A grungy Christmas giveaway - and an apology...

Well, I know you guys won't mind if I tell you that regretfully I have decided to combine the November and December giveaways - my art time is really under pressure at the moment and it will give me a little time to catch up.

I really did start this on time for November, but I have been fiddling with it for ages whenever I can get a minute in the art room. However I have decided it is finished and I had better upload it NOW so that it can get to someone in time for Christmas!!



Well this giveaway is a mixed media canvas. I have been doing the wonderful Art and Healing Course (more posts on that to follow when I get a minute - I haven't been completely idle!!) and did this little Christmas figure as a practice piece and liked her so much I thought I would create a background for her. There are a lot of layers (so loads of drying time!) and it ended up even grungier than usual because for one I made a glaze with black acryclic rather than dark blue - I wouldn't mind but I did the same thing the other week and re-sorted my paints to stop it happenning!! The trials of art in artificial light. Still think I managed to save it. Collage, image transfer and stamping onto tissue have all been used here (I find stamping onto a canvas is horrrendously unpredictable, using tissue paper helps that out a lot and if it disintegrates you get some added texture!)

I love the sentiment I have used, I think with all the hustle bustle that surrounds the festive season we forget to enjoy ourselves and celebrate the season on a day to day basis. Despite being really busy, I'm trying my best to keep a smile on my face and not get stressed - doing OK so far lol!!

Right, how to enter - it's simple!! Just leave a comment on this post and you will be entered in to the draw. As this is a Christmas item and we are already a long time between giveaways I think this one will have to have a very short tunaround. So the closing date will be 9.00 pm on Tuesday 9th December. Yep, that's right, just a week, but it's because I know I will have time to get to the PO on the Wednesday morning - so if you are entering and I don't already know you, don't forget to check back in case I need your addy!!

Inernational players welcome but receipt before Christmas can not be guaranteed (sorry!) as last postal dates are probably Monday. Feel free to link from your own blogs and Happy Christmas Season everyone!!

Still plodding on....

Thought I'd maker a quick post of a couple of things I've done recently just to prove I am still here. As I feared, working 4 days a week instead of two has dramatically cut down my art time so I'm just getting to it as and when. Still, I have a clear day in my art room today - a special treat as I have been so busy!

Here's is a little Autumn Fairy Art Doll I made for a swap on fantastic Paper dolls.



And here are some cards I've made for recent swaps and birthdays.




Right. Off to get inky!!

Self Healing Art Course, Week 2 - Part 1!!

There is a lot to get done this week on the art, heart and healing course. We are altering a board book and the first exercise is a page dedicated to our younger selves and the wishes we might have had for ourselves at that age. The main technique that we are trying out is image transfer, a great favourite of mine.



I only have this one (easily available!!) image of myself as a young child which I have successfully used before in my artwork as a transfer so although it took me quite a while to find what I had done with the original (stuffed in a folder - it has now been properly scanned in to my digital files) I thought that this would be quite easy. Wrong!! We were using the acrylic gel medium method but I couldn't find my golden medium (sure I've got some somewhere) so went out to get more but could only find a structure gel by Galeria. By now I was champing at the bit to get going so decided it would have to do. I wasn't entirely unhappy with the transfer but the resulting image isn't very clear. Good job we were going for a vintage grunge look! The first transfer went on a bit wonky and looked rather small so I decided to repeat the image and added the words 'Where will you journey litttle one?' - I was thinking along the lines of there are different paths you can go on throughout your life and right at the beginning the choices open to you are endless. Yes, it's official, doing this course is making me a bit deep.



The second part of this exercise was to write out those wishes I mentioned above and add them to the page. The ones I chose for my young self, or any young person for that matter, are:

Home and Family
Friendship, Love and Passion
Confidence and Ambition
Strength of Body and Spirit
Creativity and fulfilment
Self Reliance and Compassion
Happy Memories and Hopeful Plans
May you never be alone, and may you always want what you have.

For me this has been a very positive and self-affirming exercise, even though the I'm not sure I am entirely happy with the artwork. Why? Well, although I don't think I had a perfect childhood, by trying to pin down my negative feelings I realised that the bad bits don't really have any effect on me anymore. What has been is past, what is, is and what will happen, will. I find that the circumstances of my early years that did hurt and anger me to think about 10 years ago or so have lost their potency. But I can recognise that they made me who I am, and even with all my faults and foibles, at the end of the day I quite like being me. So perhaps they weren't that bad after all.

Ha ha ha. Told you I was getting all deep and introspective. Right, on with part 2.