'Layla, 1950's style'

Here is another little drawing of 'Layla' this time, as a 1950's beauty!

Illustration Friday - Worn

'Bella was a very unconventional ballerina, the crowd would watch in awe as she seemed to float effortlessly around the stage but they just couldn't understand why she would always wear those old green worn out sneakers. Bella only felt confident enough to dance in front of an audience when she wore her trusty old sneakers, with holes in the toes and faded green laces....she danced like an angel though'

This was painted in watercolour paint with coloured pencil over the top.

Mixed Media Monday 'Paper Doll'

This week's theme for mixed media Monday is dolls. I decided to follow the path of paper dolls and ended up googling some images. I found this lovely old book of an Esther Williams paper doll and decided to make my own version of the front cover with one of my girls. I used to love paper dolls as a child and I really love the old 1950's women. They were so curvy and real. Which is a lovely breath of fresh air compared to the women of today who are 'perfect'.

I have put the picture in that I found which inspired me so you can see where I'm coming from. I created a new lady who I have name 'Lily' I think I'll be seeing more of her too! The materials used for this one were acrylic paint, coloured pencils and pen. I painted the background and stamped some bubble shapes on with some jelly molds I found in the kitchen, then I painted and coloured the ladies separately and stuck them on. I'm quite pleased with how she turned out!

Coasters

Well I finally finished my coasters. I think they turned out ok. They aren't as bright in the scan as real life but I think they look nice together. Now I have to find something to cover them with to protect them, next time I'm at the craft shop I'll see what they recommend......I'd like to do more of these with different designs and perhaps find a way to print some of my work onto paper/card and somehow stick them on the coaster...hmmmm...lots to do!

'Layla'

Well this picture started off as a doodle in front of the tele, I find it very relaxing just drawing on the couch sometimes. I decided to colour it with coloured pencil and it was quite a nice change to use a different medium.

I called her 'Layla' as I think that is a pretty name and it suited her. When I was pregnant with my second, 'Riley' he was going to end up being 'Layla' had he been a girl........ I think I'll be doing more with this character!

Illustration Friday - Drifting

Miss Lila the lady bird loved nothing more on a sunny afternoon than to hop into her leaf boat and drift down the stream with her picnic and a good book!

Mixed media Monday 'Tell us a Story'

Well I really love the theme for this coming Monday's 'Mixed Media Monday'. 'Tell us a Story' gave me so much room to play this week. I ended up doing a mixed media piece on canvas and I really enjoyed it. I also made up a little snippet of a story to go along with it. My hubby said 'it's a bit girly isn't it?' when he looked at it, and I have to agree yes it's a bit on the romantic side but I think that I'm compensating for living with two young boys, 3 if you count my husband and our dog is even a male. (not really sure about our bird....) so I guess I just felt like doing something a bit girly!!!

It's painted in acrylic, her shawl is material and I printed the text off and pasted that on top of the canvas. The main problem I had though was scanning it in at the end because it is bigger than A4 I couldn't get everything on the scanner plus it didn't scan very well as it wouldn't sit flat so I ended up taking some photos instead and it came up much brighter, plus you can see that I painted the sides too as it was quite a thick canvas....anyway here it is.....I might try and scan it in a bit better tomorrow I'm a little tired now....

Book marks/Mixed Media Monday-Beads

This was posted a few weeks ago but I realised it fitted this week's theme at Mixed Media Monday very well. So here is my entry for 'Beads'.

I just thought I would take a picture of some of the bookmarks I ended up making out of a couple of my paintings. I like how they've turned out and am giving them away as gifts, keeping one for myself of course. I really enjoyed making something out of these pictures and being able to use them for something. I'm also in the process of painting some coasters. Just thought I've have a go and seeing how they would work. I've got 4 in a theme which is the seasons. The first one looks great and I can't wait to finish them but I'm now posed with the problem of finding something to cover them so that they don't get damaged when someone puts a cup of tea on them etc......does anyone know what sort of protector I could use?

Birthday card idea......

Today I'm playing around with a few of my previous pics and seeing how they'd look as a birthday card. I like the idea of using my art somehow as I feel like it's a shame to let it just sit in a folder or book somewhere, anyway this is something that I just played around with. The girl is from this week's Mixed Media Monday collage. I cropped her out and went over her a bit with coloured pencil and ink because I had printed her out slightly larger than she originally was so I could see a bit of pixilation (not sure if I spelt that right) and used a cake from clip art where the numbers were. I quite like how this turned out!!!

My other design is for a niece's birthday. It's a print onto photo paper of a design I did a while ago. I drew and painted the flowers around it!!

Mixed Media Monday 'Numbers'

The theme for the next Mixed Media Monday is 'Numbers'.

My take on numbers is '31' which is my age! I guess this piece is about who I am at 31 and my changing role. I really enjoyed working on this one as I tried so many new things. I also learnt what works and what might not. It definitly looks better in real life, I just couldn't seem to get the brightness of the colours in the scan but I'm happy with it. I have posted the scanned image as well as an image that I have played around with on the computer. I wasn't planning on doing anything digital but the scanned image hasn't come up as well as I would have liked. Although I realise now why. The materials I used for 'Numbers' are: acrylic paint, the toilet paper technique that I used before, which is basically gluing tissue paper then painting over it and you are left with quite a textured effect. That is what I have done for the numbers. I used wood, glittery string. colour pencils, material for her dress and also text. I realised though that the scanning is a problem now because of some of the materials I can't lay it perfectly flat so some of it ie the text in the background is out of focus. Bit of a bummer but I guess it's all in the learning process.

My first blog award!!

I have just received my first ever blog award! From the lovely and very talented Jessie Lilac. Thank you so much Jessie, it was a lovely surprise! Jessie is an artist who produces some wonderful dreamy water colour work amongst other beautiful paintings. I discovered Jessie through blogging, and she has given me so much inspiration and motivation for my own art. I have met so many wonderful and talented artists it just makes me want to keep going with my little dream.
Here are a few rules when accepting your award:
1. Deliver this award to eight other people.
2. Include the following text with the award on your site...
These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends.They are not interested in self aggrandizement.
Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut,even more friendships are propagated.
Please give more attention to these writers.

I have chosen 8 artists/writers and bloggers that have inspired me and also have given me some wonderful advice.

Annette Quirke

Darla

Diana Evans

Karabeth

Amusing Muses

The Doodle Girl

Capricious and Arbitrary

Melinda Smith's Mull and Fiddle

Thanks everyone, I love visiting your blogs and your lovely comments have meant alot!!

Satine

Well I watched Moulin Rouge last night and got inspired to do a painting of Satine the main character. I haven't finished the painting yet but decided to scan it in and have a play around with it, I really need to learn how to use something like Photoshop, this one was just done with the paint tools. I added highlights to the eyes and played around with the background and some other elements. Just thought I'd post it and see what people think is the best software to use for something like this as I'd like to learn.............

Illustration Friday - Crave

Well this week, I felt a bit stuck about what to do with the topic, not because I didn't like it but because I was just really tired. I'm seriously lacking sleep so probably looked a little like this picture when I painted it. This poor woman is craving sleep of course just look at the shadows under her eyes, they are quite like my own. Sometimes it's a little hard to come by especially when you have a sick two year old. I'm not entirely happy with it as it's not like what I would normally do but I thought I'd submit it anyway as it's the best I can come up with this week. It was a good exercise for me though as I've been using acrylics a lot lately so it was nice to have a bit of a change with the watercolour. The more I look at it the more I like it.....I think....ah well I'm off to collapse!!!

Flower Girl doodle on canvas

Well here is my painting on canvas that was inspired by my pencil drawing earlier in the week. The canvas isn't very big it's 5" x 7" or 12.7cm x 17.8cm. It's actually quite thick and I would have liked to have posted a photo of it as well as a scan because I had to paint alot around the edges. (However my hubby has gone away with the camera, so maybe I'll add a photo when he gets back). Anyway here it is, I'm not really sure what I think of it but it's something new and it's all about experimenting isn't it? Now I'm about to get stuck into Illustration Friday for this week and switch to water colour for a bit of a change.

'Flower Girl' Doodle.....

My lovely mum went and bought me some art supplies yesterday, 3 canvas', and some new beads for another project that I've been working on. She's very encouraging when it comes to my art and I'm very lucky. This afternoon I had some time off from the kids and just sat down and drew up this doodle. I've noticed lately that I can't just sit in front of the tv anymore I have to be drawing too otherwise I feel like like I'm wasting precious time that I could be using to create.....I think I'm becoming obsessed with my art...but I don't think that's such a bad thing, I could be obsessed with much worse I think....anyway this is what I came up with it's just a pencil drawing but perhaps I'll end up making a painting out of it on one of my new canvas'........

Mixed Media Monday 'Lace'

I have experimented with using material, and newspaper text with this canvas. I was inspired by the next topic for Mixed Media Monday which is going to be "Lace". I seem to be ahead of myself again this week and will submit this one to the next Mixed Media Monday next week. I'm really enjoying experimenting with different materials and techniques. I also tried playing around with the lady's expression and also tried a different colour skin tone. I can't wait to dream up my next project!