Easing My Way Back and a giveaway!

My mojo has gingerly crept back and is lurking shyly in the wings summoning up the courage to make a full appearance!  I have been absent a while (check out this post on my other blog) but I am taking baby steps back as time and other commitments allow.  I do however just want to share with you that Tam, over at Willowing is hosting the most amazing giveaway to celebrate having 5000 members now!  Way to go Tam!  Go check her out by clicking the link here or in my sidebar.

So as I said over on my other post, I have plans, things I want to try when time allows so in the words of Arnie "I'll be back"

I got an Award!

Thank you to Maddyrose of Santa and the Mrs. for sending me this award, what a lovely surprise and indeed a much needed push to get back into the blogging post ritual which has been, for me, a little lacking lately!  I am truly hopeful that I will get my studio finished and tidied today so that I might feel more inclined to create, in turn this will give me something to blog about!  Now to the rules of the award which state:

• tell everyone 7 things about yourself and then pass this award along to 15 other bloggie friends that you find to be very versatile in their blogging life.

So here goes....

1. I adore Springer Spaniels and would dearly love to have another one, one day
2. I have one leg slightly longer than the other (you're so much better for knowing that one)
3. I SO want to see a bear in my back yard!
4. I would love to follow in Grey Owl's footsteps and live so close to nature
5. I am considering taking a job way up north, in a diamond mine just so I can have 'worked in the Arctic Circle' on my CV (and possibly to see polar bear)
6. I love to sing (and can't understand why people cover their ears)
7. I hate to see people hurting, especially if they are family or friends, and I don't like bullies or unkind people AT ALL!

  Now here are my 15 most inspiring, versatile bloggers:

1. Illusio.net  Lorrie Whittington
2. One little House  Jeanette House
3. Kelly Berkey Designs  Kelly
4. Artangel   Angie Hogan
5. Artsy Butterfly   Cathy Bueti
6. A Life Unrehearsed  Bonita Rose
7. Homemaker In Heels  Chrysta
8. Liz Marie - Everything Lovely  Liz
9. Dream, Inspire, Create  Louise Gale
10. The Polka Dot Closet  Carol
11. The Wright Stuff  Lisa
12. A Woman's Haven  Chas
13. Alisa Burke  Alisa
14. Always Expect Miracles  Kassie Wright
15. Bugigangas  Jenna

Who's A Bad Blogger Then?

Me!  I was gently reminded by a certain friend on my Facebook wall that I had not posted since April and they wanted to know if life had stopped!  Has it been that long?  Yes it has hasn't it, but to be honest I think I just sort of burned out!  I seemed to work full steam on a craft fair that flopped, then promised myself some time to make pretties for myself and somehow I just meandered through the days, achieving very little!  I really didn't have anything arty to blog about, cos I was being so unproductive so that was this one and I generally didn't have much to say for myself at all so Life's Simple Pleasures went a bit quiet too!  Anyhow I have a stall on July 2nd at the Marathon Open Market!  This time I have quite a lot of stock so I don't have to bust a gut to fill my table!  I also have quite a few little idea buzzing around in this head of mine.... which I will share with you.... soon!

Book Sculpture Tutorial

To make this book sculpture you will need:

Tacky Glue

1 Hardback book around 400 pages

Scissors

Firstly I opened the book in the center letting the pages fall open.  I then carefully removed the pages from the center that tended not to lie flat.

To make the center of the roses take one page and fold in half length ways, cut a thin strip along the fold (keep this strip for later).  Repeat this process giving you four strips of equal width. 

Take 1 strip and start to roll quite tightly, glue the end and then start to roll another strip, gluing when you come to the end.  Repeat this with all four strips.  You can vary the size of the flowers if you wish by adding more strips.

Now take another page and fold in half, turn and fold again, turn and fold again.  Cut out a petal shape, giving you 8 petals.  Take each petal in turn and put a little tacky glue along the bottom edge.  One by one wrap each petal around the center 'coil', slightly overlapping each petal as you go.  Gently bend the outer top edge of the petals around the outside of the rose.  Make as many of these as you like.

Next fold a page as before and cut out a leaf shape.  I used pinking shears to trim the outer edge of the tips of the leaves.  Make a snip in the base of the leaf, overlap slightly and glue.  Bend the tip of the leaf over.  Again make as many as you like.

Take the thin folded strips which you saved earlier.  Take two or three and fold in half, twist the folded end together to give a 'stem' of around 1 cm long.  Also take a few strips of paper and run across the edge of the scissors to make a curl (like you do with gift wrap ribbon).

Now take the open book and run the scissor handles along the center to flatten any little bits of page stubs.  Using tacky glue arrange and stick flowers, leaves and other bits down the center.  You can extend more flowers across the top of the pages so make a bouquet effect if you wish.  Et Voila!

And The Winner Is...

Natasha!  Thank you to everyone who entered my first blog giveaway!  Apologies for the lateness in posting... were you all in suspense?  My lovely neighbor was out this morning so I waited for Lovely Man to come home for lunch, he was quite excited when I first handed him the pot (he thought it was something nice to eat).  Congratulations Natasha hope you love it!

I quite enjoyed doing this ha ha!  I think I will do another soon... let me see.... when I reach the grand total of 100 followers on New Challenges!

Art From The Heart

Hop on over to this lovely blog, Art From The Heart, for a wonderful giveaway!  And don't forget to scroll down to my previous post and enter for my giveaway before Wednesday!  Good Luck!

My First Blog Giveaway

As you all know I recently had both my blogs revamped with the help of my lovely friend, Jeanette and today my shipment from Zazzle.ca arrived, postcards in each of the designs I have done so far.  I have been fortunate to win a lovely giveaway, courtesy of Cathy just before Christmas and I have taken part in my first Swap Challenge with Louise earlier this year.  For ages now I have wanted to up the stakes on my blogging and my art, I wanted to be more active in the blogging community.  So I have decided to do my first giveaway... Yay!  Up for grabs is this cute little stationary wallet with my Summer Mermaid printed on silk on the front handmade by yours truly.  Inside there are two pockets, one for envelopes and one for postcards or gift cards.  Included are 5 postcards with white envelopes, one of each of the five designs I have on Zazzle so far.

 The Giveaway is open worldwide and the closing date is Wednesday 13th April 2011 at 9 am EST (that's 2pm GMT!) .  To be in with a chance to win, you can do any or all of the following:

• Leave a comment below - 1 entry
• Follow this Blog - 1 entry (if you follow already tell me in the comment)
• Follow my other blog - 1 entry (if you follow already tell me in the comment)
• Tweet me - 1 entry
• Post this giveaway on your blog - 1 entry

That's it, simples!  No catch questions, no tie breakers just a few clicks and maybe an extra blog post!  Just let me know in the comments below which you have done.  I'm a bit of a technophobe so I will be using a very old and ancient, tried and tested method of picking the winner.  All entries will go in a hat and my lovely neighbor next door will pick a winner!  I will announce the winner on here on Wednesday, don't forget to let me have your e-mail address so I can contact you for a shipping address!

Good Luck xoxoxo

Angels, Angles, Smangles!

Well peeps, look at my totally awesome, revamped blog!  What do you think to the new look?  My good friend, Jeanette, gave me a makeover.  I asked her how I could add pages with a bar across the top and she said it was easier to do than to try and explain via e-mail, and kindly offered to do for me adding "would you mind if I tweaked a little bit while I am there?"  Well!  After just a couple of hours, if that, all done, total revamp, and wow!  Do I LOVE it!

So where have I been you might ask, indeed one friend made the comment "Oh love the new blog...gorgeous.  Perhaps it will give you the impetus to get blogging".  Well my apologies bloglanders but I have been just sooo busy and I simply cannot write, paint, sew AND blog!  I had two birthdays to make for, one mother's day gift to make AND with the craft fair looming in four weeks (or is it three now?) I have been making bags. 

Anyhow you've seen the bags, and I think the Fairy Dreamer painting, but you haven't seen this one yet.  This was painted on watercolor paper and framed behind glass for my friend, Jackie, for her birthday.  Jackie is a new friend here in my new hometown and quiet frankly she has just been such a great friend looking after me and Lovely Man that I wanted to make something personal.  Can you spot the mistake?  I had it all finished and framed when Lovely Man said "I don't get it".  "What's not to get?" I asked.  Can you see it?  Yup sure enough I got my letters mixed up and got angles instead of angels!  So a bit of Gesso, a hairdryer and a bit of a retouch and we finally arrived at Angels!  I also made her a stationary wallet with a selection of postcards featuring some of my artwork, which like a numpty I forgot to photograph!

So there we are!  and you thought I was resting on my laurels!

Daily Exercise

Ok ladies (and gents) before you get your paint brushes out this morning here is your daily exercise:  please hop over to my other blog just this once and see if you can join me in the 1,000 crane idea.  It's either that or I'll have to copy and paste and FORCE you to read it here LOL!

Have a happy creative day *smooches*

Blooming Complimentary

You may recall that I joined Louise Gale in her Blooming Complimentary challenge and exchange a while ago.  The idea was to pick to colors from opposite sides of the color wheel (complimentary) and create something using just those two colors, plus black and white if desired, with the main theme of the piece being flowers/fauna (Blooming).  I have long been an admirer of Angie Hogan's (AKA Artangel) work, particularly her little painted wooden hearts.  Having carefully shipped three plain wooden hearts all the way from the UK with me I felt it was about time I actually used them.  Not a patch on Angie's beautiful work but not bad for a first attempt at painting on wood, or on something that wasn't flat for that matter!  I also tried my hand at a bit of collage too, giving a paper doily a coat of iridescent white paint before sticking onto the painted heart with gel medium.  I then attempted to paint small violets with acrylic and drew some swirly 'vines' with 'waterproof' Faber Casttell Pitt Artist Pens (they weren't totally waterproof but i think I just got away with it!).  Finally I gave it a few coats of matt varnish and tied some pretty voilet organza ribbon to hang it by.

 

 

I so enjoyed this challenge!  Can't wait for Louise to think up another!

Final Lesson on M3 :(

I have so enjoyed working with Tam and everyone else on Majical, Mythical Makings.  This week saw the last lesson delivered to our computer in the form of 3 videos and several PDF's.  We have toured the works of Klimt, Mucha,  Chagall and Froud concocting our own interpretations of each in the form of Goddesses, Mermaids, Angels and Fairies and, just for good measure, a unicorn or two!  This course has been fantastic!  The first online course I have ever had the bottle to attend and worth every penny ( think I paid something like £42!).  I now have around 12 video lessons downloaded to refer to whenever and numerous PDF instructions.   I also have completed three canvasses, one picture on watercolor paper and I am now embarking on a wall hanging made from canvas and fabric.  At some point I want to revisit the mermaid session and attempt to paint on wood (I chose canvas as I wanted a set of four remember?).  So Thank you to Tam for all her hard work, her lovely videos and her unending support throughout the process, and thank you to all the new friends on willowing for their comments of encouragement and advice.

So this week I am attempting a wall hanging along the theme of Autumn.  A Froud inspired fairy in the woods!

My First Book Sculpture

The other day I was googling "Altered Books" for tutorials and ideas when I came across an artist called Sarah Bodman and fell in love with a particular book sculpture.  This is my version along a similar theme and the first one I have ever done.  It is nowhere near as intricate as Sarah's lovely piece but for a first, with no instructions or tutorials, I really am rather pleases with it!

Summer Mermaid

Summer Mermaid in the style of Marc Chagall

Today I finished my Summer Mermaid.  Well actually I'm not sure if she really is finished or not...I can't decide!  Not sure if I want some little houses in the bottom right hand corner or not, or some more foliage around there instead.  Or, do I just leave well alone?  What do you think?

Hellooooo I'm Here....Honest!

Well I have been painting like the very devil hence why you haven't heard from me on here for a while!  I'm deeply engrossed in Tam's M3 course right now and as I said before I wanted a set of four Goddesses, one for each season, on canvas for my new dining room.  Well I had them all sketched ready and new exactly how I was gonna do them, what they would look like and so on.  But as usual things change, the ideas I had suddenly morphed into other stuff!  So right now I have completed Spring, she is very loosely done in the style of Klimt, and I do mean VERY loosely!  Probably the only thing Klimtish about her is her hair and the flowers in it!  Summer, on the other hand, has changed dramatically.  She started out as my dear blogland friend, Kelly, in a sarong on a beach.  Then I decided she was going to be in the style of Mucha so I changed the background.  However, our third project on M3 was mermaids in the style of Marc Chagall.  At first he did nothing for me whatsoever!  I watched the video and decided that Tam's approach made Chagall look a little more appealing.  Then the idea hit me like a steam train and I got REALLY excited!  Kelly suddenly leapt up off the beach dived into the blue waters and grew a tail!  Not only that she lured her darling hubby into the depths with her!  I sneaked a peak on Kelly's facebook page and found a photo of hubby and away I went!  Unfortunately poor hubby looks rather like a young Noel Edmonds in my picture, however I am quite pleased that I managed a man's face at all!  Fortunately Kelly says it's kinda cute even tho it doesn't really look like hubby.  Anyhow enough blurb, here is Summer Mermaid so far.  Still quite a long way to go with this one before it's finished, much depends on dear old Canada Post's delivery schedule as I am waiting for some lovely gold leaf and mica flakes to give it some magic.

The Trials of Love

Well!  I put off doing my Angel picture, if you recall I was struggling with the paper I had bought and generally wasn't enjoying things at all :(  Last night I even contemplated starting the whole thing again on canvas.  However this didn't really sit comfortably with me because it felt like I was giving up.  I really needed to grit my teeth and try again.  Thanks to Lovely Man and my friend, Jackie, who told me exactly that I went out for a nice ski this morning across the lake and in the bush, then I came home and got to work!  So here she is!  And you know what?  I really quite like her now!  In fact I'd go so far as to say I love her! So there we are, proof that even when things are looking quite dire it is worth soldiering on and finishing it cos you never know how it's going to turn out in the end!

So now I've just got to think of something nice to make for the "Blooming Complimentary" Creative Color Challenge!

Catching Up

I seem to have developed an intolerance to wine :(  No joke here, I had just two glasses with supper yesterday and felt really yuk this morning, and this seems to be happening every time I have more than just one small glass.  So skiing was abandoned today and I stayed at home.  As it happened I had two articles to get done and plenty of stuff to catch up on so it didn't hurt I guess.  So, Spring is at last finished and hanging on the wall!  I am fairly pleased with her, although in truth I'm not as in love with her as some of my other paintings.  Actually to be fair, I love her... it's still the overall thing that's bugging me, but no matter what I try it's just not doing it for me.  However, I figure perhaps I am just being over critical and if I keep fiddling with it I could spoil it beyond repair!  So here she is... Spring

Then I set about trying to catch up with the M3 project.  What can I say?  As mentioned before I did the background and was thoroughly disappointed.  I just couldn't seem to get it right.  The watercolor paper I bought just doesn't behave well at all.  It seems to dry out real quick so you can't blend/spread the color and yet if you add more water it simply buckles and looks like something you may have produced in primary school.  Acrylic doesn't help at all and won't blend nicely like it did on canvas.  I'm not sure whether it's because I'm just not used to working on paper or whether the Canson 85lb paper is the wrong stuff for this.  Anyhow suffice to say I didn't find the painting a joy to do and there were times when I just wanted to throw yet another piece in the bin and do it on canvas!  But I persevered simply because I thought what is the point of doing these courses if you're gonna ditch something half way thru and go back to the way you always do stuff?  It's about experimenting and trying stuff, stretching your comfort zones and all that.  It is however, quite frustrating when you have in your mind how it should look and it just doesn't cut the mustard in reality!  So here is my background!

Blooming Complimentary

      This week I signed up for another challenge with  Louise Gale,

I have to choose a pair of colors that are of “opposite” hue (complimentary) in the color wheel. This is quite open, but of course, the challenge is just to create using those 2 complementary colors (we can also use black and white).  We will be creating with the theme of Blooms, Flowers, Fauna (Blooming).  Hence Blooming Complimentary, neat eh?!   Each of us has a 'swap buddy', which means basically we complete the piece and then send it, via snail mail, to our swap buddy to keep,  and I am just so honored to have Louise as my swap buddy!  I have already chosen my colors and have a little idea or two but I can't share until a few days after I mail to her otherwise it will spoil the surprise!  I am just so excited!  Watch this space toward the end of February when I will not only be able to share what I produced but also what I received from Louise!

Spring Is Nearly Here...

Today I worked on my Goddess Of Spring canvas.  She has not been an easy bunny.  I bought the canvas from Michael's, they were a twin pack on offer so you would think they would both be the same wouldn't you?  Not so.  The packaging stated they were ready primed so I figured they were ready to use, no Gesso required.  My Goddess of Freedom was a delight to paint in comparison with this canvas.  I found out all too late that it seemed to have some sort of coating, or perhaps wasn't primed as thoroughly as its twin.  Not only did it repel the water color crayons it just wouldn't grab acrylic very well either.  Using the breyer was also a nightmare as it lifted not only the acrylic but the blue watercolor underneath leaving huge bare bits of canvas.  So I tinkered for ages and this is as good as it gets!  Then finally, an I know Darla with sympathise here, I opened a flip top tube of blue acrylic and it sort of popped and splattered tiny blue spots on her tummy and arm!  Jeez!  so then I had to touch those in, first with gesso and then try to patch the skin tone.  Finally my hand slipped on the third 'vine' and now juts off to the side of the painting.  However, tomorrow is another day and I will finish the fine details, add the butterfly and try to 'repair' the vine.  Also the pink flowers look a little bit like they've been thrown on, not sure whether to do some more green vines going upward from the bottom of the painting.  Any thoughts peeps??  Oh and just for the record some of you guys on Tam's course were complaining, like me, about taking photo's under electric lighting.  Well I found a solution that seems to work if you have photoshop at your disposal.  First go to Image>Adjustments>autolevels.  I do this with all my photos and it seems to help a bit, but they often still  look a little yellow.  So next go to Image>Adjustments>auto color and hey presto she looks less like she suffers jaundice!

A Little Gift

Fairly late on Sunday evening Tam's video tutorials came on-line and so I just had to watch them before I went to bed!  As per usual I had not paid attention to the previous video telling us what we needed for the course. So there I was with A4 watercolor paper instead of A3.  Luckily a friend is going to Thunder Bay this weekend and has offered to pick some up for me, so I decided to carry on with my Goddess of Spring canvas while I wait.  Spring now has hair and is in the process of having her highlights done, she should be ready for a photo session tomorrow.  Anyhow I had a message via good old facebook chat to say a friend of mine had just given birth to a baby boy the other day, her second.  I had planned to do a little painting for her to celebrate the new baby's arrival so tonight I sat down to sketch.  I had a clear idea of what I wanted, and then... well it sort of morphed itself into this, which incidentally fits this weeks theme of angels quite nicely.  So, because it has to go in the post and A4 is easier for that, I have decided to go with this.  I can still do another, on A3, for myself later after all!

The Goddess of Spring Has Company

Despite feeling grotty all day today I did manage to get my ideas for the set "Goddess of the Seasons" on to paper.  I already sketched Spring and have started the canvas but to be honest I struggled through the day volunteering at the ski clubhouse and then working for an hour at the library and knew that even if I did drag myself into the studio I was likely to regret it.  Having made custard for Lovely Man which first resembled hot yellow milk and then, with a little extra custard powder added, not only went lumpy but caught the bottom of the pan so it had little brown lumps in it, I nearly burst into tears!  So you can imagine what it would have been like if I started painting and it all went wrong!  Anyhow as I did a convincing performance of a dying swan on the couch I did find the strength to pick up a pencil!  So with out further ado - although of course a little sympathy, should you wish to convey it, won't fall on stony ground - here is Summer, Fall and Winter.

Temper Tantrum

I think my goddess was just a little ticky about having no clothes on in these temperatures!  She proved to be more than a little cantankerous when I tried to apply her skin tones!  In fairness it could have been that the canvas had not been primed as well as the other one I got from Micheal's.  The first one I did I got away with getting straight onto it without any Gesso (it said it was primed ready for painting).  This one however, seemed to repel the watercolor crayons even when I added some acrylic.  It was all very frustrating and not at all conducive to a 'nice morning painting'!  So I left her to contemplate her behaviour and went out with my friends to the hockeyville event down at the lake.  This evening I went back to her.  She wasn't much more co-operative than she was this morning but after an hour of patiently layering acrylic and more pigment from the crayons picked up with a brush I was, at last, able to say I felt satisfied.  So hopefully that's the hard bit done.  Once she is acclimatized to being in the nude she will hopefully be a little more helpful!

And Another!!

It's official.  I am addicted...to painting Goddesses!  The other day as I starred at the bare walls of my new dining room it occurred to me that perhaps I could do a set of paintings for that room.  Whilst taking part in Tam's M3 course one of the other artists drew a goddess in a beautiful pose that looked as if she were standing with the wind, her hair was flying out behind her, her dress too and she looked amazing.  The artist concerned wasn't sure but I suggested she looked magnificent and would look good as the Goddess of Autumn, with lots of amber and russet leaves about her in the wind.  I joked with her that she could do four one for each season and make a set.  That's when the seed was sown and I have pondered it since.  So last night I flicked through some photographic poses on the net and saw one I liked, then fished out a Klimt calendar that a friend bought me a few years ago and picked out some themes/styles that I thought would work with spring.  And so my Goddess of spring was born onto a sheet of A4!  Today she is being transferred onto a 18" x 24" canvas.  Lovely Man is off to play in the snow with his new friend which means I get a couple of hours in peace in my studio to play!  Woohooo!

Finished!!!

Oh My Word!  I just took a photo of my Goddess in daylight!  I am just so proud of her.  Having never painted a canvas any bigger than A4 AND I only really started painting seriously about 8 or 9 months ago (save for the stuff I did at secondary school) I am just amazed at myself!  Of course she isn't going to make it to the Tate or any other grand art museum or gallery, and she did have a few little 'accidents' along the way but to me she is perfect and I love her!  To be fair though I am fickle so probably the next one will be the love of my life too ha ha!

 

I finished the detail on the butterfly whilst watching Harry's Law last night!  I find it impossible to just sit at 'watch' TV these days, I have to be doing something else at the same time!  The butterfly is actually a sort of failed attempt at making a 3D butterfly in flight.  I cut some pretty colored paper from a glossy magazine and stuck it, face down, to  Habotai silk and then I thought I could dry it moulded over something curved.  This clearly wasn't going to work so I decided to dry it flat and then sew beads on it and build up the undersides with molding paste on the canvas.  Then I just chickened out altogether and applied it as it was to the canvas with Matte Gel Medium and detailed it with black ink, white gel pen and gold pen! 

Almost There

Late last night I noticed that the lovely Tam had posted this weeks video tutorials and of course I just had to watch them both before bed!  So today I have played...ALL DAY!  Well nearly, we had more snow so had to shovel the driveway, but apart from that...I played.  So here she is, almost there.  I still need to do the detail on the butterfly - gel medium takes a while to dry.  I also want to paint the sides of the gallery wrap in gold acrylic too.  I used a little rub on gold leaf which needs to be sealed so I will give it a light coat of acrylic matt varnish when I'm happy that I have it totally finished!  It isn't the best photo but the best I could do under electric lighting!

A Few Iccle Hiccups!

The course of true love never doth run smooth...and neither does a painting!  Oh she started out so well, my Goddess of Freedom, then yesterday I collaged the dress.  My favorite little piece of paper was too thin and wrinkled when dry.  Then today I decided to paint in the lounge on the coffee table so I could keep Lovely Man company.  BIG mistake.  You see the coffee table is quite low and I sat on the floor.  The bottom of the canvas was quite hard to get at so I decided to turn her upside down.  Then I tried to use a white gel pen, the sort that you push down on the nib to activate the release of ink.  Yup, you guessed it. A large dollop of runny white ink started to run downwards toward her chin.  Panic stricken I tried to dab with a tissue.  The brown 'waterproof' ink that I was using for the detail on the dress decided that it wasn't waterproof after all and smudged onto her shoulder!  So anyhow I have given her first aid, but I may have to schedule her in for more radical surgery, an robust acrylic skin graft, tomorrow!  But this is her for now.  I still love her and already have a space on the wall ready for when she's finished.

*Squeeee* I had the best morning!

OH  MY  WORD!  Have I just had such a fun morning or what?  I went off to the studio to paint and stuff whilst Lovely Man scoffed at me, he thinks collage is for kids!  I have tried to educate him that it is actually 'mixed media' but he is having none of it!  Anyhow Look See what I did so far, and just for a change I am loving her right from the word go!  She obviously still has a long way to go and I am not rushing her, so anyhow what d'ya think??

AND....just to send me into hyperdrive mode a lovely lady Helen says she L.O.V.E.S one of my bags on Etsy!! Ha!  Need to go lie down as I think I am about to have an attack of the vapours Te He!

My Goddess of Freedom

Well today I finally got around to starting that canvas.  Isn't it just so uncanny that despite being all fired up and excited about doing something new - for me painting a canvas bigger than A4 more than actually painting - we often put off starting for fear of 'messing it up'!  So yesterday I watched Tam's video tutorials and I read, and re-read the PDF files.  Today after a lot of procrastination I finally made myself sit in front of the darned canvas and draw!  And can you believe what happened?  I not only got my Goddess sketched out I actually like her!  Not only that I rifled through several magazines and my fabrics and managed to find an abundance of suitable stuff for the collage! So here is the work in progress, the photo is not very good because I just couldn't get the lighting right in the studio now it's late, but i think you can get an idea of her.  She started out as the Goddess of Love but then I decided I thought she was really the Goddess of Freedom, whichever!  Love sets us free anyhow so both are apt!

I've Been Framed Guv!

Well actually I haven't personally but remember the painting of Amber, aka The Angel and The Unicorn?  The painting made it safely across the pond and yesterday I received an e-mail and a photograph of it nicely framed ready for a certain little girl's birthday.  I am actually quite proud of it and pleased that it has made someone else happy too.

As for my more recent canvas....that is still very much a work in progress.  I fell out of love with it big time.  The bead gel and the self leveling gel didn't give quite the effect I was aiming for.  However, having left it alone for a couple of days I started to tweak it last night.  I figured it wasn't going up on the wall as it was and seemed destined to go in the garbage anyhow so anything else I did to it couldn't make things any worse!  And would you believe I'm starting to like it.  Bit like Cathy the other day... her painting "got past the uglies", I now know exactly how she felt!  So that will be photographed when it is done.  Lastly I am just so excited to by starting Tam's on 17th.  I have got no less than 4 BIG canvases, 18 x 24 inches, and having never painted anything that size I can't wait....SO EXCITING!

Language Timothy!

Lovely Man and I were just sitting watching a film this evening, well he was watching I was half watching.  I'm not good a TV, I'm easily distracted - by the laptop, my own thoughts, half finished paintings in the studio, an idea for a purse design, or some other whimsy that pops into my head.  Suddenly at end of one of the short clips, before the adverts, he announced "Well that is a dichotomy isn't it?"  I thought for a moment.  I liked the feel of the word, on my tongue, in my head, I repeated it several times to myself and then declared "I like that word"!  I do.   I love words, the English language.  I love the feel of them, the sound of them and the pictures that they conjure up in our mind.  I love how, with the right word, or a different word to the norm, you can make a sentence, even a whole story sound so much more interesting.  Would you believe I have a huge dictionary at the side of the bed, and sometimes when I have a mind to, I like to pick it up and wander through it to see what I can find before I go to sleep?  My good friend, Lorrie, loves words.  My favorite word from Lorrie was 'propensity'.  So now I have two.  Propensity and Dichotomy.  I think I will start another challenge for myself, to find a new word that I like the feel of and use it in a blog post each week!   Ha ha! Is there anyone else out there that loves words?

Two Hours of Pure Bliss

squirreled away in my studio!  First I tidied, I'm just so bad and dumping things on my desk when I'm too busy to put them away properly, and then I pay for it when I want to paint cos I have to tidy it all away before I can start!  Today my Glass Bead Gel and Self Leveling Gel arrived so I was anxious to play.  I have never used either of these mediums before but I recently saw a canvas and instantly knew that this is what they had used to achieve the wonderful textures.  I also recently bought some gorgeous fabric to make cushion covers for the lounge and Lovely Man has knocked a hole in the wall to make an archway into the 'new' dining room.  So I had this idea.  I love the colors and the flower pattern on my new cushion covers and thought that the design would lend itself perfectly to the canvas I had in mind, and if i painted it for the lounge it would all sort of co-ordinate.   So here is the cushion...

AND  here is the first stage of the canvas...

First I drew the pattern onto a 16"x16" canvas.  Then I painted the background with a nice  mocha shade in acrylic.  Tomorrow I will be starting on the outlines, first with a pale yellowy gold acrylic and then centre line of black bead gel to create a stain glass window effect.  Lastly the gray and blue petals will be done with self leveling gel which, I understand, will dry to a smooth High Gloss finish. Et Voila!