that I will miss commenting on most of the ones I might otherwise have done because of the sheer number.  I mean, I could just delete them all, but then I would miss seeing some of the awesome work you guys have done while I have been away.

Well, my own update art-wise is that I have been doing extremely little.  I got involved with Beltane Fire Society (www.beltane.org if anyone is interested) and that sort of ate up my life a bit.  Ok, more than a bit.  I did make a huge skeletal type raven for the procession at Samhuinn though, you can see it here behind the white hunters:
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It was made of willow, newspaper, pva and acrylic paints.. with led's for the eyes.

I have also been struggling with my depression a lot.  So easy just to let go and descend into it, but year on year I saw myself getting worse in terms of what I was able to do in life because of it, so fighting is really the only answer unless I want to end up completely housebound and all the other nasties that come with such things.  The road to better mental health is not easy, as I am sure many of you know yourselves.

I stopped doing pottery.  I think I went to three different short courses (9-14 weeks each) over a year and a bit, and by the end of it, I was just getting frustrated with it.  I like taking my time with sculpture, and knowing how things will turn out.  Instead, with pottery, I had to get things done in the 2 hours of the class, then either wrap it up and hope that it didn't dry out in a week, or just put it in for firing.. which was taking like 2 weeks to get back.  Then the glazes, which were my pet hate.  They never turned out the way I wanted, and I had otherwise great sculptures turned into stuff that refused even to take another layer of glaze to cover up the mess the first one had made of it.  When two pieces I was otherwise very happy with got ruined by glazes turning out badly, I stopped going.  I think the kiln was overfiring them as well which didn't help the glazes.

All in all, I prefer using Super Sculpey much better.  I have all the time in the world to finish those.  I have one head sitting on a pencil beside my desk that has been there for months, and I can still work on it when the mood takes me, and the detail you get is fab.  I love Super Sculpey.

So.. my arty plans for this year.  Well, between now and into autumn I hope to:
* Knit myself a new scarf
* Try card weaving
* Do some digital art again, because I miss it
* Maybe try to paint something nice on the huge cupboard doors in the kitchen
* Halloween pumpkin this year (last year was a flop and didn't happen )
* Do more writing with the amazing ~blackwulff

I am going to leave off sculpture from the list until at least autumn/winter when I will take it up again.