Sunday Sketches and cards

This week has been about watercolour and digital work. The above trio of pears is in watercolour, quite detailed for me. I love painting fruit especially pears and apples.

I also love painting flowers in watercolour and decided to get a start on my Xmas cards. I noticed when I was looking at PPF posts quite a number are on the same track.  This work is of poinsettias, a popular Xmas flower in NZ. I noticed they are starting to appear in the shops already!

I always send my cat lover friends a photo of my cat “Bro” at Xmas, here is this year's effort. After I draped the holly around his neck he posed then attacked it with vigour and bits of metal leaves are now scattered all over the house.

 

I have been working on a series of cards of Bro done on Freehand and Photoshop for a while and decided to test the waters by sending some friends this one if him in his Xmas dress.

That's it for this week, have a great time creating wonderful art and hope to see you next week.

Linking to Sunday Sketches

A Girly Moment

Before I start I will apologize to all blonds as this week I had a blond episode.

I haven't done much in the way of art over the last fortnight. I woke up one morning and looked at my house and garden and thought, 'wow, the place is filthy!' Cobwebs were starting to engulf me, and as for the garden, people cant get to my front door because of triffid like geraniums and creeping carpet roses that attack passerby legs. (I use the back door where a daisy bush showers me with petals as I pass.) So I set to and started the mammoth task of tidying up. Its spring right, there must be something inside of us that makes us notice the filth when spring arrives. I got everything sorted inside and then started on the outside. I was living in a jungle. But I licked it. Now I have a heap of stuff ready for composting and burning.

Feeling pleased with myself, I rubbed my hands and thought back to my art with a clear conscience. Ha! I got girly all of a sudden, and wanted to pretty everything up! I went to the market and bought lots of flowers for the garden and pretty china for the house. I also bought new bed linen and throws for the lounge, I am ashamed to say that there was a lot of pink!

That is not all, I went to the hardware store and brought a mini greenhouse so I could grow pretty delicate flowers. You had to assemble it. So spurning offers from my friend's husband to help, I started. Three hours later I was tearing my hair out, it was like those skits you see of people trying to put tents up. I went inside and sulked.

I idly picked up the packaging and a sheet of paper fell out – the instructions. I made a longed for cup of tea and read them. It looked so simple, so had another cuppa and heaved a great sigh and went out again with the instructions firmly in my hand. Well! I had it up in no time. The moral of the story don't be a blond, read the instructions! (Although, I got to say I know a lot of men who also don't read instructions and then get into a fit of temper when it doesn't work, so once again apologies to blonds)

Needless to say I am now back at my computer desk and paint table playing with glee and a clear conscience.

Oh and I have asked my friends to give me a severe slap if I start to wear flowery dresses and skirts etc - especially pink!

Linking to Paint Party Friday

PS. Was Telling my sister about my antics with the Greenhouse and she kindly reminded me that I was a blond up to the age of 8!

Sunrise

The prompt for The Artists Play Room at Just Add Water Silly this week is sunsets. I love Sunrises and Sunsets, the colours thrill me, they are constantly changing. Sometimes I see a sunset and by the time I've got my camera it has changed. Strangely enough I have never up till now painted one. I love sunsets done by other artists and still remember the thrill of seeing the gigantic paintings of Turner at the National Gallery in London when I was in my early twenties on my OE. I would go and sit in front of one during my lunch break for up to half an hour, just marveling.

This painting I did in acrylics and is of a lake near my home. It is actually a sunrise that I saw some months back. It was very unusual as there was mist as well, and it created a lovely silent glow on the landscape. I often go to this lake to mediate and commune with nature and God. That morning I felt very close to God and can picture it still as if it was yesterday. So thank you APR for giving me the push to paint my first sunrise.

FFF - Challenge 3

The three prompts for this FFF challenge are:

Headline prompt – Triumphs and defeats, what do you see as your greatest triumphs or defeats? What have they taught you? Which you have learned more from?

Colour – black and white

Quote – Not in the clamour of the crowded street, not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng, but in ourselves are triumph and defeat. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I have really struggled with the colour prompt. Piece of cake I thought, I do b/w illustrations for kids books, no worries! Ha!

In a sense this exercise was a defeat for me. However as the quote says defeat and triumph are in ourselves. I gave up on the above picture and moved to a different piece this time digital. I didn't like that much either, so gave up on the whole process. 6 Days later I look at them again and think well they are not too bad!The defeat was in my head.

The triumph is not the finished work, but what I learned. I learned, that sometimes you have to walk away from a piece when dissatisfaction sets in. I am a colour freak. Last challenge I said red was the colour I wasn't happy working with. I enjoyed doing that red journal page! These were darn difficult! So now I like red, and am really out of my comfort zone with b and w. The triumph was that I persisted, sometimes you have to make that jump and fly into the unknown

Linking to Fall, Fearless and Fly at Artists in Blogland

A Dream

For a number of years I have had a dream of illustrating my own children's story. I have two versions of the story – picture book for under 5 year old; and a chapter book version for under 8 year old. Finally, I am getting to the point where I need to pluck up courage and send the manuscript and sample pictures to publishers. Really scary to say the least. Anyway, I want to share with you some of the pictures. So, no matter what happens they have seen the light of day!

Melody is different from the other fairies where she lives as she does not belong to a flower family. So she decides to find her family On her quest she makes new friends who help her find out where she comes from. Gavin the grass snake leaves with her.

First port of call Straggly Witch, who tells her that Jeremy the Wizard knows. Straggly Witch's owl decides to go with Melody and Gavin.

 

Jeremy lives in a tree, can't do spells and gives her a map to the Singing Valley where she comes from. His winged cat Harvey decides to come as he is bored.

They met Amber the tiny red dragon, who flies them over the Red Mountains, and at the giant mushroom forest they meet Woggle the giant worm.

Finally they get to Melody's home and there she meets her mother a Melody Dragon. (I need to redo this picture as I am not happy with the wings)

That is the story briefly. I still have quite a few pictures to do, I am working on the one with Amber flying over the mountains with the others on her back, it is quite a complicated and difficult picture perspective wise. I will post it when it is done!

Here is the scripture I am taking with me into the coming week.

Have a happy Sunday Sketches and a creative week

Summer and Dreams

This week I started to work on my 'Angels in the Garden' oil painting and got stuck. I have a problem. When I am painting half of me wants to be bold and abstract and the other half wants to be detailed and lifelike. You might say why not do some paintings abstract and some detailed and lifelike. That is what I have done in the past. But with 'Angels in the Garden' I want to have cake and eat it too! But how to do that? That is where I was stuck. So I decided to work on another oil painting as I was all set up and ready to go

.

I have been working on this painting, 'Summer' for quite a while, it was mostly blues and yellows. When I pulled it out, “Magenta!” I thought. So in a flurry of 2 delightful hours, voila, it is finished. Yea! It is a memory painting of the summer of 1979. South of France, being in love, sunburn, sea, sand, boats and giant ice creams in cafes!

 Wonder of wonders, I was on a roll, I started a journal page and while doing it I realised I had the answer to my problem with 'Angels in the Garden'. If you know my journal pages you might guess. I do faces etc with abstract textured background, “just do that in your painting, silly!” I said to myself. Yeah, now I got to figure how to do that in oil as my journal pages are in acrylic etc. So guess what, I am going to have lots of fun next week.

Here is a thought:

'Do not fear to open

the doors that lie between

what is known

and what is unknown.'

Quite thought provoking, I will have to ponder that. Might turn into a journal page.

Happy Paint Party Friday everyone and happy dreams!

Linking to Paint Party Friday

What a Girl wants....

The prompt for Artists Play Room this week is 'The love of Pairs'. 

 

Lurking in my wardrobe, a pair of red heels

with a pretty bling bow.

Now I am not a girly girl.

My feet are wide and sensible.

I am sure I could not totter across the room

wearing these beauties.

But in my heart lurks a desire

to walk elegantly into a room

and twirl while people gasp and murmur,

what elegance, what beauty.

So from time to time

the lovely red high heels

sit in pride of place on my dresser

and I dream.

Have fun creating this week all you lovely artists and dreamers!

Linking to The Artists Play Room  at Just Add Water Silly

Grab a Star

I have been a bit slow of the mark this week. I did this journal page for the challenge at Artist's Playroom and then forgot to post and link to it before the linky closed. So I am posting it for at Art Journal Everyday and Sunday Sketches. The prompt was 'celestial and stargazing'. I decided to scan the work in stages so you can see how it evolved.

First of all I started with this drawing.

Then I got my acrylics and painted.

 Next I used a variety of methods to make marks, one of my favourite methods at the moment is get cotton and glue it to the paper and then run a roller over it. Also I am in love with my white gel pen , which I like to use for writing. I brush some very diluted watercolour over the writing and it changes the tint. So here's the finished piece. I got to say hat I actually like the unadorned piece as much as the finished one. Maybe the final piece is too busy?

It has been said that for every person born there is a star! That star holds all our dreams. Shows us what we can be. We can stand out and be special. If we gaze up into the heavens we just might see our special star twinkling at us, saying reach out, grab hold of me. We all can be stars!

Have a wonderful creative week every body.

Linking to Art Journal Every Day
Sunday Sketches

Fall, fearless and fly and WIP

FFF Challenge

 

The second challenge for FFF at Artists in Blogland is 'Taking a chance'. There are three prompts ; When did you take a chance or a leap of faith. Use a colour you like the least, (for me that is red) and the Quote you see in the picture above.

Red spells danger,

which creates fear.

Fear that I might fail!

Sometimes taking that step

into the unknown

involves a leap of faith.

In my art, fear comes upon me every time I start a painting, staring at that white blank canvas or paper creates a block. I have to consciously make a mark or two before I feel okay lets go! Who cares if it is a wild stab in the dark, its a creation!

Everyday we make a leap of faith, a belief that all will be good, a belief that we will succeed in our endeavours, a belief there is a purpose. If we don't have that belief we are stuck in the same place, spinning around in circles. So even if you know something might be a wild goose chase, go for it! Sometimes, its fun to fall of the spinning wheel. Did you know that wild geese fly in formation and take turns at leading, they are helping each other on the journey. So if we fall, there is likely another wild goose to help you on your journey!

WIP

This week I managed to spend two afternoons working on my large oil, 'Angels in the garden'. I have softened the greens and worked on building up the faces.

By the way thanks for all the kind comments last week, one good bit of news the police turned up with my lawnmower which I was very pleased about as it was only 5 weeks old.  And I am starting to love my new computer! 

Linking to Paint Party Friday and Fall, Fearless and Fly

Calm

I needed calm this week!

Tuesday – My Computer crashed, it wouldn’t even switch on.  Wednesday – washing machine wouldn’t start! The computer techies said I needed a new computer do you realize that it is 7 years old!  Well I was going to update next year what the heck!  Thursday – Buy new computer ( I was getting very twitchy without one) which cleared my savings, so will have to wash clothes by hand, we don’t have Laundromats in my town!  You would think that was the end of it wouldn’t you?  Oh no, Friday my shed was broken into during the night – lawnmower, petrol can, tools gone!  And to top it all my lovely new computer doesn’t like my ‘old’ software and I have to update!  Oh well, I will download some trial versions which will give me a month to find some lolly to upgrade.

You will be very proud of me, I stayed calm and collected throughout.  My big Boy akka Bro smooched and lolled around. That I had to draw him!  Isn’t he cute!  Here he is in a tree.

 



Every morning I took myself to a local reserve to commune with nature and God. I had to draw the ducks, I love ducks!  On Thursday I managed to paint this watercolour, I found it very therapeutic! That’s sums up my creative efforts this week. Onwards and forward, it can only get better.

 Oh, my new computer doesn’t like my printer, but the strange thing is it likes the scanner, er it is a multifunction, so??????  So I can scan but not print.  Think I have to download some drivers or something grrrr.  At least it likes my camera, and I doing my editing on some of the software that came with it albeit limited.

Here is a bit of fun using a freeware programme called Funny Photo Maker.

 

Have a Happy PPF and a wonderful week of creating.

 

Linking to

Paint Party Friday

Sunday Sketches