Paint Party Friday and Sunday Sketches - Portraits and a new painting for our new room!

Hi guys I missed last week as we were away at a family gathering down the coast but i have been working on more portraits over the last couple of weeks first up is Morgan Freeman (well my interpretation of him).

I've always loved his face, such an interesting one to paint and of course his acting and that voice!!!

Next up was a painting of Noel Fielding from a show called 'The Mighty Boosh', if you haven't seen it it's completely out there but very funny, a quirky British show.

This next painting is one that I've done for our new rumpus room, we've been going through renovations (stage 3 of our big plan) and it's nearly finished, newly painted with lots of bare walls so I decided to paint this tree painting to compliment our colour scheme, i just did it on a whim but had so much fun and I'm really happy with it! :0)

Last but not least here are some experiments I did with some sea rocks that I picked up last weekend, some I painted on and others were perfect the way nature made them so I just varnished them. I'm now looking for a small drill to drill a hole through the top to make into pendants!

If anyone has any tips on how to drill these it would be much appreciated!!! Looking forward to seeing what you've all been up to! x

Paint Party Friday - And now for something completely different!

Well my first week with two kids at school has flown by in a blur!!! The boys went so well especially my youngest who started Kindy this week. Such a big life change for such a little man! He's loving it and I think will have a wonderful time with his new teacher who is fantastic!

As you can imagine this means that my life is now completely changed. I now have from 9am to 3pm to do all those things that I try to do every day with two crazy kids around. It's been a very strange week but I must admit I really enjoy being able to concentrate on some grown up things! About a month ago I joined the gym as I was getting a bit bored with just running so each day I pretty much drop the boys off and head to the gym for an hour. I've been able to set aside the appropriate time for the paper work for our business (we have our own gardening business) and our home office is now looking like a proper office and that much needed paper work is getting seen to on a regular basis. And of course I now have more time to concentrate on my art. I was so excited at the beginning of the week that I couldn't wait to get started and of course I had a terrible artistic block, I finally had the time to really get serious with my art and I couldn't think of a thing to paint!!!! Argggghhhhhh!!!!! So frustrating!

In the end I decided to step outside my comfort zone and try something a little different and quite a challenge for me. I decided to work on some realistic portraits, (something which I must admit really intimidates me). I really love drawing faces and eyes and playing with expressions so I decided to google some photos of interesting faces and these are the two that I was able to paint this week.

This first lady I found I don't really know who she was but I was struck by her eyes which I thought were kind and I thought had the photo been in colour she would have had a real sparkle to them.

Painted in gouache!

Most of you would probably recognise this guy as Mr Katy Perry! (I guess not for much longer though) I really love Russell Brand even though he's crude and totally inappropriate I can't help but laugh at him.

When I looked at his picture I saw him as a definite 'Red' project!!! He reminds me of a vampire!

I'm hoping that now things are in some sort of routine I can possibly blog a bit more and visit you all more. I really appreciate your comments on my work and will make sure that I come round and see you all as I love seeing what you have been doing and your inspiration!! :0)

Paint Party Friday and Sunday Sketches 'I'm the king of the pond'.....

 Hi guys, first up this week is a little canvas I worked on. I decided I wanted to recreate my frog princess in this mixed media piece. I used Japanese papers, painted over them with acrylic paint. I felt like it give the painting a bit more depth and texture and it was fun to do something different.

 I have added this little cutie to my shop as I think it would look lovely in a little girls bedroom :0)

 I really took my time painting the sides of the canvas too! :0)

 This sketch was another exercise I set myself, I wanted to play around with facial expression. This girl looks unimpressed with something ;0)

Lastly this is my latest piece in my frog series. 'I'm the king of the pond'....I'm sure I don't have to explain my inspiration behind this one? I painted this piece in gouache paint with some coloured pencil on top! :0) I really love how bright the gouache is, i would love to try it on watercolour paper next :0)

I'm finding my frog series a great source of inspiration, it's great to paint one of these when i'm lacking some inspiration or my muse has disappeared :0) They always make me smile too! ;0)

Hope you are all having a wonderful weekend and look forward to catching up on what you've all been doing!

Paint Party Friday/Sunday Sketches!

Hi guys

I've been combining my pieces for both challenges lately because I'm having a lot less art time at the moment with school holidays going on etc. So I think for the moment I shall be posting once a week like this just so I can keep up at least with the challenges.

So this week I have managed to create another froggy character! Today we have 'Marilyn Mon-Frog'!!!! :0) I'm already working on my next piece for the froggy collection and can't wait to share that one with you too! I think I might do a frog on canvas next :0)

 I had a right little giggle painting this one :0)

This next piece I was able to squeeze in the other day in between shuttling my little ones to play dates and generally keeping them out of mischief! I was getting very depressed just walking by my art table this week and not being able to sit down and work on all the ideas I've got rattling around my head. So I thought I'd practice creating some expressions with just the eyes and eye brows. I'm going to start working on a book that I collaborated on with my cousin a couple of years ago. I finished a draft version but we weren't ready to move forward with it back then I needed to work on my art. I think I'm feeling ready to give it another go so really want to work on my character creation and facial expressions :0) (no this book is not about frogs ;0) but perhaps I should think about that for the future ;0) ).

I really enjoyed this exercise!!! :0)

Ok best dash off it's time to take the boys to another play date!!!

Paint Party Friday and and an early entry for Sunday sketches

Hello everyone, I hope you all had a great New Years and have recovered. I wasn't too bad this week, we had a big party on the weekend even the kids stayed up into the wee hours and we all lazed around the next day. It's still summer holidays over here at the moment so I've been busy taking the kids to play dates, the pool and keeping them occupied etc. I've even managed to get back into my exercise a bit 2012 is the year I get buff (fit)....well I'll try anyway ;0)

I'm including these pieces as my Sunday sketches too as we have two birthday parties this weekend and the husband is dragging me to a car show eeeeeeek.....so not my thing but when he told me that there was an air brush exhibition as well I decided to give it a go. So hopefully next week I'll have some pictures to show you and I might even be able to get some tips!!!

Ok first up is another in my series of frogs. I really love drawing these little guys as it really gets my creative juices flowing, and I'm thinking up all sorts of scenarios for them to be in :0)

This one is 'Disco Frog'

 Move over Travolta!

This next piece is another of my experiments with the airbrush that I got for Christmas. I used the air brush for the skin, background and hair then added details over the top. I really do like the look of the airbrush it gives it a softness that I'm not able to get with a paint brush. I think though that it's going to take me a long time to be able to do details with an airbrush it really is tricky but I really am having fun trying new things!!!

Hope you all have a great weekend and I'll pop by over the weekend!!

Paint Party Friday - Frog obsession continues

Hi everyone, well Christmas is nearly upon us so I thought I'd better add my paint party Friday pieces before things got crazy.

My last post I put up some frog pictures as I've been obsessed with them lately, so many characters bouncing around in my head, so this week in between lots of Christmas preparation I managed to paint two more.

'Zombie' Frog must be my favourite! I had so much fun with this little guy heheheh. I'm a massive zombie movie fan so had a lot of ideas for this one! He's painted in acrylic paint and I've used a biro pen to outline him, I've never used biro like this before it works really well with the paint!

'Karate' Frog, I've used some inspiration from the original 'Karate Kid' for this one heheheh!!!


I wish you all a fantastic happy and safe Christmas and look forward to painting more of these little guys next week! :0)

Paint Party Friday

Hi guys this week I've been working on another canvas art bag and a mini work of art as well as my entry for the Creative Sistahs project I'm working on :0) I'm also preparing for my market next weekend, the first one since before our winter so I'm hoping that we do well as I've been working hard on lots of new pieces :0)

 A spooky mini work of art just in time for Halloween

 New wooden tile pendant 'Atmosphere'

 This is my piece in Carmen's book inspired by summer holidays with my big brother :0)

 Ballerina canvas art bag! :0)

I'll be popping in to visit you all this weekend hope you've had a great week!!!

Paint Party Friday - My canvas bags finally arrived!!!

Hi guys

Well this week has been quite a busy one with school holidays and a husband with the worst case of the man flu,  you can imagine that I have  had my hands full!

Finally my canvas tote bags arrived that I ordered a while back and have been able to paint one of them already. I wanted to paint a design that looked like  you were carrying a painting around with you and so decided to recreate my 'Garden Angel' design.

First up I sketched the design on with fabric pen.

 Then I set to work painting it!

I'm really happy with how this turned out and have so many more ideas for more bags. Our supermarkets over here are soon to be banning plastic bags so I thought this might be a nice  way to remember to take my bag shopping with me. You could use it for anything really and I also have ideas to make some cute kids library bags with some designs on too.

The next step is to heat seal it. I will be working on more of these this week and adding to my shop :0)

The other thing that's been keeping me busy this week has been a school holiday project with my boys. We decided to make an animated movie so have spent days drawing and making characters then building a movie set. We took loads of photos the other day and I now need to put them into the computer with this software that I have which will put it all together. I think after a long time of taking pics we have about 3 seconds of film heheheh but the boys are loving it.

 The opening shot with 'Sir Scardey cat'

 The boys designed then made the characters. There is this crocodile/dragon and the spikey things are the 'dark lord's' minions hehehe

 My 4 year old took over as set designer and made some beautiful flowers he also designed the crocodile/dragon.

The end shot where 'Sir scardey cat' and 'Princess Proud' are reunited!!!

We had a lot of fun!

Paint Party Friday - Vampire inspired mini work of art!

Ok so these mini canvas' are soooooooooooooo addictive!! I love painting as much detail as possible in such a small space! I've got lots more ideas in my head for more of these but here is the second in my series of mini paintings on canvas.

It's almost October so I thought some Halloween inspired art might be in order I love vampy girls, zombies and all sorts of things like that and I have been watching the new season of True blood and I think that inspired me even more (I love that show so much)!!!! :0)

I was thinking that if I keep creating ladies like this I need to start giving them names so I shall start with this one 'Angelique' :0) She looks like an angel but I'm sure those fangs could do some damage.

 I LOVE purple I think it's up there as my most favourite colour!

 I painted the sides black!

 And of course I'm going to turn this lovely lady into a pendant!!!

 Such a great way to brighten up a desk space!!

Just thought I'd show this pic of my hand next to the painting to give you an idea of size. The canvas measures 8cm x 10cm!!

I shall be adding Angelique to my etsy shop in the near future :0)

Hope you are all having a great week so far, yay for the weekend!!!

Paint Party Friday - My August Creative sistahs entry and some other bits and bobs!

Hi everyone, it's been a couple of weeks since I last blogged or took part in any of my weekly groups that I usually participate in. We've just been flat out getting the house back in order after moving back in after our renovations, plus I had to sort out our office and my art space. Everything seemed to be so all over the place but finally I think things are back to normal and I'm catching up on my art. I haven't been creating as much as I'd like but hopefully I'm back on track.

This week I'd like to share with you my entry in Stephanie's book for the Sistahood of the travelling sketch book that I'm involved in. If you'd like to know more about this just click on the creative sistahs tab on the right hand side of my blog! :0)

This page is about August in Canberra. The writing says 'August in Canberra means wearing lots of winter woolies'.........I'm hoping that this will be my last entry inspired by cold weather as we are well into Spring now, hooray!!! It certainly was a long cold winter!!!

I used my water colour pencils and some ink for this little cutie and I really liked how she turned out! :0)

Now that I'm home I've finally been able to work on some more pendants so thought I'd share them with you! :0) Very proud of these!!

 Here are some wooden tile pendants made from the prints of my recent paintings.

 I love these owl bails they are so quirky! :0) These are the backs of the pendants covered with Japanese paper and varnished with a layer of diamond glaze. I really love these bails they are vintage bronze and vintage copper with matching chains! :0)

 These settings are called 'vintage star' settings, but they also remind me of flowers. This top one is vintage bronze. I knew that my red and gold Japanese paper would look perfect in this setting.

 This next one is shiny silver with some more of my Japanese paper.

 My garden angel looks right at home in this one :0)

 This last piece was made using a print of a mini painting of mine. 'Just Breathe in blue' :0) I think she works out lovely as a wooden pendant.
All these pendants are in the process of being added to my shop. :0) I'm making pieces for my next market in the beginning of November! But will also be making them available in my etsy shop :0)

Lastly I just wanted to share this photo of our gorgeous weeping cherry tree in full blossom!!! Hooray!!! :0)