Endless Night

Every night and every morn

Some to misery are born.

Every morn and every night

Some are born to sweet delight

Some are born to sweet delight

Some are born to Endless Night

God appears, and God is light,
To those poor souls who dwell in night;
But does a human form display
To those who dwell in realms of day.

Hello friends!  I  finished my latest mixed media painting called  'Endless Night'. After the pink angel I showed on my last blog post, I needed something a little darker.  I must say though, that this painting flowed so easily for me. It was so much fun, and I didn't have to think or plan, it just came together.  I'd say it's my favorite one in a long time.
She is based on the poem 'Auguries of Innocence' by William Blake, which I had memorized a while ago. One of my strange quirks that people don't know about me is that I love memorizing poems, just for the fun of it.  The lines you see above are from that poem, and I have added some on the painting, which I then covered lightly with sheer paint, and tissue paper.
There will be a companion painting for this, a lighter one, born to 'sweet delight'. 

thanks for reading!

Pink Angel

hello lovely people! I finished this mixed media angel tonight. She is a bit different from the original sketch I planned out, but once I got to this stage, I was afraid of ruining her with the idea I had. You will have to wait and see the next one I do to know what I mean. I went crazy with the background, using a few different techniques, and lots of gold leaf.
She's quite pink and glittery, just like my screen name, lol!

For the next one I think I will pull out my book on color  and try something with maybe yellow and green, for spring.

thanks for reading!

Too much TV, not enough art

After finishing my last painting, I've kind of been sitting around not sure what to do.Well, that is not entirely true, I've been watching lots of dvds. I got hooked on a TV series called Wildfire. It's about a girl out of juvenille hall who is taken to work on a horse ranch. Of course there is a love triangle involving the ranch owner's son, and the son of a rival ranch. If you are a horse fan, you will enjoy this series. It started off a bit slow, but once you got to know the characters, you will want to keep playing the next episode, and then the next.  I just finished Season 3, and now am hoping they will release the final season.  They left you with a cliff hanger, and now it is bugging me not to know what happens.  Those who live in the US are so lucky,  there is a site called  hulu.com where you can watch entire episodes. For me in Canada, I can't access it, so have to wait for the DVDs.

I also finished watching  'The Horse Whisperer' which I saw when it first came out, but couldn't remember.   What a fantastic movie, with gorgeous scenery!  The first few minutes are heartbreaking, and feature Scarlett Johansson when she was only 14. I would definitely recommend this movie if you haven't seen it already.

 Well, I suppose I should continue working on the painting I showed last week. I'm stuck right now, and not sure what to do next, so I may as well just play, and see what happens.
thanks for reading!
xoxo

Mother's Day Art and a WIP

hi everyone! I thought I would show my latest folk art painting. You may have seen the rough sketch for this last week.
What a relief to finally finsh it. I changed the background 3 times!  nothing seemed to work, so after adding some nice vintage papers for texture, I ended up gessoing over it, and trying another color. That didn't work either, it was the wrong shade of blue. So out comes the white gesso, and then I came up with this one which I am happy with. I wanted the mother and her kids to stand out against a shabby background. Now if you can't tell, the kid on the left is a boy, lol! and my very first one. I think he's kind of cute :-)

Next up, is a work in process I am doing for the Gut Art class taught by the awesome Mystele. Working with this much color and this loose is very new for me, but I'm loving every second of it. Can't wait to get back to it. This may not look  like my style, but I really enjoy learning new things. There are so many online workshops out there, and I believe in learning all you can about something you are passionate about. Art should also be fun. I realize I never play at art, I am too serious, and spend countless hours trying to make sure a painting is 'perfect'. It feels good to let go of that, and let a painting go where it wants to.
thanks for reading!

Sunday Sketch and a page from my Sketchbook

I can't believe I haven't blogged anything since last Sunday! Time sure got away from me.  Here is my Sunday Sketch,  which I did last night in bed. It's a bit rough, but I was working out a face I will be putting on canvas soon.  The other two are just folk art girls that showed up to fill the page, lol! 
If you would like to see more Sunday Sketches by other participating artists, check out Sophia's blog
Blue Chair Diary.  It's nice to see this weekly group growing.

A Page from my Sketchbook

Time for my weekly peek into my sketchbook. Except this time, it's not in my sketchbook but on a loose sheet of graph paper. I have a little secret...my favorite way of sketching is to use pen on graph paper. I'm obsessed with it. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if I had several hundred loose sheets lying around with sketches, and handwritten ideas on them.  Folders are filled with these loose sheets, and I keep weeding through them, trying to get the freshest ideas at the front, but they are soon buried with dozens more pages. I swear I am out of control!
One benefit to using graph paper is that you can easily line up eyes, and other features quickly. If you are a beginner to drawing faces, I would highly recommend you buy yourself some graph paper, and draw out your lines for your face. It's easy to see when you have mistakes, and easy to correct (use pencil for this).
Once you get a perfect sketch that you are happy with, take some carbon paper, and trace it onto a good sheet of drawing paper.  It sure beats measuring with a ruler, and trying to get things lined up.

 The page you see above shows some of my folk art ideas for mother's day. The one on the left with the boy and girl is one I am painting right now.  It's also one of the sketches I showed last week,  with a bit more detail.  Hopefully it will be done by tonight and I will show it here. There is nothing glamorous about these pages, it's simply a matter of getting ideas out of your head and onto paper, where you can have a permanent record.

Thanks for reading!

Sunday Sketch and a page from my Sketchbook

hi folks! I am really behind today. I've been out until a couple of hours ago, and just wasn't feeling up to sketching. I made myself do a quick one though because I did commit to joining in with Blue Chair Diary's weekly sketches.  Do check out Sophia's blog for more Sunday Sketches.

The above sketch is an idea I have for my next folk art painting featuring a mother and her little boy and girl. Do you think the boy looks ok? I hope to start it tonight. I wish there was a workshop for folk art paintings, because I find them the most difficult to do. Maybe because I can't paint loosely?  Come on folk artists! give up your secrets, lol!


A Page from my Sketchbook

This is almost becoming a regular thing here, I'm on week 6 I think...It's not always easy to find a page to show you, since most of them are in pencil and very light. Also, as you can see with this one, it's filled with tiny unfinished scribbles, haha! so now you know how my mind works. It's pure chaos in there sometimes. I sure envy those artists with beautiful, neatly drawn sketchbook pages, filled with lovely colors. Not mine, I don't think there is a single page in the 4 or 5 sketchbooks I have that actually has color. Don't ask my why, since I probably have every brand of colored pencils  known to man...and they just sit in their packages, lonely, wondering when this silly little artist will finally pull them out and use them.
thanks for reading! I'm off to get some work done :-D

Earth Day Blog Hop

Hi everyone. In honor of Earth Day, I decided to join in  Michelle Perkett's Earth Day Blog Hop.  If you have arrived here from Lee's Blog, then you are in the right place.  If not, you may want to go back to Michelle's blog and start at the beginning. You would not want to miss all the great ideas!
She gave us a challenge to create something using recycled material such as  plastic, paper, or cardboard, and also include the color green in your work.  Since I am not very crafty,  I ended up doing a painting of a dryad (click for larger look).

 I have so much cardboard from all the books I order, so I started with a piece of cardboard, upon which I glued paper from an old music book.  The dryad's skirt and  leaves are made of pages from last year's phone book. The writing you see around her is a poem by Robert Frost called 'Nothing Gold Can Stay' (see below).
The poem starts on the left arm, and continues around her body.
That's supposed to be a bird's nest with baby cardinals in her hair. It was tricky working on this much texture, but I enjoyed the challenge.

 Your next stop is the lovely  Lynne's Blog.

Do try and visit all the participating blogs to see what wonderful creations they came up with. The last stop on this  hop is Michelle's Studio Blog, where you will find a poll to choose your favorite entry.  Thank you for visiting, and enjoy!

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay. 

Robert Frost

A Mother's Love

My latest painting for Mother's Day. I didn't realize how quickly it was coming up so I had to do at least one with a mother and daughter.   I used various papers to add texture to the background,  and then went and covered them! For some reason, I can't do a painting without layers, even if I am the only one who knows what's hidden underneath...it's listed in my Etsy shop.

The bunny girl from yesterday's post  is already sold! Does anyone else miss their paintings when they sell?
I have a few that I can't part with, which is silly because they are tucked away in an archival box for safekeeping.  How crazy is that?? I think they need to be appreciated, and hanging on a wall somewhere. One day I may decide to finally let them go. Maybe  I will photograph a couple and show them here.

Next on my to do list is a painting of a mother with a boy and girl. I've never painted a whimsical boy, so I'm a bit nervous about it. We shall see how it turns out.
thanks for reading!
xoxo

Bunny Girls and Sketches

hi everyone. In my last post I mentioned needing to work on lots more original folk art girls, so here is the first one, called Bunny Love. I used the sketch I created on my Easter post, and had fun with the background. This took many hours to complete. Originally I used blues, especially on the border, and I felt it just didn't look right, so I scraped on some gesso for texture, and re-did it. I'm much happier with the pink and creme as the main colors.  She is now in my Etsy shop.
Tonight I will be working on something for mother's day.

For this weeks Sunday Sketch, I drew another big-eyed girl, are you all surprised, lol? This is my 5th week doing these sketches, thanks to Blue Chair Diary. Since I committed to join in, it has kept me on track.

A Page from My Sketchbook

Continuing my own little show and tell, here is a page from my sketchbook.  

It's nice to see other artists starting to show pages from their sketchbook. Feel free to join it, it would be fun to see the sketches behind the art.

Flowers in the Desert

 I thought I'd show my latest illustration on a vintage book page. I'm enjoying working on these wonderful old, distressed pages.  I will post a more gothic style girl soon....

I picked up some canvas a few days ago but haven't had a chance to work on a smaller folk art girl. It's about time I get back to  original whimsical paintings. There aren't many left in my Etsy shop, and my goal is to refill it with new work. It's feeling a bit stale at the moment.
Do you ever get bored with the art you produce?

Today I plan to stay in  and work on a couple of my online classes.  I am in Mystele's Gut Art class  which I missed the first time it was offered. Unlike most classes I take, this one has a finish date, which is fast approaching, and I am getting through the first week now, behind as always, lol!  I admire her folk art style, and would love to learn to loosen up. Lots of videos to get through, and I would recommend this class to anyone who loves her work.

That's it for now, I spent the morning reading my favorite blogs, so now it's time for coffee and a video. What a perfect way to spend a rainy day :-)

Sunday Sketch and a page from my Sketchbook

 hi everyone. I am a bit late with my sketch today.  I did three other sketches but didn't like any of them, so I finally did one of my big-eyed girls faces.
I glued a butterfly on her hair for fun.
Please check out Blue Chair Diary's blog for details about Sunday sketches as well as other participating artists.


A Page from my Sketchbook

I enjoy showing a random page from my sketchbook weekly. A lot of them are in pencil and faded so it's sometimes tough to pick one out.  Here I was trying to create new characters for small folk art paintings. A lot of my pages are filled with written ideas, color ideas, titles, and lots of random stuff. They wouldn't make much sense to anyone else.
Coming soon (hopefully) is a painting of my bunny girl which I drew  last week....
Are any of you artists interested in sharing one of your sketchbook pages? I'd love to see how you  work.

Latest Painting

Hi folks!
Here is the almost finished painting that I blogged about last week. The dark and gloomy weather of the past few days finally cleared up long enough for me to take a photo.
It is inspired by the movie 'The Snow Walker', which was fantastic! this is my loose interpretation of the Inuit girl named Kanaalaq. 
After not painting any portraits for almost 4 months, I had a hard time getting this one right. In the movie, the girl has pale skin and rosy cheeks, that's what gave me trouble. Looking at it now, I wonder if the cheeks are too pink? I was hoping to make her look younger as well. Hey, at least I finally did it, so it goes to show you, no matter how long you have been in an art slump, or unmotivated,  it can all come back. It wasn't a good feeling sitting back and watching others create, while I found excuse after excuse for not painting.
I'm almost embarrassed to admit that I did a blog post about staying motivated, lol! I will have to look that one up, and take my own advice :-D


 One little piece of advice to my fellow artists, double check before you wood burn an image, that the eyes are even, haha!  I was finished painting the face, when I noticed one eye seemed higher than the other. What a huge pain in the butt to redo!

Sunday Sketches and a Page from my Sketchbook

hi folks. I thought I'd miss this week's Sunday Sketches but while waiting to head to my parent's house for Easter dinner, I thought I'd draw a quick little bunny girl. I may even turn her into a painting at some point.
Be sure to check out Blue Chair Diaries for the other wonderful artist who are taking part in these weekly sketches. 

Last night after posting a new work in progress, I worked on it for several hours, and cannot say I am too pleased so far. It hasn't turned out the way I envisioned it, so I will try and finish, and show it here.  If I hadn't woodburned the image, I would have covered it in gesso and started over, but alas, I am stuck with it now.

A Page from my Sketchbook 

The last few Sundays I have shared a page from one of my sketchbooks, and will continue to do so. This is a page with some practice facial features, as well as a rough idea for a Little Bo Peep painting I was planning out.  Hope you all have a wonderful day.

The Snow Walker

It is Saturday afternoon and I thought I would add a quick blog post.   I picked up a movie from my library called 'The Snow Walker' and loved it! The scenery is spectacular.  It is about a bush pilot who is asked to fly a sick inuit girl to a hospital, but the plane crashes. They are left to fend for themselves in the middle of nowhere.

I was sketching during this movie, and decided to do a painting based on the girl. Now it has been  4 months since I painted a figure. Any new readers to my blog probably think I only do whimsical ACEOs since that is what I have been showing lately.  I have been in a very long slump, and have no idea how it started or why.  I guess I let myself be discouraged, and then as the weeks, then months went by, it got easier not to do it.
So after the movie, I got out a wood panel, drew out my idea, and woodburned it. Of course after having done so, I see the small errors. Oh well, I'm a bit rusty, so I will continue and see what happens.

Sorry about the blurry image, not sure why my camera's flash isn't working.  The Inukshuk will be put in the background, I know how silly it looks in front of her head, lol!
This shows what my paintings look like before the fun stuff. I have no idea where I will go with it, I will probably simplify the background for now. I hope to have this done by tomorrow night. 
 It has been way too long since I painted, and it's time to get back to what I love to do best.

Sunday Sketch and a page from my sketchbook

hi everyone. Two weeks in a row I have a Sunday Sketch, yay for me!! I've never had trouble sketching, in fact when I watch a movie, I keep a sketchbook beside my in case an idea comes up.  My problem has been sticking to a schedule. Joining Blue Chair Diary's Sunday sketches is forcing me to stick to it.  The above sketch is what I worked on this afternoon. I wanted a whimsical kind of fairy girl face, which I may turn into a painting at some point.  Too many projects!

A Page from my Sketchbook
Last week I enjoyed sharing one of my sketchbook pages, and thought I would do it again. This is one I did last night when I went to bed. I had some ideas for my little owl ACEO series, and wanted to get them down before I forgot. Today I am working on the bunny and owl one, and I swear, sometimes (lots of times actually!) my rough sketches are better than the finished drawing. I get them down on good paper, then make so many bad decisions with color. I signed up for a color workshop a month or so ago and have yet to do the first lesson!! In fact, I won't even tell you how many workshops I have signed up for, it's embarassing, lol!
This page isn't by any means pretty, in fact it's quite sloppy, no shading or details, but this is how I work. I'm curious as to how other artist sketchbooks look.   Feel free to share one of your pages if you like....