A New Beginning

I have had to face up to some facts this week.  My shoulder has got so bad that I am unable to lift my arm much, and painting large canvases is not helping, in fact causing much of the discomfort.  So I am going to do what the physio suggests and lay off painting large.  I may get back to it, I don’t know, we will see.

So this week I have been doing small watercolours and journal pages.  With small scale I can rest my arm on the desk, so all’s good.  I got brave yesterday and decided to redo my picture of Caro on A3 card with a layer gesso.  It worked! No pain as I was able to do it flat on the table, got a bit covered in paint, but loved that.  I used acrylics, gouache and watercolours.  I added the text in Photoshop as the top corner looked empty, will think about it before adding it to original.

I was on a roll, and decided to do a portrait of my sister’s granddaughter Kendal for her birthday.  It was about A4 size on rough watercolour paper.  I did the background first and then drew Kendal and then painted over the drawing with gesso, and then used watercolour to paint her in, the pencil lines of the drawing showed through a little bit, so I found it helpful when it came to painting her.  I know it is not proper water colour techniques, but what the heck, it works!

I am not sure that it is finished yet, so will brood on it for a couple of days before posting it to my sister.

As I am talking about family the other thing I am working on is an art piece for my brother’s wedding anniversary latter this year.  It is digital and I have used photos that he has sent me since he has come back into the family fold.  Although I did use an image from freubels-freebies, you can see it in the background slightly.  The lady on the bike is a reference to the fact that Dave and Liz were bikies and spent their honey moon on Harleys touring Aussie.  This is extra special to me as Liz had breast cancer and it has just returned, so sad.  I want to add text but need to find a quote that suits.

So overall a successful week, a new beginning doing smaller works, sometimes we have to let go.

Just a reminder to anyone who journals about their faith, I have a new weekly linkup - Journal inFaith - on my Stand on Faith blog.  You are welcome to take part.

Have a happy Paint Party Friday 

Linked to Paint Party Friday

Fruit Salad!

Fruit seems to be dominating my work a bit lately!  My start off point for Mandarin Orange Monday entries are some photos of fruit growing in my garden - passion fruit, grapes and figs.

figs

grapes

passion fruit

First of all I played around with the passion fruit my favourite fruit of all time

 

Then I played around with the fig picture and got this

Then I merged it with the passion fruit and played a bit.

Then I played with the grape picture.

Then I added that to the passion fruit and fig picture and got these.

A lovely fruit salad wouldn’t you say?

Happy Mandarin Orange Monday every one.

also linking with 

Creative Every Day