Mermaid art and new art goodies

Hello all, This is a whimsical little mermaid I finished a few days ago...rather than printing out the words like I normally would, I thought I'd embrace my somewhat messy handwriting. It seems to work in this case

What do they say about best laid plans? well, after finishing her, I was eager to continue with a little flower fairy. I was so excited to get home from work and paint, and then life happened. One of those unexpected things that you need to take care of, which took my entire night and left me mentally exhausted...unfortunately it carried on throughout this past week. It's so easy to want to give up sometimes, or to just sit in front of the tv and relax after work. That's the easy way out. I'm tired of taking that road, because I have very little to show for last year, and I'm still pissed at myself for my lack of discipline. This year must be different, I need to push through the distractions, and the lack of motivation, and at least do something every day.
Otherwise what is the point? I know I'm not alone in this, as many artist suffer from the same thing. I feel for you working moms out there, it must be hard fitting in time for yourself when everyone else is screaming their share.
So, I will paint, tonight, don't care how late it is, but once I finish this post I will work on the fairy- or whatever else may show up. You can't always choose what characters will appear in your art!

On a happier note, I am a certified art supply junkie, I love supplies, can't get enough! and now that Amazon has a really good selection of stuff, it's very dangerous for someone like me, especially when I'm bored and wasting time on the computer, lol! someone on Facebook happened to mention some Posca paint markers at a good price, and there I was, clicking 'buy now, lol!

These beauties in this pic were just delivered to me, most of them are Ranger products I got on sale, and being absent minded I ordered the same color ink pad! oh, and I thought I was getting a bargain with those distress ink pads in front, but note the size of them, they are munchin sized!! hey at least I didn't pay much for them, that will teach me to click without reading the small print.

 If you have a Michaels close by, they have the spring bargain section out, and I got those two cute writing pads in the back right side of the photo...the new spring line is adorable! I picked up some greeting cards as well, and of course more scrapbooking paper as you can never have enough.

I'm off to play with my new paints, thanks for reading!
stay creative!
betty

new mermaid painting

It's been a while since I did  a mixed media paintings on wood, so here's my newest. I must have spent at least 10 hours on it, the background originally had seaweed, but I hated how that looked, so I kept playing around with it until I was happy with the result. I forgot how much fun it was to use my wood burner. It also gave me a chance to get out my glitter and gold stars, lol!

Since the weather is still crappy and overcast, I will take advantage and stay inside working on more art.

I have a question for my fellow bloggers: does this happen to you?  when I am writing a blog post, and I hit the enter key to move to a new paragraph, the curser jumps to the top of the page...what's up with that?? and I noticed last night, Blogger won't let me sign out. Is there some weird glitches happening?

hope you are all having a lovely weekend where ever you are, and thanks for reading!

Mermaid Journal Page

And it only took a month to finish, haha!  This is the mermaid I showed on my blog on Oct 3rd, the plan was to add something to the left side. The problem is that I'm not too good at this journaling stuff, unless I follow someone's instructions...in the end, I added a bit of blue and white paint, and wrote some words down that I thought went with the drawing.  Not particularly creative,  but hopefully if I keep playing around in my art journal, I will get the hang of it, and be able to produce lovely, interesting  pages like a lot of you do.
This is from my portrait journal, the one I use to practice drawing different faces.

My decorating is almost done, one tree is up, the next will go up on the weekend. If I can get a good photo of my funky crazy tree I will post it. It's quite unusual, lol!
Once the decorating is finished, I can sit back and concentrate on holiday art.
Hopefully some Christmas fairies or angels...

thanks for reading!

Illustration Friday - Beneath

It's Halloween night, and two baby owls fearlessly move through the forest beneath the candle light.

 Hello Friends. I really wanted to illustrate this week's topic, and had a mermaid in mind, but alas, I was afraid I would run out of time. So here is an ACEO I just finished today which fits the topic perfectly I think.

It's now official, I am a terrible blogger. I keep meaning to update, but when I get here I feel there's nothing interesting to say. I'm still reading my favorite blogs, just not updating my own, lol!

The above sketch is what I was hoping to add to Illustration Friday, she is  a mermaid, but she is not done yet. I pictured in my mind a murky background, with her face obscured with color, but not sure when I can get to it. So many other things to do.

Today I started decorating for Halloween. I brought out my skeleton and ghost tealights, and a pumpking which lights up when you plug it in.. There is fall garland, and lots of seasonal candles for display. Can't forget the purple and orange lights!
In one month, the Halloween stuff gets put away, and I start preparing for my favorite holiday of all, Christmas! Would you think I was strange if I admited that I played Christmas music yesterday, haha! I stopped after 2 songs, I didn't want to get sick of them already :-)

Coming soon will be some witch paintings for Halloween.
Thanks for putting up with this absent blogger (yup, that's me).
xoxo

Big Eye'd Mermaid Illustration.

hi everyone.  I'm still trying to figure out the best way to offer illustrations in my soon to be opened second Etsy shop. It's a lot of work! I'm not sure it's worth the effort, it's hard enough keeping one shop active. I won't bore you with all the details, lol!

Here is my latest big eyed character, with a visitor tagging along for the ride. Not sure how I would describe this illustration, it is sort of a print, but also original. The mermaid was printed on a vintage book page, then re-drew some of the lines, and added paint and other details.
I got lucky with these vintage books...they were being discarded, and I managed to get a few before that happened. This particular one is dated 1918, and I even found one dated 1890. It's nice to give old books a new life, as well as recycle. Watch for lots more illustrations on vintage pages.

It's been so hot and muggy the last few days, that it makes it quite difficult to sit in a hot little room and create. I hope you are all keeping comfortable where ever you are.
thanks for reading!

Back from Montreal

Late last night we got back from our 2 day trip to Montreal. I love it there! the food, the shopping....there are malls  downtown that go on and on, you could wander all day, and not see everything.
I spent more than I should have, but we only do this once a year. I am disappointed that there was no snow. It's been a strange fall here too, nothing at all for the month of November, you would never know this was Canada.  Before I left I was working mostly on ACEOs - like the mermaid you see above.  I've done a few more of the owls, more of my whimsical Sugarbugs, including one of my favorites with her snowman too. Can you tell I have snow on my mind, lol?

 

I am still waiting for a sunny day so that I can photograph some of my Christmas decorations....
and shortly I will begin discussing Christmas movies. I'm a wee bit behind this week, so thought I'd give a quick update.
I'm feeling the urge to paint larger angels and icons, since it has been a while since I did that.  I sketched for hours on the train back, and have some interesting ideas to work on. Some interesting girls made their way onto my pages, now the trick is to see how well I can make them happen on canvas, that's the tough part!
I will leave you with this photo of an over 3 storey high Christmas tree, filled with cute little scenes like this one. I went to 3 different floors photographing different angles of it, but found most of the pics ended up blurry :-(

New ACEOs and a Giveaway

Hi folks! I finished a couple more mermaid ACEOs. Lately it seems like all I do is mixed media paintings, and it was nice to see how my work has changed from a year ago. The scan doesn't do them justice, they are very colorful and sharply detailed, and I am happy with them. For those who haven't heard of ACEOs, they measure 2.5 x 3.5" which is the size of a playing card. So in other words, itty bitty artworks, lol. What a difference a year makes, I now have to put on reading glasses to paint the details!


Now for the details of my giveaway. Since my birthday is next Tuesday, I will be offering a chance to win an original painting. Up for grabs is this shabby girl, on 6 x 12 piece of wood. I used lots of media on her, and the background is bees waxed. There is lots of texture and layering going on and she even has a necklace of Swarovski crystal beads.
She is a prim little princess on a shabby background, and if you would like a chance to win her, all you have to do is leave a comment on this post. Please make sure I have a way to reach you if you do win.

I will use a random number generator at approx. 9pm Sept 29th to choose a winner.
Good luck, and thank you for helping me celebrate my birthday!(shhhh, my age is a secret!)

The lonely Mermaid

So much for working on my Cinderella painting, I got side tracked :-)
I used to paint mermaids all the time, especially ACEOs, and haven't done one in a while, so here is my latest, a poor lonely mermaid, with no one to play with.

Looking through my unfinished canvases I found a Frida painting I started two Halloweens ago. Back then I was happy with the face, but now it looks too rough. I stopped because I didn't know how to get the background that was in my imagination on the paper. I still can't, I am working on it though. I want to be like those artists that can put so much detail in their art. How do they do it? I wonder if they use reference photos? I'm sure I am not alone when I say this is one of the most frustrating parts of creating art. Your head is filled with beautiful images, but you just don't know how to get them on canvas, so the viewer can see what you see.

Speaking of beautiful images, have you ever been ready to drift off to sleep, when a fantastic image pops into your head? I've had ideas I would never imagine, and wonder, where do they come from?

Some whimsical ACEOs available in my Etsy shop.