Left hand drive

I couldn't figure what to paint so I stuck the brush in my left hand thus allowing my right brain to take over the driving.

As you can see we swerved around quite a bit while we figured out just who was behind the wheel and which way to turn to avoid total disaster.

We ended up here. It's a river, not a road (by now we had parked and were moving more slowly on foot).

I wasn't actually painting with my foot at this point, it's just a figure of speech to give you the impression of a more careful consideration of subject matter.

I'm typing with my right brain too. Well, the fingers are using the left but both hands are on the keyboard to get the message all right. All right?

I should maybe think about going to bed... I sleep on the right if there's any left.

Big

This painting is real big - 24 x 36 inches big.

It's for sale for £150 + P&P.

I'm bringing it to the party - that's Paint Party Friday - but I promise it will behave and not get drunk and chat up the best looking men. It's just gonna hang out on the wall and observe. OK?

I think I'd like to go to a party where all the guests turn up with a painting instead of a partner. They might not leave with the same painting, but it's unlikely to end in divorce. Though maybe a small dose of regret.

I will miss this painting when it goes, although there is a raspberry pink stain on the patio where the drips missed the newspaper that will serve as reminder. That and the vandyke brown down my fingernails which appears to require a chisel to remove...

This painting has its eye on an owner with mushroom walls. It wants to hang over a fireplace or strategically placed on a feature wall. It has a warm and welcoming personality with a hint of the exotic. It enjoys a nice hot curry and the kind of music that makes your hips wiggle. Will you invite it into your home?

Me likey

I love this! There, I said it. I made it and I love it. Totally, unashamedly love it!

And what's even better is ... now, how can I explain it? It came from a lesson I wrote for my course. I inspired myself how to do it!

It started out like this...

 then evolved into into this

Before becoming this (with a little digital blending)

(detail)

and I even love the back where the paint soaked through! (I intensified the colour a bit using PhotoShop)

I love ART!

Sharing this for Paint Party Friday. Too excited to wait until Friday to post it.

The inner critic is trying to grab my attention. She's not too sure that I should be quite so pleased with myself. After all, it's not really done to like your own work is it? We're not supposed to think we're any good.

Hey girl, got news for you ... I'm not listening tonight!

Intuitive play

Can you tell where the photograph stops and the painting begins?

I looked deep into this abstract piece I'd been playing with and saw parrot tulips. And so I grabbed one I grew earlier and immortalised by camera.

I could tell you how I melded the two together, but then this post gets all clinical and instructional and I'm not in the mood for any left-brain activity this evening. So let's just say it was magic and leave it at that.

Stormy weather

There should be more creative challenges with this theme - as it seems to have prompted the opposite in reality. The past week has been a positive delight - a taste of Summer, teasing us into our t-shirts. Bliss!

So I'm back to painting. I am getting acrylic all over the furniture and up the walls. I have very dirty fingernails. It feels good!

I've had an amazing week. I've launched my eCourse through my new creative business - The Wright Brain Stuff. I've also kicked off a book group picking up where us 'wreckers' left off a couple of summers ago when we destroyed our Keri Smith journals. We're going to attack another of her books this year - I'd love it if you got messy with us too - all the joining details are here.

Back to the art... These were really free and loose. I googled a couple of images of stormy scenes as my inspiration then just got messy with paints and oil pastels. No paintbrushes allowed. Although I loved the final results (below), I couldn't reist a little enhancement with some textures and extra layers in PhotoShop (above).

I can't believe I paint like this now - so carefree. Just a few years ago, the same painting would have been trying very hard to look exactly the same as the original photograph. I just couldn't 'see' the way I do now. It is so much more fun! It's why I wanted to run my course - I feel I have so much passion to share - I want to inspire you all to create words and pictures.

Posting for the Inspiration Avenue 'Stormy weather' challenge and Paint Party Friday.

I'm also having a Giveaway - don't miss out!

Layers

My life right now is a series of layers. I'm an onion, although that sounds a bit tearful and smelly. Perhaps I'm a layer cake? Yes, I like that - much sweeter!

If you looked at my office desk now you would see some serious evidence of layering. What you get is a cross section of everything going on in my brain. I am having some seriously exciting business ideas as a result of taking Hello Soul. Hello Business with Kelly Rae Roberts and Beth Nicholls and around 300 inspiring women (interesting how we are all female!). I have paper scribbled with ideas and calculations, marketing plans, to do lists. It's mind mapping gone wild.

My diary is underneath my sketchbook and the log book from my new car. My diary has rather a long list of items that need ticking off for today. Strictly speaking writing a blog post should not be top of the agenda... but it is Saturday... and I so wanted to enter The Butterfly Challenge's Layers week. I am such a layer lover when it comes to paint. More on this in a moment.... Back to the desk...

So, there are at three paintings, a book of love poetry, a rose that is crying out to be sketched, a memory stick with items that require downloading, a pile of unopened letters (they looked boring), a cuddly snowman, post it notes, pens, a card from Amy, wireless headphones and assorted notebooks (plus a thin layer of dust).

The floor is covered in paper. There are notes stuck to the walls and piles of filing dotted around. It is complete and utter ORGANISED chaos! Honest!

Back to this painting. I rather love it I have to confess. It began life as some random red and brown scrapings and corrugated cardboard prints made using up palette paint. The brighter bands of colour were added with a brayer then a few splatterings and scatterings of this and that to add more interest.

Right, blog post done. Back to the mind mapping and business planning! I'm very excited!!! Watch this space...

More beaker moments... Look what I did!

Aha my students, I am glad you are here once again for I have many experiments to share with you. Pull up a bunsen burner and gather round the petri dish - making sure to wear goggles and button up your lab coat, for it's likely you'll get paint splashed!

Reader, I have been missing art so much this week. It has been another of those busy ones where the day job, while incredibly creative, did wear me out a tad.

So last night I had to get messy. I had to dribble and splat, squash and flick, stick and scumble and just make mess. I'm experimenting with Amelia Critchlow. It seems we're almost making art by accident - not for us the measured application of brush to a carefully considered composition. No, we are letting loose with everything from tea bags to toe nails (well, maybe not the latter... yet!). We are seeing what happens if.... and when.... and let's just mix this with that and squash it flat.

I'm storing away the results in the crazy filing system that is the right side of my brain (and also on my Flickr stream), ready to pull them out and use when the occasion arises.

Sharing today with the Paint Friday Party-goers! Pop over and join in the fun (and see who has got the most paint still down their fingernails).

PS: Did I mention that I am wildly excited about these creations? Experimenting is so free and liberating. I feel so much better :)

Headache

Headache

and when it gets really intense

and even this

And this is before we go to Paint Party Friday...

Just some abstract paint play in my sketchbook. Started off as one of my background pages created from leftover paint on my palette - waste not want not.

My boyfriend can see his headache in there - pain pulsing and spreading out...Perhaps I should paint paracetamol next...

Blooming

I painted this in Flora Bowley's class at the Do What You Love Retreat. I love it! However, you have no idea how many paintings are underneath! There's angst among the long gone butterfly wings and rainbowed hillside, but it's topped with unadulterated pleasure in smearing on paint with fingers; in being brave enough to cover up what had gone before and just paint; and - for doing what you love!

Having lived with it for a week or so, I still think it needs a little tweak here and there - a touch more yellow perhaps and I don't really like those bottom-left-dots.

I also have my third canvas from the retreat to share - the one where I spent hours painting a face only to paint over her in a daring leap of adventure.

I have some earlier versions of this painting to share with you too, but the images are not on this computer, so they might for another Paint Party Friday another day!

Don't you just love all these layers? It makes me want to lick it!!

Just playing

Waves

Sometimes you've just got to embrace the toddler in you and just play. Watch the textures building up, look for the hidden image and let that secret place you build pull you in for adventure.

Fairground

One girl's mess is another girl's Jackson Pollock after all...

Floribunda

And when one is invited to a party with a whole heap of other artists, then frankly darling what more could you expect?

Floribunda detail

I want to dive into that texture, lick it and stroke it. Am I deranged? Probably! But hey, I'm an artist... we're allowed to be a bit strange - it's part of the job description.

Happy thoughts

I'm off now to go drape myself in scarves and jangly jewellery so I jingle when I jig!

Abstraction distraction

I painted a richly hued flower for my Mum last weekend (for Mother's Day) and I was all set to show it to you for Paint Party Friday.

Now, the more observant among you will be looking at these geometric drips and failing to see a connection. Well, I can hardly blame you, for try as I might I can't see the fragrant petals and verdant foliage that made up my floral piece either.

It appears that silly Lisa forgot to scan it before she presented it with love to her Mother. Oh no. How will I go to the party now for I have no 'creation' to wear/share??

"Fear not" cried my Fairy Godmother (in a somewhat exasperated tone, and frankly I don't blame her). "You have piles of art cluttering up the entire house, allow me to wave my wand and you can 'wear' one of those instead."

Et voila! (Bet you didn't know my Fairy Godmother was French did you? I didn't either until just now). I am now swirling in what I'm calling 'raindrops on window'. Given that the sun hasn't stopped shining for two days, it hardly matches the weather, but hey, needs must.

Well red

I love spotting art in unlikely places and sometimes being a messy chick can really turn out to your advantage. There I was snipping up some red card to make fancy backing for love poetry - I ran the Cupid Love Desk at work (she writes that like it's a perfectly normal work-a-day occurrence!). I had little bits of red card all over the carpet and balled them up ready to take outside to the recycling bin (we are trying to be green in this house, even with our red).

The cat found the ball and chased it round the carpet, unravelling it somewhat in the process. Was I cross? Did I see red? Nah, I saw abstract art!



Fun in PhotoShop later and we have some sizzling red hot metal for The Three Muses challenge. I just love how the images and colours blended - don't touch... they're hot!

Inspiration

What inspires me? What a question! What doesn't? A crack in the pavement, a crinkled leaf, a comment from my son.

For the purposes of this post though, we'll concentrate on just a couple. I'm writing and creating, appropriately for 'Inspiration Avenue' who wish to know what kick starts the Muse.

This week, my Muse has been pulled into action on the work front. She's been writing scripts, newspaper articles, devising adverts and all manner of fun activities. We've been a touch tired by evening to involve ourselves in too much creativity so instead, we stuck our nose in a book. We are learning Accessible Abstracts with Laura Reiter.

And... we are inspired! Which moves me nicely onto talking about magazines. I have a monumental pile of glossies taking over the gap between the sofa and the wall. In fact, I confess that there are actually two piles these days... and sometimes, when they topple, an amalgamate mess of paper! Most of them have bits of cut up paper sticking and falling out, for I confess that I am cruel to these publications. I rip them, I cut and glue them... but it's all in the aid of art and posterity. My models reside here patiently waiting for their turn to be immortalised on paper and canvas and splashes of colour and texture become collage, background and 'interesting bits' in my paintings.

So, if you looked at the picture above you're starting to see where my inspiration went this week. Abstract... magazines... and finally....Photoshop! How I love that software. So much fun to be had just playing and tweaking and experimenting. This one only had a tiny treatment - a little poster edge feature to give some emphasis.

Right, I must be off, for the parents will visit shortly and the house is covered in bits of cut up paper...