Welcome Home

I am crazy about my cats. This week I was beside myself when my Lucy disappeared for a couple of days. If it had been one of my other cats, Bro or Xana, I would not have been so upset. You see Lucy is a real home body, you literally have to throw her outside, she loves to sit in the window and gaze out at the world. What made it worse was the fact that it was the first anniversary of her sister Jandal's death. Jandal disappeared for a week and when I found her she so was so ill, I had to make the terrible decision to put her to sleep.

So you can imagine it, I was thinking “here we go again!” I was paralyzed. I prayed and had to force myself sit at the computer on Tuesday and do some work. When I had finished typing my blog post, I heard the most welcome sound ever, her plaintive meow demanding food! Joy of joys, she was healthy as, and slightly confused at my emotion, but, being a cat, she lapped it up! Thank you God. So to give thanks, I painted this acrylic of her at my window. Welcome home Lucy. (I wonder if she was having her own celebration of Jandal's life, she pined for ages when Jandal died.)

To Jandal who didn't make it home safely. She was called Jandal as on one foot she had a black toe on white feet. Looked like she was wearing Jandals, (other countries call them Thongs, I think). Here she is with her mother Xana (right) and her sister Lucy (left).

Linking with Artists in Blogland - Show and Tell Saturday

Resolute

Yay, I have actually finished an abandoned oil painting this week. True to my goal of being focused this year, I fished out this painting and completed it. Sometimes, time does give you the answer! I really loved the shadowy figures but the girl I had originally was wrong, she had too much detail and she didn't fit the canvas. (The canvas is 12 x 24 an unusual dimension, I had brought it originally because I wanted to do a frieze.)

I used white paint and painted her out. Then this girl found herself on the canvas. I think the contrast of the sketchy girl with the background create a tension that works. I have painted this girl several times over the years. Her name is Julie and she is a strong determined person. Going her way despite what others say. I would love to have some of that myself, I am too self concious sometimes, I worry about what others think, and sometimes miss out on opportunities. So I am going to take a leaf out of Julie's book.

This week I have also worked out a plan for me to stay focused. I've joined the Creative Every Day Challenge, as I realised I need the “kick in the butt” approach. I am a procrastinator by nature, and work best when I have deadlines. At the same time I have a contrary streak. So I have decided to work with these traits. I know I am incapable to sticking to a work timetable, I need to go where the muse takes me. During a day I might write, paint, draw illustrate whatever, so having set days for these activities would not work. So, I decided to try and have set days for posting on the different activities. This is what I have planned!

Monday – illustration and writing this month I am going with the theme from CED – dark. A story about my cat Bro.

Tuesday/Wednesdays – Journal work

Thursday – Word Art

Friday – Painting

Saturday – Anything goes

Sunday – From my sketchbook

Wish me luck on this, as I said I can be quite contrary.

Have a great Paint Party Friday everyone and blessings to you all.

Linking with

Paint Party Friday

Creative Every Day

Word Art Wednesday

Hi, its Sharon from Stand on Faith here. As part of my plan to focus this year, I am going to produce scriptural word art on my art blog, Art Inspires, every Thursday (Wednesday to most of you). It will be linked to WordArt Wednesday, where a scriptural prompt is provided and you design art, a card or something creative around that theme. I will continue to enter an entry from my devotional blog – Stand on Faith, which will focus on the scripture provided, later in the week. Here, I will choose scripture that is closely related. I have been asked by an Australian card company to send them work that will be suitable for devotional cards of encouragement. This is the first design for my portfolio.

This weeks prompt is Psalm 51:10. Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. Which means that as we live in a broken world our hearts can be easily corrupted, and so we must ask God to continually cleanse our hearts to be at one with him. We might fool people around us that our hearts are right, but God knows our hearts, we can not hide from him. I find that the scripture I chose today Samuel 16:7 encouraging, as it reminds me that God judges us by our faith and character, not our outward appearance. While everyone can see your face, only you and God know what your heart really looks like.

The artwork – The photo is of my hoya that is blooming at the moment. It is an fascinating plant with a heady perfume, but a nasty habit of dripping nectar all over the floor. The background started out by being a photo of some corrugated iron that I changed in Photoshop. I then put it all together in Photoshop and then added noise to marry the components.

Thanks for visiting and blessings for the coming week.

Creative Every Day

My word for 2013 is Focus, and one of the things I want to focus on is journaling, I only discovered it last year and I am hooked. Perhaps because I can combine art with my love for words. This is my first journal page for 2013. I realised these holidays that I love my home, it is my bolt hole or sanctuary. This is quite a revelation for me as I have been a bit of a wanderer. I wonder whether it has something to do with the fact that I like where I am at the moment and I have many blessings to be thankful for. Anyways, I felt inspired to do this watercolour. The lettering was done in acrylic.

As part of my efforts to focus I am going to take part in the Creative Everyday Challenge and this is my first post for it.  Here's looking forward to meeting all the folk taking part.

Also linking with Art Journal Everyday 

Focus

At The Artist's Play Room, Jen has asked us what our resolutions for 2013 are. I rather choose a word than a resolution, because I am a contrary girl by nature. I know I will break a resolution, probably within a few hours!

My word for 2013 is Focus. One of the things I am going to focus on this year is art journaling everyday. I discovered art journaling a short time ago and I am hooked. While I may not do a journal page everyday I am setting myself a goal of completing one every week.

As part of my plan I have to get into my chest and rediscover all the papers materials etc that I have stored away. At present it has a very heavy TV sitting on top, which I can't move by myself. So my first job is to buy a TV cabinet for my TV which will enable me to delve into my storehouse of treasures. The sales are on so here I come. I have not been able to get into my chest for at least two years, perhaps more, I know I have gorgeous handmade papers, materials, art stuff from my polytechnic days, and so on. I cant wait to get into it, it will be like all my birthdays have come at once!

The other thing I want to really focus is doing more sketching, I love drawing but have been a bit lazy recently – think I will make up individual sketchbooks out of some of that paper hidden away.

Another area where I have to focus is on finishing paintings. I have heaps of unfinished works. I have a terrible habit of when things get difficult or wrong putting the painting aside with the intention of thinking about it, and I never get back to it! The picture above is a case in point. The foreground was bothering me. I had an idea yesterday of photographing it and playing around in Photoshop to see what I could do to fix it up. The answer was simple. I had sharpened it in filters and hey presto it was okay. So I need to create some texture (It was flat). This is the computer version, I haven't got around to working on the painting yet, that is my task for today. As the painting has the lock from my chest that is under the TV, it seemed to be just the thing for my word this year. So I added the letters in Photoshop. Now I am off to the shops to buy a TV cabinet.

Check out some of the other resolutions by amazing artists at the Artist'sPlay Room at Just Add Water Silly.

A New Start - PPF an FFF

PPF – birds

Well my holiday is over and so now I am refreshed and geared up to make 2013 a wonderful year for creative endeavours!

I think my word for this year is FOCUS. I feel the need to focus, as looking over my blog I can see clearly that I am all over the place – many styles, media and unfinished works. I don't want to loose that freedom of styles, but I want to have work that feels like me. At the end of last year I got excited about some paintings I did of flowers that were photographic, and while I felt very clever, there was a part of me that nagged 'that is not you.' So I decided that style can go into my illustration bucket. (Maybe design a set of cards or a calendar?) I need/want to have a more painterly feel to my work. Besides the FFF challenge (see below) I have only done one small painting (6in x 6in) over the last three weeks.

Over the holidays I was reunited with my brother (there was an estrangement for many years). Besides the family photos he has been flooding me with, there have been many photos of birds. He lives in Canberra Australia and has many exotic birds visiting his veranda. It took me back to when we were 13 and 14 when one holiday at our Grands, we went to the Museum in Wellington everyday and he took notes on the stuffed birds on display while I drew them and we made a big book on native NZ birds. So this painting is for you Bro, while it is not as colourful as the birds that visit you, it does me. Birds in Aussie are beautiful, but larger than life. On one visit to my other brother in Perth, I got attacked by a pair of giant magpies when I was going to the local deli. I have never been so terrified, so now I only like sweet little birds.

Fall, Fearless and Fly

The prompt for Challenge 7 is:

Fall Fearless and Fly with Joanne Sharpe! (Check her out at FFF)

Headline Prompt:  Future Imperfect: What is different about your life now than what you once expected it to be?  How is the way it turned out perfect or imperfect.  If your future turns out differently than you imagined in the first prompt, could it still be perfect?
Color Prompt: Yellow
Quote Prompt: "Existence really is an imperfect tense that never becomes a present."  Friedrich Nietsche

With the two works I have done I am using all three prompts.

The first is where I am at the moment. I am at peace with my world, even though it is not “perfect”. I did not think my future would be what it is. If you had asked me in my twenties how would I like the life I am leading now I would have shuddered! But life changes you and you learn to go with the flow and see the good things it gives you.

I really believe that life has two sides to everything. Evil and Good, joy and sadness, good health and illness, and so on. We need both equally, because if we didn't life would be boring. How would we know what is good if we didn't have sin? How would we know joy if we didn't have sadness? The imperfections of life give us our depth of character. I know that when something bad happens, there is going to be a silver lining. We may not see it at the time but it is there. So I embrace the imperfections of my life, they make my life perfect.

In the second picture I tried to portray the times when the glitzes in life hit. They bring colour to our lives.

Linking with

Paint Party Friday

FallFearless and Fly

From My Sketch Book

It seems ages since I posted at Sunday Sketches. I have been busy getting my website ready for uploading, which I hope to do in the first couple of weeks of January. Also I have downloaded the software from Blurb and started on my children's book Mystery in Arcadia. I've got the hang of it now, but realise that I need to do more illustrations. Seeing the layout before you, gives you a better idea of what is needed.

Anyways, I decided to show you all a few pages from my sketch books. I have one for flowers from my garden, and another one for my walks in the local countryside.

From my garden is a foxglove (watercolour), I did this a couple of weeks ago. I am glad I did it then, as the weather is so hot this last week that all the flowers are fading. The grass is already brown usually that doesn't happen till mid January.

From the other sketchbook are sketches of mice at the local reserve. If you sit really quiet in the long grass in the late afternoon they come and play. I am drawing mice as I have an idea for a picture book about a gang of mice.

Also I get plenty of opportunity to study them as two of my cats, Bro and Lucy often present them to me as gifts!

Blessings to everyone, and have a great holiday season.

Paint Party Friday

This week I have been getting to grips with acrylics, one of the goals I had set for this year. I want to change from oils to acrylics as I have problems with oil paints (allergies), my hands swell up and I get a rash on my knuckles – not pleasant. I know I should wear gloves but I like to get my hands in amongst the paint!

A perfect opportunity came up when a friend asked for a painting of some of the flowers in her garden. As I want to give the painting as a gift for Christmas, it had to be acrylics, so I bit the bullet, and in more ways than one, she likes the classical style of painting, 'none of this modern stuff please!' A hard ask for me, but as she is a lovely lady and has been so kind to me, I wanted to give her something she would love.

I have to say I really enjoyed myself, do you know the feeling when you are painting and you can't believe it is going so well, it is almost like someone is guiding your hand. Then when you have finished it you look at it and think did I do that?

And today I went to a second hand store and found a perfect frame the right size and all. I just need to rub some gilding on the frame and give it a wax and it is ready to go. Maybe I have found a new path?

Have a Happy PPF everybody, and may your build up to Christmas be smooth and joyful.

Linking to Paint Party Friday

PPF and FFF - Calm in the Storm

The challenge 5 for Fall, Fearless and Fly. The prompts were:

Headline Prompt:  Lifelong Fan:  What or who have you consistently valued or looked up to in your life?  What lessons have you learned from people you admire?
Color Prompt:  Your favorite color now or from childhood or both!
Quote Prompt: "Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator; but among those whom I love, I can:  all of them make me laugh."  W.H.Auden

Today, I am using the first two prompts. The colours in this piece are purple, a colour I have like all my life and red which is a new found favourite (since the second prompt when we were asked to use a colour we least liked)

 I struggled with this as I do not have a person that I have admired throughout my life, I have admired people for periods of time and something then comes up to show me, they are a mess just like me. I don't stop liking them, but, they are no longer on that pedestal that I had placed them. So it shows something about me, rather than them. I am now very careful not to do that anymore! So I started thinking about qualities of the people I admire, Humour was high up there. But humour can sometimes be very cruel.

Time was ticking by and I had almost decided not to do this prompt, when a very busy and chaotic few days, made me recall, a particular friend I had at Polytechnic. She was always calm even in the midst of crazy student life. Pamela was from Taiwan and her English was not 100 per cent and people put her quietness down to that. I was not so sure, so I asked her one day, “How come she was so relaxed and calm amongst us lot?” He reply was the quote by Buddha in the picture above. She said she was Buddhist and mediation helped to center her. Yes, I have always admired people who keep their cool in a crisis. It is something I aspire to. I can appear to calm on the surface, but there is a nasty storm inside! So I want to learn to be like the quote below, calm inside when there is a storm on the outside. (Blues and turquoise are close seconds in the favourite colours list.)

This week has been stormy for me, I would like to think that I kept my calm throughout. So thanks Pamela, even though we have different faiths, both will help us cope with the slings and arrows of life.

The first piece is acyclic (text added in Photoshop) and the second is an oil painting done earlier in the year with text and embellishments added in Photoshop.

Have a happy PPF day everyone.

Linking to

Paint Party Friday

Fall,fearless and Fly

Stretch

Bull, the Frog that talked.

Thank you Sunday Sketchers for all the advice last week. I have made some decisions about publishing. Lynn Cohen has inspired me and I am going to self publish 'Mystery in Arcadia' (last weeks pictures with Blurb and with two others I am going to try the conventional publishers first, and have decided that the sample from 'The Perfect Pet' will suit a publisher in Australia and My fairy story a publisher in USA. So now I have to pull my finger out!

Today's sample is from 'The Perfect Pet' as this picture also fits the prompt – Stretch - for Illustration Friday. The story is a Chapter Book for 6 to 8 year olds

Katie waited impatiently till it was nearly dark, and Liam was having his bath, so that he would not be able to mess things up. She went out into the back garden and crept along the grass to the edge of the pond. There was the old frog calling out to his friends. Katie held her breath, reached out, and made a grab for the frog, but he jumped away.

“Drat!” The frog started to call out to his friends again.

“I will get him this time,” Katie thought as she slithered on her stomach along the edge of the pond, as close to the frog as she could get.

Splash!

Katie fell into the pond. As she crawled out, Katie was sure that the frog and his friends were laughing.

Have a wonderful week creating everybody.

Linking with SundaySketches

and IllustrationFriday