September 3- Waiting….

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!

Personal Project

On Sunday 8th April, my Dad will be gone from my life for 26 years. So officially he’s been gone longer than l had him in my life. He died six months before l turned 25. He hasn’t met his two Grandsons who look a LOT like him!

John Oliver Scarffe

Both my sons middle names are John after my Father and my Granddaughter is Scarlett Olivia the female equivalence of Oliver!

He lives on but April is a sad month he died and we have ANZAC Day for my overseas friends click the link it’ll explain it all. On ANZAC day they play “The Last Post” and without fail l cry because that was played at my Dads funeral. I don’t much like Aprils!!

So this morning l decided that l would try and incorporate my Dad into this weekends Art because he always was my biggest supporter in everything l tried. I may live to regret this BUT if l don’t try l won’t know! I’m going to attempt to paint my Dad!

15 minutes intentional drawing (it’s rarely “only” 15 minutes.) The Bloke draws the grids and then double and triple checks my angles.

On the Easel ready to go! But lm nervous to start! I told my husband he should sign my art pieces with me since he does as much preparation for some of them as l do!!

I think it’s nerve wracking doing someone l know but then l reckon when l “love” something l do it easily and l certainly loved my Dad!!

He might be gone but he is never forgotten.

Watch this space!!

Two pieces today!

I forgot to tell you in yesterdays post about the newest challenge I am doing. I find when I schedule myself to do something I tend to get them done. So each day in my journal is a check list of things I want to get done at the moment it looks like this….

1. Bible study 15 minutes (with a little box that I can tick off as its done)
2. Drawing- 15 minutes
3. Water- 3 x 800mls= 2.4 litres
4. 10,000 steps
5. Shedding the weight Meditation
6. Read at least one chapter of current book.

So it seems silly to some people but for me if I don’t hold myself accountable I will put these things aside, and so what if I don’t read a chapter of my book? Well, I won’t finish it and then I wont hit my end of the year reading goal “Read 40 Books”

Its been said that if you do a thing for 21 days it forms a new habit, so by scheduling these things and ticking them off I am helping myself create new habits. I am so bad at drinking water, so that is an important one. I also track this on my Fitbit app! Shedding the weight meditation I am doing with Oprah and Deepak Chopra, its to help us change our thinking and to shed the weight by shedding thoughts and feelings that are negative and I am enjoying it, but by the time I have time to sit down and do the meditations, sometimes I am sleepy and cant be bothered, but then I don’t want to look at this list before bed and see that I haven’t checked it off! So I force myself to do it, it ends Sunday and I’ve only missed one day which I did the next day anyways! And the drawing reminder, well, research shows that if you do something for as little as 15 minutes a day you improve at that thing, and who doesn’t want to improve their drawing skills? Bible study is pretty self explanatory as well. I do an in home bible study afternoon each Wednesday but if I don’t do any for the other six days its a bit pointless.

So this week I found a new challenge, my Bloke says “She loves a good challenge” its called the “100 days project” and the goal is to chose anything at all, to do for 💯 days and take a photo and post it on Instagram with the hash tag #100daysproject I figured that while I am doing this art course and posting that online I might as well make it a little bit more exciting by making it a challenge!

Speaking of art… today I finished two pieces, both of which I don’t actually love, but I didn’t avoid them, or put them off, or worse still skip them! I did them and I am moving on!

Lesson 13- Teacher- Toni Burt, Subject- Berthe Morisot. It was a collage piece and I felt like I had gone back to preschool, having said that her face turned out really well and I loved that! I called her “Alice the music teacher” because I used sheet music for her dress and hat and the song was something about April!

Work in progress.. I am super happy with her face which was a limited colour palette in pastels.

I lost momentum with her dress and so just gave up.. isn’t that just what some of the impressionists did?!

Then lesson 14- Teacher- Jun Toyama, Subject- Nicolai Fechin. We used charcoal, I don’t actually mind charcoal its messy but its also nice because you cant be too fussy. We were supposed to use a live model, I didn’t and Im not sharing the photo of who it was supposed to be, it’s disappointing maybe I’ll redo it sometime!

I still need A LOT of practise with my angles! But like everything, practise will help me improve!

So thats me for this Thursday! This also means that I am now officially up to date with “Lets Face it” next lesson gets released on Monday, so that means, Friday, Saturday and Sunday I will work on “Soul brush sessions” and “Better drawing bootcamp” both of which are course run by Carrie on her website Artist Strong 💪 both of these course are run Free, so maybe you want to have a look!

I almost forgot to tell you about another challenge on Facebook, its an art group called “Weekend Challenges” each weekend we are given a photo and we have to recreate it as close as we can, or alternatively anyway we want. I’ll probably give that a go tomorrow, watch this space…..

Art- week 12’s lesson.

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

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.

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!

Great week of art!

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!

Busy Art Day

I’m sick (again) I started off with a head cold it’s gone into my chest.. I’m sore from coughing, and my voice is husky (the Bloke likes it that way!) but it means I can’t talk loud or yell, the children LOVE that!

Today, my eldest daughter arranged for Squishy to stay home with his “Dada” and give me a rest, so I put my “rest day” to good use..

First of all I did this double page spread for “Sunday mornings 2” we had a guest teacher called Kimberley Hope..

it’s called “God is God” The lyrics of a song by Steven Curtis Chapman. I love how it turned out.

Next I worked on my ICAD cards, http://daisyyellowart.com/vividlife/icad-2015-index

 I’ve gotten a bit behind so I’ve spent an hour or two catching up.

Day 8– Prompt was “Cherry and Grapefruit”

Day 9– “Carrot and Lemon”. I loved this one.

Day 10– “Eggplant and Ginger”- I liked this one too.

But then I did Day 11– “Lime and Mango”.. I think this is my fave for today!!

So that caught me up with that project…

Yesterday I did art too.. in between babies

This was also from “Sunday Mornings 2” and this was called “Resurrection“

I also did another one

Shonna Bucaroff was the guest teacher and I call this one “Praise Him”

And that babies were so good and let me get some art done.. and they were so quiet so Amber went to check and them and this is why….

They decided to be “Artists” like Grandma the only difference being Grandma doesn’t use the walls! (yet!)

So we had to scrub the walls and made Sweetpea help…

She thought it was very amusing to say the least!!

It certainly was a fun day!! I’ve had Star Son home Tuesday and Wednesday he went back to school today, and he has a curriculum day off tomorrow… go figure!

How is your Thursday??

Great Unveiling..

I have been working on some art for the last few days, I had a few different pieces going, that’s the beauty of art, you can start something and while you are waiting for layers to dry, start something else… today I finished the “Orange” I like orange and yellows and greens, they seem to me to be Happy colours, I don’t know about colour psychology or anything but those shades make me smile. I even went as far as to paint the living areas in my house yellow because I read somewhere it “Stimulates conversation” maybe because everyone is thinking how yellow my house is.. I don’t care it makes me happy and I spend the most time here so therefore I chose! and my bloke has the mentality that says “Happy wife, Happy Life” so he goes along with most things! So anyways I was looking for arty ideas last week n what to paint next, I wanted short easy to follow pieces that I can get done in between “Baby time” sometimes I might have 10, 15 or 20 minutes free, sometimes I’ll have a “nap time” could be up to 2 hours and sometimes I have a half day.. woo hoo.

So I was on the website “Mont marte” and they have a thing called Mont Marte TV and “Joe” does art lessons, so I watched a few and he really inspired me, so I decided to give it a go.. this painting was called “Australia Day” in a minute you’ll understand why.. it’s the Kangaroo and the Aboriginal inspired patterns that make it Australian and immediately with the Orange background I loved it.

And one of my penpals LOVES Kangaroos and so I knew I had to do one for her, which is why I painted two at the same time, I made the slightly smaller one for Terri, because It’ll be easier to post to her, and then she can find a frame that suits her house if she chooses to display it. I hope SHE likes Orange! Aboriginal art is done with specific colours and specific patterns which are sacred for them, and each tribe might have slightly different things and it also helps to identify the tribes, as a NON Aboriginal we are NOT allowed to copy their works so this is in the style of…. Australian Aboriginal art, we used different colours and stayed away from traditional patterns. In fact I used some zentangle patterns in mine.

If you wanted to have a go at this one or any of Mont Marte’s other lessons you can find them here: http://www.montmarte.net/mont-marte-tv/ all the lessons on here are free and basic and fun!! I think I’ve bookmarked most of them to give them a try. So that’s the weeks main pieces, and then today I found another “free” class with Tamara over at Willowing, http://www.willowing.org/2015/05/19/feeling-feelings-through-creativity-free-art-lessons/#  Tam often has free classes for different things and I’ve done her other course called Art,Heart and Healing, I did that ages ago and loved it, Tam teaches you the backgrounds step by step and then how to piece them all together and draw faces and things… mixed media at it’s best.. you will need to join the Ning site to access it but it’s free, there are of course other “paid” classes and she is having a big sale at the moment of all her class at 50% off the regular price.. there are not enough hours in my days!

So tomorrow if I have time, I’ll finish up Tam’s class and see what other mischief I can get up to.. My Son Jarrah put in his order today he wants me to paint him a wolf and his 21st birthday is coming up in August, so I need to try to get it done for then!

Today was a great day to do art, it was cold and grey and raining… no need to go outside, the housework got done, some art got done, my bible study and morning pages got done, and dinner has been cooked, eaten and kitchen cleaned. I think today has been a most excellent kind of day!!

 

Tuesday sweet Tuesday…

Today I started a new “book Club” but it’s not my “Australian” one it’s one through “His Kingdom Come” we are studying the book called “The Creative Call” by Janice Elsheimer

Here is the Blurb from Good reads…

Perhaps you’re a “closet writer” who’s been scribbling in journals for years.(Oh how did she know that?!!) Maybe you once had a passion for playing the piano or violin–a passion that is still flickering somewhere deep inside you. You may have a knack for photography, drawing, gardening, cooking, or some other creative gift. Or you may long to express yourself creatively, but have yet to discover your unique talents. 

Your creativity was meant be used. Whether you are an artist who has already identified your gifts or you believe that you have artistic talent that has never been developed, working through this book will help you grow closer to becoming the person God has designed you to be.

*LEARN TO CALL ON THE HOLY SPIRIT AS YOUR SOURCE OF INSPIRATION
* EXERCISE YOUR ARTISTIC GIFT REGULARLY AND BEGIN TO
THINK OF YOURSELF AS AN ARTIST.
* DEVELOP THE HABIT OF JOURNALING AS A WAY TO REALIZE UNLOCKED CREATIVITY
AN EIGHT-WEEK PROGRAM FOR FULLY DEVELOPING YOUR ARTISTIC GIFTS
AND ENTERING INTO A CLOSER UNION WITH GOD. INCLUDES A RETREAT GUIDE.
FOR INDIVIDUAL USE OR GROUP STUDY

We are working through the book a chapter a week.. do you know how hard that is for me? especially when it’s a good book that I can relate to and so far (Chapter 2) I am relating very well. At the end of each chapter we have a series of questions, prompts and things to do.. and also each day we must write for 20 minutes in the “daily pages” this morning I was thinking.. “What can I write about for 20 minutes and how much paper will I use?” and one of the tips she gives us if we get stuck, write that down.. “I am stuck what shall I write” and then let it flow.. well, good news ( and anyone who’s read my blog posts which can sometimes be long, can attest to that!) I didn’t struggle at all and in fact I was surprised at some of the stuff that came out of my pen!! It turns out 20 minutes is a double sides lined foolscap page (I am doing my work in a ring binder) and I write small… so it’s a lot!

Plus I added some quotes from the chapter and also a bible passage or two.

So far so good I am enjoying this new  experience.

Then I had my usual bible study.. I messed up so bad and it’s taken me a week or so to figure out.. How have I managed to get so far ahead of the group.. and then I realized. The Good Morning Girls are reading and studying Monday to Friday.. oh no! not Kim Hine… she does Monday to Saturday… Of course as soon as I realized that I stopped.. but I am going to be finished the Book of Exodus this week instead of next! Never mind at least I am doing it!! So when I am finished ahead of the group I shall read the Psalms and Proverbs until the group start their next study.. I think it’s the Psalms.

Once all my written goodness had been done, there was no avoiding the fact that I had to get up and get the day started, and you know what.. I struggled to get any art happening at all…I almost gave up on the idea until about 4.00 pm and then I remembered I wanted to start a piece that I am giving away to a friend. you know what happens when I do art for “someone else” OK, OK, I’ve only done that one piece the “Pugalicious“

Tanny with her Pugaliscious painting Easter 2015

and it was sooo good I struggled giving it away, and so I painted another one to keep… so this time to avoid THAT drama I am painting two at the same time.. Want a Sneak peek??

Now I can’t tell you who the “instructors version” is for because she might read this blog, but here’s a hint, she’s from America and is my penpal!

Also today, geeze, I’ve been busy this afternoon, I finally got around to painting or rather adding to my Intuitive painting that I did way back in February. I did the course with Perth artist Melani Parker and we did all kind of funky stuff.. so here is what it looked like when I brought it home from the Art class.

one of the backgrounds

 And then I highlighted the “crosses” I knew I wanted some kind of “Crucifixion” type painting, but I wasn’t sure how to make it happen.

And then I did this….

My husband is NOT a believer but he actually saw “Mary” in the painting before I did, he said one night as we were eating dinner “I see a lady in a headdress right there” and he pointed it out numerous times it took me a while to see her.. as soon as I did I knew who she was.

So it’s been a busy afternoon, and last night I posted a late blog with no photos I was in bed and hadn’t uploaded the photos then, so I promised I’d load them today for you all.. so here is yesterday’s (Day 6) art!

“Take me Deeper” is a Christian based class I am doing with Shonna over at “His Kingdom Come” and I am doing that in a ring binder folder with lined pages for journaling and also added some watercolor pages for any art that might show up, in the folder is also class work from “Book Club” and “Logos 365” other “His Kingdom Come” classes I am taking. Mindy’s class “Sunday Mornings 2” I am doing in an art journal with a bunch of other “Christian based art” all neatly together in one book.

 

So that my friends, is Monday and Tuesday art complete, amazing what I can get done with no babies!!