Illustration Friday Swarm

Phew! Two posts in 24 hours! Feels good to be super creative again.

Here is my entry for Illustration Friday's 'Swarm'.

For some reason this is the image that came into my head, I wouldn't mind being surrounded by a swarm of butterflies! :0)

Hope you're all having a great weekend! :0)


I'd just like to add that I'm having a giveaway on my facebook page, so just click on the facebook link on the side of my blog to enter! :0)

My first oil painting finished Sunday sketch

Hi guys thought I'd post pics of my finished piece. Because it has been a work in progress from a sketch that I submitted to Sunday Sketches last week I thought I'd submit the finished piece to Sunday Sketches this week :0) As you can tell from my the photos in my last post, I did another layer of colours over my entire painting. After I let the painting dry enough I was able to paint more on top and I love how the oils pop! I think this piece turned out better than I expected and I really enjoyed doing it! Using oils made me slow down alot and think more about what I wanted to do as I couldn't be in a hurry with the drying time.

It's funny I realised this week that I really like the smell of the oil paints and that it brought back a few memories for me. My Bampi (granddad) used to paint in his spare time he was actually very talented but it was something that he used to do now and again when he retired. I think he could have done alot with his talent in another place and time. But I think back when he was growing up being artistic and creative wasn't as encouraged as it is today. Painting with oils reminde me of him :0)



I'm looking forward to doing more of these, I guess my only real problem with oils is the drying time, it's not very convenient to leave paintings out on your desk to dry for days on end. What do you guys who use oils do with your paintings  when you're finished? And how long do they tend to take to dry? My other thought was do I need to varnish it? I find with acrylic paint that varnishing helps make the colours pop alot more but I wasn't sure if I needed to do that with oils. Can you tell that I'm fumbling my way through this one? ;0) Hope you're all having a great weekend :0)

Some work in progress!

I had a very productive day today and finally after about 18months of procrastination, opened my oil paints. I've been wanting to try them for a while but really didn't know where to start. But I have been inspired by my gorgeous blog friend Kelly Berkey's work as she recently started using oils so I thought I would give my second canvas a go. We both seem to be experimenting with flowers at the moment :0) This is from the sketch I did for Sunday Sketches a few days ago.

 I painted my canvas with black acrylic paint and sketched the outline of the painting on top

 I didn't really have a plan or know how different the oils would feel to the acrylics.

 This is as far as I got with the painting today. I felt I had to stop and wait for the paint to dry a bit. I'm not sure what else I'm going to do with this but I know it needs something more. I want to outline the leaves a bit and include more detail. I really love acrylics and find them so user friendly but I have to say the oils are so bright and vibrant. The only thing that bothers me is the drying time, but it might not be such a bad thing as I think I tend to rush my paintings and it might do me good to work on this over a longer period of time.

I'd love to know what everyone else's thoughts on oils are and if you might have any tips for me. I shall post up more pics as I work on it :0)



Lastly I managed to bake these pendants up while I was painting today, I have since varnished them which makes the colour really pop. I drew a couple of designs on some of them too :0)

Hope you're all having a great week :0)

New flower painting!

I managed to work on this one and finish it today! Well I think it's finished. I'm so picky with my work lately I want everything I do to be a 'masterpiece' and stress about it when it doesn't turn out the way I had it in my head. I know I should just stress less and just learn from each piece but it's hard not to spot things  don't like in my work. Having said that I'm pleasantly surprised at how this one turned out. I've not painted many flowers on canvas and I'm glad I perservered with this one. I initially wanted a black background like my rose painting but I thought it looked a bit boring so I went over the black with a light layer of light blue and I quite like the texture it gave it.

I'm going to sign and varnish it! :0)

Now for the next one .......

Sunday sketches

Hi everyone hope you all had a great weekend. I've been so busy doing a massive stock take of all my pendants for my upcoming market. I've been pricing them and practicing my set up. My lovely hubby made me some boards to hang them on which has really made a difference to how it all looks.

This weeks Sunday sketch is just a quickie from my sketch book, i've been wanting to do another flower painting but I've been really struggling, I've painted over one canvas 3 times now as I'm not happy with how it turned out. So I sat down and sketched up some different flower ideas. I'm hoping to work on the paintings in the next few days.

I should have at least 100 pieces by the time I finish my stock take and I plan on making as many as I can before the big day as I bought some really cool clay the the other day.

Here are some shots of my set up with my clay pieces! :0)

I'm off to check out all the other Sunday Sketches :0)

And the winners are.........

Hi everyone well the One World One Heart event is over and I have managed to randomly pick the 3 winners. 132 lovely people entered.

The first one out of the hat was Doreen who just so happens to be from the same city as me! Congratulations Doreen you are the winner of the Japanese paper glass pendant

The winner of the next prize is Saskia. Congratulations Saskia you are the winner of my two glass bobby pins!

And last but not least the third winner is Regina. Congratulations Regina you have won my laminated print fridge magnet 'I curse my sweet tooth'.

Thank you everyone who entered. I enjoyed this give away sooooo much that I am already planning another so stay tuned :0)

I'm off to notify the winners :0)

Illustration Friday 'Sweater' and Sunday Sketch

'May-belle, just LOVED to knit, she didn't really know why she loved it so much because she wasn't particularly good at it, but she enjoyed the challenge of wearing those baggy sweaters!!!' :0)

'May-belle' is a character that I sketched up a few weeks ago for Sunday sketches and I decided to give her a bit more of a personality, perhaps I should take her different places each Illustration Friday and see where it takes me. I like working on this character as it is completely different to the other things I've been working on lately so it's a nice change!

Busy week!

Hi guys!

I realised today that it's been over a week since my last post which is unusual for me. I have to say though that with the OWOH blog hop going on and preparing my next big market in less than a month, as well as both the boys going back to school it's been a bit of a crazy week. Once I get into a routine (my youngest has finally started preschool) I shall be able to post more frequently again and I also plan to paint and draw alot more.

I wanted to show you guys some of the pieces that I have been working on in preparation for this new market I'm trying out. It's a real big country market and very popular in our city so I'm hoping that I'll do well there so that I can keep making these fun pieces.

These are also listed in my shop too :0)

 My current favourite, Japanese paper in a vintage setting!

 Hand drawn design on fimo clay.

 Love these settings, marbel swirls in fimo clay.

 I called this piece 'Jupiter' as it really reminded me of the planet! Love the antique bronze!

This is Japanese paper inside a black gunmetal pendant tray!

So as you can see I have been very busy. I'm currently working on another flower painting. I started painting it yesterday but I just wasn't happy with it at all so I ended up painting over it in black and starting again. Does that ever happen to you?

Hope you're all having a great week!!! :0)

Illustration Friday Surrender

Hi guys this week has been rather busy as I'm one of many people taking part in OWOH which is a massive blog event. Be sure to scroll down to that post as I'm having a giveaway and anyone with an active blog worldwide is able to enter.

So I have had this piece sitting on my desk for a couple of days and thought I'd better show you before I missed this weeks prompt. 'Surrender' for me this week was all about letting my paint brush decide what I wanted to paint and push myself a little and step outside the box. I tend to do alot of figurative paintings and pretty ladies etc and this time I wanted to do something that I wasn't so confident with which is flowers. I took a photo of a beautiful rose in my back yard and used that for reference. And the funny thing is the painting turned out completely different!! I'm now thinking of painting a series of flower paintings!

One World One Heart giveaway!!!!



Hooray it's finally here, the One World One Heart Giveaway!!! This is a wonderful world wide blog event
which is hosted by a lovely lady called Lisa Swifka from 'A Whimsical Bomehian. It is the event's 5th and final year so if you wish to take part click here to read more about Lisa and this wonderful event. I took part in it last year and have made some wonderful blog friends through it. It is basically a giant blog hop where people share their blogs and introduce themselves and you can find out about other creative wonderful people. It is also a giveaway as there are 'door prizes' in each blog!!!

I have 3 prizes to give away. My first prize is this cute little Japanese paper glass pendant that I made. I am very addicted to making pendants!!!

Second prize is two little hair clips that I made, one is from a print of a painting of a Japanese lady that i did and the other is made from Japanese paper.

The third prize is a laminated print of  a painting of mine 'I curse my sweet tooth' which I have attached a magnet to the back so you can use it as a fridge magnet.



All you need to do is have an active blog and leave a comment on this post. I shall put all names in a hat and draw out 3 winners. This event closes 17th Feb so be sure to leave a comment and a way for me to get back to you if you win.

I shall tell you a little about myself :0) I have been blogging for nearly two years and I still get amazed that there are so many wonderful  creative people out there who share so much of themselves. I have found blogging and reading other peoples blogs even better than an art class as people share techniques and ideas. I am interested in illustrating childrens books but since I have been blogging I've become interested in mixed media and jewellery (pendant) making. There are not enough hours in the day!!! I am married with two little boys who also love to draw so it runs in the family. I really enjoy visiting other peoples blogs and reading about their lives and creative interests it really makes the world feel not so big :0)

I look forward to visiting all the OWOH participants and making many more new blogs friends :0)

Sunday Sketches!!!

Hi everyone!!

This is just a doodle I did in my sketch book this week I really wanted to push myself a bit and draw something different from the pretty ladies i mostly do, or the figurative work. So I thought I'd try a little character and use pencil and ink.

I shall be posting my One world one heart blog post tomorrow. I have some goodies to give away but haven't had a chance to take some decent pictures yet so be sure to visit again tomorrow! :0)

Sunday Sketches and Illustration Friday Dust and an interesting family discovery!

Hi Guys, Here is my piece for Illustration Friday and Sunday sketches

When I painted it I changed the words slightly I nearly didn't include them in the picture but  in the end I decided that it was nice to have a bit of a story. :0)

"She gave one last glance over her shoulder and said "eat my dust"......and they never saw her again..."

This was painted in acrylic paint and I used pencil and ink on top!

The interesting family discovery is quite exciting. As most of you will know who follower my blog, I'm from Britain originally, Wales to be exact but emmigrated to Australia nearly 18 years ago. I remember when I was a child that there was always this 'story' that I heard through my mothers side of the family that we were some how related to Beatrix Potter!! I always found it interesting but didn't really believe that it was possible, I guess I thought it was too exciting to be true. Anyway fast forward about 20 years and a family member of mine recently started researching our family tree on our mothers side (our mothers are sisters) and she had heard the same story as me about Beatrix Potter. She actually found out that we are in fact related to her!!!! Eeek!!! It turns out that we share a Great great great....(hehehe not sure how many greats) Grandfather!!! So we I think are distant cousins! I know it sounds like I'm a crazy person but I guess if we all traced our family trees back far enough we would come across some connection to somebody famous, six degrees of separation and all that. We had heard this story through my Great Grandmother and so my mother called her mother the other day and mentioned it to her and she said 'oh yes I remember my mum telling me that when she was a child Beatrix would write her letters and draw her little pictures'....wow! of course my mothers response was 'where are these letters now?' hehehe and she said she wouldn't have a clue! I'm hoping that my gran has hidden them away somewhere special and she is keeping it to herself but who knows........ it's all very exciting and nice to know that art runs in our family as alot of us are artistically inclined.
Last night my mother and I watched the movie 'Miss Potter' which starred Renee Zellwegger and Ewen McGregor and we really enjoyed it and found it very interesting. I never realised just how hard she had it trying to follow her dream and being told that she would never be able to do it as she was a woman.....and that was by her own mother, such a different world back then.

Anyway I thought I would share that with you guys and it made me wonder have any of you ever discovered some interesting family connections?

My Goddess and some projects with the kids!

Hi everyone thank you for your caring comments on my last post! It really did mean alot!

One of my New Years resolutions is to do more drawing and painting as my pendant making has become my number one obsession but I also want to work more on my drawing. I started this blog, nearly two years ago and my focus was on illustration but along they way I seem to have become side tracked. Which has been exciting but I do miss my drawing time and I don't want to become rusty. So first up this is a picture which I sketched onto water colour paper then coloured in using water coloured pencils, then i used some fine liners to out line things which really made it pop! I'm calling her a 'Goddess' as I think that's appropriate. Anyway I enjoyed that 'doodle' and I'm planning on doing more drawings like this on regular basis! :0) The idea in my head for this piece was a girl floating  happily in the water. I went swimming yesterday and I think that's where this came from :0)




This week I've been doing a bit of drawing and pendant making whilst looking after my two little ones. It's still summer holidays here so the other day I sat down with them and their fimo that they got for Christmas and we made some pendants together. They really enjoyed mixing all the colours together!

 They made some fantastic pieces, the ones at the bottom are mine and the rest are theirs.

 Whilst looking through my camera I found that my youngest had secretly taken some photos himself, very naughty but I couldn't help laughing at this self portrait. hee hee.

Lastly this is another of my beaded bookmarks that I added to my shop! This is print of my piece 'I curse my sweet tooth!

Hope you're all having a great week.

Sunday Sketch and a very sad week......

Hi guys, well I guess wherever you are in the world you've probably heard about the floods in Queensland Australia. Actually it's now happening in 3 States that I know of, Queensland, NSW and South Australia, but basically up the Eastern side of Australia we've all had sooooo much rain.

Luckily for my family and I we aren't suffering from the floods but I feel so sad for the families who have been affected some of which have lost family members, it's so devastating. We are starting to hear stories about people that were hit by flash floods and they are so sad. The other morning I heard about a 13 year old boy who told rescuers to take his little 10 year old brother first. Unfortunetly when they tried to get the other boy he was swept away as it was too late for him. What a brave little man. Soooo so sad that story has stuck with me since. There are so many sad stories just like that I think that one affected me so much in particular because I have two boys of my own and the thought of that happening to them is too much to bear.

We will be donating to one of many charities over here that are helping the people affected by these terrible floods some of which are now homeless.

So this is the reason for my sad piece this week. I didn't intend to sit down and draw this paticular piece but it was just busting to come out. I haven't even thought of a name for it yet, any ideas?

Sorry for the sad post but it has been a very awful week for Australia and it's hard not to think about it. I'm very thankful that we have our loved ones safe and sound.

On a lighter note I've been very busy with more fimo pendants so thought I would include some in this post to brighten it up a bit. Hope you're all well and safe.

 I'm loving these vintage settings and I'm so addicted to fimo!

 I called this one 'Union'

 'Zebra Print'

 'Tiger Tear'

All these are now available in my etsy shop.

This last photo I took yesterday morning, after what felt like forever we woke up to a beautiful morning yesterday. I love these roses! :0)