Off to the shops

I am taking my ocean creatures to The Collective Store today, so I thought I would give you a sneak peak.

I hope they find some nice homes to go to.

Also this sunday the 18th my friend, Lea, is having a stall at the Chandler Markets (Brisbane), where she sells vintage clothing.   I am adding a board of my necklaces to see how they go.  If you are around Chandler on sunday, be sure to drop in and say hi to her.

  The school holidays are now upon me and so, to basket balls and hula hoops and goodbye to paint brushes and clay, just for two weeks though.  I am determined to pick up those brushes again!    

I want to finish my fish painting. It is 3 feet x 4 feet and I still have to finish the bottom right area. 

It is my pride and joy and certainly the best I have painted so far.  This is for my meals room and won't be sold.    Now, to the hula hoops!

Spring At Last

Even though the wind is quit cool at the moment, I know it is spring when I look outside at my beautiful 16 year old azaleas in bloom.  They are more magnificent each year and as if on cue they flower at the start of spring, to wake up my senses which have been hibernating through winter.

It has inspired me to make some more brooches, to replace the ones sold at The Collective Store.

I have made 3 polymer clay fishes, they still need a top sealer coat and their brooch backs but they are coming along well.

These pictures show a little of how they grow from a lump of clay to cute little brooches.  All of the beads have to be wired into the clay, as they don't adhere to the clay itself. 

 Harold the Angel fish was quite a challenge as I had to blend the stripes together and try to keep them fairly straight.  He has come up okay, but I think I need to make improvements, if I am going to make any more of him.  He will look much better once the sealer is on him.

 Gerald the gold fish was fun to make, although quite time consuming making the little dots and rolls.

 All three fish together, now I just have to get started on the octopus brooches!!  They are very time consuming as I make all the little suckers on the legs (or is that arms??).

The main thing is that they go to good homes where their owners will love them.

School holidays are coming up next week, so I guess I will have a little helper using up all my clay.  Can't think of anything more fun and at least we can do it outside on the patio, with my beautiful azaleas.

My very first blog of any kind.

Last week I was looking at my piles of bits and pieces in my room.  There are filing cabinets, painting easels, bookcases full of bits and bobs, a credenza full of this and that, two mobile desks overflowing with beads, colour pencils, paper and clay and in the corner is a large corner desk, full of bits and pieces, my computer, 2 printers and a second scanner, half finished canvasses fill up a space between two filing cabinets and I can't even get to the built in cupboard, which is about to burst with its contents.  There is literally no room to work in here and most of the time I take over the dining room to paint.  Whenever I want to do something I have to search for it, find a small hole to work in and when I am finished I have to pile it up somewhere, just so I can do something else.

 

Oh, to tidy it up, but where would I put it all anyway.  My mean old husband won't let me pull up the carpet in the lounge room and use that as a painting studio,  I don't know what his problem is, who uses a lounge anyway.   I am a natural grot and no matter how many times I try to clean up this room, the mess just migrates back around me like a magnet.  Then last week it happened, a wonderful friend of mine posted pictures of her wonderful, neat and tidy art room and I just lost all hope of ever being anything like an artist.  With just a few emails she picked me up, dusted me off and set me on the right path.  I may be a grot, but I am an arty grot.    I have made some quite good and some not so good pieces of art in this mess and I hope to create many more in the future.  After all it's not what is around you that makes you, it's what is inside (just as long as there is room to let it out).

I would like to dedicate my very first post to Tracey Fletcher King, a very dear friend, who has inspired me to give art a go and to be brave and put it on the net.