Illustration Friday - Phoenix

And she did the jiggy campering about the stage doing her "phoenix" dance. Apologies for the smudge! Accidentally wiped my sleeve across the page while the ink was still drying. Dang!

Bleating, blather, blah blah blah

I just deleted the other blog (the craft one) to clean up my dashboard. It has been annoying me for some time that there's another blog here which is just taking up wasted space. So its now nada....goneski....carked. No requiem, no goodbyes, no trace. That's the internet for you. Vanished with the click of a button.

Anyway, while I'm tinkering around with the computer and the grubby bub is off to the land of nod, the geezer is (in the spirit of the season) watching Le Joyeaux Noel on the couch with me watching snippets from the sunroom.....except I can't really watch it. The dvd was a present from a frenchie, so everything not spoken in french has subtitles in french. Yep, the geezer speaks and reads french very fluently. It sounds so melting in that jellified-knees way when he speaks it. Truth be told I probably fell for it.........and here we are now. I can't make head nor tail of the movie, but it sounds heavenly.

Tomorrow we brave the crowds at the shopping centre out of necessity. Yeeesh! I have an appointment for a cut and colour with the hairdressers, and the place is right in the middle of all the mayhem. I'd rather not, but my greys have started peeking out again. I inherited the early grey genes from mum. So in an effort to keep preserving my so-called "youth" we pack up the bub in the car and the geezer will roam the shops with her while my hair is serviced.

On another note, I thought I'd take a break from painting today to spend more time with the bub and attend to other stuff. Also topped up the acrylic paint supplies with a trip to Eckersleys since the place is on sale. Anyway, thought to leave you with a photo of one of my favourite places in the world - Hanauma Bay in Hawaii, somewhere I'd rather be instead of at home in front of the PC.

Toy castle - 2nd layer

I'm on a roll today and here's the result. I've lengthened the 2nd girl's blouse and can see now that I've messed up her trousers. Her hair is too dark, must fix that. Also changed the colours on the 1st girl's hair so it looks softer. Still a long way to go. Also need to think about the castle figures. May be overkill, but will attempt this anyway.

What needs adjusting:

- shelf back wall shading

- 2nd girl trousers

- 1st girl shirt shading

- actual shelf

- floor

- back wall

Started

This one is for the AAF summer studio challenge. My goal is to finish 8 by March 2007. May be a bit ambitious, but lets see how I go. So the first one is called "toy castle". The two children are supposed to be playing with a toy castle against a wall which is fronting a window - reason for the framing.

It still needs plenty of work, I think. The colours are not quite there and the bottom shelf needs a lot of work (colours and objects). The 1st girl's hair is too fiery, makes her look a bit sinister. The castle is still washed out, but I'll work on that today.

Illustration Friday - Peace

Apologies for the crap photo. Bad light today and I'm hankering to replace my old digital camera. Need a scanner, too, but can't have it all right now. Anyway, this is "Peace" for today's show-and-tell.

Illustration Friday - Help

I'm wrapping up the presents and happened upon the idea of what to draw. Quite apt!

More than I can chew?

Have I bitten off too much? I've recently joined the Australian Art Forum - its an on line discussion room for artists and just now I've put my hand up to finish 8 pieces by March 2007. Off the top of my head, I can think of about three that I'll count in as part of the 8.

- there's the grubby bub's feet thats at the art class/studio (will be doing work on this in Jan)
- two little girlies sketched up on canvass boards and ready to be painted

I'll have to figure out a theme of sorts to create to.....or we can just let it show itself in due time, kind of organic.

On other happenings, the geezer, the grubby bub and I have just returned from 5 days in sunny Brisbane for a long awaited holiday, and what can I say.......it was relaxing! Before I sign off, here's a photo of me and the bub inside the GoMA.

Much needed rain

Its pouring out today.........cats and dogs kinda weather. Its cold, too, for the beginning of summer, which doesn't indicate anything in my experience for Sydney. I've had to batten down the hatches so that it stays dry inside. The geezer is probably looking out his window right now and whingeing about it.

Unfortunately, just lots of drawing and sketching this week and not a lot of painting. I'm about to start on two new acrylic pieces, but will have to put them aside as today is designated packing day for our trip tomorrow. We're going to Brisbane and it'll be the grubby bub's first plane ride, first trip away from home and her cot. We're expecting some wobblies all right. Our girl's up there with the best when it comes to tantrums. Hmmm, I'm looking forward to getting away myself. I hope we get nice warm weather up there. Must take a novel in case some quiet time comes my way. Ha!

On another note, I just acquired a book called "Pattern Motifs, a source book" by Graham McCallum. Its a great source of inspiration for me as I'm now looking to include more interesting detail in the background of my whimsical paintings. The simplicity of the "three small lasses" set is fine for its size, but I think the bigger ones may be boring without the extra embellishment. I'll see how I go.

Grubby bub

Here tis! Ta da!!!

Do you reckon she's appreciative???

More like confused.......mummy's a nutter, big time.

Not really working

Managing two blogs is very time consuming. I should've known.....duhhh!! So I've decided to stop updating the other one and just combine both the art and craft stuff here. Just from reviewing both blogs, this one is definitely the more interesting read. I don't know how other ladies do it. Most of the craft bloggers out there in internet-land are also full-time mothers and/or working in day jobs. Not to mention styling, shooting and uploading the photos. It all looks so perfect.


Anyway, my objective for starting the blog was to place pictures of my paintings somewhere, before they all disappear or are given away. By the way, the trio of jacaranda paintings that I made earlier have made their way to one of my best friends for her birthday and she loved them.

Oops, the grubby bub is squealing at the TV......oh, she's just copying the cartoon kids. Speaking of the little patoutie (new pet name), this is the original photo I used as basis for the bub's oil painting. Its sitting in the hallway at the moment, still waiting for the edges to dry. I'll load this up very soon.

Today's inspiration: Shih - the opposite of facts and raw information, the elegance of knowledge, the insight and skill to form meaning. Been reading the Neverness books for the 2nd time around and have rediscovered the alien concepts in the book. I was a huge sci-fi fiction reader about 10 years ago and decided to pick them up again....anyway, there's a sketch in the journal about "shih".

Three little luvlies and one big one

Okay, we finally have some decent light coming in due to another blue sky picture through the sunroom windows. Which means I can finally take photos of the new stuff and show you all. Please excuse the camera, its an old (relatively, everything ages right away nowadays) Canon Ixus.


I mentioned some time back that I'm in the process of making three little lasses doing what littlies do as inspired by the grubby bub, although she doesn't quite do any of these yet. They're all a tiny 5" x 7" big. The first is "no wanna leep yet".





The second is "away to the circus".





The third is "high tea with the dollies".





Lastly is my second latest large oil painting called "red kite" showing two children playing with a kite on a green field. Its about 30" x 40" and the geezer is very appreciative.

Aside from all of that, there are lots of sketches in the journal waiting to grow up into paintings and I've just primed two new canvas boards with base colours of lavender and periwinkle. I promise to post some photos of pages from the sketch journal sometime soon.

Since its beautiful and sunny outside, the bub and I might venture out to the village and go for a stroll. I'll have to wait till she wakes up.

Insomnia kills

Yep, can't sleep again. The culprit this time was a cup of orange pekoe tea too close to bedtime. Dang! And I was drinking it to wind down, too. Should've noticed this when I felt increasing inclination to keep reading my book (currently reading "The Broken God" by David Zindell), instead of putting it down. I suspect my engrossness in the book has also kept my mind alert and thinking. I really should read more trashy novels at night. Now I'm tired but still wide-eyed.


I've read somewhere that an artist's style is unique like a personal signature or a fingerprint. Is this true? What about copied works of art? And also if an artist varies their work from one medium to another, say from paintings to collages to cartoons to sculpture. Can the same artist be easily identified in separate works from varied mediums?


Okay, another old painting for you, since all my new ones haven't been photographed. This about A4 size (canvas board) acrylic still life of onions growing on a window sill, based on a larger photo I cutout from a National Geographic magazine, which I cropped. This is about 16 years old, since I remember putting it together one summer on my bedroom floor just before I started first year university. It was also a very hot summer and the actual photo showed a winter scene of a city somewhere in Europe. The window sill was just in a small corner on the foreground.

Back then I painted a lot on canvas boards because I was young, cheap and unemployed. I was also naive and didn't know to aspire to more quality materials, I just wanted to make art. Nowadays I use canvas board on small pieces which I work on at home. Since we live in a flat, space is always a premium and its been more so since the grubby bub arrived. We are swimming in baby junk and there seems to be traces of it in every room, even though I try to be tidy. Large stretch canvasses I use in the studio at art class, as I have the luxury of space there.

In our next house, I'm already reserving the third bedroom to transform into a pseudo-studio space. (We'll keep a sofa bed in there for guests, too) But I'm now needing my own area to just mess about as I need. Can't really tidy away the bits and stuff that I look at everyday for inspiration.

Little girls

Yay! Just finished the paintings of three little girls today. Photos will be posted later.........as the light was terrible today even in the sunroom, the sky being grey and cloudy. I've been procrastinating on these pieces because I didn't have a plan on the colour combinations. I still didn't have a plan, but forged on ahead anyway and just let it emerge.

Tomorrow I start a new oil painting and I take home the other painting of the grubby bub! Yikes! Must clean my paint brushes.

Dream on

Twenty years from now I'll have made a name for myself as a professional artist and actually making a decent contribution to our living expenses, not to mention my vices (of which there are a few). I would own a studio the size of a warehouse, fill it chock-full to the brim of artwork and I would spend days on end making beautiful wall adornments, with the Geezer occasionally coming in to bring me sandwiches and cakes for sustenance. I would need to be reminded by an alarm clock to go to the loo, otherwise it'd be pandemonium for my insides at the end of the day (this has been known to happen at art class). I'd die a happy girl if I can only paint all day, every day till the end of my days.

Someone needs to put my head on a slab! Oops, a nappy needs changing. Now!

Back on for one and all

Finally, the gods of the blogging world have responded and I've got the toolbars again, so photos shall be displayed for all to see again. Me needs to remember to resize the pictures for web pages, otherwise Blogger will spit the dummy. Yikes!




This is a painting of a frangipani I did about three years ago on cheap-and-cheerful canvass board. I was experimenting with looser and bigger brushstrokes, as well as letting the colours mix on the canvass. It measures about 15" x 20". Not a bad size for a flower painting.


I'm dabbling a lot with different styles at the moment in my art, while I try to find my niche. I think the personal style takes a while to develop, although I can see glimpses of it here and there. There definitely is a commonality between the pieces but nothing that I can put my finger on. Other people might, I dunno.


Anyhow, I missed my art class on Saturday due to my aforementioned nut intolerance. So I'll have to play catch-up this week. I'm going to be behind on the painting of the bub's tootsies.


Also, I've started another blog called sweetpeakins to note down all my sewing, crafting and other hobby whatnots, seeing as this is mostly about art. Both blogs should keep me busy while I see out my year-at-home-with-the-bub.

Nuts are no-no

Anyone with a nut allergy will empathise with me on this post. I had my first anaphylactic(?) reaction in a while last Friday night, when the Geezer and I went to Indian dinner with some friends. I was retching at 2am in the morning spilling my guts out in the loo. Yuck! But jeez, I felt better right away - even though I was out of action for all of Saturday. My muscles and bones were just jelly, so I snoozed the whole day.

So there you have it! I'll have to steer clear of Indian food altogether from now on.

The next piece of art.........

Will be of the grubby bub's footsies. Maybe from this photo?


Again, I'll be playing with the blurry effect for the painting and try to develop a technique so that it looks like a watercolour. Don't know if it'll work with this one, as this will be a smaller piece. Maybe 15" x 15"??? Need to check the canvasses tomorrow.

I'm being inspired to create at the moment. Mostly the ideas end up on my journal cum sketchbook, for development later, when I'm feeling lost. These are top of my mind right now.


- My amazon wishlist of impressionist art books by Taschen
- Fabric prints from the eQuilter site
- The grubby bub, of course!
- Big sky days with lots of light
- Flicker of candle flame against the wax when its melted down into a well
- Visiting the flower markets
- Various interior design books
- The grubby bub's books

I wish there were heaps of hours in a day to do everything!