My painting's coming together and spring has sprung early. Life is good!Follow my blog with Bloglovin

You can't see it but there is a huge grin 

on my face. Spring has come early,

it's 28 deg and I have bare arms!!!

Ooh, I'm loving lettin the skin hang out,

not in a rude way but a kinda lettin it breathe 

sorta way.

I've been playing on a few desks this week.

This is my dining table where I drew up 

a backdrop for my Little Misses' class speech today.

They had to write a story about the Aussie Outback

and this is of a naughty emu who stole someones Akubra hat.

 

It's yellow because I took the photo last night and forgot

to turn on the flash.  It's not finished in this photo

but Little Miss took it this morning and I forgot to take another photo first (oops). The other picture I drew was of a dunny (outdoor loo for those who don't know) and yes, I forgot to take a photo of that too.

This is the mess I'm making on one of my other desks.

You can see my bottle of clear gel medium, that's what I mix 

with the paint to form the glaze that I used in class today.

I'm winning the war with my painting, so what more

 could I ask for.  I wasn't happy with the fish painting last

 week.  I did my homework yesterday, that involved

 spattering over the rocks.  It's easy to spatter in a large

 classroom but you try in a small little room filled with

 junk and  other paintings. I covered the floor with

 plastic and  half the things around it, loaded up

 my fan brush with  sloshy paint and had to be

 careful not to just  swoosh it like in class but

 be more dainty (ha that's a joke for me)

 and just lightly shake. Obviously that was just too

 much for my little blonde brain to comprehend as

 when I gently shook the brush the paint went upwards 

all over me instead of downwards onto the canvas. 

Just proves that gently is not my style.

After a lot of swearing and getting splattered

(a piece of advice, keep your mouth closed when doing

 this as it don't taste nice!!!), I got some on the canvas.

Here is where I left my canvas before class this morning.

Still a bit blah!

But then my teacher showed me how to glaze

and this is the under glazing so far.

 It is really starting to look like they are under the water.

 Here you can see the swirls in the actual glaze.

You paint the glaze on and then use a plastic comb

 to give  the direction wanted. In this case the

 swirling water. The light is shining on this 

picture so it looks more white than it is.

There's no class next week, so I might

 get some more of my inking done.

That's my fun for the week, sorry it's so long Julia, 

please don't yell at me :)

How about you go to Julia's Stamping Ground

and see what everyone has on their desks

this beautiful, sunny, warm wednesday.

Thanks for all the birthday wishes last week.

Ouch, another year older on WOYWW

I'm late posting today

that's because I'm another year older today

and I'm getting slower in my old age.

Today I'm forty-twelve, 

I can't bring myself to say the other 'F' word

cos I'm sure I couldn't be that old.

I still feel like I'm in my thirties.

I had a great day, art class this morning

and my lovely friend Lea

took me out to lunch.

Thanks again for that Lea.

Here is my desk today

How cute is this fella.

My wonderful hubby gave me this teapot for my birthday.

I just love quirky things.

Oooh I can feel a watercolour painting coming on!!!

Earlier in the week I decided to do an ink canvas

and boy was that a mess

It started out okay, this is the gloopy stuff.

 

Then trouble, dummy here forgot to put a high bit of

 something in the centre of the painting and all the ink flowed

 to the low point.

I had to hold it perfectly flat and get little miss to put some 

bits and pieces under it to flatten it out a bit.

 

The ink has dried a lot here, I was too busy with the wet puddly ink to take a photo.

 

You have to hit the ink hard with water spray and that

 makes a huge mess so I had to cover the floor and

 cupboards with plastic,but then I oopsed.

Have you ever wondered what happens if you shake

a full bottle of white ink and forget to put the lid on??

Yep, it was everywhere, all over the cupboard, the floor, me

and it hit the old computer on the floor.

 

 

I wiped all the floor and cupboards quickly before it dried

 but this sorta got missed, ewww. 

 Lucky I don't need the screen anymore!

 

Here is my fish painting from class today.

I think it's hideous but the teacher assured me it is

just as it should be.

 

 

Just looks like a mess to me but I'm determined

to do it the proper way and hope for the best.

 

Here is the ink canvas as it is now.

I still have a lot of work to do on it

but it's getting there.

Well that's my fun for the week.

I'm off to start dinner,

so hop on over to Julia's

Stamping Ground

and see the other desks

around the world

this wednesday.

 

 

Best laid plans, seem to go astray. WOYWW

I was quite excited about this week

as it is a public holiday in Brisbane

and I don't have an art class this week

which meant I could start an ink canvas.

Well in typical style, that didn't happen

as my last Gift Certificate for a Pet Portrait came in.

Of course I had to give that priority.

To be honest I'm not really happy with it.

The colour is too pale but it just doesn't want to darken.

The doggy photo I was given was taken at night 
which really messes with the colours

so I was guessing quite a bit and I prefer to just do the face

as a character portrait but they insisted that
 they wanted a full body.

I think that's what threw me.

I just hope they like it as they paid $50 for the gift certificate.

I've decided not to do any more gift certificates as 
I get quite stressed if the painting isn't working perfectly 
and you can't time when they come in for painting.

Since I didn't get to show all brightly coloured ink splodges,

I thought I would show you my splodgy room instead.

Here's my desk with the painting nearly done.

 This is to the left, oh yes not too bad you say.

Now it's starting to get there, you might be able to see
 the white sheet behind my easel, 
that is hiding a heap of half done canvasses

up against the wall, yeh, I'll get to them one day.

To the left of picture is my pile of junk that I have to squish
 each time I need to get into the cupboard, yeh,
 I'm gonna clean it up one day.

This is the one area I'm reasonably happy with
 as it is sort of tidy.

Well, that's if you don't look on the floor and oops,

 I didn't get that in the shot :)

This is the painful spot, I can't move for mess

and it's even up the wall and I have to dump all

of the papers on the printer on to the floor

each time I want to scan something.

Yeh, yeh, I'll clean it up one day.

So there you have the mess in the surround.

I often wonder how I manage to get anything done at all. 

Speaking of which, I may not get much done

from the middle of September as my girlfriend in Essex

has sold her house and is emigrating to Aus.

My girlfriend will be staying with us until she buys a house.

It will be shopping, coffee and cakes all the way for a while,

mwa ha ha.

Hey, maybe she will tidy up the art room (he he).

Nah, cake sounds better.

That's my desk this week and Julia hasn't posted
for this week yet, so I might get to play
with my inky mess yet.

Well you've seen mine, why not hop on over to Julia's,
I'm sure she will have WOYWW 
on her Stamping Ground by now
and you can see all the other desks 
around the world.

We have fish in the pond for WOYWW, well kinda.

It's been a bits n pieces week

for WOYWW

as I was in an out 

of my room all week.

Here is what's on my desk right now.

Not much really.

I am almost finished a card

that I promised Neesie from Neesie Natters ages ago

when she moved back to the UK

from here in Aus.

You can just see a little bit poking out from the paper I put over it,

I have to wait until Neesie gets it before it can be shown
and then she might not let me show it 
(let's just say I had a little fun with it mwa ha ha).

I made a cute polymer clay chameleon, called Bruce.

I wish I could say I made him up but

I bought a project book and copied from there.

At the back of my desk is the photo

that I'm using to paint my fishpond for art class.

Last week it looked like this

 

Then I started the painful bit of sectioning,

drawing and then rubbing out,

 

and drawing and rubbing out,

you get the picture??

This took forever and I'm sure my teachers ears were burning.

I've always used pencil and drawn nice and neat

but this is just plain painful.

Apart from the charcoal, getting into places

where I'm sure it shouldn't get, it's really hard

  to do.  But I got there eventually.

I got to class this morning, she was happy with what I'd done

and then she said now rub it off!

I nearly died. She must have seen the look of sheer horror on my face

and then explained that she meant for me to rub it off lightly

and remove the excess charcoal (phew).

Now I'm just putting in the clear colours, loosely,

to form the shape of the fish.

Would you believe that's two hours work just there!!

Geez I'm slow!!!

It's a public holiday here next wednesday,

so no classes and only a tiny bit of homework,

so if all goes well, I might have a go at 

another inky messy canvas.

Let's hope the inky mess makes it to the canvas

and not all over me, or the floor, or the desk..!

That's my desk goings on for the week,

now why not hop on over to 

Julia's Stamping Ground and see what

has been happening on other desks 

around the world.