image | Samantha Humphreys

March 29, 2025

The Calming Power of Circles in Art

Bocking Woods (2025)

Circles feature in much of my art, they are conducive to a sense of calm to me. Seeing such a perfect example with its swooping curve of nature, during an early morning walk filled me with joy. It was a great start to my day.

Over the past couple of weeks, I have been recovering slowly. It was from a monster of a migraine. The headache started during a day of teaching at school. I could do little to prevent it from escalating. The Easter holidays will be a time to reset. I will plan how to regain a little balance. Lately, time has been running away with me. I imagine this is why I still have the remnants of pain in my head. It is also why it is taking me an age to finish writing this post!

Walking is like a tool in my well being toolbox. It serves me well in terms of making sure I’m capable of thinking about my day ahead. It allows me to ponder on recent days. I can plan how I will build balance into each part of this one.

The day begins and ends with celestial circles; and I find that using circles in my practice is soothing. Whether it be a mandala, an emotion wheel, a print, or a zentangle pattern. The presence of a circle on my page is always aesthetically pleasing.

Witnessing such a fine example at the end of a long path through the forest was satisfying. It felt like a perfect metaphor for my difficult couple of weeks. It was a lovely addition to my morning walk. It seemed like a magical entrance to a fabulous day.

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March 4, 2025

The Benefits of Journaling Through Art

This afternoon was the first of two journaling lessons I teach at The Art and Design Studios in Great Waltham. Today’s task was my favourite exercise, drawing a tree. We draw trees we find pleasing and give thought to their similarities and differences to humanity. There are many topics of discussion to focus on that crop up during the session. I have taught this exercise over many years and each time it differs in content, outcomes and it develops. I learn from it myself, always.

I have many versions of drawing a tree. The one above is the first from today. I have another class tonight, so I will do at least one more. The tree is one I pass at least once a day. It often has a gang of dog walkers gathered underneath, chatting and socialising their dogs. Whatever the weather, they throw sticks in the river for games of ‘Fetch’. This is lovely to see. I manoeuvre my way around excitable pups who sometimes jump up to say hello. This prompts many apologies all round for a variety of reasons. Of course, all are totally unnecessary. But hey-that’s what we English do right?

This was very early morning yesterday and it was particularly tranquil. The weather was bitingly cold. I was so comfortable because I dress in many layers. I always prepare for being cold, especially when out early. The sky was as blue as early summer and I felt the endorphins flood through me. I reflected on how grateful I am to live within walking distance of these green spaces. I am grateful that I am healthy enough to enjoy them. I am also grateful that I have the freedom to do so. I can honestly say that I owe my new positive mindset, to once drawing a tree several years ago.

Time to think is important, even if it’s only for a minute every so often. Gift yourself the time.

The Art and Design Studios -Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/_theartanddesignstudio/

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February 25, 2025

An unexpected (but very much appreciated) moment of Joy

Yesterday, while I took a short walk around Great Waltham between my classes, I found a beautiful patch of early crocus on some communal grass area. I looked around in the hope of finding a fallen, broken flower so I could take it back for the evening botanical drawing session, but alas, there was none. Also, it was great that there was none, because there were some that had been mightily flattened by the heavy downpours and still looked very securely attached to their stems and firmly rooted in the ground.

I noticed that the colour palette was very much in line with my own yesterday. I was wearing green and purple which I have also thought was very much a Daphne from Scooby Doo signature, so at least now I can instead associate it with spring colours instead.

What were the chances that I would choose to wear that combination on the same day that I decided to go for a walk between the classes and I would walk that way? That I would do this on the narrow window of time that these flowers bloom? Sometimes all the stars fall into line and bring about these small, really inconsequential happenings that do, for some reason, bring some much needed childlike joy to my brain!

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February 18, 2025

Sunrise, Frost and Frozen Toes

It was beautiful yesterday morning as I headed over the footbridge on the nature reserve, but oh my was it cold!! This was at 07.38, the sun was coming up promising to warm me, but I was chilled to the bone and I stayed that way for most of the day.

This morning I went for an early swim, also a cold activity but walking home, I was so wrapped up in layers and the sun was out so it was a lovely cosy, comfortable walk back.

For the rest of the day I will choose from the long list of little jobs I have put off until we break for half term, inevitably, a fair few will be put off until Easter and summer breaks but I have become a lot more chilled. I am chipping away at that list slowly and not doing my usual thing of starting one job, then mid way through it, starting another so I can finish the first! There then follows an endless cycle of unfinished tasks and a huge mess.

I feel I am being a bit hard on myself actually, (the old me from a few years back would never have said that…progress indeed) because I have already been busy over the weekend with sorting bags and clothes I no longer need-I have re-organised my art room as I have had more supplies delivered for workshops and cleaned in general quite a lot. So in light of that-finishing reading my book might be bumped to the top of that list, after walking my dog.

Bring on the spring, I am ready for it!

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February 11, 2025

Mastering the Art of ‘Being’

I stopped to look at the tree I pass each day, the reason I stopped was that the skies behind it were divided into a a summer blue and a thundery grey. The sun was bright on and off so there was a moment when the complex system of nerve like branches were very defined. There was a yellow glow through the moss green that highlighted the creases in the bark, reminding me of wrinkles that have been caked in make up.

It is important to take care of yourself mentally as well as keeping physically fit. If you are anything like me, your mind is constantly in overdrive with worries, lists, texts messages and endless pulls on your time and attention. Sometimes, switching to aeroplane mode just for a short while will see you (or feel) reaping the benefits later on. This gives you the chance pay attention to what is around you whether that be an urban concrete landscape or land wrapped in fields, forests and streams. Either way, there will be air, sounds and sights of all sorts.

It is quite tricky to get into the habit of noticing what you see throughout your day. A way of training yourself to do this is the simple exercise of asking yourself: What three colours can I see? then, Choose one of those colours and find three shades of it; so using my photograph above a reference:

‘green/brown/blue!’

Then, as i’m unlikely to find three shades of blue and there are plenty of neutral hues around the centre of the image, I will look for three shades of ‘brown’ …if you are familiar with colours of a artist palette you might say:

Burnt umber/Raw Umber and Ochre or if not then simply Dark Brown/Light Brown/Beige

While you are doing this exercise, you will be unaware of anything that isn’t about those colours, even if it takes you less than a few minutes.

Life is too short for just coasting, doing what we think we should do and not saying things we want to say. Let loved ones know they are loved and also, just as importantly, celebrate that you are alive and take care of you!

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February 9, 2025

Documenting Our Path

Remains of the Day (2025) Mixed Media

So this past week has seemed like I have been throwing loads of balls in the air and seeing whether any land on my head! Sometimes they all landed on my head at once .

This past week in Journaling I have been teaching Gelli Printing as a technique for capturing and documenting a moment. There were some fantastic results, there was also some beautiful debris at the end of the lessons. The technique serves as a reminder that often, the things that we do, result in a bi-product that is sometimes more pleasing and satisfying than our original intention.

Journaling is proving to be a minefield of memories, both for myself as well as my students and clients. Because we talk during the lesson and share experiences (not a requirement to participate, we can just listen to our peers), memories conjure up forgotten similar experiences for us all. I know its a cliche, but talking is precious, we talk, we share and we listen-then we document these memories in any way we like because these precious moments are too much of a treasure to risk forgetting.

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January 27, 2025

That London

*Private View* (2025) Samantha Humphreys

Last week I attended the opening evening of London Art Fair, an event which I have only missed once in the last twelve years. As always, the Encounters section curated by Pryle Behrman was the highlight for me. This year, the work that caught my attention surprisingly for me were a series of paintings by Zbyněk Sedlecký from the Czech Republic who was represented by The Chemistry Gallery.

*Torso I* Oil on canvas (2024) 100 x 70cm

As my own creative practices embrace real life, I was drawn to the beautiful way this artist captures genuine moments that are not in any sense beautiful. Instead, he focuses on the less attractive ‘in between’ times of life. The paintings were mesmerising because they were interchangeable between being photorealistic and richly painterly and my mind seemed to switch between the detailed positioning of the body parts, the exactness of the light bouncing off the cutlery and the blurry fuzziness of the edges of the paintings. I just love them, they are wonderfully dramatic, theatrical and unexciting all at once. The collection is reminiscent structurally of the renaissance period with its grand still life compositions that celebrated wealth and status: though in contrast the artist is honouring the mundane, yet with the same traditional medium that you can almost still smell.

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January 20, 2025

Waiting For the Bus

I was waiting for a bus at Braintree bus station into Chelmsford on Saturday and there were a huge number of pigeons around, no reason, there was no litter or dropped food on the ground so I can only surmise that they are sociable little beings and they like to be around us humans.

I have decided that I need to notice more birds, I will make it a focus of my photography during my walks this year. I’m sure I only see pigeons or robins and I used to see so many more. I remember doing a ‘topic’ as it was called in primary school on birds, learning about the thrushes and what their eggs were like, the excitement of finding pale blue speckled eggshells on the ground under trees. I loved drawing the birds so much so I want to re-capture that joy.

So I started with the pigeons.

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January 18, 2025

Peace and Rose Gold Sky

How beautiful is this? I am so lucky that I have this on my doorstep, for now anyway. It wont be long before this walk will be alongside houses and back garden fences and maybe not such a clear view of the lilac rose gold sunrise and hazy late morning views across the fields.

I heard some lovely words the other day during a journaling for wellness class, “Whatever happens, Don’t die before you’re dead, stay alive…” After some googling, it seems as though this is a part quote from Virginia Woolf. Whether it is or not and I couldn’t find a legitimate source, it packs a punch.

Particularly as later in the day I was asked what job I wish I could have done. My answer was, without a doubt, the job i’m doing now, but I wish I had done it sooner. This of course was not taking into account that I took the route I did through life for a reason, I wouldn’t swap what I have for the world. If I had made different career choices in early adulthood I may not have the family I have now so it was only a ‘without taking all things into consideration’ answer. I also may not have been as engaged and switched on to the importance of creativity in fostering a healthy sense of wellbeing when I was younger. It was something I considered a hobby that I was good at.

Now, I like to think that every choice I have made in life has yielded a success, whether that be a small win amongst what may have seemed like a failure or a huge turning point.

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August 14, 2024

Foraging

I love that word, Foraging, it feels wholesome and healthy somehow. I have been a manic forager of late as there is an abundance of blackberries near us. I used to go blackberry picking with my grandma, or ‘Mangar’ as we called her, due to the fact that I couldn’t say the word grandma properly when I was little-so it stuck!

We used to have long walks, along Mersey Rd, along Otterspool Prom and other roads that I didn’t know the name of, we always seemed to walk for miles and there was always blackberries somewhere along the route.

Now the funny thing is, I didn’t like them then, which is what brings me to writing this post. I liked the jam that followed the foraging, I liked the routine that happened in the school holidays, I like the memory of Mangar reminding us often that we mustn’t pick the low down blackberries because the Pooka spoils those ones, she was deeply Roman Catholic, Irish and the belief was that the Pooka was the devils horse. This was a far more exciting way of discouraging us from picking the ones near where dogs may go to the toilet I think.

While on a walk last week, there was a small boy with his family, his cheeks stuffed with the fruit and juice running down his chin, his grown up was telling him that she thinks he has had enough now as he has dinner at home. It was lovely to see.

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