New paint play for WOYWW

As you can see from the dark and gloomy photo,

it's still raining!!!!

I am thinking of building an ark as I think we will need it soon.

Today was only showers but more heavy rain is forecast for the weekend.

I've been playing with my Silks Acrylic paints

and boy are they different to what I'm used to.

Silks are acrylic paint with mica powder suspended in it

and this gives a gorgeous glow to the paint, it's the acrylic version of Twinkling H2O's.

.

I bought it to add an extra dimension to my fish

and coral in the undersea paintings.

But not being one to have lessons to learn how to use things,

I dived straight in and started a canvas.

It is only a little one, just 8" x 10"

but dive in I did.

The plan was to just embellish an already painted canvas

with just a few bits of mica but I decided to get used to the paint I would jump right in

and do a painting entirely with the Silks.  Not such a good idea.

To say I've made a mess so far is an understatement,

having said that I'm learning a lot about what I can and cannot do with this paint.

This painting may turn out to be a disaster but at least I will have learned a lot.

I may put acrylic over the top and then embellish with the silks,

as I had planned.

The main thing is I'm having fun getting back to what I enjoy,

painting canvasses, even little ones.

 The paints are wonderful and give a beautiful glow,

I just have to work out the best way to use them in my type of painting.

I'm trying to take photos as I go and may make a post about the

Silk journey, just hope the last photo isn't a match held to the canvas!  

You've seen what's on my desk this week,

so why not hop on over to Julia's

Stamping Ground and see what the wonderfully talented

people are doing on the What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday.

P.S. If you love art and art magazines, there is a fantastic magazine
called Featuring.  I've been getting it and enjoy reading it immensely.
 I have noticed many of the bloggers featured in there.

For details of this magazine go to Jenn's blog here 
it tells you all about it and how to get it.

Books and Bookmarks for APR

Ahh the memories.

I used to read all the time when I was young.

It was nothing for me to read an encyclopedia just for fun.

That is probably why I know so much useless information

that works so well when my hubby tests me on the regular 

general knowledge quiz in the Sunday paper.

The crazy thing is, I can't remember what I did yesterday

but I remember that some weird named sciency thing. 

Go figure.

These days reading a book is a mere memory.

It seems that when I pick up a book there is instantly

a "mum I need this" or "mum can you play with me",

"mum I can't find this",  I'm sure you know how it goes.

So the books stay on the shelves and 

I dream of the day when they all leave home!!!

This is a quick painting of what I would like to be doing,

instead of cleaning the house and getting ready

for a 12 year old's birthday party this weekend.

The bookmark is made up but the dangly bits are real.

The lovely Jenn made the dangly for me and

I thought I would paint them as a bookmark end.

I don't really do it justice in this painting

but it really is beautiful.

And don't you just love this cup.

I love crazy quirky things and just had to have this cup.

It's not practical for drinking though, it dribbles down the side no matter how careful you are.

Oh, the price we pay for art.

Last year I created some bookmarks and Egbert Bookman was born.

Here are a few of the bookmarks.

As you may have guessed,

the theme for Artist's Playroom this week is

Books and Bookmarks.

You can see more wonderful  art on this theme at

The Artist's Playroom, enjoy.

Steamed up for WOYWW

It's been a long hot summer,

ending with a huge bang

in the form of ex cyclone Oswald.

That one hurt, my post about it is here.

I am finally back to WOYWW

after what seems years, although it's only months.

Here is my desk today

Yes, I know it's a mess and I wish I could blame the cyclone

but you all know what a grot I am, so there's no point

trying to blame a puff of wind.

On the left in the little wheelie bin are some really cool

little gifts that my wonderful friend in England gave me

when she visited in November last year.

I am a mad Doctor Who fan and these pencils and pen 

are just the bees knees.

The painting on my desk is of my new best friend,

the Shark steam cleaner!

I live right by the sea, I couldn't have picked a place with sand,

oh no, I had to live by the mud flats, sticky, gooey, dirty brown,

blow in the wind, mud flats.  So you can imagine what my 

white walls and white floors house looks like most of the time.

I can never keep up with the housework.  In the old days, when I was working,

I had two cleaners come twice a week and it was always clean then,

but retirement and age have caught up with me and

it gets cleaned as much as I can when I can.

That was until I found this little sucker, it is so much fun. 

 I spent a whole day just going around the house 

steam cleaning all of my skirting boards (it's a big house).

I've been cleaning window sills, mirrors, you name it I've steamed it.

You can attach a hose and reach all sorts of places,

usually places that I didn't realise were so dirty,

hey I'm short, what I can't see I don't normally clean.

The only thing I keep forgetting is that steam is hot and travels upwards.

It gets a little hairy when you forget and start to clean with the wand thingy and 

aim downwards.  I must have the the best steam cleaned arms in town.

But enough of my steamy fun, today I have returned 

to What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday

and you've seen what is on my desk,

now may I suggest you have a look at

Julia's Stamping Ground

and see what everyone else

has on their desk today.

Happy desk hopping everyone.

Liebster Award

  Hwee from My Art Journey kindly gave me a blog award that's about discovering new blogs.

Thank you so much for thinking of me, I feel honoured to be included in your five choices.


ABOUT THE AWARD

This award was designed to be a blog award in the pay it forward fashion. Once you've been nominated, you award it to five blogs that you like that have fewer than 200 followers, to encourage new visitors to visit these blogs.


RULES FOR ACCEPTANCE

Thank the person who gave you the award and link back to their blog. Post the award onto your blog. Give the award to five bloggers who you appreciate that have fewer than 200 followers. Leave a comment on their blog letting them know that you have given them this awesome award!

PAY IT FORWARD


There are so many bloggers who have inspired and helped me to date and to find just five was very hard.     Here are my five choices of blogs ( in no particular order, as I love them all), with less than 200 followers.

1. Just Add Water Silly
2. Nordjlus
3. The Creators Leaf
4. Cottage Remnant
5. Neesie Natters

These are all wonderful artists and it would be wonderful if you could pay them a visit and maybe even become followers.

Just couldn't do it for APR.

This weeks theme for APR

was 

LOVE, CHOCOLATE, ROSES and VALENTINES.

The mere mention of the word
chocolate
makes me start to quiver.
I LOVE chocolate.

My hubby knows the only thing to get me for Valentines Day
is chocolate.

I had bought him some as well
and decided to paint the box.

Knowing myself as I do,
I took the precaution of buying
a chocolate bar
just in case I was tempted by the
scrumptious contents of the huge
box of Favourites in front of me.

They say a picture paints a thousand words,
so here are a thousand words.

 

You guessed it, I opened the pack to make a better subject for the painting.

The choc bar was going to sit beside the box of Favourites

and one thing led to another,

well you can see the rest.

I ended up cutting out a photo of the favourite pack,

couldn't trust myself with the real box.

You know what they say,

you get a taste and you can't stop.

Today is Valentines Day and 

my hubby bought me a box of Ferrero Rochers

and I gave him a full box

of Favourites (are you proud of me).

Now comes the hard part,

you see we have kids who love

Favourites, so there will be a mass of hands

in that little box and as usual,

we are lucky to get more than the empty wrapper

that they put back in the box to fool us.

Then there are the Rochers.

I have a parrot who can detect those little suckers from 

a mile away.  No matter how you disguise the box

or open it super quietly, he knows they are there.

This bird is addicted to these things and

if I don't give him one first, he gets down off his cage,

walks right up to my mouth and puts his beak in front,

so I can't get anything in there without him stealing it.

This boy is no budgie, he is over a kilo in weight

(the vet says he has man boobs and needs more exercise)

and is almost as big as a cockatoo.

So, much as I love chocolate, I have to fight for the 

right to eat it.  Except for when they aren't home,

mwa ha ha!

Jenn,

for making me suffer through the painting of

what was to be chocolate, I give you this photo of 

a Rocher. 

Enjoy, but watch out for a huge beak

sneaking in front of your mouth (he he).

Also, there is a piece of real chocolate on my painting,

feel free to lick it but I warn you, it might not taste so good.

To see what torture others have gone through,

visit Jenn's 

Artist's Playroom.

Happy Valentines Day.

Saucy return for APR

It's been a long stinking hot summer,

finished off with an almighty bang,

well blow anyway.

We were slammed by  ex cyclone Oswald.

Now anyone who has had an 'ex' knows how

ugly things can get and this 'ex' was no exception.

We live right on the coast and get strong winds all the time

but this was really something.

My pool became a compost heap,

we had no internet, phones playing up,

only two tv channels (oh the inhumanity), the security system was knocked out

and leaves and dirt blown where I never thought it could get.

We were lucky though, as we still have a house and

many others had theirs washed away.  

I have been cleaning up the yard and house,

instead of painting, but now I'm back.

I have been catching up with pet portraits all week

Just got the under painting done on these and no those eyes aren't that red

. It's just my bad photography!

but made some time this afternoon to 

join in this weeks Artist's Playroom.

The theme this week is what's in your pantry

and believe me you really don't want to know.

I don't like to cook and so there isn't anything exciting in there.

I did see this bottle of sauce and thought it would be appropriate.

This sauce came about because nasty old Heinz

decided to take it's processing off shore and sacked all the workers and the farmers

who grew the tomatoes. 

A wonderful man named Dick Smith bought the old plant,

 hired the local farmers and Oze Sauce was born.

Dick Smith makes other products as well and they are all Australian

owned and grown, which is fabulous in this day and age.

So this is my little ode to the Aussie, both the battler and the weather.

May Oze Sauce grace my pantry for many years to come.

You've seen what's in my pantry,

now why not pop on over to Jenn's

Artist's Playroom and see what the others

have in their pantry.

It might be tasty.