September 3- Waiting….

Sep3

Waiting.

All my life I waiting- for,

what it is I am not sure.

Every day I feel as though

there’s something more, what- I do not know.

Waiting for Winter to end,

so then comes spring and again

waiting for summer and warm sunshine

while waiting on autumn for colourful times.

Waiting for something to be finished cooking,

spending my time for recipes looking.

Waiting for the washing cycle to end,

so I can hang out a load and start again.

Waiting for inspiration for some art,

waiting on knowing where to start.

what supplies to use today?

Just let loose and have a play!

Seems to me I spend my life,

waiting for something, Oh! I’m a wife!

I guess thats what my job description is-

Maybe I should have stayed a Ms!

#poetember

#sketchaton I’ve always wanted to have a try at painting on one these four season paintings. Clearly I needed more practise lol

And then we have #29facesonjunk todays Coffee Bloke! Is on a recycled coffee box. I am amazed at him! I rarely do men, they’re hard! Not telling you women anything new there! But sometimes I just hold the pencil and go along for the ride, and look what fell out of my pencil today!

I was like “Whaaat?!”

He’s good for me! Clearly he’s not technically perfect but it’s not about perfection for me, its about setting a goal and smashing that goal outta the park! And as one art teacher told us “If you want perfection, take a photo!”

I am SO happy with this guy, no idea who he is I found him on Pinterest!

September 2nd- Violet!

Sep2

Violet.-

An old fashioned name, and also a colour.

Violet as in the flower with the heady scent.

When she was much younger, she spent

6 months living in a tent-

Travelling around the Australian outback

With only the clothes that would fit her in pack!

Violet was one of ten children.

Her Father in the army, her Mother a civilian.

She knew she was different- did our gal Violet

She has always wanted to be a pilot!

Her head was always in the clouds,

She preferred solitude, not crowds!

She whistled at birds, and talked to the dog

She carried around critters and had a pet frog!

Some say she was crazy, and it might be so-

But everyone smiled as she passed to and fro.

A lovelier lady you never did meet.

She lived on the corner of my street.

Violet, an old fashioned name and also a colour.

One of a kind, there will never be another

#poetember #kickinthecreatives

#sketchathon #kickinthecreatives #blogfest

2 of #29Faces

Day two of all my September challenges is complete!

September the first! Let us Begin!

Sep1

If anyone wants to join in these challenges, and trust me you don’t need to do three, or even every day of them, but if any are of interest to you, go to Here! And feel free to join us! or go to the Facebook group and join us! Its all good fun!

The prompt for today is “Calm”

Calm, so calm, how can it be?

She always seems so calm to me.

What is her secret, how can I find out?

She never raises her voice to shout!

She breathes in calmly and breathes out tension

I saw her first in the room for detention.

I wondered how she could be so calm,

Maybe inside her head she’s reciting a psalm!

Being a teacher is not all fun and games.

Especially when she has to deal with James.

I really must ask her the secret of keeping calm.

I wonder if its got anything to do with that lavender balm

She spritzes herself with it now and again-

She breathes out tension and breathes in calm – she’s so zen.

So I have now fulfilled three of todays prompts! Written the poem “Calm” #poetember drawn in my sketchbook #sketchathon and now blogged about it #blogfest

aAlso today marks the start of #29Faces, I have no idea why it’s 29 Faces but here is the link 29 Faces So here is my face and because I can’t do anything like a normal person I decided to do #29facesonjunk so I am going to be using recycled materials to do my faces on. Number one is on a tissue box!

lessons learnt for this piece… don’t out line in black! Ruined her!

Art- week 12’s lesson.

Apr3

You know that “Evil inner critic” you know the one!

That voice that is inside you telling you “You can’t do that or this or the next thing” I know I am not the only one who has one. Well I know mine personally, up close and dangerously. I’ve listened to her through out my life and even now she’s dead I still hear her, there are several key phrases she likes to repeat to me, but just lately, and I think mostly it’s to do with my Bible study and councilling I’ve been having, that “Evil Inner Critic” is starting to loose her power!

Now when “She” starts in and starts telling me “You can’t do that!” I am starting (at 50 years of age!) to reply back, “Well maybe I can’t do that but I won’t know if I don’t try!” And by finally talking back to her and then actually doing what she tells me I can’t! I find I am stepping put of my comfort zone and into a whole new level of ME!

Last week was a classic example… with doing the Mary Cassatt piece, I decided to use the real Mary’s face as my model, I know parts of it were wrong, and sure enough in comes “Evil Inner critic” to rudely point out “That chins not right, paint over it and do it different” and then “There’s something wrong with her eyes” and so finally I put my paint brush down and walked away, nope I didn’t argue with her or get upset like in the olden days, I walked away, for quite a few hours, I told myself “I am waiting for the paint to dry” maybe I was and maybe I was running, whatever it worked, because when I went back, I could see what the problem was and I had an idea of how to correct it. In the mean time, I had shared a photo of the piece in Carrie’s group “Artist Strong” on Facebook, and complained how I had ruined her. Carrie replied ” it’s closer than you think” which gave me courage to have another look and see where I could improve it. The best bit about that day was when my cousin who hadn’t known I was using Mary’s face as the model, saw the painting of the Girl in the blue hat which Mary had painted and we were to recreate and the photo of Mary, my cousin asked “Did you take these two photos and morph them into one!” Why yes I did! Which means that my painting must actually have resembled Mary somewhat! I was so excited! It means that someone else had seen what I had set out to do.

So now fast forward to this week, Lesson 12 B was with teacher Tanya Cole another Aussie lady, and her subject was Monet and so in her lesson she wanted us to try and recreate a flower loosely like Monet did his flowers and then to add a portrait of Monet. I felt the prickles of apprehension run down my spine and then I recalled my cousin mentioning the “Morphing” of the two photos in the other lesson, so I wondered if I could do it again. I think, by George, I’ve done it!

Tanya used a hibiscus flower and a portrait of young Monet in a black beret. I like hibiscus 🌺 they remind me of tropical islands, but when I read “Monet” immediately I put him with water lilies. My husband took me and my Mother-in-law on a “Date Day” and we went to see the Monet exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria a few years back, and it was beautifully set up, but I remember that I was so so so disappointed at seeing these famous paintings up close. They were terrible up close, some art is much better from a far, his edges were unfinished and some of the brush strokes were lumpy and messy, I left there disappointed. Then speaking to people and learning about his failing eye sight and the whole “Impressionist” movement I eased up on him a bit. Doing this course has helped me ease up on him a bit more.

Anyways, So I decided to deviate from Tanya’s painting and do my own, Kara tells us to put a bit of ourselves into each piece of work we do. So I did! I painted water lilies and an older I think more handsome Claude Monet, not my painting is more handsome but that Claude was the older he got! So here is my version of week 12 with Tanya Cole and Claude Monet!

He turned out better than I had hoped! The water lilies leave a lot,to be desired BUT its impressionist after all!

Sorry it’s been a while

Mar30

Here’s a quick update on my art! It’s going amazing! I am so happy with how well it’s going.

Lesson 8 was”Lady of Shallot”Teacher was Deanna Strachan- Wilson. Subject- John Williams Waterhouse loved it!!

I love how sad the Lady of Shallot looks my favourite poem, song and painting.

Next lesson number 9- Teacher Juna, Subject- Rembrandt and we used Charcoal.

I was a little disappointed with how she turned out until l looked at her again the next day. That chin! Beautiful!

Lesson 10- Teacher was Sharon Harkness-Dobler. Subject- Henry Ossawa Tanner, and l copied Henry’s original painting and l had a ball! I love this one!

Henry’s original painting on my computer screen, Sharon’s on the wall in yellow and mine next to it! First time doing a still life!

Lesson 11- Impressionists are here!

Teacher- Kara Bullock, Subject- Mary Cassatt, loves this lesson too and lm going to frame her!

Mary Cassatt l used her face to recreate her painting, happy with how she turned out. I almost gave up!

And then there was lesson 12- Teacher- Lucy Chen, Subject- Matisse we had to do a Fauvism style painting a selfie! Not my favourite!!

I don’t love this but l did it. I’m finding when l push past “I don’t like it” l feel prouder of myself for having done it!

So that brings us up to date on my “Let’s Face it” course!

I am currently away camping in Brim Victoria, we are doing the Art Silo Tour, it’s over a 200 kilometres stretch and the unused unloved wheat silos are being transformed as giant canvases! Here is the Brim one!

I’ll come back tomorrow and post some more of them.

Happy Easter everyone and spare a thought for the reason behind the season. Jesus died for our sins.

Great week of art!

Mar8

I seem to have found my stride and since I’ve started my class, I’m progressing nicely. I think in my last post I told you I had skipped lesson three with Carrie Brummer it looks hard, I will go back, and that I was eager to get to lesson eight “The Lady of Shallot” I could of course have skipped straight to lesson eight, but I impose rules upon myself and insisted that I work in order.

So today I finished module 1- Renaissance period, the final lesson in that module was with Lora Murphy who does encaustic wax paintings. Another rule I’ve imposed upon myself is not to buy anymore art supplies until I’ve used all the ones I have. So far I have used some acrylic paints and acrylic ink, pastels, charcoal and even oil paint, I am not a fan of oils, but I had some so I used them. Listening to Kara who said “The materials are what she is using and are suggestions, use whatever you want and add whatever you want to own the painting as your own” so I did!

I really loosened up and so what if mine wasn’t as good as hers, its MINE! So here is what Ive been working on this week!

This is Lora Murphy’s lesson on Botticelli, we used a piece of his “Birth of Venus” to try and do Venus. Lora did hers in encaustic wax, I did mine is acrylic paints. Lesson learnt, centre your drawing better!

This is Kara’s lesson number six, we worked on Albrecht Durer’s style of sketching out his model in charcoal and then he would take that back to his studio and paint it at his leisure. The image is not a Durer painting, just an image that Kara liked and I liked it too so I did it as well. All in charcoal and since she told me to “own it!” I did and added a little coloured pastel. Lesson learnt- I like charcoal and pastels, but gosh they are messy!

And here is my girl gallery! Lesson one is the blue dress, lesson two is DaVinci, lesson three I skipped for now, lesson four was a failure in oil paint, so I added pastel and kind of rescued her, lesson five Venus and lesson six PomPom hair. It’s been a very productive week and Im so happy with what I’ve created and even more pleased, that while I ignored my art for more than 12 months, it never left me!

9 days to go… down to single digits..

Sep3

its getting close now,

I’ve been keeping busy with my #sugarfreeseptember challenge..

Have you heard about it?

#SugarfreeSeptember is run bu “live it do it” I can’t even remember how I found out about it.. but it wasn’t yet September so I decided to join, I find that when I have these motivations I can stick them out better… remember last November I did the “salad-a-day challenge” with Reannon over at she who rambles you can read about my version here. Well I had so much fun with that challenge, so now I am doing this #sugarfreeseptember not as easy as it sounds.. day one was a breeze and I cheered myself.. day two I woke up with the WORST headache, I know that whenever you give up something you have to expect “detox headache” or ‘Sugar hangover” I think I read someone call it….the headache was worse than any I had with all the previous detoxes. So I got up and took a pain-killer for my head and then 35 minutes later vomited that right back up… yesterday was not a fun day. Three occasions I came close to getting a can of coke out of the fridge and somewhere along the way my will power was stronger. I resisted.

Today I woke up much happier and thankful that the headache was gone, my tummy feels a bit rocky though. Never mind, I have not had ANY sugar and that glass a coke of a night, yes I miss it but no I am not tempted to drink it. I am going to stick this out and see if I lose any weight before I have to buy a new dress for Jasmin’s wedding.

So each day we get to take a photo of the above listed item.. today was “Hot drink” I don’t drink hot drinks, but I made myself a cup of Chinese tea just to take the photo, I tried to drink it but yuck!!

Chinese tea… but this is what I had for breakfast!!

Poached Eggs on Vegemite toast (soy linseed bread), Green Smoothie and I didn’t even up drinking the tea!

Then since I was feeling much better I decided to finish some art projects I had going… the “Fabulous and Free Art Journal course” which had finished but I had a few more pages to complete.. you can read more about it here

Number 28 – Office Supplies.

I’ll be the first person to tell you I am a stationary whore.. I cannot go past a stationary place without going in and finding something and yet I really struggled to do this page.. it’s one of about 3 in this challenge I hated.

Number 29- Just Beachy

I just splashed some paint around and ripped out some photos from magazines and played with collaging letters to form words.. simple!

Number 30- Water works.

Same but different from “Just Beachy” quick and easy, tah dah! complete!

Next thing I had to complete was Mindy Lacefield’s course “Raw Simplicity” I won the class back in July, but I’ve been bogged down with other stuff, so I have only just been working on it. Mindy’s style is Primitive and I struggle with that but I do like to push myself out of my comfort zone and so here’s a peek at what I’ve been doing..

Learning to draw and then paint “primitive faces” mine are much to neat and controlled I need to loosen up! oh No, Mindy didn’t say that I’m saying that!

These little sweeties were drawn on “deli paper” I haven’t quite figured out what it is yet and I didn’t have any obviously so I used what I had a “McDonald’s” McMuffin wrapper… seems to me to be the same thing, anyways I love these cuties, and they card stock I used my Gelli Plate to print that and I love them so sweet!! I’m going to frame them one day!

Next lesson was “Primitive animals” again, mine are a bit too neat a bit too much detail.. Oh well.

These were practice ones that went into our art journals.

I had some coloured card left so I mounted them on that.. again drawing them on the Maccas wrappers.

What we were supposed to do with them was…. create a full-page spread and add the animals to that, I should not rush ahead!! So I created a new set of Animals for my “full-page spread” I did an “Aussie themed Spread” with an Aboriginal and a kangaroo and a koala.

I still think they’re too neat and not primitive enough.. but anyways this is in commemoration of our up coming trip!

Next we had to prepare a board and do a whole piece, well I started the board and the painting and then got visitors so I put her away unfinished.. today I finished her.

Look at all that yummy texture! Made with Gesso.

Little ripples and almost waves.

That was a mistake, but it worked so it’s all good..

Finished Item.. I splashed too much paint and couldn’t wipe it all off, so I incorporated it.. and she’s “Spring Goddess”

The Brown line that descends from the corner of her mouth was added by Miz Sweetpea who is 22 months going on 15 yrs! and is determined she is going to be an artist.. I was going to cover it but I think I’ll leave it because then I can say we collaborated on a piece of art. Under the flower on the left you will notice a bit of bright yellow highlighter.. she did that too.. I covered most of it up!

And then there’s…. 29 faces of September.. another challenge.. it was a facebook group last year which I just stayed in and so here is day 3’s piece…

I am very out of practice and this is done with Charcoal and Gesso.

So my started to September has been a busy one and it seems to be not getting any less busy.

Amber has become a Tupperware consultant and is going to training every Monday and holding parties whenever she can. I am so proud of the commitment she is putting into it.. she’s aiming for manager and the car!

Tonight I paid the deposit for the photographer for Jasmin and Brett’s wedding and so that is another thing that I have organised before I go away. Next Monday I am going to visit the venue with the happy couple and Mother-of- the- Groom Anna. We are going to measure for estimations of decorations and such stuff..

and did I mention only 9 days until we leave on “Big Lap WA 2015” I cannot.Wait!!