I had a lovely half hour in the ‘shudio’ (shed/studio) after work today. Even though it’s only a very short distance from the house, it really does feel like somewhere I can recharge my depleted batteries at the end of the day!
A simple sunset is today’s offering, focussing on the opposing colour mixes of blue/green and red/orange:
It was really lovely to be able to spend a bit of time in my ‘studio’ with both the door and window open and no need for a heater. I was in fact bathed in sunshine for much of the time today.
Here are today’s tulips:
The picture that I started yesterday was finished this morning. I’ve used my lovely dog Finn as my inspiration again, this time he’s had a monochrome treatment :
and here he is in colour:
and this is Finn in the flesh:
Looking back through photos taken since the start of the year, I realise how little I’ve blogged recently, hence the catch up.
Brush:
This recent picture, similar to a watercolour that I painted a few weeks ago, was done with brush pens and ink. I’m still trying to decide which one I prefer:
Needle:
Both knitting and sewing needles feature here. First off, I spent about 6-8 weeks knitting my latest blanket, combining my favourite colour combinations of purple, dark pink and green. This is a wonderfully stretchy blanket, it was knitted on a pair of size 20 circular needles and it’s huge!!
Sewing needles arrived earlier this week in the form of a sewing machine. Sewing has always been something that I wished I could do, neatly and well, however I’ve never really managed it. My husband very kindly bought me my lovely machine and I’ve already made something, can you tell what it is?!
Yes, it’s a bag for my sewing machine pedal and plug!
I have a few other projects in mind for the coming weeks and I’m really enjoying learning how to use my sewing machine. I hope that once I’ve had lots of practice and no doubt loads of advice from my mum (who used to create amazing things on her sewing machine), I’ll be able to attempt to make some new curtains for our dining room.
Whisk:
Last week we celebrated Chinese New Year by having deliciously crispy duck with pancakes, hoisin sauce, plum sauce and prawn crackers. We went to our local Chinese supermarket, I’m ashamed to say for the first time in 13 years, and it was incredible. There were dragons parading outside and inside the shop was a complete riot of colour and noise. It definitely won’t be another 13 years before we go there again:
Before I go, I’ll leave you with the additions that we’ve made to our shed/studio (or shudio, if you prefer) – our current weather has made it really difficult for me to get out there without getting covered in mud, however, these concrete slabs, cleverly designed as logs mean that I can get there and back without walking mud through the house:
Feeling the need to make my art space a little more cosy, I’ve added some cheery lights. I must have spent over 30 minutes faffing about with these before deciding to clump them together in the corner:
and yes, that is a set of wool & fur covered headphones hanging up there too – they are incredibly warm!!
This picture has taken me several weeks to complete, partly because it’s a busy time of year and partly because I was wary of working on it once the daylight had gone. Time was made this weekend for more work to be done – my son had some art homework to be working on too so it meant we were able to work side by side.
Finishing touches were done today, I’m really pleased with the final result.
Here’s my ‘Lightbulb Moment’:
I had a wonderful time at the Fishponds Festive Fair on Saturday. Not only did I sell lots of cards but I was also lucky enough to receive a lot of positive feedback about my art. I had returning customers who have sent cards that they have previously bought and wish to buy the same again plus some of the newer styles. There were also plenty of ‘new’ customers who were extremely fulsome in their praise of my pictures, I have to admit that I was quite overwhelmed!
By far the most popular of my newer designs were these:
Whilst at the fair, I made a little progress with the design below. It’s taking me a long time to complete, I started it over a week ago, however, I am really enjoying working with the patterns and the colours that I really don’t want to rush it:
Hopefully I’ll spend some more time on this at the weekend. I’m looking forward to seeing the final result.
I had a small window of opportunity between working and getting our tea ready this evening. I chose to fill that window with the picture below. I may add some pattern to some or even all of the colour blocks but that would be something not to be rushed and so will be saved for another day. I love how these Art Deco style pictures lend themselves to stained glass windows, their design is so simple and yet incredibly effective.
I had a lot of fun planning and creating this picture. I used the four seasons as inspiration and then looked at some ideas that are in my ‘zen doodle’ book. I’m really happy with the result and may well use the winter tree as an idea for a Christmas card:
I’m looking forward to developing a few Christmas card ideas. I also plan to work on some more stained glass/Art Deco style images over the next few weeks.
I spent much of yesterday afternoon trimming our laurel shrub that was no longer a shrub, it was definitely more of a tree. The consequence of it having grown completely out of control was that a great deal of light was blocked from reaching our garden and our kitchen, I only realised how much light had not been getting through once I’d literally cut it down to size. My youngest helped me by pulling branches down as they were sawn off. I think we cut down more than half the height of the laurel and whilst I was worried that it would end up looking very bare, it has turned out to look ok. Once we had finished sawing and chopping, I spent half an hour trying out a simple tree design:
I think this would work well in a variety of colour combinations, hopefully, I’ll try some out this week.
Now that my lovely husband and my equally lovely oldest son (he made me write the last bit) have equipped our shed/studio with light and heat I have been able to draw and doodle in to the evenings this week. Creating pictures with people as the subject has never been something that I’ve been very confident with however, when I saw this idea I really wanted to have a go myself. Autumn being very much upon us I decided to try some fairly autumnal colours and this is the result:
Brush, Needle & Whisk 