I bit the bullet

And I went back and completed week two, which I have been avoiding because even after watching the video lesson three times, it scared me. But I didn’t want to move too much more forward and leave lesson two sitting there and so I bit the bullet and did it. BUT and its a very big BUT, I cheated. Its ok, Ive already confessed on Facebook and tagged the teacher and let everyone know, I cheated, I traced the outline with carbon paper! So, I really suck at angles, and this piece was scaring me, so I traced it to get the hands at least right. Then we were “supposed” to use a lead pencil and shade it, in the style of Caravaggio, so darkest darks etc, and use black ink for the really dark darks, well, I went and brought the ink, the shop only had brown and I brought it and “thought” I could make it work, until I watched Carrie’s video piece and knew brown just wasn’t going to work, so I painted it with black acrylic paint, over the top of the pastel, it ended up a bit of a hotchpotch of a piece, but in the end its done! Maybe at the end of the year when my skills have improved I’ll try it the “right” way! In the meantime, having confessed my cheating ways, I am moving on!

Class handout and my piece!

And here he is up on my wall, he doesn’t actually look too gruesome. Well he looks better from afar thats for certain! Onwards and upwards, lesson seven is also by Carrie Brummer and this lesson she wants us to do a self portrait eeeek 😱 wish me luck with this one! Carrie Brummer is really pushing me out of my comfort zone!

Art and catching up…

So last week I spent the week at our holiday place, you might recall ( day from hell) I blogged about an incident which I handled badly and then ran away from.. “Good one Kim, way to handle stuff!”

So I packed my art supplies and planned to do all my “Lifebook 2013- Tam edition” classes.. until we got there and I realized that I had left the lap top where the lessons were downloaded at home… d’uh! I had some other bits and pieces to work on so it wasn’t all lost.

My cousin Lee over at That Art Place has released her first online class and so I am her “Guinea pig” I get to test and sample and make sure it all works smoothly. And of she is doing a live demo as her “art teacher” mode I am her “Student”  it’s a win win, because I learn new stuff AND spend quality time with my best friend cousin, did you meet my cousin in the A-Z challenge under “L” L is for if not feel free to go and meet her.

So here is the Parts of her first class “NED” Never Ending Diary that I have worked on so far.

 

Double Page spread

Some of the sections in week one’s spread.

 

We are making 8 double page spreads and putting four days in each spread.. then when covered with clear contact we can use a whiteboard marker and then dry erase the notes and re-use it.. hence never-ending diary.

Days 5-9.. I used different washi Tape so to continue the “floral theme”

 

 

Close up of the daily sections.

So that got me motivated to get working on my “Lifebook 2013- Tam Edition” when I got back home.. are you wondering about that name? “Lifebook 2013- Tam Edition” each year Tam over at Willowing does a year long art class called “Year Book” and each year she had different guest artists come along and as far as I can gather the year is divided into quarters, and each quarter has a different theme. So Tam has decided that at the end of each year she will re work her portions of the lessons into “Life book… Tam Edition” which are ONLY Tam’s lessons. When she had her big sale earlier in the year a friend of mine Carrol gifted me with LB 2013 and LB 2014, because she thought I needed to get back into my art and if she brought these classes for me I would do them, as indeed I AM!! and I tag Carrol in each one I post so that she can see them.

So here is what I did with Tam and Carrol..

“The Lady with the Owl” is my first attempt at 3/4’s face, and I am happy mostly with how she turned out.

So this week hasn’t been a complete waste. The children have not been too unruly.. Amber got her car and so she’s been off driving..

 

 

This young lady has had her car since Sunday 5th July and already driven more kilometers than I have in 25 yrs! Good work Amber!

Monday (6th July)  was Jasmin’s 25th Birthday. I really don’t feel old enough to have a 25 yr old and three GRAND babies.. seems like just yesterday I was having her! So I wrote her a nice long sooky post on FB, usually she ignores my posts and doesn’t comment if she does read them… but she actually did this Monday!

From my Facebook page:

Today, 25 years ago, I became a Mother! It was the hardest, most rewarding thing I have ever done.
25 years ago, my most proudest achievement, my first true love entered the world. Looking into those eyes for the first time, I knew what “real love” was, I knew right then, “This is what they mean when they talk about true love”
She has become everything I ever hoped I would be, she has a career, she has travelled overseas, she has a gazillion friends and she is a most awesome Mother! All the things I never did, but watched with pride as she did them all. This girl child that can talk to me about anything and everything, that knows I am always here for anything she needs me for.
Can you tell I am her biggest fan!
Happy Birthday Jasmin, I love you!
(25- a quarter of a century, I don’t feel old enough to have a 25 yr old!!)

Also on Monday since I don’t have Baby sitting chores I went shopping with My Cousin for the day and we had lunch and spent some quality time. There’s a huge second-hand shop in Australia called “Savers” and so since I’ve recently cleaned out my wardrobe for the “typing” challenge where I discovered I am Type two. You can find out more about that Here, Well I got rid of heaps of clothes, accessories and shoes and makeup, So my Bloke slipped me ” a Lazy $100 to restock” as he put it. Boy did I ever have fun and it was so much easier and quicker and FUN, knowing what fabrics, patterns and necklines etc to look for. I even got shoes and I never buy shoes!! Best bit is.. they are all compatible and I can mix and match them ALL!

Monday night we went out for dinner for Jasmin’s birthday and almost right away we regretted that move with two active 19 month old’s!

My husband and my Star Son sitting on the floor in the corner of the restaurant to stop the “monstars” from playing with the electrical outlets and playing with the white river rocks in this pot plant!!

Brett, Jasmin and Chase AKA Squishy!

In the end for the sanity of us three women and the rest of the patrons we came home for the birthday cake part and to get these monstars into bed!

Lessons learnt there… Birthday dinners will NOW be held at home until they are more “user friendly”

Tuesday I got a penpal letter from fellow Blogger  Trisha Faye and this lovely Memento from Texas!

So it’s been a good week for friends, family, art, and today is officially the last day of the school holidays, although I think there are more than likely a few extra grey hairs (you can’t see them BUT I know they are there!) I have survived.

Tomorrow night we have a 21st to go to for Lee’s Daughter Tahnee, and the theme is “Black and White”, so I am breaking my “type 2” colour palette rules once more before I get rid of the black pants and dye the white top cream! It will be fun to go out and dance and have some fun, It feels like this two weeks has lasted for two months!! on that note… 2 months and 2 days until we leave for our road trip, which was are calling “Big Lap -WA” (Western Australia) I am so excited and even more excited when the Bloke tells me he has started researching, yaya! I’m happy to research but when he and Star Son join in it means we are REALLY doing this!!

 

More art!

I didn’t really realize how MUCH I’ve missed my art.

Yesterday my cousin and I had an art class, it was on “drawing faces” we both didn’t know what to expect so we went in with an open mind.

It was very loosely drawn and I’ve realized I am a bit more regimented… so I struggled to follow in the artists style.. but anyways here they are ….

This one was where we had to take three different faces and do one eye of each face.. I had “thought” I was OK at eyes and then I realized I really am NOT... or am I just that out of practice I need to work harder. I spoke to the artist at our lunch break and she said “keep an art journal with you at all times and when the babies are quiet for a few minutes draw something, anything, just draw” My number 1 daughter gave me a nice “type” of art journal for Christmas so I will take that with me.

Next practice was, we had to do three different faces.. just pick any of the ones on the sheets she gave us and draw, be quick! she says that when we take a long time we “over think” the process and then our brains start telling us “Oh that’s terrible it doesn’t look like an eye!” yes! I am guilty of that!

Next we had to do this “Grandma” and we had to draw it and then paint over it with Solvent which takes off the shine and blends the lead around and basically smooths things out a bit.. she is the one I am most happy with. The main purpose of this piece was to show us that there are very darks and medium darks and light darks and then lights… and I loved this one.

More darks and shadows, she wanted us to do this “surfer dude” and then add only two little bits of colour but not “Colour it in” we had to choose a warm and a cool colour.

This was done in Charcoal and chalk pastels I discovered I don’t much like Charcoal. This was a big piece and we sprayed it with fixative to stop it smudging, and had to lay them on the floor to dry… well, some one went home with mine.. so he is now gone forever.. as much as I didn’t like him, I didn’t want to NOT have him. I suppose on one hand it’s a good excuse to do him or something similar again, better than he was..

Our final piece was a small child, taken from a larger painting, she was an adorable little girl and we used pencil charcoal and pastels with solvent, I hated it and her!!

Here she is and above her is the teachers piece

 

here is my sad version!

By the time we got to paint her, we were tired and it had been a long day.  I will definitely attempt these excersizes again in my own time and place.

Next art class.. well I am excited to announce my cousin and I have joined a Monday night art class, so each Monday night from 7.00 pm- 9.00 pm, we will be doing “Life model drawing” I’ve never done anything like that and it’s $15.00 per class and everything is supplied, so I a excited to get started with that.

I’ll be back to report on that! These three faces equal number 3,4 and 5 of the 29 faces for February.

 

Yay! I did some art!

I had forgotten all about my art, okay, well, not really I put it out of my mind because I am so busy I feel guilty for not doing it.. so I pretend it doesn’t exist, stupid really.

I even went as far as to delete my Facebook art page because it was making me feel bad and sad and lazy… who needs that stress? Then on Facebook I realized it was that time of the year again “29 faces” (February only has 28 days most years so being the shortest month its a good month to start a habit, last year I did the whole month) the idea is to draw, paint, sketch whatever you do.. a face a day.. it’s a little thing but it’s great for me to get back into the habit.. so I got out my pencil and I started. I didn’t realize how bad I was.. how not using it I was loosing it!

So I decided that since I am starting “afresh” why not experiment with different supplies and styles..

This one.. I did with Oil Pastels and pencil.. and gold glitter..it’s a copy of Klimt’s “Golden tears“

Then I decided to go back to the Acrylic paints.. and come up with this Klimt “Adele” but in his painting Adele has her hair up..

Neither of these are my “usual” style if I even have one, but these pushed me out of my comfort zone and so I liked that!

I havent started day 3 or 4 yet I started late, by accident I saw another arty friend had started and realized “oops I missed the start” only by a day but now I am running on American time a day behind. ‘ll get those two done today after my Doctors appointment.

First piece of art for 2015

I’m away at our holiday place for the weekend, I keep bringing my art supplies with me on the off chance I might do some, today I did..

I copied a Klimt piece he called it “Mother’s love” I call it “Nanna Nap with Sweetpea and Squishy” it needs a lot of work, its amazing how quickly you loose confidence when you don’t do anything. I’m giving up my art studio and quitting painting, but I enjoyed doing this piece so I’ll just draw, at least that way I am still doing something.

I can imagine doing this in Klimt style with the colourful background and in a large scale because I love my Grandbabies and this could be “Our” painting.. i’ll keep working on it.

NaBloPoMo 2014- Day 27- Today I did…. a LOT!

Art!!

I know, I know right, it’s not a big deal to you all, but to me it’s HUGE!

You see, I look after my Grandson full-time while his Mum works and I love him to bits, but my Art Studio is down stairs and so when I am with my Squishy I rarely go down there. In fact, today was the first time I’ve even walked into that room for over two weeks.

So my daughter was home most of the day she only worked 5.00 pm- 10.00 pm today, she didn’t leave home till almost 3;00 pm. We had made plans to go and do some running around this morning, picking up some things ad going to the bank, we got a salad for lunch and come home and then I had all this free time, I’d already done the laundry this morning and it was on the line drying, so I wandered down stairs.

At first I stood there and looked around because let’s face it, it’s been a while since I worked down there, and it’s become a bit of a dumping ground as we move children and grandchildren in and out of the family home. I’ve got myself a nice little path but I really need to de-clutter a LOT of stuff. Plus there’s so much to do ART Wise, where to start was the questions, it all gets a bit overwhelming. My Sister-in-law came for a cup of tea and said “Do you remember HOW to paint?” I reassured her I don’t think I’ll ever forget that…. and then if I do there’s You Tube.

My gaze fell upon a painting as yet unfinished when I started her I had such a clear vision and then I got her head and the outline of her wings (she was going to be a red-headed angel) done and then for whatever reason I stopped. So I chose to work on her today. Since I have done some classes on drawing faces since I started her, I could see her face shape was wrong, so I started off by adjusting that with some neutral colour paint, then I decided that I could do her eyes better too, so I painted over those also, and while I’m going, her mouth needed work.. I love her nose though that can stay! I have no idea what I am doing as yet with her body or if she will retain her wings, but I’ll see how we go she’ll tell me what she wants as I go along, they usually do..

 

What Else dd I do today?

Breakfast– Quinoa bake and Maple Syrup.

Snack- 1/2 banana (I shared with the Squishy boy!) and some dried cranberries (he loved those!) and some cashews.

Lunch– Greek Salad

Snack– Fruit and 10 nuts

Dinner– Home made chicken balls with salad and Satay dipping sauce, (All made from scratch and ALL Daniel Compliant)

Water is up to date, yay, another target reached.

Did I do anything else??

Oh yes! When I was shopping with my daughter and Squishy, I brought myself some more veggies for the newest garden bed, today I got Cucumbers and Zucchini! So now we have…

• Tomatoes
• basil
• rosemary
• corn
• broccoli,
• capsicum
• Strawberry
• Cucumber
• Zucchini

I’d say we’re doing good, I am thinking the final garden bed I might do a selection of herbs.  The family is not interested in the Capsicum or Zucchini, so they are for me.. the Children don’t want the tomatoes so I might as well just have all of it.. at least it’s Daniel Compliant!

 

So How was your day? Did you do anything exciting?