I am winding down the social media for a while because we are leaving the UK to spend some time in our house in Burtonport, Donegal, Ireland. The internet will be available on a very limited basis so I won’t be able to post on here until mid-April. I will be checking my emails but I won’t be posting much, if anything, on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram.
I have mixed feeling about the enforced “break” from social media. On the one hand, I hate the way how it sucks up all your spare time and energy and how FOMO (fear of missing out) has you checking updates. There’s always the fear that if you stop “spinning all the plates” that people will forget about you! However, I am certainly looking forward to reading books, listening to the radio (there’s no TV either) and sketching and painting for fun (not oils but watercolour sketches).
I am very excited/nervous about the whole thing because I am driving there and it’s a long, long way.
Please be aware that any artwork purchased after 25th March will only be shipped after 12th April.
Have a great trip. It will be interesting to hear how you find your enforced digital detox. I also feel that I spend too much time idly surfing and checking and am approaching peak ie switch off irritation with Facebook. Looking forward to see your Irish work. Ceri
Thank you, Ceri. Yes, I like listwening to podcasts as I paint but my smartphone does stop me from reading books and chilling out properly. I suspect I may experience some old fashion “boredom” who knows. I am looking forward to the landscape and having more time to explore it!
Good for you….I envy you a great deal if you have an Irish passport! Welsh grandparents on both sides, unfortunately no Irish. When I am in France this May I will be talking to a lot of my artist friends about ways to move there…..
One of these days I will also call it a day re social media…or cut back radically, which in way I have done already, because as you say it does take a lot of time, but on the other hand much good can come from it….and we do meet many like minded people through it.
Good luck with the move and the drive will be a big adventure:) Janet.
Thanks Janet, no I don’t have an Irish passport, sadly my Irish grandmother was born in Cardiff (her parents were from Cork) but I do have an Irish husband with an Irish passport! Yes, Social Media & online Galleries enable me to make a living, so they are brilliant in that way, but I hate how I get sucked into reading and clicking on stuff that’s nothing to do with Art!
Sounds wonderful, to me, Emma! I think it is extremely important to take time away from social media etc, especially for artists! For me, it’s the biggest creativity boost I know, and I would get away from it all more often and more completely, if I could! Hope you come back recharged and ready to go and get lots of the ‘just for fun’ kind of art done! (I hate driving long distances too, but sometimes you’ve got to do these things!) Enjoy!
….And Janet, YOU’RE also making me a little green with envy about France, I’ve been recently reading a book about the French Impressionists and it’s been making me really want to go there and follow in their footsteps! 🙂
Ah, yes the light in Farnce is wonderful! Thanks, Hilda. It’s a big deal for me driving so far as I usually only drive around Gower which is only 18 miles in length!!!
Mostly I only do local driving here too – BUT, I have just committed to driving from Colchester to Heathrow a couple of times, in a rental car, this summer – GULP!! – Thank goodness I will have a chance to unrust my UK driving skills before I get to do it! Put on some good music and be clear in your head where you are going and it’ll be fine, Emma! Probably really tiring, though as driving a long trip requires a lot of concentration stamina….Just think of the prize of your awesome holiday at the end of it and good luck! 🙂
Thank you, Hilda, for those encouraging words. At least I am driving my familar little Kia. Will you get an automatic hire car – It would be quite a shock to drive a gear stick if you are used to an automatic in the US?
Your trusty little Kia will get you there safe and sound! Quite likely we will get a stick shift for the rental, and that is fine with me! I am actually one of the few people in this country who regularly drives stick AND automatic ( in fact, I am teaching two of our teenagers to drive in the stick shift car, crazy as that sounds!!! ) Yes, most people DO drive automatic, over here, you are perfectly correct to assume that! it’s just me (and my hubby). Our little Ford Fiesta might be the last stick shift that we own, however, as our son is likely to inherit it shortly and it is being replaced with an ELECTRIC car….!!! (Not sure how I feel about THAT?!) Enjoy your vacation, Emma, I hope you will get lots of lovely reference photos, that the weather is GREAT and that you will blog all about it when you get back!
Thank you, Hilda. Thing about electruc cars is that you can’t hear them and I am sure a lot of people will get knocked over by them in car parks because they didn’t hear them coming! I’m impressed that you still drive gear stick in a land of automatics!
That’s an interesting point! Maybe they will have to build something that makes a beeping noise into them to warn people!
Enjoy your time off. Don’t worry about missing out on anything. 🙂
Thank you, Hein. I hope nothing much happens (although Brexit-realted political chaos is kicking off in the UK).
Enjoy. Some wonderful landscape to paint, no doubt
I really hope so – that’s pretty much the whole point of the adventure for me (although the people in Donegal are really lovely).
Have a nice holiday 🙂
Thank you, Cecile. I hope you are well on the way to recovery?
This is a beautiful house! <3 First time I hear of FOMO, guilty of it though, of course. Have a marvellous time! We'll be here when you return.
Thank you, Manja!
Enjoy!!