Back to painting and a win for WOYWW

I've been AFK (away from keyboard)

as my kids would say, for two weeks.

Yes, it was the dread of all parents,

school holidays.

I survived with just a little bit of art but now

I'm rearing to go.

One good thing I did on the holidays was

to get a huge skip bin, toss out heaps of

stuff and complete my evil plan

to take over the lounge (mwa ha ha).

It's mine, all mine, ha ha ha ha ha.    

See that big space in the middle, 

I'm going to get a huge piece of heavy plastic

 and use my long fold up table to do lots of sloppy

prep coats on lots of canvasses at once. 

 That way I can keep on working in my studio.

It'll be like a big production line of canvasses

all at different stages.  

You may notice that I have a lot more inks on my Ikea

trolley and in the pot on the floor.  I came into some

unexpected money!!!

Remember this painting that I took to a show?

It sold and I won the Peoples' Choice Prize!!

I couldn't believe it. The prize was cash so I 

bought a heap of inks to play with.

Which brings me to the scary part.

I am going to attempt to ink this canvas

 

at home, all by myself with no De Gillett,

my lovely teacher, to help stop me screwing it up.

 So, if you feel the earth rumbling and shaking tomorrow,

don't panic, it's just my knees knocking together in fear

 as I squirt copious amounts of ink all over my canvas.

I have a paper bag handy just in case of hyperventilation,

hmm, might need it now just thinking of what I'm doing

tomorrow.... ARGH....

While I go suck on a paper bag,

may I suggest you go over to

Julia's Stamping Ground

and see what's on the other desks around the world.

Breath in, breath out,

yep that feels a bit better,

just hope I can keep it together tomorrow...

Eyes, beaks and a little less punk for WOYWW

My desk this week is pretty bare

and waiting for me to start

back on my bird painting

 I've been madly painting

eyes and beaks this week.

My parrots were living up to their

cheeky, naughty reputation

by fighting me all the way.

I just couldn't get the beak right on the front bird,

I was pulling my hair out at one

stage and all that did was hurt,

me, not the bird. 

After a lot of swearing and threatening 

to wring their rotten necks,

they finally started to co-operate

and the faces were in

They'll need a little bit of tinkering but almost there.

I resisted the urge to add rings through the beaks

as I knew their punkness would be toned down

in class today.

Tone down is an understatement.

Those who know me well, know that I really

hate the colour brown, don't know why,

but we discussed this in class today and the 

general thought was that in the eighties, the colour 

for most houses, both walls and fences was

mission brown.  I don't know if you had that colour overseas

but here in Australia it was everywhere.  If it stood still

it was painted mission brown.  

The trouble was mission brown was the dullest

most ugly brown you've ever seen and my parents

loved it (ugh).  

We think my hatred of this colour stems back to

seeing that awful hue everywhere and

having it burned into my retinas.

My lovely teacher, De decided

I should tone down the punk colour with,

you guessed it, brown....

Of course I hated it, so we compromised and

added some purple, much nicer but still very brown.

As usual and I say this with my eyes rolling,

she was right and the colour was just right.

Sorry about the picture angle and the lights shining.

The pic is still very wet and my arms are very short.

Here's one a bit closer.

My punk birds aren't so punky now.

I bet the top bird can't wait to get his feet painted so

he can land on the branch.  I bet his wings are getting tired,

ha, that'll teach him for making it hard to paint the beak!

Next week I'm going to turn up to class with

"Yes De, you were right"

written on my forehead,

that way I can just flash it at her each time she is right,

AGAIN!!   (sigh)

Well, that's my week and desk.

If you visit

Julia's Stamping Ground

you can see what's on the other desks

around the world today.