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)