Paint Party Friday and Sunday Sketches! I'm back!

Hi guys, well after a wonderful trip to New Zealand I'm back and have been painting all week with a new kind of energy.

We had a wonderful time, skiing, running, walking, sightseeing it was a real out doorsy holiday and it all went by in a blur. I shall share a couple of pics at the end of this post. First up though I wanted to share my recent paintings with you!

This dancing vampy angel is still a work in progress but I started her before I went away. Will try to finish her this week. She's painted in oils on water colour paper!

Next up is Leila, I painted her in oils on water colour paper and managed to finish her just before we went away! I'm loving playing around with the different colour schemes etc!

This next one I called 'Rose' she is on a canvas and I shall be adding her to my shop very soon!

My snow girl 'Neve' was inspired by my trip to New Zealand as was this next piece (a mini landscape).

Last but not least is my piece I finished yesterday in acrylics 'Jade' my masquerade girl :0)

 I feel very inspired lately and am having so much fun with my painting.

I'm having a giveaway on my facebook page so be sure to head over there and enter plus I'm having a Winter sale in my etsy shop ALL pendants are now only $10.00 so if there is something you have had your eye on be sure to snap it up before someone else does! :0) I'm going to be adding lots more to my shop in the coming days too!

Here are a couple of shots from our recent trip such a beautiful place! Hope you are all well and I look forward to catching up with my blog friends this weekend!

Paint Party Friday and Sunday Sketches!!

Hi everyone I really wanted to make sure that I posted this weekend. It's been a couple of weeks since I've been able to sit and blog. Work is going well and I managed to finish the mural in the preschool this week.

This photo doesn't do it justice as it was taken on my phone but I wanted to show you the finished piece:

 My mum thought it was really cool that I could actually fit into one of paintings :0)

We've only got a couple of weeks before the end of term but I'm going to be starting another mural in a different area of the school (in the unit for the children with special needs) I've been asked to brighten up their outdoor area and hopefully the children will help me paint this one. Can't wait to start that one. I'm also about to start some new projects with the preschool children. (They loved the tree I painted so much that I'm going to do a project where they can paint their own whimsical trees) and I'm going to discuss doing another class with the oldest kids!!! So it's all go go go! :0)

I've also been working on some pieces at home this last couple of weeks. First up I finished those two paintings that I showed you last post:

 My owl painting came up really nice!

 I called this portrait 'Kate'.....

 This is an idea I'm working on for my October entry for the creative sistahs project. I'm thinking of incorporating a print of this painting into my entry! :0)

 And lastly here is a sketch that I've been playing around with I really wanted to do something with a darker edge and was feeling a little vampy the other other ;0) I want to continue on with this idea and perhaps paint a full length vamp!!! :0)

Hope you are all going well and I shall try to get round to visit you all! :0)

Sunday Sketches and Paint Party Friday...works in progress! :0)

Hi guys well I can't believe another busy week is at an end. I managed to finish the lady I showed you in my last post. I felt she needed more depth to her face and wanted to soften her up a bit as I felt like she looked a bit cold so I added eyelashes.

I think I'm finally satisfied with her now :0) She is painted in oils so when she finally dries I shall be adding her to my shop!

I also went into work again this week (I still can't believe I'm actually getting paid to do this) and worked on the mural for the preschool. I have also been continuing with the art classes and I'm absolutely loving this! :0)

I think the mural is really coming together now! :0) I'm hoping to finish the hills and completely paint the tree next week, although it is a public holiday on one of the days I'm due in next week so I'm not sure how far I will get. I'm loving this though it's such a great experience it's so funny to see something of mine on such a large scale! :0)

These last couple of paintings are my current WIPs. I really enjoying going from one piece to the other it keeps me interested. These are also in oils, I can't get enough of oils at the moment!

I just wanted to leave you with this shot I took in my garden this morning, for those of you lucky people sweltering in the summer heat, just think of me waking up to -5c!!! I have to say though it really is pretty!

Oh and I have a question for you. I just noticed that my blogger has changed and I can't find where to see my 'newsfeed' anymore. I want to see what you've all been up to and I can't find it, can anyone tell me where it is now as it all looks different?

Thanks and I hope you all had a great week! :0)

Paint Party Friday and Sunday sketches

Hi everyone, well I finally started my much anticipated 'Artist in Residence' position at the local Primary school this week.

I started the massive mural and I did a couple of sessions with the oldest kids. I really really really enjoyed both. It was so nice to be able to encourage and inspire some young minds. I came to realise that not every child has the love of art that myself and my children do and I even found a couple of children who found the experience of creating art very daunting and stressful. So my goal for them is to help them gain the courage to give it a go. It doesn't come easy to everyone so that was something I learned very quickly. I hope that I can help make art time a fun experience for those who are a bit overwhelmed by it.

I did find a few students who I could see love to draw so that was exciting to see too :0) I really enjoyed interacting with the students so that was fun! :0)

As for my mural, it is HUGE I've not worked on such a big scale before but I think it's going to look really really awesome. Here is an early work in progress shot:

I'm really happy with the grass once I added the highlights it really made it pop! I don't know if you can see in the background but I have sketched up some hills a rainbow and a smiley sun :0) Back in on Monday to work on both projects.

One other thing I thought I'd show you this week is this lady I painted yesterday in oils, I think I want to add more shading in her face but need her to dry a little bit first!

I think she needs more depth in her face!

I'm going to try my best to visit you all this weekend as I want to see what you have all been up to!

Paint Party Friday and Sunday sketches! Portraits! :0)

 Hi Guys, Well it's been a little while since I blogged, I have been busy painting but haven't had a chance to sit down and blog about them, so here is my collection that I have been working on lately. These 3 paintings are all in oil paints. I decided to pull them out again and have been having so much fun with them. I really love how vibrant they are. This first one is called 'Autumn' and I shall be adding her to my etsy shop when she is dry! Love this colour combo.

Next up is another oil on water colour paper, just a doodle really that turned out really nice I call this one 'What will be will be'........

 Last up is 'Rose' who I finished yesterday. She is in oils on canvas. I shall also be adding her to my shop when she is dry. I've been updating my etsy shop lately as I realised that I haven't added anything for a while and I have so many new pretties to show you.

I can't help but paint faces I am just drawn to them. :0)

On the job front I've finally received my paper work and I'm ready to go, I have already had a meeting with one of the teachers and hopefully start a new project with him next week. As well as those murals. Hopefully I'll have something to show you soon. My first project with the kids looks to be a landscape piece with the older children. I'm really looking forward to this as it's good excuse for me to work on a landscape which I normally shy away from so hopefully it'll be a challenge for me as well as the kids. Hope you are all having a great week and I look forward to getting round to you all to see what you've been up to! :0)

Purple lady cold day! :0) - Sunday Sketches!

Hi guys well it's the time of year I start to get jealous of all  your spring time talk!!! I feel like we are hurtling towards winter at the moment and it's been a really cold day today so stayed indoors and did some painting!

First up is a painting I did of this purple haired lady! I wish I could pull off a purple hair do ;0)

Next up is a design I made for a mural at the school where I'm going to be working, just waiting for the paperwork to come back so I can start which should hopefully be this week. This mural is for the preschool, they have asked me to paint over an existing tree. I decided to keep a tree as the focal point because the teachers use it throughout the year to pin the childrens work to such as caterpillars and butterflies they made in craft, flowers, blossoms in spring time and Autumn leaves at this time of the year (being Autumn down under). I made my tree a lot more whimsical and added in a background to give it more character but tried to stay simple at the same time. Can't wait to start it! :0)

Hope you've all had a great weekend and I look forward to seeing what you've been up to! :0)

Paint Party Friday - Snow white and a creative sistahs entry! :0)

Hi guys, well I think I have survived the school holidays with my sanity in tact ;0) not much time for art over the last couple of weeks but I managed to work on an art project with the boys which I shall post when it's finished.

Today I finally got some art time in and with the little ones on a play date I managed to work on something new.

I got this piece of wooden board from my mum the other day and decided to give it a go. I was inspired by my sketch in my last post and just began doodling and painting, she took on a life of her own and became my version of Snow white :0) it's not finished yet as I'm not happy with her hand and I want to add more little details but I'm happy with how she's turning out.

I also worked on my entry in Jaime's book for the sistahood of the travelling sketchbook project that I'm involved with. If you are interested in finding out more about this project just click on the link on the right :0)

 My month was February, I used acrylic paint and patterned paper. I just need to work on the written page and I can send it on! :0)

What have you all been up to this week? :0)

Paint Party Friday and Sunday Sketches

Hi guys,

Well my blogging is becoming increasingly sporadic and I do apologise for that. Life seems to be getting in the way of my art which can be very frustrating sometimes but also can't be helped.

We had an interesting week which began with my littlest hurting himself on the trampoline and my husband and I spending our 12th wedding anniversary in the hospital emergency department. Luckily it was a nasty sprain not a break but the poor little guy has been hobbling around all week, and still isn't right.

I've been working on some lesson plans for next term as I shall be starting my artist in residence position, I'm so looking forward to that. The school holidays are about to start so I hope to put some of these plans into place and try them out on my own boys first so that I can see what works and what doesn't. I'm nervous but so excited about this new direction my art is taking me, i shall keep you posted on how it all goes.

In the meantime I managed to work on my large canvas which I showed you last post as well as a couple of  portraits of my beautiful nieces as well as a quick sketch I did in front of the tele this afternoon.

I hope you all had a great Easter and look forward to seeing what you've all been up to!!! :0)

Paint Party Friday - My biggest canvas to date! :0)

Hi everyone just have some progress shots of my biggest canvas that I've worked on so far. It's 3 panels which I'm going to hang in our new room. I've never done one this big before so I'm really enjoying the process. Here are some pics of how far I've gone with it so far:

 I googled some photos of some lotus flowers and chose this composition. Sketched the design.
They almost take up my entire dining table!

 Next up I used craft glue and paper towel to make more texture on the lily pads, and texture paste on the petals. Then I painted the background!

This is just the first layer of colour on the flower, I'm going to go a bit more tan/orangey in the flower so as to compliment the blue. Hoping to do some more tomorrow. I'm having a lot of fun though and have to get on a chair to take the photo :0) There is something quite liberating about working on a large piece. The size and subject matter are right out of my comfort zone but I'm loving the process.

 These next pictures are of some lesson/project ideas that I've been putting together for my stint as 'The artist in residence' which I'm hoping to start next term at the boys school I'm so excited about working with the children and hopefully inspiring them to love art as much as I do :0) My first project I think will be to do a painting like my tree one below that I have created as an example but also thought it would be good to give the kids other options if they aren't into trees.

 These are two photos that I took the other morning of the flowers in my garden after we had quite a down pour, it wasn't until I looked at the pic above on my computer that I realised that I had captured the reflection of the flower inside this precarious rain drop! LOVE it! :0)

Just had to share this one too I thought it was sooooo pretty!!!

Hope you've had a great week and I look forward to seeing your paintings this week! :0)

Sunday Sketches - a bit of a collection! :0)

Hi everyone, this last week I have been experimenting with all sorts of materials. These two pieces are some mixed media pieces made using acrylic paint and oil pastels on wood!

The second one below I called 'You are not alone'. I really liked using the pastels and paints together! :0) The only question I have is when you are using oil pastels is there something you should put over the top to 'seal' it so that it can't get damaged? I'm worried that it wouldn't take much to make a mark on the pastels?

This next piece is a small canvas that I painted for a prize in my facebook fanpage competition. I asked my likers what they would like to see me paint and said that the winning idea would get the painting! This liker said she would love to see butterflies or fairies and I couldn't resist so I painted a 'butterfly fairy'. I'll be doing more competitions like this as it was alot of fun! :0) It now needs to be posted off to the UK! :0)

 This last piece is something I doodled in front of the tele with some new pastel pencils that I bought. I love John Travolta especially at this age :0) He was fun to paint!!!

Last but not least I thought I'd share a couple of paintings done by my little men. I was practicing a lesson plan idea with them the other day. I wanted to show them how easy it would be to create one of my tree paintings. I think that they would look very striking up around the school :0)

 This first one was done by my 5 year old!!! Sooooo impressed he's now drawing his own 'whimsical' trees, that's what he's calling them.

This one was done by my 8 year old. LOVE his colour choice and addition of birds in the back ground. We even covered perspective in this painting as he figured out that if he drew them different sizes they looked different distances away!!! Such a clever little man!

Hope you are all having a great weekend!!
x

Paint Party Friday and Sunday Sketches

Hello my arty blog friends! It's been a while since I blogged! And here I thought that once my boys were at school I'd have more art time! Well as usual things have been crazy, we finished our final stage 3 renovations (extension) and so that threw a spanner in the works and in the meantime I've been applying for a new job! There is a possibility that I may be the artist in residence at the boys school which is such an exciting opportunity for me! So I've been busy with paper work and creating project ideas. Just waiting on finding out the budget for the school and whether it is possible to do fingers crossed! :0) I'm also applying to be a teachers assistant so that I can fill in when need be. So as you can imagine this is a very exciting time for me :0) I'm also kept busy with lots of paper work from our business as well as trying to squeeze in some art time!

I did however manage to squeeze in this painting during the week!

Acrylic on canvas page!

I'm also working on a jewellery box for myself, I picked up this already made box at our local hardware store then decided to paint it! Here it is so far!

And last but not least I'm having a giveaway on my facebook fanpage so if you are interested in entering click on this link

Good luck!! :0)