Wednesday 28 August 2013

My painting's coming together and spring has sprung early. Life is good!Follow my blog with Bloglovin

You can't see it but there is a huge grin 
on my face. Spring has come early,
it's 28 deg and I have bare arms!!!
Ooh, I'm loving lettin the skin hang out,
not in a rude way but a kinda lettin it breathe 
sorta way.
I've been playing on a few desks this week.
This is my dining table where I drew up 
a backdrop for my Little Misses' class speech today.
They had to write a story about the Aussie Outback
and this is of a naughty emu who stole someones Akubra hat.
It's yellow because I took the photo last night and forgot
to turn on the flash.  It's not finished in this photo
but Little Miss took it this morning and I forgot to take another photo first (oops). The other picture I drew was of a dunny (outdoor loo for those who don't know) and yes, I forgot to take a photo of that too.
This is the mess I'm making on one of my other desks.
You can see my bottle of clear gel medium, that's what I mix 
with the paint to form the glaze that I used in class today.
I'm winning the war with my painting, so what more
 could I ask for.  I wasn't happy with the fish painting last
 week.  I did my homework yesterday, that involved
 spattering over the rocks.  It's easy to spatter in a large
 classroom but you try in a small little room filled with
 junk and  other paintings. I covered the floor with
 plastic and  half the things around it, loaded up
 my fan brush with  sloshy paint and had to be
 careful not to just  swoosh it like in class but
 be more dainty (ha that's a joke for me)
 and just lightly shake. Obviously that was just too
 much for my little blonde brain to comprehend as
 when I gently shook the brush the paint went upwards 
all over me instead of downwards onto the canvas. 
Just proves that gently is not my style.
After a lot of swearing and getting splattered
(a piece of advice, keep your mouth closed when doing
 this as it don't taste nice!!!), I got some on the canvas.
Here is where I left my canvas before class this morning.
Still a bit blah!
But then my teacher showed me how to glaze
and this is the under glazing so far.

 It is really starting to look like they are under the water.

 Here you can see the swirls in the actual glaze.
You paint the glaze on and then use a plastic comb
 to give  the direction wanted. In this case the
 swirling water. The light is shining on this 
picture so it looks more white than it is.
There's no class next week, so I might
 get some more of my inking done.
That's my fun for the week, sorry it's so long Julia, 
please don't yell at me :)
How about you go to Julia's Stamping Ground
and see what everyone has on their desks
this beautiful, sunny, warm wednesday.

Thanks for all the birthday wishes last week.





Wednesday 21 August 2013

Ouch, another year older on WOYWW

I'm late posting today
that's because I'm another year older today
and I'm getting slower in my old age.
Today I'm forty-twelve, 
I can't bring myself to say the other 'F' word
cos I'm sure I couldn't be that old.
I still feel like I'm in my thirties.

I had a great day, art class this morning
and my lovely friend Lea
took me out to lunch.
Thanks again for that Lea.

Here is my desk today
How cute is this fella.
My wonderful hubby gave me this teapot for my birthday.
I just love quirky things.
Oooh I can feel a watercolour painting coming on!!!

Earlier in the week I decided to do an ink canvas
and boy was that a mess
It started out okay, this is the gloopy stuff.
 

Then trouble, dummy here forgot to put a high bit of
 something in the centre of the painting and all the ink flowed
 to the low point.
I had to hold it perfectly flat and get little miss to put some 
bits and pieces under it to flatten it out a bit.
 
The ink has dried a lot here, I was too busy with the wet puddly ink to take a photo.
 
You have to hit the ink hard with water spray and that
 makes a huge mess so I had to cover the floor and
 cupboards with plastic,but then I oopsed.
Have you ever wondered what happens if you shake
a full bottle of white ink and forget to put the lid on??
Yep, it was everywhere, all over the cupboard, the floor, me
and it hit the old computer on the floor.
 
 
I wiped all the floor and cupboards quickly before it dried
 but this sorta got missed, ewww. 
 Lucky I don't need the screen anymore!
 
Here is my fish painting from class today.
I think it's hideous but the teacher assured me it is
just as it should be.
 
 
Just looks like a mess to me but I'm determined
to do it the proper way and hope for the best.
 
Here is the ink canvas as it is now.
I still have a lot of work to do on it
but it's getting there.
Well that's my fun for the week.
I'm off to start dinner,
so hop on over to Julia's
and see the other desks
around the world
this wednesday.
 


 




Wednesday 14 August 2013

Best laid plans, seem to go astray. WOYWW

I was quite excited about this week
as it is a public holiday in Brisbane
and I don't have an art class this week
which meant I could start an ink canvas.

Well in typical style, that didn't happen
as my last Gift Certificate for a Pet Portrait came in.
Of course I had to give that priority.

To be honest I'm not really happy with it.
The colour is too pale but it just doesn't want to darken.
The doggy photo I was given was taken at night 
which really messes with the colours
so I was guessing quite a bit and I prefer to just do the face
as a character portrait but they insisted that
 they wanted a full body.
I think that's what threw me.
I just hope they like it as they paid $50 for the gift certificate.

I've decided not to do any more gift certificates as 
I get quite stressed if the painting isn't working perfectly 
and you can't time when they come in for painting.

Since I didn't get to show all brightly coloured ink splodges,
I thought I would show you my splodgy room instead.

Here's my desk with the painting nearly done.

 This is to the left, oh yes not too bad you say.
Now it's starting to get there, you might be able to see
 the white sheet behind my easel, 
that is hiding a heap of half done canvasses
up against the wall, yeh, I'll get to them one day.
To the left of picture is my pile of junk that I have to squish
 each time I need to get into the cupboard, yeh,
 I'm gonna clean it up one day.

This is the one area I'm reasonably happy with
 as it is sort of tidy.
Well, that's if you don't look on the floor and oops,
 I didn't get that in the shot :)

This is the painful spot, I can't move for mess
and it's even up the wall and I have to dump all
of the papers on the printer on to the floor
each time I want to scan something.
Yeh, yeh, I'll clean it up one day.

So there you have the mess in the surround.
I often wonder how I manage to get anything done at all. 

Speaking of which, I may not get much done
from the middle of September as my girlfriend in Essex
has sold her house and is emigrating to Aus.
My girlfriend will be staying with us until she buys a house.
It will be shopping, coffee and cakes all the way for a while,
mwa ha ha.
Hey, maybe she will tidy up the art room (he he).
Nah, cake sounds better.

That's my desk this week and Julia hasn't posted
for this week yet, so I might get to play
with my inky mess yet.

Well you've seen mine, why not hop on over to Julia's,
I'm sure she will have WOYWW 
on her Stamping Ground by now
and you can see all the other desks 
around the world.






Wednesday 7 August 2013

We have fish in the pond for WOYWW, well kinda.

It's been a bits n pieces week
for WOYWW
as I was in an out 
of my room all week.

Here is what's on my desk right now.

Not much really.
I am almost finished a card
that I promised Neesie from Neesie Natters ages ago
when she moved back to the UK
from here in Aus.

You can just see a little bit poking out from the paper I put over it,
I have to wait until Neesie gets it before it can be shown
and then she might not let me show it 
(let's just say I had a little fun with it mwa ha ha).

I made a cute polymer clay chameleon, called Bruce.
I wish I could say I made him up but
I bought a project book and copied from there.

At the back of my desk is the photo
that I'm using to paint my fishpond for art class.

Last week it looked like this

Then I started the painful bit of sectioning,
drawing and then rubbing out,
 
and drawing and rubbing out,
you get the picture??



This took forever and I'm sure my teachers ears were burning.
I've always used pencil and drawn nice and neat
but this is just plain painful.
Apart from the charcoal, getting into places
where I'm sure it shouldn't get, it's really hard
  to do.  But I got there eventually.

I got to class this morning, she was happy with what I'd done
and then she said now rub it off!
I nearly died. She must have seen the look of sheer horror on my face
and then explained that she meant for me to rub it off lightly
and remove the excess charcoal (phew).

Now I'm just putting in the clear colours, loosely,
to form the shape of the fish.


Would you believe that's two hours work just there!!
Geez I'm slow!!!

It's a public holiday here next wednesday,
so no classes and only a tiny bit of homework,
so if all goes well, I might have a go at 
another inky messy canvas.

Let's hope the inky mess makes it to the canvas
and not all over me, or the floor, or the desk..!

That's my desk goings on for the week,
now why not hop on over to 
has been happening on other desks 
around the world.