Advent Calendar 3

Here is today's advent image : ). As well as having fun with the painting, I'm also learning a lot about scanning: the images are painted on the same block of water colour paper, so I have to isolate the the right part to make into a jpeg!

Advent Calendar 2

Here is today's advent illustration. I'm experimenting to try to get the image to display here more like it's real size, instead of enlarged!

Advent Calendar 1

It was fun painting this holly: )

More painting

It has been a trying week, so I'm pleased to have still completed some paintings! Here it the completed Xmas kitten fairy, and another Xmas tree. I'm looking forward to starting a watercolour advent calendar tomorrow : )

Society of Secret Fairies Trick or Treat

A fab halloween parcel arrived last week: my Secret Fairy had sent me a delightful little crossstitched pumpkin cushion, along with a wonderful rubber bat (I love bats!), some tasty australian gummy bear sweets, and plastic spiders and skelington, and a great halloween card. Thank you so much www://mayagoodness.typepad.com : )

Christmas Fairy kitten?

This is an experiment: I've not tried doing anything like this before, so thought I'd show the Christmas fairy kitten here (even though not quite finished the painting) and see what you think.

christmas tree

A tad early, but here is my first Christmas tree for this year! I love Christmas trees, so am planning to paint a few more between now and December 24th. 'Also thinking of doing an advent calendar of a tiny painting a day, inspired by the wonderful one by Lorna Brown, last year I think.

Pumpkins illustration

Here is the cd sleeve I made for a compilation of tracks, loosely themed around the idea of "changes". I took the seasonal theme of pumpkins, and painted a growing one for one side, then a pumpkin lantern for the other side! 'Having got a bit carried away, and ending up with a double album, the track listings ended up inside, in a kind of gate-fold arrangement.

Scenery update

Thank you for the kind comments on the design! 'Seeing the scenery under stage lighting at the dress rehearsal, I realised it looks too clean and new, so I am plotting ways to tone down the new paintness, and make it look a bit grubby. The setting is meant to be a slightly neglected, village train station waiting room. Cold tea, and some dust is probably the way forward, plus one of the actors suggested some graffiti..

preview of the scenery

I'm still working on the scenery (the dress rehearsal is on Friday!), and this is the top right hand panel. In the photo, it is lying on the floor, which is the only way I can paint it - too unstable upright, plus there could be a problem with paint running. It is an interesting challenge form a technical perspective: the panel is recycled, so it is the rough textured back of hardboard which you can see, plus on the right hand side there is a whole row of short strips of tape, which I have to paint over!

An especially busy week or so!

I'm having a very busy couple of week, so not found time to post on my blog. Last weekend I was away visiting family. This week is an especially busy time of year in the housing development world, with funding bids deadline looming, plus I am painting some scenery for a play! Photographs will appear here soon..

Illustration friday: Open

Here is my idea for this week's topic of "Open". I currently have more than a bit of an obsession with "The Owl and The Pussy-cat", who seem to be lending themselves well to playing around with ideas - thoughts about what else they do, apart from sailing away with honey, and dining on quince with a runcible spoon! "Missed the deadline to draw up and post in time for Illustration Friday, but I did rough out an idea for the Owl and Pussycat juggling, too. It's a good idea, and gives me useful practice with Wacom pen and Painter, so will make the image and post it here soon.

And then there were three

Today I have been wielding pencil and paintbrush again, hoorah! Also had a revelation about myself, which is that I get acute performance anxiety when I am doing a "proper" drawing - for my portfolio or a client - which at is worst results in me being too nervous to draw, and best that I draw very stiffly, and lose the freshness from my work. 'No idea yet how to change this. So, this morning, I downed pencil and picked up paintbrush, and finished off this loose rough of "cat with stars". I'm liking the colour direction this idea is going in now, so will print out another outline for my next bout of artistic anxiety; )

Here is new humpty, Sorbet, with her friends!

New pictures tomorrow

Well, I've been a bit, or rather, very slack over the past week or so, and not posted anything new here! The best explanation is that I've been very focussed on admin tasks like my tax return. There is a new humpty, and another almost completed, so I'll post at least one of them here tomorrow.

A lucky find

Today I found this lovely shaker-style wooden box in a yard sale. Perfect for storing the yarns, etc for knitting humpties! So much more elegant than the plastic bag I had been using.

I have completed the knitting of a new humpty, Sorbet, who will be appearing here very soon.

Puflet has suggested humpty egg cosies would be fun, so watch this space!

Introducing Humpty's friend

Here is Humpty's new friend: complete with very funky black raggy suit, and gleaming purple shoes! I don't know what name to give him/her yet, so any suggestions would be welcome. I'm looking forward to making another this week.

Illustration friday: wedding

At last, another Illustration Friday image! All done in Painter digital water colour using Wacom tablet: about an hour's work, although I came up with the idea over a cappucino while out this morning. More from Edwad Lear's "The Owl and The Pussy Cat", which is a favourite this year.

my fave ipod

This is a very quick, fun idea while experimenting with Painter watercolour! All actually drawn with mouse pad whilst sitting on sofa..

yarn for more humpties

Well, I've had some very encouraging comments about Humpty, and also a suggestion that I need to make him more trendy! So on Saturday when I went shopping for some proper toy filling, I kept an eye out for some interesting yarns. Then I knitted a sampler: the black fluffy yarn knits up fluffier on the purl (wrong) side I discovered, so I have had to adapt the basic knitting pattern slightly. Watch this space because I think a new humpty will be appearing this week!

humpty

The first humpty I have knitted for many years! It was fun making him, and I have ideas now for lots of others.