Single Flower

 Another piece for Sheila aka Orange Esmeralda Single flower theme over at Art Journal Journey ... Mixed media with digital additions. Created using: watercolours, pilot pen, distress inks and inktense pencils/bars and digital quote.

 and as usual I made good use of my flower again by scanning it to use over and over again in my project below :)

Original artwork before digital changes

 colour changes using Craft Artist software

thanks so much for stopping by,

....until next time,

 stay safe ...

Gill x

Back in my art room

I don't know quite how to begin this post other than Hello, I hope all is well with you and that you are managing to stay safe and sane wherever you may be in these crazy times that feel so surreal.   

My last post was way back in November, after that I was still packing less needed items away and de-cluttering and reducing my many art/craft materials. Then in February we were taking down shelves, dismantling my art room so we could decorate it, hoping that we’d soon have our home up for sale and moving this year - you may recall me mentioning that last autumn.
Of course like everyone’s dreams this year that is in limbo for now at least.

Hubby Dave has now put some shelving back up in the 'art room'  - oh how I have missed that room :)

I must admit I haven’t got into any real routine these last couple of months and spent too much time chasing non existent online grocery delivery slots, but now that’s slightly better  it’s time to get back to some creative fun -  yeay! I have started unpacking boxes and enjoying  having all my stash out again.  My first play was to do some  relaxing watercolour doodling.

 

I wasn't sure this one was finished so then I added some more colour and sprinkled some salt on the wet paint which was brushed off once dry to give a mottled effect.

Making the most of baking supplies while we have them, Dave has been his usual busy self, making biscuits and all the other things he normally makes like bread, cheese biscuits, cake etc.

Lack of flour and yeast and other ingredients now will soon mean inventing some new recipes and being extra creative but that might also mean discovering some interesting alternatives and flavours maybe :)

Well thats all for me today - thanks so much for taking the time to visit.

Keep safe..... Gill xxx

Hello springtime crocus

Hello - hope all well with you wherever you are in the world :)
Had a week of winds/gales and heavy rain here, but thankfully today the sun is shining once again and the wind a bit lighter (which makes the birds happier too) and it feels more spring like :)

Jo from Lets Art Journal  is hosting AJJ this month with the theme of 'hello Springtime'

  My piece today for AJJ is a watercolour using Jackson watercolours and WHSmith watercolour pencils - with words added on digitally.

 Sorry not around last week, I am behind as busy making a few items for a raffle (which I just found out about) for my hairdressers sponsored seaside walk for a local hospice on April 7th. So far, have made some cards to make into a gift pack. 

 Will catch up with you asap..

thank you for stopping by.

Have a lovely day.

Gill x

 

Exploring yellow...

Another piece for this months theme at AJJ  'the colour yellow' which has been chosen and hosted by Rike from Rike's art. 
As yellow isn't a particular favourite colour of mine its been quite interesting and inspiring seeing how others use the colour.

This week I had a little play with my watercolours trying out different colours to go with yellow and quite like this result of using a mix of quin rose/quin lilac and claret. 
I finished off with some scribbled doodling in black to outline flowers.
I then scanned my painting and had fun with a few digital alterations and overlaid them on a pale yellow background.

 

my original started like this before adding the black scribbled outlines. 

Thanks so much for stopping by...

Happy Friday - Have a great weekend.

Gill x

Happy New Year!

Hello....
Its the 2nd - so I'm a bit late..... but Happy New Year everyone - I hope it's a healthy and happy one with lots of creative fun too.
I'm starting off with a page for the lovely  Alison aka Craftytrog  who is hosting this month at  AJJ theme Geometric shapes
I used some new White Nights watercolours I'm trying out onto a gessoed page in my journal and hope the wonky squares, triangles and stars count as geometric shapes :)

I've not made a New Years resolution list as such this year as I looked at last years one and I didn't do particularly well. But other than the obvious things like trying to be healthy and fit I really want to be better organised especially with anything that has a deadline and complete those things as soon as possible. 
I also intend to start using my arty/crafty stash I have that has been just taking up space, sitting around not being used.
And I want to do more art.

 I have 23 cards made already for Christmas 2019, my Easter cards finished and most of my birthday and other cards for the year made also. Getting these done should leave more time for other things.
Wanting to use up some of my beads and jewellery stuff, I made a choker, bracelet and earrings set.

 

That's all for this time...
Thanks for stopping by
and I wish you a good week and 
Happy New Year
Gill x

Inspired by a mug

Little things make me happy and trigger ideas, so today for my AJJ 'Inspired by' theme I was simply inspired by a mug... of the china variety and not a face :)

I drew and then painted my mug in watercolours adding some shadow with a Stabilo all pencil and finished with digitally added the words.

We have a few of these cheerful mugs in different colours with different cakes on and a dotty background and I just love them. Usually they have tea or coffee in and accompanied by a homemade biscuit or occasionally by a piece of homemade cake - made by dear 'hubby' of course not me :)

And if I lack ideas, I always find something
 to be inspired by when walking around my garden

What inspires you when creating?

Was it something you saw or heard, a song maybe,

  or a book or your favourite place,

 a favourite colour, a memory, a dream, another artist,

  or an art product  or something else ?

 

Huge thanks to all the lovely people and their wonderful pages
 that have linked so far this month at AJJ with the 'Inspired by' theme 

We're half way through June but there's still another couple of

 weeks left for the challenge if you'd like to join us  

Thanks for stopping by.

Happy Friday and have a great weekend.

Gill x

Inspired by Rike's Chinese brush painting

Well this was fun but I was really out of my comfort zone with today's  'Inspired by'... page for  AJJ    
My page was inspired by the lovely Rike after I saw  Rike - Chinese brush painting of frogs  
I've have had a set of Chinese brushes for at least 20 years and maybe tried them once or twice but didn't know what to do with them - but now I was really inspired to get those brushes out and find out more about this style of painting. 
First I bought a book 'Chinese brush painting: Flowers' by Joan Lok
and then had to practise the brush strokes...yes I really need more of that too :)
I used watercolours for this....

I cheated on this piece for the writing as it has been added digitally. I used a translator for that of course too - the top says 'who inspires you?' and the bottom just says Art by... and my name.

I am still learning how to hold the brush to do certain strokes and I think if I continue it could take me a fair time to improve with this style of painting 'if' I wanted to do it properly. So its just as well my theme is 'Inspired by' which doesn't mean it has to look like the thing that inspired me exactly - because I did struggle with this a bit as I couldn't get my wrist to move the brush exactly as I wanted - but maybe that's because I have a bit of carpel tunnel in my right hand.

Ye Olde Brush set!

Below is my painting of a Grass Orchid and the reason why I digitally added the Chinese characters on my main piece.
I used inks and water colours and started with a 'Brusho' spritzed background. I got a bit carried away with the Chinese (hopefully) writing and it's probably a lot bigger than it should have been. I used a translator and it says my name  (I hope) :)

OK that's all for today

Hope to see you at AJJ 'Inspired by'

 Thanks for stopping by.
Have a great day.
Gill x

Inspired by a receipt for paints

I'm excited and honoured to be hosting at AJJ this month where I chose the theme 'Inspired by'  

I am inspired by so many things I see, as well as people of course -  if I was to write a list, it would be never ending :) 
My first page was inspired by a receipt for some art supplies - mainly water colours paints but I liked the list of all the beautiful colours on it - so paint and colour just had to be the theme for this piece.

I cut the receipt up just to show the list and stuck it on my A5 page and put a light coat of Gesso over it. Then with a water soluble pencil I drew my images using some of my supplies as a reference. I then painted them with watercolour paints and painted the rest of page with ‘Nougat’ and ‘ Sherbet’ Paperartsy chalk-acrylic paint. Next I outlined everything with a black Pilot pigment pen and finished with the words.

My A5 book is 130gsm cartridge paper so the added layer

 of paper  helps makes the page a bit more sturdier.

you can just about see the words coming through,
 sorry the photo doesn't show it very well.

What inspires you when creating?

Was it something you saw or heard, a song maybe,

  or a book or your favourite place,

 a favourite colour, a memory, a dream, another artist,

  or an art product  or something else ?  

I hope you will come join in this theme at AJJ

I look forward to seeing what inspires you.

thanks for stopping by today

and I look forward to visiting you very soon.

Gill x

Flora and Fauna - Forget-me-nots

Hello

this is probably my last one for AJJ this month for the Flora and Fauna theme hosted by the lovely Jo from Let's Art Journal.
It is a water colour with a tiny bit of liquid acrylic green ink added to some leaves and stems.

And as Moon Mania still has 'even more flowers'  for their theme I shall link to them as well :)

Gill x

Flora

Hello....
Another Friday again - and it's lovely, warm and sunny - hope it lasts for the weekend :) 

I'm again linking to the  Flora and Fauna theme at AJJ   hosted by the wonderful talented  Jo from Let's Art Journal      
I have another water colour, a bit of an abstract, this time painted in the 'Hahnemühle' journal I had for Christmas and only started to use in the last couple of weeks. 

This week there was too much time spent on gardening and weeding and a stressful sorting out of my PC that has too many files (an almost 12 hour scan told me there were nearly 1 and 3/4 million items being scanned)  the joy of taking so many photos and creating digital images from my art :)
So for the next few days I'm looking forward to relaxing and playing with some new paints the postman brought yesterday - a set of 18 Turner acrylic-gouache. I didn't realise until recently there is an acrylic version of gouache so that will be interesting to try. 

As always...thank you so much for

 stopping by and for any comments.

Happy Friday

 - and I hope you have a great weekend.

Gill x

Flora and Fauna

Hello

The lovely Jo from Let's Art Journal is hosting this months   Flora and Fauna theme at AJJ
 which is a great theme that I shall enjoy this month. For my first piece I've a water colour on cartridge paper with digitally added a quote.

Thanks for stopping by today...

I hope your weather is better than ours here

and you have a lovely day.

Gill x

'Falling' for AJJ and (sorry) a quirky Christmas card :)

Hello

First a page for AJJ Poetry in motion  hosted this month by the lovely Jo from Lets Art Journal using a quote that seemed relevant for me ..

I used my watercolour painting and added some digital leaves and a quote. I often re-use my art - so these leaves were from an old journal page which I digitally cut out and also used to make a digi-kit.

 

After 3 weeks spent saving information from the digi-scrapping place I had been a member of since 2011, it finally closed on Friday with a number of us watching and joining in one last forum thread for the last 30 minutes until everything just froze and was replaced by a 'thank you and goodbye' message ... 

To relax over the weekend I had another play with

 Donna's fab quirky 'Whimsical Summer' stamps.

 

Its amazing what was lurking inside this set of stamps

 - do you see what I see?

It's a cloud Christmas tree!

  

 The background was made using TH Distress oxides and a little wall stencil from That's Crafty. Coloured the tree with Prima water soluble oil pastels. Added a little extra to the tree trunk with a black pigment pen.
Finished with some gold straight line peel offs for a fairly quick, clean and simple card.

 

bye for now

thanks for stopping by

Gill x 

A city at night for AJJ, Donna's stamps & carved nibs

Hello

I am excited that the lovely Jo from 'Lets Art Journal'  is hosting this months challenge over at AJJ where the theme is 'Poetry in motion'   We have been invited to use a favourite poem, quote or saying on our artwork. I collect quotes so this is right up my street - isn't that a funny saying?

 

I used a Rupert Brooke quote on this page which seemed quite apt.

I started with a watercolour painting I did the other day..

I was just playing with a couple of colours at first but then it started taking shape looking like a skyline and then grew - as most skylines do!

Then of course I needed to find a cat - luckily I had already painted one before and have this is in my 'digi-stash' along with the rest of the items I added.

I blended a digital paper over the top to give it a more dramatic and night feel.

My original painting

And next..........

my first play with great some stamps I won from (and designed by)

the fabulous Donna Gray of Inky and Quirky Designs 

 

I can see these stamps are going to be really useful for Art Journaling, Mixed media and for my greeting cards projects..and as I needed some more cards - I made one... probably not what you would expect from these stamps - and not obvious at first.

 

 

I did a little rough sketch first, trying to work out how to fit the stamps and make it work.. I used 4 of the stamps and sketched the rest in by pencil a first, then when everything was painted/coloured went over my lines with a permanent marker.

And finally....

do you remember those Himalayan Honeysuckle canes I was drying..

 

they came from this plant

The idea was to see if possible to make wind chimes and pen nibs from the canes.

So Dave cut them up for me in to various lengths.

 

And then he used my mini hobby drill to put the holes

in for the thread to be able to hang up the wind chimes.

 

 I had not realised that the canes were solid in places and not completely hollow, so it wasn't always possible you get the varied lengths I required. So I need to cut some more canes and bare that in mind when choosing which ones to use.

For now my wind chimes project is on hold and the bits I threaded up can dry some more in the meantime.

I've also found a circular metal hanging thing (not shown here) - I don't know what to call it - but it should be useful to dangle the canes from.

 

 

 Most of the canes weren't thin enough to make into nibs (and possibly needed drying more before cutting) but there were two thinner ones, Dave (once again) cut and then

 shaped the end for me and I tried one with some ink.

 

       Well - not brilliant but it sort of worked

 

 

 That's all for today but if you are interested in what else is in my garden

 there is a post from yesterday on

my garden and nature blog 'the art of anything'

 

thanks for stopping by,

hope you have a great weekend.

 

Gill x