Well, it is the season... All snuggled up keeping each other warm and loved. So sweet!
Makes me come over all romantic. This is the card I painted for 'himself'. He's already opened it as it dropped through his mailbox today and he's a bloke so doesn't wait for the actual day. That's his excuse - I reckon he just couldn't wait!
It's Friday and it's party time! There's a great new blog- Paint Party Friday - that you should visit where everyone shares a painting and so here is mine!
I've been experimenting with watercolour with Bonnie Rose Bryan on the Willowing.ning site. Painted with a very restricted palette of just 4 colours. I loved how the blush spread across her cheeks wet in wet, like she'd just found out the class hunk fancies her!
Well, today has been totally red nose random. For those of you outside the UK, perhaps I should explain. Today is Red Nose Day for the charity Comic Relief. We wear red noses and do something funny for money. I went to work in my PJs and slippers where we had a contest to see how many of us could fit inside an old-style Mini Cooper. My team won - there were 17 of us squashed and squished inside; it got rather hot in there I can tell you!
I didn't wear a red nose though. I didn't have to. Can you believe I've caught another cold??? Man, I need a break!
I used to work for 3i. They are a venture capital company. However, don't panic, I'm not about to start talking all finance with you. It's merely serving as an introduction to today's artistic postings. Three eyes!
First an albino eye - for Inspiration Avenue's 'black & white & pink' challenge, then some intriguing ones. Hmm, what's going on there I wonder. Just who do those eyes belong to and, more importantly, why are they looking at you like that? Should you be worried? Who knows....
What is it with the fairy phenomenon that we so want to believe? OK, the handsome, yet cynical specimen of manhood sitting next to me might not, but I know you're out there - the believers.... I've even read recently an entire post devoted to fairy circles and a little googling found 'evidence' of their existence in a mysteriously named place called Ann Arbor (is it a town or the woman that works in the library?). Indeed, one of my favourite moments from the Antiques' Roadshow seemingly gives photographic evidence. (I've posted this clip before - see bottom of post, but if you've never seen it and a rather fond of the dainty winged poppets, then you really must watch - the whole thing mind, don't miss a moment...).
I have always loved drawing the little creatures. As wee lassie (I'm not Scottish, it just sounded kind of cute written down), I memorised the Flower Fairy poems of Cecily Mary Barker and painstakingly copied her illustrations.
Here is my grown up version who has a touch of the absinthe about her...
As a parent, don't you just dread the letter that comes home from school that details the outfit you are required to make for the school play - with just a week's notice too? Last year it was a donkey. I was stacked with work and in a panic... Until Tesco came to my rescue. There I was wheeling the trolley around stocking up on my veggies when there, hanging on a rack, with a very cheap price tag, was a donkey. I've never grabbed anything from that store so quick!!
Not that I mind making these things when I've got the time. I made a fantastic crocodile once for my friend who was going to a fancy dress as Crocodile Dundee (I went as Uncle Albert from Only Fools & Horses - a classy costume, I can tell you, even if the beard was a bit itchy).
Anyway, here's a little fancy dress whimsey for Illustration Friday's Prehistoric encounter and my Watercolour class homework - you know how I love to multi task.
My son has some slippers just like these; I'm surprised he can walk in them!
There's a story to go with this. I am sure it has something to do with the people of Ooggley Baloobley, but I can't be sure since I haven't written it yet. I think it might refer to the way they design their footwear. They put cartridge paper outside their back doors at night to collect the custard and jelly drips. In the morning they venture out to see what patterns have formed. It's then a simple matter of looking for designs in the splotches and splatters. Of course, it helps if you're an Ooglie because they are shape shifters so frankly can fit any mis-shapen shoe - even the one that looks like a vodka martini. Lucky them!
If you think I've lost my marbles, then perhaps you should refer back to Monday's post and look for them there, for this art follows a similar theme.
Alternatively, you can just blame The Three Muses and their 'shoe' challenge.
Mermaid class begins today at Suzi Blu. I'm very excited. To celebrate (and contain my excitement while the first video downloads), I thought I'd have a bit of practice with bodies for Sunday Sketches. Most mermaids I draw only have top halves, so it's time to 'tell a tail'.
I own a beautiful book by Stephanie Pui-Mun Law called Dreamscapes. She teaches how to draw and paint watercolour fairies, angels and... yes... mermaids! I definitely need to practice bodies more. I'm rather hooked on magical and mythical creatures right now but they get most cross when I don't do them justice. There's a lady coming up tomorrow from a nursery rhyme... she was not happy with her hands. One looks like a claw and the other as if it's been mashed! I've had nothing but complaints all afternoon - so much so that she completely forgot about the eight-legged creature dangling down dangerously close to her shoulder.
I must also apologise for my less-than-helpful writing yesterday on my Hope piece. The work-in-progress I posted was in fact for that actual painting. First collage layer and initial sketch. Sorry for confusion! If you enlarge the finished piece you might be able to spot this layer!
She's coming to our house tonight. Isn't that exciting! We'll leave the bedroom window ajar and the curtain slightly open so she can slip in. Her prize will be waiting in a specially made tooth box under the little boy's pillow. She'll be carrying a coin in her silk bag. Who knows how such a slight thing could carry such a weight? Such is the power of magic!
There's a real fairy tale feel in the air this afternoon, for we have spent the afternoon in company of a handsome Prince and the impoverished daughter of the local Baron forced to work as a servant in the home of her cruel and heartless stepmother. Of course it sounds familiar, but the the story, in this interpretation stripped of the traditional magic still not fail to leave a sparkle in the air. Readers, I've been watching Ever After.
Back in the kitchen after an hour or two of fantasy, I tie up my apron and return to my skivvy duties. A woman's life in the 21st century is a hard one! I do love this genre of film - when I was a child I would have watched enraptured then escaped to my world of the imagination to act out my own version.
Since setting the challenge at Inspiration Avenue this week as 'other worlds', I have been so immersed in the worlds of elf and fairy that I fear I may awaken tomorrow with pointy ears or a sudden ability to play the lute. This fairy is my fourth such painting this week. These creatures are flitting their way from my imagination to the page. Clearly they wish to tell their stories... and who am I to stop them?
If you wish to enter it's not too late. Just bring your entry to the ball before midnight tomorrow (that's 4pm EST!).
Mixed media - watercolour, inktense, ink and some magic sparkle.
Well, yes, I know that this blog is supposed to be about writing, but this is surely what I'm doing? N'est-ce pas? OK, so this post is writing about painting but it's still being creative which is my excuse. I was really struggling to settle to anything last night. I couldn't write fiction, I attempted but deleted a couple of blog posts, I couldn't paint. Then I gave myself a stern talking to. The trouble was I wanted everything to be perfect first go and after my initial attempt at painting a still life turned out merely 'reasonable', I allowed myself to think that I couldn't do it and with that frame of mind then sat down at the pc and assumed that the juice would just flow in words instead, but naturally it slowed down to a trickle. I had it appeared a touch of creative constipation (what a thought!). Eventually, after said stern talking to, I sat down again and approached the artwork from a different angle - one of merely enjoying the sensation of loaded paintbrush on paper, watching the colour and shape form. It didn't matter how it turned out, the point of the exercise was merely that I was doing it and enjoying it. In the end, I was quite chuffed. I have a habit of buying greetings cards that 'would be good to paint' and then they sit in a box for years waiting for that day! Well, the day had finally arrived for a photo of a tulip that was crying out for a watercolour interpretation. First attempt (bottom) was done quite carefully with a pencil sketch outline; second (middle) I just let the paintbrush lead me and kept the whole thing more fluid. Neither are perfect but I really enjoyed myself and took away a great sense of achievement, which considering how the evening had begun, was especially satisfying. Tonight I scanned them in and applied a poster edge filter on one (detail - top) so the fun continues!
I am a writer, an artist and a dreamer, a Creativity Coach and maker of meaning. I am on a journey following my heart. It promises to take me to some incredibly exciting places. Won't you join me?
I am a writer, an artist and a dreamer, a Creativity Coach and maker of meaning. I am on a journey following my heart. It promises to take me to some incredibly exciting places. Won't you join me?
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