Sunday 31 October 2010

The giveaway winner for October is....

SHERRY. As requested the green one will be wending its way to you this week. Hope you like!! Thanks everyone for playing, it was a bumper number of entries this month. The next giveaway will be along shortly so don't forget to pop back!!

Sunday 24 October 2010

Self Healing Art Course..... Week 1

As I mentioned before, I have joined an online art course which started this week. Well, guess what, had no time or energy AT ALL to do art this week so I am already playing catch up, not that it really matters. It is called Art, Heart and Healing and is free to join. I managed to watch the first of this week's two videos on Monday, so had a week to think about the hard part, which is the therapy exercise related to the course. This morning (Sunday, it may be Monday by the time I post this) I re-watched the first video and sat down to put pencil to paper and ..... nothing. I found the exercise of putting down your negative thoughts (pop over and watch the video if you want to understand) soooo difficult, probably because most of them are not art related but about the way I am and the aspects of my behaviour that I am not happy with. Trying to give that a positive spin sure gave me a headache!! But it is interesting to do the exercise. So what I came up with as a message was this.....


for me it works and reminds me I am only responsible for me, not everybody else. We also had to choose a word - I chose balance, because balance is what makes me happy, when all the different aspects of my life have a chance and nothing or no one is being crowded out by something else.


With regard to the portrait/journal page that we were doing as a first project, I followed Tam's instructions really closely as I wanted to focus on the techniques she used and see if they worked for me. Like many others on the course I am making do with the supplies I have so I used a sheet of A3 water colour paper, some (fairly cheap!!) soluble crayons, pencils and acrylic paint. I really liked working with the watercolour paper and the crayons are great - I've had them anbout a year but only used them to make some backgrounds a few weeks ago - I could get hooked. The figure is supposed to represent yourself and I did stick quite rigidly to that - lol, what am I saying, I wish I did look that good, with no crows feet and glasses. The point is, what I had in my head was the image I kind of hold of myself, not what I see in the mirror(self delusional or what - don't panic, that was a joke, not a negative comment). Doesn't she look calm?

I have painted a couple of small faces before, but I have never ever painted on this scale and found Tam's instructions so amazingly easy to follow. I think because I was thinking of it as 'me' it ended up more stylised and representational than a whimsical interpretation but hey, it's all a learning curve and overall I am really pleased with the finished result, except perhaps that I would have preferred not to have the portrait so far over to the right. The background I am not entirely happy with so I may work a bit more on that. Ha ha, what am I like, I chose the right words lol. I love layers, I've just never done them this way before. Agonising over my internal battles and choosing words aside, this took less time than I have been known to spend on an ATC so maybe I am more comfortable working bigger. After the initial terror of a piece of A3 sized paper I was fine, but then I was copying a formula which is always easier than coming up with something yourself. Certainly something to think about though.

Sunday 17 October 2010

Am I mad? (Don't answer that question.....)

I have just agreed to take on additional hours at the library and from next week will be working an extra two days so almost a full week, especially given the length of some of my days!! I have really been feeling unfocussed lately and although I enjoyed the extra free time in the summer I am now starting to miss life being as hectic as when I was gardening and designing. I'm hoping that putting myself under pressure will have a good effect on my art......



Here's a little altered Cd I knocked up for the UK Art Raffle. You may recall I recently lamented its closure, but 'princess kitten' has stepped up and offered to run the raffle. So it has a new home here and is in desperate need of more supporters!!! The October theme is 'hubble bubble toil and trouble'. So I did a pumpkin (of course). Well there's a witch on the back. Sorry don't really get this obsession with Halloween every year.

However, if we don't get a few more participants I can't see it carrying on so if you've got a spare halloween themed card or ATC why not join in?


Oh well, off to tidy up my art room now as I am starting a new on-line workshop 'the heart of art' which I am really excited about. The course is about self healing through art and will include a variety of things such as backgrounds, whimsical characters, a puppet(!!) altering a board book and generally having some fun. It has been developed by TAM of 'Willowing and Artist Friends'. This particular course is being run for free, but Tam does other courses (available on CD!!), and U tube demos. I love her work and from what I know of her Tam is a wonderful generous spirit. But then, don't you find most arty people are??

Monday 4 October 2010

Just wanted to get this one in.....

for Tuesday Taggers, just to show my face so to speak. The weeks go soooo fast. There'll be another challenge tomorrow!! Anyhow must just mention that this week is sponsored by the Craft Barn - so it really is worth your while entering some of these challenges.


The TT theme was 'Here comes Autumn' and my entry this week is an ATC, and the reason for that is because the original idea came from a challenge on the Flickr ATC trading group 'Artful Ideas'. The challenge was 'Autumn Romance' and immediately this image popped in my head but I dismissed it at first (mainly because I wasn't in the mood for getting paints out - it can get messy!!). But yesterday I decided it was appropriate so I went ahead and did it. I already had the background made in yummy reds and golds so I simply painted on top - thankfully nothing ran, as I couldn't really remember what the background was made from. My painting skills need a little refinement but both my son and OH when asked said it was a picture of a couple kissing under an umbrella so I guess it can't be that bad. Why an umbrella? Well, it hasn't stopped raining here for days....

Sunday 3 October 2010

October giveaway is here - nice and early!!

Had a good couple of days craft wise this week, still inspired by my visit to Ally Pally last weekend. When I am there I usually make a bee line for the LB Crafts stall, because as well as all the yummy goodies there are usually loads of demos going on. Had a bit of a discussion about my distress technique, and was inspired by some monochrome hanging samples (well all the samples were pretty inspiring!!). Is monochrome the right word to use for single colour or is that just black and white???



Anyhow, armed with my little chipboardy type books I decided to make some hangers and test out the instructions I had been given. I decided to do three at once using a selection of distress inks - Victorian Velvet, Dusty Concord, and Bundled Sage. The only problem with doing them all at once is I made the same mistake on all of them - waded in with my cropodile to add some extra holes and made all of them too far in from the edge to be accommodated by my split rings. Ooops! But not irretrievable in the end.



I decorated them with some bits of grungeboard swirls (and the waste lol!!), some grunge paper flowers, stamping, embossing and various bits of old bling that I found in my stash, plus of course the odd bit of inspirational text. The chain also adds a certain something so I'm glad I made the effort to use it (trust me, with my eyesight it is a challenge undoing and re-sealing all those little links).



Now for the rules of the giveaway, which is for one of these little hangers. All you need to be entered is to leave a comment on this post specifying which is your favourite (we'd better call them green, pink and purple) before 8.00 pm on Saturday 30th October. The 'winner' will then receive the hanger of their choice. So that's all, international players welcome, and please feel free to link from your own blogs. Thanks so much for stopping by!!

Saturday 2 October 2010

Well, you all had a 20% chance of winning.......

because there were only five entries!! Hope that this was due to my very late post rather than nobody liked the giveaway! Anyhow, the random number generator thingy came out as No 1, which was Netty, so I shall be sending this off early next week.

I am much more organised for October, and will upload the giveaway tomorrow, just waiting for a ickle bit of distress stickle to dry.... Think you might like this one, all I'm going to say is think grungeboard and distress inks........

What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday? #771

  Morning deskers, welcome to our weekly Wednesday Blog Hop - WOYWW. Here's the link to the one responsible, the lovely   Julia at Stamp...