Thursday 21 June 2012

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
and see some other fantastic
monochrome pictures.
 

Wednesday 20 June 2012

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)
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.

Thursday 14 June 2012

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

Wednesday 13 June 2012

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.

Thursday 7 June 2012

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
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
and prepare to be amazed.



Wednesday 6 June 2012

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
see what people have 
on their desks
around the world.

I finished my water droplet
painting from last week
and if you are interested


Friday 1 June 2012

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 
and 
to see what everyone has been up to.