Its dark at four o'clock and today is the shortest day.I prefer to have sun for most of the day - in Scotland that is not always possible. However the up side of the dark mornings is that I am more able to see the sun rising around 8 as I drive to work. One day this week I saw the most beautiful colours of red and purple mixed in the sky to herald the sun rising. The backdrop was grey and smudgy and contrasted well with the sun rising. I was determined to keep that lovely sight in my mind all day and go home and depict the image in ArtRage. It fascinates me how one minute the sky is amazing and then it changes into a grey dullness. It reminds me of how we can find beautiful images on the most unexpected items such as rubbish. 

After thinking about the different ways an artist can view the world I began to wonder about the objective of my own art.Is my art a therapy to me or is it an investigation or could I use it to make political statements.  My art tutors at Art College in the eighties were doing their art for different reasons. Mr Cadenhead   was a landscape artist who loved to depict the colours of the sun he found in the snow he painted.He used to go up mountains just to paint his pictures and they were fantastic - he seemed to be an investigative artist showing us what colours he found.Grant Clifford on the other hand was the abstract artist who impressed me with his huge canvases which depicted the family falling apart. He seemed to be questioning the family as a unit which I could relate to at the time and now see the great importance of a well run family. Mr Clifford tended to make political statements and told me how art was used to influence the the masses in some countries.Both these tutors fascinated me and so my art has been influenced by these tutors..

So both tutors helped me to think about nature and life in general - thought provoking indeed. My own opinion  is that an artist work should be useful and uplifting.The artist may produce great work and the art may be therapy for the artist and viewers.The work of Van Gogh seems to me to be therapy as I heard he may have suffered from the lack of sunshine in his life and this drove him to paint so much. Whatever drives an artist - who really knows?

On Monday morning I was all prepared for P1 only to be told that - I would cover the rest of the school as they had another teacher to teach P1 for the week which I could not do. I was able to use the cut outs in the special school today and we stuck the heart or circles into the centre of a paper plate and decorated with ribbon and glitter with thumb prints around the edge for good measure. The children engaged well with the activity and the end result was very bright and cheery.Yet another decoration to take home. It is good to know that one can take an idea such as the string of hearts and circles seen in a window and then adapt these ideas to suit the class and materials available. 

While working at the upper end of the mainstream school - this week   - I was impressed with this good practice:

 During the month of December the class tables are covered in sheets of white paper which the children are allowed to draw on throughout the month. Some lovely Christmas scenes are drawn.Battles and funny cartoons were seen at the table of boys who were really interested in computer games such as Halo. The children drew whenever they had a spare moment and this was great to see the class so happy and creative.  

In another class they were making a Christmas story to read to the P1 and were being encouraged to make their illustrations big ,bold and colourful. Some children made some amazing pictures - almost too good to be true. I was glad to see so much art being done in this school.

Christmas is nearly here so let me wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy Creative New Year. x x x