Tuesday 31 July 2012

A bit potty for WOYWW

It's been one of those weeks
for me, 
won't go into details
but I haven't been in my room to play until
tuesday afternoon.
Sorry to everyone that I haven't been to visit,
I hope to be able to do more this week.

I had planned to start a painting this week,
yes a real painting on canvas
but that hasn't happened,
so all I have are some drawings
done yesterday afternoon for this weeks APR
theme, which is "in series".

 Yes, I know the mess is creeping across the desk again.
I promise to clean it up soonish, maybe.

Since I love coffee
and everyone says I'm a bit potty,
I chose coffee pots
as my series.

Yesterday afternoon, I sat down and drew some sketches of
the pots, while drinking coffee, of course.

This is the result after many boo boo's
and lots of rubbing out!!

See, I could have let you think I just did it straight off, 
but unlike Tracey Fletcher King, who is brave enough to ink first,
 I'm not that good.

I have begun adding the paint  and
hopefully, the two drawings on the right
will look like shiny silver, when I paint them,
fingers crossed.

How sad are my hand painted circles
on the blue pattern.
I should use a template
but that is too much like hard work :)
Still a long way to go so
while I keep painting,
 why not hop on over to Julia's
see what is on desks all over the world
this wednesday.





Thursday 26 July 2012

Ink, Pens and Paper for the Artist's Playroom

I've decided to go with
black and white for the
Ink, Pens and Paper theme
this week.

Mainly because I haven't got time to colour it.

Sorry about the photo, the sun keeps going behind the clouds when I take it,
I'm up to about shot number 40.  This is the best you are going to get.
I'm sure the sun is watching me and laughing.
I need one of those light box thingys that Tracey Fletcher King has :)


When I think of ink,
I immediately think of my dad
who was a draftsman.
Not the cheating kind that you get today,
you know, all they do is push a button and 
something is drawn for them
and figures calculated.
Oh no, my dad was a real draftsman,
who drew by hand on a huge drawing board
and calculated things with a sliding rule.
Dad retired many years ago
and recently gave me his pens.



There are heaps of goodies in here
but I don't know what half of them are!
I was really excited until he told me that you have
to wash them out at the end of each day.
This entails pulling them apart and cleaning
each bit.  
Sounds too much like hard work to me,
so for now, I just like to look at them :)


I have to admit that the hand
doesn't really look as if it is drawing,
this is because I don't draw with that hand.
I'm a leftie and just held the pen in that hand while I drew with my left
but in doing that I didn't hold it as if I was drawing.
Silly moo that I am!!


I wasn't sure about the wrist action
of a rightie either,
so sorry if it looks weird,
you should all be left 
like me then there would be no problem.

You can't see it in the terrible photos
but the paper is so old and mouldy
that you could easily call it 
old parchment.
It must be at least 15 years old,
and it's itchy,
but we won't go there.
That's what I get for cleaning out old cupboards.

Now you've seen mine,
hop on over to Jenn's
and see all the other 
Ink, Pens and Paper art.

PS. If the sun comes out I will try to get a better photo
and replace the one at the top.
 





Wednesday 25 July 2012

Hand drawing for WOYWW

I've had a busy week
but not in the art room,
I'm afraid.

Little Miss had a fight with a
softball in school sport last Friday
and the softball won. 
She had a bloodshot and very swollen
eye, nose, and cheekbone
so there were lots of kisses and cuddles.

Then I was still waiting for the double sided tape to arrive,
which it finally did, late on monday afternoon.
So I could finish my Egbert Notebooks
yesterday.

Today I had to run errands in the morning
but now I'm in drawing mode.
The Theme for this weeks APR is Pen, Ink and Paper
so I have started a pencil drawing of my hand
holding a pen
and hope to ink it tomorrow.

So, at last, here is my desk.


I'm in the family room again today as it's too cold in the office.


These are my dads drafting pens from the old days and I decided to draw them 
for the  APR theme.

This is still early stages
and looking at this photo,
the pens look a little drunk.
Will have to fix that.

If you are wondering how I drew my hand,
I'm left handed and held a pen in my right
and pencil in my left.
Once I get the shading and proportions right,
I will have a go at inking it.

Haven't done a proper ink drawing in years,
so fingers crossed.

I'm never alone when I draw in the family room.
Charlie the parrot is right behind me,
Smudge the guinea pig is just to my right
and the chooks are at the window next to me.


Here is a photo of my Egbert Books.


I think they look quite cute.
I've put one in my Etsy shop to see how it goes.

Well, I had better get back to my drawing.
Why don't you pop on over to Julia's
Stamping Ground and see what 
everyone else has on their desk
for WOYWW.

Hope you all enjoy the Olympics,
I'll be watching.

You may have missed this 
















Sunday 22 July 2012

Strange Girl just appeared.

I just had to make this post 
as the strangest thing
has happened to me.

Now those who know me
know that I don't do people,
apart from Egbert that is.
I love to paint fish and flowers 
and all sorts of things
but people,
no way, nada, nut,
and no how.

My people always look like aliens
with weirdly placed eyes and noses
and don't get me started on the bodies.
So as a rule
I have always avoided the human form.

Just to clarify,
Egbert Bookman
isn't human, he is a book elf
so I can paint him, although
you may have noticed
he doesn't have a body
and probably never will.

I digress.

As a rule I don't paint or draw on the weekend
as I am too busy with cleaning and playing
with little miss, but last night
as I sat on the couch just about to watch TV,
I had this weird urge to get my art journal.

Normally any attempt to pick
up a pencil is met with aww mum, play with me,
 or can I draw with you.
Meaning can I draw all over
your picture.
But this time utter silence,
so you don't look a gift horse in the mouth!

I grabbed my journal and just started drawing.

I kept seeing this girls face
and felt compelled to draw it
and draw it I did.
I have no idea who she is or where
the face came from
and I drew her completely from my imagination.
So weird, especially as I can't draw faces.

Here it is,
not anatomically perfect
but for me, it's good.


 If this is you,
I'd like to know how you got into my head
and what are you doing there.

My cheeky little miss said
it can't be a picture of you, mum 
because it doesn't have wrinkles!!

Thanks darling!

Gotta love kids.








Thursday 19 July 2012

Painful pear and no good mail.


This weeks theme for Artist's Playroom is pears.

Easy you might say,
just draw a blob and colour it green, red and yellow.

My blob decided to be a nasty blob
and just wouldn't play the game.
I thought I would try subtlety in colours
and it looked blah.

So then I coloured the background in a 
pinky orangey red,
looked okay.

When it came to darkening
the shaded area, 
trouble began.

The paint kept spreading to one side or the other
and wouldn't fill the middle. I dried it with a hairdryer
but that made it worse.
 Then I blobbed it and got a tide mark 
and I dropped some red right in the middle of the pear.

So, blow it, that's all I'm going to do.
Just having one of those days.

Tried putting it in a frame to see if it would look better
but no, now a framed  blob gone wrong.

My concentration just wasn't on the paint today
because I was keeping an eye out for the postman.

I have three Egbert books ready to put together
and I ran out of double sided tape.
Can't get that stuff anywhere, so ordered
it from Sydney on tuesday and still don't have it.
I could have flown down picked it up and been back in four hours,
but it takes up to three days to get something by post.
Drives you nuts.

So, while I sit and wait for the postie
have a look at some better pears
and while you're at it,
check out the paintings on
Paint Party Friday.

Don't know why the post has a 
gap up the top, can't get rid of it,
I think Blogger hates me :(
UPDATE:
The gap is now fixed
with a huge thankyou to Serena Lewis,
who told me how to fix it
and I still haven't got
my tape from the post man :(




Wednesday 18 July 2012

Alone at last for WOYWW

I am alone at last!!!
My mother in-law has gone home
and little miss  is finally
back at school.

You can't see me but I am dancing around the room,
the peace is wonderful,
I have a huge grin on my face
and I'm ready to draw and paint my heart out.

I have been working on two desks today.
One for painting and drawing
and the other for doing up templates to 
put inside note books.



I have designed three more Egberts
and painted them today.
All I have to do this afternoon is
to ink in the details.


They don't look much until the ink is on
but I think they will make cute note book covers.

On this desk is my inside covers ideas and the start of some
more Egberts..


It looks a bit boring but I am amazed that I managed
to print a page of sticky address thingys
and it lined up first time.

I hope to take them down to the Collective Store to sell
and I might even put some on the Etsy shop,
if the weight doesn't make them too expensive for postage.

Well I'm off to ink some Egberts,
with a huge grin on my face.

Why not hop on over to Julia's
Stamping Ground and see what
everyone else is doing on their desk today.






Wednesday 11 July 2012

One success and one failure on WOYWW

It's been a hit and miss week this week.
Not much was done in the art dept
as it is still school holidays and we still have a visitor.



Ooh, I here you say,
yes, that's my new toy.
A very evil and sharp
guillotine and I love it.


There isn't a piece of paper
within fifty miles that is safe with
that sucker around and boy have I had some fun.

I also found some gorgeous pink
journals and I will put some
Egberts on the front of them.

You may remember the pencil
drawings from last week,
well I did some in colour.
They came out quite well.



 My failure for the week
was when I tried to do prints of the Egbert paintings.
This is what I got.


 The blue is very dirty and washed out
and I don't know how to fix it.
The image on the screen is just like the painting 
so how do I adjust the colour if it looks
fine on the screen.  HELP,
if any one knows what to do,
                                             I would appreciate it.  I have a  fancy Canon
printer, but still not sure how it works.

The success for the week is at the bottom of this post.
I decided to try and add my signature to the bottom of my posts.
The instructions were via Jenns, Just add water Silly blog
and after copious amounts of swearing and starting again
I finally got it to work all by myself and believe me that is something.
(See Jenn, I can do it!!!)

Now that you have seen my hit and miss week,
why not pop over to Julias
and see what everyone else has been doing 
on their desks
around the world.

Thanks to everyone for their kind comments and wishes,
especially for my fetaure on 
Just Add Water Silly.


  

Wednesday 4 July 2012

Happy Birthday Canada on APR

This weeks theme for Artist's Playground
is Canada, in honour of the 
wonderful Canadian, Jenn
and Canada's Birthday.

I just had to join in as my brother lives in Canada
and is married to a beautiful Canadian lady
named Fran.

My last trip to Canada was in 1976
when I was just fifteen
and I still have a few momentos 
from that time.


These are from 1976
and still going.

About five years ago my brother
finally got married and as we
are a family of five, it was too expensive for
all of us to go, so just my eldest daughter went
with nanny and grandad.
These are some of the mementos
she brought back.

This was going to be all I had for Canada,
until I looked down and there was
cheeky little Egbert Bookman
checking out the flag
and I just had to paint him.

So here, after all that, is my entry
into the Canada APR.

I was going to call it 
Egbert does Canada
but that sounds a bit rude.

So Egbert with the flag will have to do.

If you are wondering why Egbert is a little wobbly,
it's because it's so cold over here
that I can't feel my fingers and keep
dropping the brush and pen!!!!!

Okay, it's not Canada cold
but it is bloomin freezing by
sub tropical Brisbane standards!!!



I would like to send a huge, huge
thankyou and hugs to Jenn
for making me her featured artist,
I feel very honoured.
Now head on over to Jenn's 
and see what everyone else has done
for Canada.

Winter holidays on WOYWW

While most of you lucky people are enjoying 
summer, we are suffering an unusually
 horrible cold winter. 

It is school holidays at the moment
so I have hardly done anything artwise.



Last night my hands were shaking,
it could have been the cold
but I know it was withdrawal symptoms from 
lack of painting.

So, whilst huddled up under blankets
and wearing three jumpers,
I got out my art journal
and started doodling.

Up popped Egbert Bookman again,
this time he is in different places
ready for cards.

These are very rough sketches
as you can see from the squashed teapot.

Egbert was wearing a teacosy on his head
but it looks more like underpants!
I will have to have a word with him.

The teacup is in honour of
Tracey as she is an avid tea drinker.

I also made a new bookmark.


I really enjoy playing with Egbert, 
so he may be around for a while.

Something fabulous has happened to me also.

I have been featured on
Just Add Water Silly.
A thousand thank yous to the wonderful Jenn
for thinking that I am good enough
to be featured.
If you would like to see it,
 Well that's me for this week.
We still have one more week of school holidays
after this week, so I guess not much
else will be happening artwise (sigh).

Now you've seen mine
how about you pop on over to Julia's
and see what other people have on their desks
around the world.