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I am a self-taught artist who loves and appreciates art and photography. Both capture moments of life with great meaning and beauty.
A photo or a piece of art can set off all kinds of emotions. I believe that looking at paintings and images can promote healing too, a form of colour therapy. Anyway, I hope my vision of my time on this planet can give you all some form of joy. |
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Hi everyone, I went to the Lake District a few years back and came upon a gorgeous market town surrounded by majestic mountains and breathtaking scenery. It was a warm day, the sun was shining and I could feel every muscle in my body relax as we had a little wonder through Hope Park. I saw a beautiful scene that was framed by an archway. Of course I took a photo of this incredible view because I knew one day I would paint this image. Well it has taken me a good few months to complete this, but I have succeeded. So here you go folks, I hope you get a chance to visit this attractive town and sample some of its award winning food and browse through shops offering all kinds of handcrafted gifts. There is something for everyone, I thoroughly recommend it. Much love Samira 😊   Last year was difficult for everyone. I wrote a blog talking about what I had experienced in 2020. Well what did I learn from last year? I recognised the fragility of humankind and also its strength, what was important to me and how if we stick together we can accomplish anything. I hope this year we can start our lives from a different perspective, learning from our past and amending our future as a result.
I pray that we come together as one, without judgement, after all we are all we have and if we cannot live together and respect each other’s right to sovereignty over our own lives, allow individuals to have an opinion that we may not agree with then how are we going to move forward as one? Surely an evolved human race would be a patient, calm, understanding and accommodating one, a society that loves and supports one another so that we can be the best version of ourselves. I wish for the best for all of you, I choose abundance in freedom, love, health, success and happiness for everyone. Look after yourselves and one another. Much love Samira 😊 Well folks it’s been a long time since my last blog, what can I say life happens. But hey, what a crazy year it has been for this planet! Covid-19 has stolen 2020 from us. It has been hard for everyone and I can’t help but feel a close connection to everybody because we all have something in common, now. There have been many positives and negatives with this predicament, but I am going to skip the negatives as we hear enough of that on the news. During the lock down, one of the wonderful things I noticed was families spending quality time together because they were forced to slow down and offered the opportunity to live in the present. Some who hardly left their house now discovered the great outdoors through shear boredom and spent a lot of time in nature contemplating their lives. Even the environment had time to heal from human activity as people noticed more animals appearing and less air pollution.  Anyway, as lock down began to ease around August we managed to take a road trip to Scotland, one of my favourite places in the UK. This time we explored more of the west coast. Well what can I say we started our trip with a bang on a zip wire at Laggan outdoor activity centre. The jeep ride that took us to the top of the hill was the cherry on top. Basically, I have never ever experienced such a rough ride in my life. What a blast, but I wouldn’t have missed it for the world despite having acrophobia (just google it 😉). Zipping over fields with my legs wide open and trying hard not to behead the cows below me was a once in a lifetime experience.   We stayed at Glasgow then travelled up north to Inveraray Castle where we encountered one of the most majestic places I have ever visited. A sublime place, so serene, where you can easily lose yourself. Our next destination was Fort William where we had a little light lunch. From there we went across to the Isle of Skye hoping to see some fairies, but no luck. We took the ferry to a beautiful fishing village called Mallaig. We watched the glorious sunset from a restaurant next to the sea. The following day we travelled to the famous Glenfinnan viaduct, or for you and me the famous Harry Potter Bridge.  What can I say, the midges mistook us for food and attacked us so fiercely that we could not stay there for more than a few minutes. Our next destination was Inverness, the capital of the Highlands, a quaint city, but unfortunately Nessy did not want to make an appearance. From there we decided to go to John O’ Groats, just to say we had been there. Finally, we finished our road trip in Edinburgh. This is where I celebrated my birthday in style at Dishoom an Indian restaurant, with my family. A perfect ending to a perfect holiday.
So, all in all this trip made my year. I suppose this year has had its ups too, Covid gave us some respite during its takeover of our lives. On the bright side, I have spent a lot of time outside, in the garden, enjoying the beautiful warm weather playing scrabble so much that I was dreaming up words in my sleep. Take care and stay safe. Much love… Samira 😊  Hi everyone, I have been very busy with a project over the past couple of months. My eldest son is an avid D&D gamer and commissioned me to make scenery for his miniature models. Well my mind went into overdrive. You may recall I made a fairy house a while back which was a big hit with everyone who saw it. I thought why not make a multi-tiered scene. I adore trees especially old ones because, as I have said before, they have witnessed the passing of time and generations. How I wish I could pick their brains and find out what they have learned over their lifetime. Also, I love Lord of the Rings and was inspired by Lothlorien, a beautiful woodland valley where the Elves live in harmony with nature. The thought of living amongst majestic trees with the spiralling staircases and bridges linking the different levels, just got me thinking. I could use wood from my garden. We just trimmed our trees and I had some awesome branches drying out for such an occasion like this. After many sleepless nights thinking about how I was going to do this, I finally came up with a plan. It involved card from empty cat food boxes, clay, paper mache, twigs, leaves, sawdust from my sons wood work projects and last but not least fairy lights, thanks to Christmas. As usual my husband bless him helped me with the foundations, then left me to it. The whole project took just over two months to complete. I have to say I was happy with the end result. I learned a lot from this experience, for instance, do not agree to do anything like this for my eldest son again as I now have a long list of projects to do for him. Moreover, under no circumstances use tacky spray glue to secure artificial grass, made from sawdust, as it will never dry. Also, a glue gun deserves more respect otherwise you end up burning a hole in your hand. Lessons learned time to move on…. Ok folks enough of my rattling on, here are the stages of development. I have to say the pictures do not do it justice, but, oh well I presented it to him for his birthday present. He was overwhelmed with happiness. His face was priceless when I switched the lights on…. Will they ever grow up? Much love Samira 😊 |