ARTISTICALLY GENIUS OR RUBBISH

ARTISTICALLY GENIUS OR RUBBISH 

According to hubby I'm either capable of being a genius artistically or I'm equally adept at producing rubbish when experimenting. 

I concur. 

The genius accolade arrives unexpectedly when I'm creating art, whether it be a pastel drawing or an acrylic painting. And it usually heads off in an abstract-ish direction. 

GENIUS OR RUBBISH?! 😄

NOT CERTAIN IT'S GENIUS,
BUT I LOVED CREATING THIS!

I'd love to experiment, artistically. I used to be what I'd call a 'safe' artist, and I was considered clever as a creative. That's nice - excellent. My safe work was pretty conventional back then - I'd create 'realistic' characters in oils, pencil or gouache - pirates, cowboys and girls (my wild west thing was evolving), Victorian women or otherwise, usually using magazine photographs for reference. Or psychedelia (bearing in mind that this was the swinging sixties). I didn't want to create pretty landscapes, flowers or portraits. Stuff that actually sells. 

FROM A MAGAZINE AD - AN OIL PAINTING
CREATED WHEN I WAS A TEENAGER, 
PEPPED UP RECENTLY USING
A CANVA FRAME

AN ABSTRACT PASTEL LANDSCAPE

A STYLISED ACRYLIC WOMAN

ACRYLIC PAINTED TWIGS ON BOARD

I attended a foundation art year after school in the early seventies that gave you the basics of various artistic disciplines - life drawing (you should have seen some of the models - maybe not), sculpture, photography, printing (I never got to grips with it), graphic design, followed by jobs in advertising studios. 

Before I had kids I did a three-year illustration course and earned myself a Diploma in Art and Design SIAD (Society of Illustrators, Artists and Designers.). Now I'm just showing off. Several years later I did a correspondence art course with the Open College of Creative Arts which was brilliant and opened up my mind to all kinds of creativity. 

From that I began to expand my repertoire with still lives, abstracts, inks, charcoal, stylised, collage, 2D, sculpture...

A COLLAGE & A CANVA FRAME

A SELECTION OF ART USING CANVA 

Hubby and I joined a local art group which was enormous fun. When our lovely, somewhat eccentric tutor moved to the Isle of Wight, that was very sad. We'd lost our eclectic, fun-loving group. The essential spark had vanished and we haven't found anything to replace it. My ideal group would be happy to explore and experiment, perhaps go mad painting BIG, perhaps from different angles like lying on the floor or from the top of a cupboard! Be an art student again. 😍 

I've been studying multidisciplinary and eclectic art practices, and they're so inspiring! Incorporating video, sculpture, fashion, travel, murals  ... you name it, into one's art practice. I love it and I'd love to do that. One artist's words stuck in my head. He said: 'My art styles look like they've been done by ten different artists.' I loved that! I know they say that if an artist produces too many different styles and disciplines, they're hard to market, but there's always a way to manage that.

I've always have creative studio areas in our house - but actually using them and actually creating art has proved very hard, and, in the past, depressing. I've been so intent on writing, editing, publishing and marketing Alias Jeannie Delaney my epic western trilogy, that visual creativity barely had a look in. I say 'had', because marketing the story has made me create visual promotional material on Canva, and for that I'm very pleased.  

I've suffered depression for years, all through writing the trilogy. Since having my kids, essentially, and I'm aware that art can be a great therapy for depression. Sadly I have to be upbeat and not depressed to create art. *Sigh and bugger*. 

Eh, well. So, where am I now? 

My ambition is for the trilogy to become a best seller (and why not, I ask myself?), and to become a well known, selling artist. Again - why not? 

Just to finish off, here's some more 'stuff' with a couple of western inspired pieces, including Jeannie, my Alias Jeannie Delaney protagonist, at the bottom. Hope you like it. 😊I'm rather pleased with it. Thankyou Canva!

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THIS WAS CREATED USING ART I MADE 
MANY YEARS AGO! 

ALIAS JEANNIE DELANEY - THE STORYLINE       

                 

Dynamic pants-wearing cowgirl Jeannie Morgan is tomboy beautiful and the fastest gun west of the Mississippi - her snake strike speed and aim are legendary. Her extraordinary sexuality is as fluid as a miner's whiskey, and men and women alike enjoy the magnificence of her love making.

Jeannie must navigate the grit and sweat of the wild frontier and face her desires and identity through deadly confrontations as she seeks acceptance in this big, bad world and kill or be killed. She takes on roles deemed only suitable for men, but her powerful persona and lethal gun make her the perfect candidate. Will she find what she seeks - acknowledgement and acceptance? Or will her tomboy beauty, her powerful persona and her lethal gun finally be the death of her?

IF YOU'VE READ & ENJOYED THE STORY SO FAR, I'D BE INCREDIBLY GRATEFUL IF YOU COULD LEAVE A POSITIVE REVIEW ON AMAZON. THANK YOU SO MUCH!

Alias Jeannie Delaney - 

Book 1 - Go West, Girl!

Book 2 The Outlaw's Return

MY COVER DESIGNER & I COLLABORATED ON THE IMAGES. 

THEY'RE  BASED ON ARTWORK I'D MADE MANY YEARS AGO! 

MY ORIGINAL DRAWINGS OF     JEANNIE. AS AN ARTIST I'VE   UTILISED CANVA FOR THE JOB

                                    

CHAPTER SAMPLE BOOK 1

BOOK 2

THE CUTE, WILD WEST, FUN LOVIN' UK GRANNY WHO WROTE A GRITTY WESTERN

THE CUTE, WILD WEST, FUN LOVIN' UK GRANNY WHO WROTE A GRITTY WESTERN 

Some folk may say that anyone from the UK, let  alone a granny, couldn't possibly want to write a gritty, no holds barred western in which the hero is a woman. Well, I wanted to and I had to. The story is very exciting, and the story of the story is convoluted and lengthy. Simply put, during my teens I was evolving a fascination for the wild west, particularly the gun totin', cheroot chompin' wild westerner women. As I say, rather intriguing for a cute UK granny, wouldn't you say? It must be in my genes/jeans. I was also growing irritated and frustrated by the lack of decent roles for women in westerns at the time - the 1960s - so I created my own. Jeannie Morgan was well ahead of her time then, and almost as much now, although films such as Sharon Stone's The Quick and the Dead are becoming more popular. She's my closest role model by the way.

I began writing Jeannie's story after my daughter was born, forty years ago. Yes, it's been a looong, looong time in the writing. I wanted to get the plot right - reasonably credible, Jeannie herself right, and descriptive passages right. 

Eventually I discovered I'd written a trilogy! We hired an editor, who was the first professional to assure me that my writing was quality - 24 carat writing she said. We hired a cover designer and I collaborated with him to produce covers 1 and 2, based on images I'd created years ago. 

It's been a couple of years since publishing  Alias Jeannie Delaney - Book 1 - Go West, Girl! on Amazon two summers ago. A year later we launched Book 2 - The Outlaw's Return.  Book 3 will be launched this year. I've accrued well over one thousand, three hundred readers and five star ratings and reviews, plus many readers on Kindle Unlimited steam through Book 1 like a railroad train then immediately order Book 2. 

Just to prove the cute and fun lovin' aspect of this granny, however, I shared this post after a Cobbles & Clogs Steampunk event at Basingstoke's Milestones Museum in Hampshire UK. Enormous fun! Loads of stalls, music and everyone dressed wild west steampunk, fairies, military, medieval, you-name-it... 

Hubby and I dressed to the proverbial nines - hubby as a military sergeant in frilled shirt, peaked cap, medals and goggles and me as glam pirate Kitty Le Roy complete with small flintlock pistol. When I'm not Kitty Le Roy I'm that gun totin', cheroot chompin' wild westerner woman. 

Milestones Museum is an indoor Victorian town open to customers all year to wander shop and factory settings. One of the pavements boasts 

'chalked' hopscotch squares. Naturally we have to hop. Hubby is tall and drainpipe skinny, and he's good at hopping. I ain't. I used to be slim and beautiful but now I'm Rubenesque and beautiful. I've never hopped well although I'm great on a bike and striding briskly. So I sorta hopped on and off, huffing and puffing. Hubby hopped like a good 'un, and we videod one another. Brilliant. Hop scotching steampunk style. As you do.

                               

Now, if you want to see the thing being done properly, here you are:

                              

                                  DRIVING OUR NARROWBOAT 

                                                                DOTTEREL OUT 

                                                        OF A LOCK NEAR RUGBY

And yes, I love tillering our narrowboat. I was born next to water, so learned to row as soon as I could utter 'Land ahoy!. We also own a traditional Canadian canoe which lies on our back lawn. 

  

TO PROVE EVEN MORE
MY CUTENESS,
HERE ARE PIG AND MONKEY -
THEY KEEP HUBBY & ME SANE

                                  

So this fun loving, hopscotching cute Gran (so my teenage granddaughters say, and who am I to dispute that?) wrote that gritty, sometimes dark and violent western trilogy? There are humorous sides to the story to add a bit of texture and to tone down the dark side.  

There are two sides of me. The dark side who suffers from depression and the goofy, creative side. The goofy artistic side is dominant, thank goodness, but the dark side, when the mood strikes, comes crashing in. 

Jeannie herself is powerful. Magnetic. Charismatic, funny, scary. Terrifying. The fastest gun. A great fighter. Tremendously dapper in male clothing. Sexy as hell. Tomboy beautiful. OTT. Irresistible. She's bisexual. All things to everyone. I was horrendously embarrassed about her during the years I was developing her, which made things even harder. Toning her down didn't work, so finding just how much people appreciate her has been a huge relief, and sharing illustrations and stories about her no longer terrifies me. 

I wanted to be like her to make up for my largely alone, neglected and unappreciated position within my biological family. Having children made matters harder and my mental health, exacerbated by childbirth and post-natal depression, suffered, along with the drip-drip of biological family pressures and opinions.  

That's why I wanted to be Jeannie. That's why I needed to write her story and 'get her out there'. That's why I have two sides. 😄

Finally, here's Jeannie's storyline:

ALIAS JEANNIE DELANEY - THE STORYLINE       

                 

Dynamic pants-wearing cowgirl Jeannie Morgan is tomboy beautiful and the fastest gun west of the Mississippi - her snake strike speed and aim are legendary. Her extraordinary sexuality is as fluid as a miner's whiskey, and men and women alike enjoy the magnificence of her love making.

Jeannie must navigate the grit and sweat of the wild frontier and face her desires and identity through deadly confrontations as she seeks acceptance in this big, bad world and kill or be killed. She takes on roles deemed only suitable for men, but her powerful persona and lethal gun make her the perfect candidate. Will she find what she seeks - acknowledgement and acceptance? Or will her tomboy beauty, her powerful persona and her lethal gun finally be the death of her?

IF YOU'VE READ & ENJOYED THE STORY SO FAR, I'D BE INCREDIBLY GRATEFUL IF YOU COULD LEAVE A POSITIVE REVIEW ON AMAZON. THANK YOU SO MUCH!

                           

THE (CUTE) AUTHOR

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Alias Jeannie Delaney - 

Book 1 - Go West, Girl!

Book 2 The Outlaw's Return

MY COVER DESIGNER & I COLLABORATED ON THE IMAGES. THEY'RE  BASED ON ARTWORK I'D MADE MANY YEARS AGO! 

MY ORIGINAL DRAWINGS OF     JEANNIE. AS AN ARTIST I'VE   UTILISED CANVA FOR THE JOB

                                    

CHAPTER SAMPLE BOOK 1

BOOK 2

A FRANKENSTEIN MONSTER APPROACH TO MY MENTAL HEALTH!

 A FRANKENSTEIN MONSTER APPROACH!

FLOW NEUROSCIENCE HEADSET

I have to admit that it looks really potty wearing this thing and one feels a lot like Frankenstein's monster in his lab. You clean and clear your forehead and then, using a blue tooth app on your phone which has to remain nearby, you place saline soaked pads against your forehead. Then your phone goes to selfie mode in order to check the placement of the pads. You scream because you look like your mum/dad and that's scary. Hubby has taken to looking at my phone and seeing himself and screaming so I don't have to (I've got used to attaching it in the right place). This home based treatment lasts for half an hour every day for the first three weeks. After that it's every weekend. 

You're warned that it may feel itchy, or even burn a little, but most patients adjust to it pretty quickly. I certainly did. There was a definite slightly burning sensation, then an itch, and on the second night, it itched like bonkers. I couldn't wait for it to finish, then I scratched my forehead like mad, but that hasn't happened again. Now it's a mild fizzy sensation and it's helping my mental help enormously. 

To start at the beginning, where I should have started anyway...

I've suffered depression for well over forty years, on and off, ever since the births of my two kids. I wasn't made for motherhood, and they've survived despite me. I'm a creative artist, writer and adventurous minded bod who's fascinated by the wild west and the paranormal among many other subjects (I'm a renaissance soul in other words - Leonardo Di Vinci is my hero). 

I've self-published the first two novels of my epic western trilogy, Alias Jeannie Delaney - Book 1 - Go West, Girl! & Book 2 - The Outlaw's Return. I wanted to write it - I had to write it - I had no choice. I didn't know it at the time but I was writing about who I wanted to be to prove myself to my emotionally neglectful parents and siblings. But it literally did my head in. I've been on anti-depressants ever since, and most of them really helped.  

Recently, however, in my desperation to 'get Jeannie (my protagonist) out there', wherever 'out there' is, most days in recent times I was pretty tearful. I wanted her 'out there' to show readers that women could be the hero in traditional westerns too, since my fascination for the wild west evolved when I was young, particularly the roles played by the wilder, cheroot chompin', gun totin' gals. 

Going back two years ago I came across the Flow Neuroscience Headset, but at the time we passed it over as possible quackery. This time, however, I saw it again last autumn. It had been backed by the NHS, and the patient recovery rate was 77%. I was impressed and showed it to science-minded husband. This time, although the NHS no longer prescribed it here in Hampshire, but will do so in five years (too long to wait), we decided it was worth a try. It costs £400 but that's nothing if you can afford it and it gives you improved mental health. 

The headset works by sending a gentle electrical charge through the pads into your mood-controlling Hippocampus, which sits at the front of your brain. A gentle stimulation helps to restore healthy brain activity. The headset is backed by over 30 years of research and clinical evidence to show it is safe and effective.

It won't work immediately - these things take time, and it won't work for everybody, but I can honestly say that I feel better and calmer than I've felt for a very long time. Hubby says I don't shout at him so much. I jolly well hope not! So yes, it does work. The great thing about it is that there are no drugs involved, nothing taken internally, nothing injected, no nasty side effects. Just a simple, gentle electrical charge. I would say it's a game-changer for those who suffer depression. Let's hope so. 

ME!

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Kitty Le Roy's Wild West

Jo.B.Creative

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ALIAS JEANNIE DELANEY - 

AN EPIC WESTERN  TRILOGY

Dynamic pants-wearing cowgirl Jeannie Morgan was born in New Orleans and grows up in Wyoming. She's tomboy beautiful and notorious as the fastest gun west of the Mississippi - her snake strike speed and aim are legendary. To make matters even more intriguing her extraordinary sexuality - a shocking revelation - is as fluid as a miner's whiskey. Men and women alike enjoy the magnificence of her love making.

Will her powerful persona, her tomboy beauty and her lethal gun ultimately be the death of her?

IF YOU ENJOYED SHARON STONE STARRING IN THE QUICK & THE DEAD OR ANG LEE'S BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, YOU MIGHT LIKE ALIAS JEANNIE DELANEY BOOKS 1 & 2!  

IF YOU ENJOY MY BOOKS, I'D BE GRATEFUL IF YOU COULD LEAVE A REVIEW ON AMAZON. THANK YOU SO MUCH! 

Alias Jeannie Delaney - 

Book 1 - Go West, Girl!

Book 2 - The Outlaw's Return

MY ORIGINAL DRAWINGS 

              OF JEANNIE

SAMPLE BOOK 1 -
GO WEST, GIRL!

SAMPLES BOOK 2 -
THE OUTLAW'S RETURN