Sunday Sketches My tribute to my Great Grandmother :0)

Hi guys, well after feeling very uninspired I have finally got my mojo back and decided to give myself some new challenges. This week I wanted to work on a painting of my Great Grandmother. Agnes Margaret (she preferred to be called Margaret) was born August 27 1899! She was a very beautiful young girl with stunning bright blue eyes and blondy brown wavy hair. Margaret was a volunteer nurse in World War I. She lived most of her life in a beautiful big house on the coast in South Wales and loved to swim in the ocean and walk her dogs every day. :0) I remember talking to my gran about when she was a kid and the things she liked to do.
The painting I have done this weekend is from a photograph. I loved the sepia colour but wanted to keep the contrast of those beautiful blue eyes :0) I would like to do another one of her in her nurses uniform.

 This is my Great Gran on her Wedding day.

 This is the photograph that I chose to paint.

It's not a perfect likeness I know but I do like the tones I have used and the way the face blends with the back ground. I am thinking of using this in a mixed media piece and doing more with her but I'll have a think about that! :0)

Paint Party Friday!!! Finally I have something to post!

Hi guys, I don't know what's wrong with me at the moment but I've not been feeling very creative and I've been neglecting my blog. I think sometimes in life I very focused and concentrate well on my art and jewellery or whatever I may be working on, and still seem to be able to do what I need to do in my normal day to day life. Things like the house work (boring), paperwork for our business (soul sucking) and all that fun stuff. But the last few weeks I just felt like I was drowning in everything. Really off balance and out of whack. I can't explain why but we have had alot on. Birthday parties, trips to the coast, etc etc. Phew!!! So I have been finding it increasingly harder and harder to sit down and blog and blog surf and even draw.

So yesterday I thought enough was enough and I decided to stop stressing about what I'm not doing and to play around with my paints and rediscover why I started this big creative part of my life again and why I love it!!! Thank goodness I did!! I decided to get back into my painting again as that is my first love. To work on my technique and to kick start a new creative direction. So I decided to try my hand at oils again and I really wanted to paint a portrait and work on my folk art girl style.

One girl in particular that has stuck out to me is Rose Byrne she is an Aussie actress and I recently saw her in a very scary movie 'Insidious' that one really scared me but I enjoyed it!! :0) I've always thought her very beautiful she has that fragile beauty, and reminds me of my 'big eyed' girls. I drew this free hand and then painted it in oils.

I know she's not perfect but I'm quite pleased with her. I've got a good idea for my next personal project which I'll hopefully get a start on this weekend.
The other thing that I was able to finish this week was my double page spread for Eva's book for the project of 'The sistahood of the travelling sketch book' that I am involved in this year. (you can click on the button on the top right of my page if you wish to find out more).

My spread is all about May, and here it is cold windy and full of beautiful Autumn colours!
I will be trying my best to visit you all over the weekend and catch up with your beautiful blogs :0)

Sunday Sketches - My trip to the coast!

Hi everyone this weekend I went to the coast to visit family we just got back this afternoon. I had a lovely relaxing time. I didn't take my sketch book with me but found myself with time on my hands yesterday afternoon to do a bit of sketching. So did these two on some computer paper :0) The weather was so cold yesterday I found myself staring out of the window at the gum trees watching the leaves fly up everywhere so I was inspired to do this sketch :0)

This other sketch was inspired but a sculpture/ornament that my mother in law has. Very cute meer cats, it's so realistic I felt these cute little eyes on me whilst I was watching tele. I wanted to draw another 'big eyed animal' and they seemed perfect. So full of character!

Hope you're all having a great weekend. I'm hoping to do some painting this week and be a bit more productive. I'll try and get round to visit you all later!!! :0)

Sunday Sketches - My first double page spread in another 'Sistahs' book :0)

Hi guys, first of all Happy Mothers day to all you yummy mummies out there!!!
I have been very spoiled today as hubby has been preparing a special lunch since yesterday :0)

He made homemade spinach and ricotta gnocchi with a slow cooked pork spare rib tomato sauce topped with pancetta parsley and parmesan cheese, mixed salad with olives and fennel etc and garlic bread. I'm very lucky that hubby used to be a chef in his past life, for 15 years to be exact and every now and again I'm thankfully reminded. We had both our mums here for the day as well as the dads and had a lovely lunch out on our deck as it was a beautiful Autumn day :0)

I wanted to share this sketch that I did yesterday. It is part of the 'Sistahood of the travelling sketchbook' which I have mentioned before :0). Last week I received Eva's book and this entry is about "May". In our part of the world it is now Autumn so May for me is filled with those beautiful Autumn colours. It's my most favourite time of year and I never tire of seeing the leaves change into those beautiful striking reds and oranges.

I really like this design and can't wait to paint it!

Hope you're having a great weekend!!!!!

Paint Party Friday 'Friends'

Hi guys still on the owl theme I sketched this cute couple up this week and finished painting it today. I used some pastel acrylic paints which I really like, I might try painting on a black background next and see how they come out.
If you wanted to see how my owl turned out from last week just check my previous post. I'm enjoying dabbling in animals at the moment so who knows what I'll paint next. :0)

I shall try and visit everyone this weekend but with mothers day and all we have a few family get togethers. Hope you're all having a great weekend :0)

Back to reality!!!

Hey guys, I feel like it's been forever since I blogged. It's only been about a week but I missed out on Paint Party Friday and Sunday sketches this last weekend. I've felt really out of sorts this last week or so and I think now that it was because I was stressing about this latest market I had. I've been working so hard on my jewellery and building up my stock with lots of variety and basically living and breathing it whilst also trying to keep two kids on school holidays occupied and happy. Then on Sunday hubby and I went off to do our latest market. It's a week before Mothers Day and we were told that this is the biggest market of the year and so had high expectations. It was very packed and busy and I did have lots and lots of people looking at my work asking questions and taking business cards and making lovely compliments. But it was my slowest market too. I'm not sure why but we just didn't do as well as I'd hoped. Perhaps I'd built it up too much and put too much pressure on myself? After talking to other market people I was told that it is just a very sporadic business and not to be disheartened. You can never pick when your big day is going to be.

So after feeling a little down about it I've decided to not let it stop me. I will have a break from the markets for a little while (it's cooling down over here now anyway so it's not something I'm keen to do through winter) and I want to get back to creating and painting and drawing as I've let that slip lately as I've been too busy.

I guess this is a constant learning curve.......
Anyway this is my stall on the weekend I feel like it was  our best set up yet I really liked my signs and paintings and just the way it all came together so that's good!

One thing that cheered me up this week was Eva's sketchbook arriving!!! I'm taking part in 'Sistahood of the travelling sketchbook' this year and I sent mine off last week and received Eva's in the post! I shall write up a proper blog post about this when I've made my entry :0)

Lastly I thought I'd share my owl painting with you. I showed my sketch in my previous post for Sunday sketches and finally got to finish it today!!! It's something quite out of my normal work so was fun for me to do and got my creative juices flowing again! :0)

What do you think? A friend suggested I try painting an Owl and I thought it might be a nice change from a person, I might try my hand at more animals! :0)