Artists Playroom - cheating a little

I wasn't going to enter

the Artists Playroom this week

as I was so busy

with family life

and finishing a painting

that goes to a show on Saturday.

Hey we all cut it fine from time to time,

I just do it all the time.

I was just sitting and waiting 

for some paint to dry,

you know,

that exciting time,

sitting and waiting,

waiting some more

and then there's the,

I'll just try the next bit

and splodge, it all melts together,

because you didn't wait long enough

and you now have to wait even longer.

So now I am waiting

even longer for the paint to dry

before putting on the final

touches and I decided to rifle

through my books to see

if by some miracle I had actually

done a monochrome painting that you haven't seen yet.

.Okay, so technically it isn't monochrome

but if you think about it

the fish is mainly orange

and orange is made up of red and yellow

so really it is all orange.

All accept for the eye,

but you wouldn't want him to be blind would you.

See, that's orange, no red there, no sir,

just very dark orange and

some very light orange. 

It's called artistic licence

and I'm sticking to it.

I've managed to waste enough time now

and my paint is dry,

so while I go and finish my painting

why don't you go over to Jenns

Artist's Playroom

and see some other fantastic

monochrome pictures.

 

WOYWW # 159 Great week.

It's been a busy but exciting week for me.

I have been trying to get my sick mother

to rest, mission impossible (but she is much better),

and helping my eldest daughter

with all the painful paperwork

and running around,

associated with buying a car.

Somehow, I managed to get some time to myself

and did plenty.

All weekend (much to little miss' annoyance)

I drew and painted these

Egbert Bookman bookmarks.

Little miss stole all four of the ones I made earlier,

so I had to start from scratch.

Why so many bookmarks you ask?

Well, (drum roll please)

I have an Etsy store!!

After much trouble and copious

amounts of swearing,

it is up and running and

I even managed to get it onto my blog

(still can't believe that).

You can see it on my sidebar

if I haven't done something and lost it!!

I can't say that the store is all my work

as the wonderful, lovely 

(and anything else nice you can think of)

Jenn at justaddwatersilly,

took pity on my terrible efforts

and made my store banner. 

It is beautiful,

thank you so much Jenn, I really

couldn't have done the shop without you.

Another other exciting thing this week

was my gorgeous clock arrived from 

Lynn, of Doodly Bird fame.

These little birds flew right across the globe

and landed in my room.

They are now proudly sitting above my desk.

Lynn, I hope you house trained them,

I don't want any extra bits on my artwork!!!

As well as that, all of my ATC's swaps have arrived

and here they all are.

 From Sandee

From Bella

From Sylvia

From Kay

From Bridget

They are all so beautiful,

I really am lucky to receive such gorgeous things.

Sorry Julia, I know we should keep

these posts short

but so much fun has 

happened, I just had to share it all.

If you are still awake after that 

post, why not go on over to Julias

Stamping Ground
and see what everyone else is doing

around this big old world.

Artists Playroom ~ Drawing

This weeks theme for the Artist's Playroom

is drawing,

something I love to do

and quite happily started a drawing of 

some tomatoes.

Then came one of "those"

weeks and I had to do half of the drawing in just 

an hour or so.

Not my best effort but quite passable.

I was going really well

and even had a post predone

ready to load when the time came

for my WOYWW post.

Then halfway through dinner (why is it never at the end?)

on Tuesday night, I got a call from my dad.

He was in a right tizz and said

mum is on her way to hospital in an ambulance!!

Well panic set in and off we went to the hospital.

My mum has an unusual heartbeat.

Where you and I have a sort of

easy listening music heart beat,

she has a rock and roll beat.

It seems her heart decided to change to a mix of 

heavy metal and punk,

which is not good at 75 years of age.

To cut a long story short,

she is now on pills that have changed her heartbeat

to easy listening and is home resting.

I spent all of Wednesday

taking her to the doctors and dad

to his appointments

and today was catching

up with what I didn't do yesterday.

Hence the short time to finish

the tomatoes today

as Friday is out for art

as well.

One thing I did want to show you is 

a picture that I found when cleaning up my art room some

time ago.

I drew this foot back in 1979

when I was just 18

(stop doing the math, I'm not that old).

Not bad for a kid that

didn't take art.

I've done some more Egbert Bookman bookmarks

and have a few ideas in my journal

so hope to show them next week.

Here are a few I did on the weekend.

To see some fabulous drawings

pop on over to Jenn's

 Artist's Playroom.

WOYWW 158 and smiling.

At last I can smile again,

even just slightly

as the weather has 

reached back up into the 20's C.

Now I only have 2 jumpers on

and might even get down to one this afternoon

if the sun stays out.

My fingers are no longer

foreign objects

refusing to move or hold pencils.

They are feeling a little creative

and want to play, so play I did.

Did you notice that the picture is quite clear???

My sweet husband took pity on me 

let me use his work camera,

it's one of those point and it does the rest

type cameras.  Gotta love that.

The theme for this weeks APR

is drawing, so out came the old pencils

and I am having a play with some 

tomatoes.

It's still very much a work in progress

but getting there.

On the long weekend my little miss wasn't

terribly well, her tonsils were playing up

and she just laid on the couch, poor little thing.

This gave me some time to play

and I did some more Egbert bookmarks.

 At least they brought a smile to her little face.

Her tonsils went down just in time

to go to school on Tuesday

and she wasn't too happy about that!

When I use my winter studio,

oh okay, the family room,

I have a little helper who sits on my chair.

He has to stay on the chair and not the desk

because he loves to shred pencils

and mine would be gone in seconds!

Something wonderful happened

a few minutes ago.

The postman came and I received my first ATC.

Isn't it gorgeous and such a beautiful card too.

Thank you so much Kay (505whimsygirl)

this is my first ever ATC, I shall treasure it.

Now I have shown you all my excitement for the week,

hop on over to Julias Stamping ground

and see what wonderful things

have been happening on desks 

all around the world.

I have to go an save my pencils

from a certain parrot.

Artist's Playroom no. 12 all tangled up.

No pressure this week

for the Artist's Playroom

just simply

do some altered art, collage or the likes

and add zentangles.

Really Jenn, zentangles

with other things.

It took me right up until Wednesday afternoon

to start and what did I come up with?

Something fabulous?

something spectacular?

No,

a lousy bowl of fruit.

Yes, that's all I could come up with (yawn).

I had this grand plan

to paint some fruit and have it gradually turn into

zentangles

but that seemed like too much effort,

especially when I only had one afternoon and

today to do it.

So this is all you get.

A lousy bowl of fruit with half zentangled oranges.

I zentangled the basket

and  a bit of the oranges

but they didn't really work out how I wanted them to.

If I had more time and inclination

I would have put heaps of tangles into the fruit

but time is the problem,
that and the fact that it is freezing here
and I can't feel my fingers.

The photos are awful 

as usual.  I really do need 

a decent camera,

this one came with the ark.

It thinks that macro

is a burger and not a close up

and everything is blurry and bitty.

Surely you don't think it's me,

must be the camera.

I swear it takes me longer

to get one good photo

than it takes to paint the darn thing.

This is how bright my wonderful

new paints are.

Can you believe that these

bright colours come from

these two wheels?

The cakes look so dull

but when you add water

magic happens.

I have to thank
the wonderful

Tracey Fletcher King

for putting me on to these

super bright,

super cool

paints.

If you want to see real 

zentangle art,

hop on over to Jenn's

Artist's Playground

and prepare to be amazed.

Jubilant WOYWW no 157

What a huge week Britain has had.

The Jubilee was fabulous

and yes, we watched it over here in Australia.

I was born in England but I am an Aussie now and

 I still love Royalty.

The closest I have to a British flag 

is hanging in my room.

It was sent to me by my wonderful

friend Angie, who lives in Essex.

She knows me well!

Today is the first day this week I have been able to 

do any art, so not much going on yet,

just my usual mess.

Just noticed that I haven't turned my

calendar over,  I've fixed that now.
Had to mention that as I forgot
last month too and got told off for it.

I have started a zentangle/mixed media pic

for this weeks Artists Playroom.

Just up to the left are my new bright watercolour wheels.

You can see the vibrant colours on a bit of paper just

below the right wheel.

I can't wait to play with them

but I can't use my fingers much

as it is freezing here

and they could snap off.

I have so many layers of clothes on 

that I can hardly move, it's only

18 deg in the house!

This is the sub-tropics, people

and we don't have heaters.

When I finish this post

I will wheel my other desk into the family room and sit

in the sun to thaw out.

Then I might be able to do more of this picture.

How on earth do you people in the northern hemisphere survive

in the cold???

While I go and thaw out

why not hop on over to Julia's

Stamping Ground and

see what people have 

on their desks

around the world.

I finished my water droplet
painting from last week

and if you are interested

you can see it here.

Magnify for the Artist's Playroom

I am amazed that I could put up anything

for the Artist's Playroom this week,

as the evil dreaded lurgy

snuck up and gave me a rotten

belly.

The dreaded lurgy is such a nasty little devil,

he doesn't give you any warning,

just bam

and you're down for the count.

Two days wasted

and I didn't even lose any weight!

My poor belly is still a little squidgy,

so my work is also a bit squidgy.

They say you paint what you feel.

Now that I have had my whinge,

here is my entry in this weeks

Artist's Playroom.

The theme this week is magnify.

It's a water droplet on the petals of a flower.

I normally would have smoothed the colours out

but ran out of time.  

Sunny Queensland has let me down again 

and it is pouring with rain and dark

so the picture isn't terribly accurate.

It is actually a richer colour

but you get the idea.

Here are a few snapshots

of the stages of the painting.

The first stage, rough in colours.

Refining the shapes, looks like a bunch of bananas.

Getting there, water drop going in and paper bending!

I'm a bit of a cheapskate

and instead of having a drawing board

and using masking tape to hold the paper down.

I just hold it until it curls too much

then use heaps of blue tack

to keep that sucker under control.

This week I also said goodbye to the ATC's

I have been making for the great swap

over at the Stamping Ground.

These little guys are now winging

their way around the globe to their new owners.

Hope they like them.

Since I actually finished a painting this week

I am also linking to Paint Party Friday.

Why not hop on over to 

Jenn's Artist Playroom

and 

Paint Party Friday

to see what everyone has been up to.