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)

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

Sunday Sketches and another portrait!

Hi guys,

Hot on the heels of my last post and couple of portraits I decided to do my next one with a subject very close to home, I found a baby picture of my eldest who is now nearly 9 and painted a picture of him when he was very young.

 As a painting by it's self I quite like it but when you look at the photo I think you can see that it's not quite the same, interestingly enough I think  I managed to paint him looking older than the photo and more like what he looks like now. I enjoyed it though and will put this down as another practice/experience, either way I'm having fun and have broken my artistic block! :0)

Looking forward to catching up with you all at Sunday Sketches!

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 Part Friday and Sunday Sketches - Fallen Angels

Hi guys!

Well I didn't make any challenges last week, just too caught up in Summer holidays (although if you saw the weather here today you wouldn't think it was anywhere near summer, rainy, cold and yucky!)

We're on the downhill run now with the school holidays, my baby starts kindy on Monday and the other starts year 3 on Tuesday then I'm hoping to get back into some sort of routine, I need to get stuck into the office and do some business paper work and of course some new art directions!! I have enjoyed spending time with the boys but even they are are ready to get back to school.

This week I have been working on some new angel paintings, I decided to combine my angels with my pretty ladies and they have combined to make 'Fallen Angels'.

Very much an experiment:

I think this one was my 'ugly' phase, I kinda liked it but decided to have another crack at it! This was painted on a canvas board with gouache paint!

Now I think I'm quite happy with number two! This one was also painted on a canvas board but this time with acrylics!


This next piece is my entry in Andrea's (Falling Ladies) book for the Creative Sistahs project that I'm involved with. Now this entry is for November and I have to say I found creating a November inspired piece in February a bit tricky just because I couldn't really think of anything in particular that November inspires me with, so I looked back to last November and thought about what I was doing then. Well November last year for me was very chaotic, I was in the throes of making pendants and bookmarks etc for a couple of Christmas markets that were coming up. So I thought well Christmas was coming up and I love painting Angels, I decided to combine my Angels with my 'lovely ladies' and together I felt they reminded me of a 'Fallen Angel'. Which I thought could be my little tribute to Andrea's beautiful and emotion filled 'Falling Ladies'. Phew!! I hope you can see my little thought process there and I hope that Andrea likes what I have created in her beautiful book.
I just need to finish off my written page then this will be winging it's way to Kathy! :0)

Lastly I thought I'd just show you what I had created for last weeks challenges but didn't get the time to post.

 These were both painted on water colour paper with gouache, I'm loving the brightness of gouache without it being too thick!

This little lady was inspired by my sketch of the little girl with attitude that i did a few weeks ago. I'm trying to work on my characters and facial expressions!
Hope you are all having a great week! :0) x

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 - A new toy!

Hi guys I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!!! We had a lovely time down the coast!

 The weather was beautiful!

 The boys had a lovely time at the beach!

 Splashing in the waves with their grandparents.

 I even dipped in my toes! :0)

The boys collected so many hermit crabs, don't worry we put them all back ;0)

 I tried drawing a sand frog :0)

Hubby gave me an airbrush for Christmas. I've never used one before so it's been like learning to draw all over again! I've been watching videos on youtube and trying to figure out how to use it! I'm struggling with doing fine lines so really need a proper lesson I think. I do however love using it for shading and managed to do a couple of paintings the last couple of days and experiment with it!

 This one is on a canvas board and I really loved how it popped when I used the paintbrush on top just for the fine lines!!

 This one was a practice run, just on paper and I realise that the paint really bleeds into the paper I just couldn't seem to make a fine line.

 I have been meaning to paint this bag for weeks. I really love how the shading turned out I think it really gives it a soft quality! :0) I used the fine paint brush for the thin lines. I'm hoping that I'll be able to master this way of painting but I guess it take practice! :0)

Hope you all have a great New Years weekend and I look forward to visiting you all! :0)