Wednesday 29 February 2012

A bit of a cool breeze on WOYWW.

It seems that I can't escape bottoms
at the moment.
Two weeks ago 
it was my friend Angies
but this week it is my bottom on show
(sorry, no pictures available).

People who know me well
will know that I don't have many clothes,
this is by choice.
In my working days I had to wear a suit
and dress up all the time and
now that I have retired I just have
one pair of 3/4 pants for home
and 1 pair for going out
and yes I do wash them, I just do it strategically.

Sorry I digress,
this morning whilst cleaning out and feeding my chickens
I noticed that it was a little more
breezy than usual in the bottom area.
When I got inside I had a look in the mirror and spotted the problem straight away.
I had a dirty great tear in my pants, so big in fact
that my butt cheek was on full view
(the extra bits that stick out from my knickers anyway)
and this presented a huge problem for me, as I don't like to sew
Now a staple usually goes a long way in this situation
but of course you can see my problem if I go putting staples into 
the part of my pants that I sit on.
Frantic calls to my mother and she told me about an iron on patch
thingy that will seal the hole and save my dignity.
I will have to get out and buy one of these patches, 
just hope I remember to take my pants off before ironing it on!!

To my desk.... and  if you wish to see others around the world 


 My lovely friend Angie has returned to England
and so today I sat and finished my ginger flower.

I have a confession to make,
I have been showing you my neat corner of the room and never
showing you the other side, so,
today I will reveal my mess in all its glory.
Here is the real me (sorry Tracey).


And there is still another wall
but I don't want to overload your eyes.

There are cupboards of oil and acrylic paints, plus glass paints,
all sorts of pads of drawing paper, tins of lacquer, boxes of prints,
folders full of my ideas (you now the ones, you will try it one day),
and goodness knows what else in there.
Of course I keep telling my husband that there
wouldn't be any mess if he let me take over the front lounge.
Can't understand why he won't believe me.

To finish off on a better note
here is the ginger.
After seeing it here, 
I need to tweak the bottome leaves
but it is pretty much finished.

Next week I hope to have done some 
actual art for once,
fingers crossed.

Wednesday 22 February 2012

Just a little bit done for WOYWW

I haven't really done much on my desk this week
for WOYWW.
After last weeks fun with taps and
flooding bathrooms, it has been quit sedate.

I actually took my drawing table on wheels
out into the family room and 
did a little to my ginger picture.

That way I could natter to my visitor from England
and draw at the same time.


This is where I put it when I had finished for the day.
That was yesterday, 
we went shopping, 
spent too much 
and had cake today :)

Here is a scanned in copy of the still unfinished ginger, using my new printer.

This is about my twentieth attempt to scan.
I just can't get the hang of it, there are so many choices
and half of the buttons I've never heard of, so I just
pressed everything until I got a reasonable picture.

This so called easy to operate Canon printer, 
wasn't made for blondes,
that's for sure.

It goes over two pages of my journal and that is
why there is a grey blobby bit in the middle.
Plus I had my hand on it when the paint was wet 
and I splodged it across the white bit
(That's pretty standard for me, 
a natural born grot).

I have a little more to add to the saga of the bathroom taps and flooding

I take my parents grocery shopping each week
and this week I took my English visitor (Angie)
with us. 
 When we took my parents home
we helped to carry the groceries up stairs and my mum
jokingly said that Angie shouldn't come up or her taps might break.
You wouldn't belive it but late that afternoon I got a call from my mum
and she had come home after going out for lunch and heard water running.
When she went to the bathroom the tap was running and wouldn't turn off.

They had to replace their taps too!

When the plumber came to fix my taps, I offered to rent Angie out
to other customers to try and drum up business for him.
I think he is seriously considering it! 



On a more sedate level, my last photo is of my 
fantastic water colour paper pad, it is huge.



I can't wait to have a play with it. I plan to cut it up into usable pieces
and maybe do the odd big picture.

My sweet Angie has to go home to England next tuesday
so I guess I will be back to drawing again
later next week.
I will miss her dearly and of course
I will miss the cake that we have been eating
constantly.

Have a great week
and I may start blogging
more after next week.



Wednesday 15 February 2012

A bit wet for WOYWW

Yes, it has been a bit wet around here
and no, it wasn't rain outside.
The photo of my desk
will give you a clue.

The water was in the bathroom!
It all started when my visitor from England
(told you about her last week)
used the bathroom.
She was getting ready for a shower and decided to just wet her hair
at the sink first.  She turned on the hot tap
and when she had finished it wouldn't turn off, 
suddenly the whole tap flew off, up into the air
and luckily she caught it.
Next there was a huge burst of water coming right up to the ceiling 
and gushing everywhere.
Dressed only in a bra and knickers she screamed out for my husband
who came running but didn't know how to turn off the water, he
then screamed for me (I was upstairs at the time and oblivious to the commotion).
I came down, saw the water and ran out into the street to shut off the water.
There was poor Angie just standing there in bra and knickers, saturated in a huge puddle of water
 and hard as it was, I didn't laugh (too much). 
 My little miss gave her the first towel she could find, which happened to be a beach towel that you put over your head with a duck head on it, which she wrapped around her waist.. 
 You should have seen her with a ducks beak sticking out of her bottom!!
I found some of the parts for the tap across the bathroom in the shower and put the tap back together
but some bits must have gone down the drain and it wouldn't work.  Luckily that bathroom has it's own hot water system, so I turned the water off to that and we then had water back to the house.
I had a plumber in the next morning and he said the taps had seen better days and so to my desk.
I had to go and buy new taps today. 
 They are not what I wanted but that is all they had in stock and so that is what I've got. 
I must say, you English have a funny way of telling a person the bathroom needs a clean. 
Angie could have just asked me to clean it, rather than ripping the tap out. :)

Back to my desk,
there is something else to show you.
Angie bought me a present from England, to match the beautiful
calendar she gave me for Christmas and here they are.
On the left is a book with beautiful sayings about friends
and on the right is a purse for going out somewhere special.
They match my calendar beautifully.
As you may have noticed, no art has been done this week.
After the wetness, we have been going out for lunch and shopping.
Also, I have little misses 11 birthday party this weekend and have to get organised for that.
On this WOYWW,
I apologise if I don't get to too many people this week, or reply
to comments but I will try to get to as many as I can.
Have a great week.


Wednesday 8 February 2012

What a week for WOYWW

Today I have been playing with my new printer
and good quality paper.
I am trying to make some decent cards
to sell in The Collective Store.
I am not as good as my fellow
WOYWW card makers.
You can see their 
great work here.

I have had quite a week.
The evening that I posted my last WOYWW
my eldest daughter came down with severe food poisoning
and no, it wasn't my cooking.
She is very slim and after hours of it coming out of both ends
(if you know what I mean),she became very ill.
I ended up taking her to the hospital where they gave her 2 litres of saline
and some intravenous medication to stop both ends from going.
I had to play nursemaid for a few days and now she if perfectly fine
and eating like a horse again.

Whilst all this was happening,
my mother-in-law fell down a flight of stairs
and gashed her leg so badly that it needed
surgery.

With all this happening, I didn't end up getting around
to anyone on WOYWW
and for this I apologise and would like
to thank everyone for their lovely comments last week.

As you can imagine, I didn't get much artwork done 
in the last week, but I did finish my bugs yesterday.
The best thing is that I didn't blow up the oven.
Here are my cute little fellas

and some close ups.































I had a great time destroying my old computers insides
to get the bits for the bugs.
I found it strangely therapeutic, as if I was getting it back
for all the times it drove me crazy.

Speaking of driving you crazy, how do you put up
with those cutting and folding machines for cards.
I have been going nuts!
Even though it has a ruler
I can never cut straight and when I cut it
the back gets a big lumpy bit.

When it comes to the double sided tape
that I use to put the picture on, 
I get stuck, the desk gets stuck
the wrong bit of the card gets stuck
but I never seem to stick the bit that needs it.
You needs two sets of hands to do this.
(I tried using my mouth but that made it worse)

I tell you, doing the painting is the easy bit!!

To end today, I will share some really happy news.
My girlfriend, who lives in England 
is coming here for a holiday on friday.
She is going from the freezing snow,
that many of you have over there at the moment,
to 30 degree heat, sorry to rub that in.

I may not get much art done again next week
but I know I will have fun 
and lots of cake!

Wednesday 1 February 2012

Bugs and flowers on WOYWW

The rain has gone at last
but now there is the terrible humidity.
Thank heavens for airconditioners.
Seeing the blue skies again has me
in the flowers and bugs mood.

Here is a peek at my work desk
this beautiful sunny wednesday.
If you would like to see more desks
and check out the other desks
around the world.


On monday I started a
ginger plant in watercolour pencil.
I am doing it in my journal
and added a little poem (by Anon)
which is perfect for the picture.


Spent half of tuesday on it to, still heaps to go.


Last night I came up with an idea
for my little polymer clay bugs,
so my experimenting
(always wanted to be a mad scientist)
started today.
I can show you my old bugs but the new
ones might explode or melt in the oven
and in the interests of safety I decided
not to share what I'm doing with you just yet.
If it doesn't work, it's back to the drawing board
and probably a new oven.



Late last year I joined in The Poppy Spree
and during the holidays I received
a beautiful present from 
Nicole at Studio Margot and
just had to share it with everyone.
It got a little crumpled in transit
but as soon as I get it ironed out
I will frame it and put it proudly on display.
I would like to send a huge thankyou to Nicole.

If the house is still standing and the oven
still working, I will share my
new little bugs with you next week.

Fingers crossed.