Catching up again

I have a lot of catching up to do- both reading and writing this time. I think i'm going to have to take a bit of a break from the blog for a week or so, just until I can get myself all caught up with all sorts of other things that are going on at the moment. Things like:

* My nephew's first birthday
* My other nephew's first day at school
* Wrapping up Summer School for the term
* Getting reading to head back to Uni
* Making sure I tackle some health related stuff that i'm trying to ignore

It's my birthday on the 11th so I aim to be back by then- in the meantime I will probably post some of the photos i've been taking recently from all my little adventures.

Miss Stacey's Summer School

There's some great new projects up at Miss Stacey's Summer School this week, for the fifth project we have:

Amy Lou's looking around you project
Claire Elizabeth's sewing project

I've been terrible at actually getting any work done (which was the whole point of setting up the school in the first place), but it's good to see that people are still interested and are keeping up with their own work, even if i'm a bit of a failure as an inspirational teacher!

Project One

some of the portraits painted as part of Miss Stacey's Summer School's first project

I've been a bit down in the dumps the last couple of days- my lack of mobility at the moment is really getting to me. However these things are cheering me up:

+ painting my toe nails in two shades of pink (stealing the idea from HulaSeventy who has much prettier toes than me)
+ a bunch of freesia's in a jug (they always remind me of visiting my Aunt in Guernsey)
+ a visit from Becky with cups of tea in the sunshine
+ most of all seeing how my little summer project is flourishing!

Summer School first project

People are starting to post the results of the first project for Miss Stacey's Summer School over on the blog, and on Flickr. My contribution is very much a work in progress, that may well progress into the bin...

Other projects that you might like

Over in Miss Stacey's Summer School i've been compiling a list of other projects that people might like to take part in over the summer (or winter, depending on where you live). The latest one i've just added is a home for alice. If you know of any collaborative projects that are happening please let me know and i'll add them to the list.

Talking of summer school- the class is really filling up now, we have 24 students now! Thanks to everyone that's blogged about it. The first project is up here.

Something new...

It's not often I play around with colours in my photos, but these plastic flowers really lent themselves to being 'tweaked'. I'm hoping that this is just the start of a whole summer of trying slightly new ways of doing things- playing around with super saturated colours is something that Jason does a lot of, and perhaps he'll set some kind of colourful project as his contribution to Miss Stacey's Summer School?

Talking of which I am so excited (and a little terrified) at how many students I have signing up with me! I hope I manage to keep myself motivated enough to get everyone else motivated to create some amazing work this summer. At the end of this week i'll be announcing the first project- you can sign up for school at any time, but the sooner I know you're interested the sooner I can fill you in on the details and get your project ideas from you. I've heard talk of plans to set projects about hats and about video making so far, it'll be interesting to see what all my students come up with.

Miss Stacey's Summer School

Dear potential students,

I would like to invite you to sign up at the BEST art school in town. For the whole summer you can be one of the lucky few students who will have me as a tutor. Sort of.

It works like this:

The summer stretches before us, empty of all classes and contact with the world of study, we either spend the summer doing nothing (other than cream teas and seaside visits) or we organise ourselves to keep working.

A few of us were talking about how we'd like to set mini deadlines and projects for ourselves for the summer, so I have taken it upon myself to set up school and be the boss of you all (such a hardship).

here's what we'll do:
divide the next few months up between us
each come up with a project that everyone else has to do
each do each other's projects, and our own
if we don't do it we have to buy tea for everyone
if we do do it we get gold stars (Lucy and Jason both told me today that gold stars would work wonders for them)

what should happen:
we all get to try something we might not normally do (textiles/photography/painting etc)
we all get to show that we haven't wasted our summers
we all hopefully get better at the ART

I've set up a blog already (because I can't stop setting up blogs) which you will all be able to post to if you want, but there's no rule that says you have to post to the blog, or indeed anywhere- I just thought it might help me motivate myself if I have a record online somewhere (as I live online).

once again i've gone too far, I blame the sunshine and strawberries,

Camilla (that's MISS Stacey to you)

If any of you are interested in signing up for Miss Stacey's Summer School then leave me a comment, or send an email- I shall be posting a rough timetable up on the school blog by the end of this week, but it's all very flexible and it would be lovely to think that there were people taking part in other places, a sort of correspondence school perhaps.