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!!

 

Busy long weekend. Update, Book reviews, photos.

This weekend was a long weekend, which simply means that it was a public holiday today for the Queens Birthday..like most long weekends in Australia it’s just an excuse to go away and party or in our case relax!

We spent the weekend at our holiday place in St.Leonards and I’ve written lots about that so I won’t bore you again, instead I’m going to tell you how amazing I am that I got so much done this weekend. Its amazing really when I have some baby free time how much I can achieve. I had a stack of penpal letters to reply to so I took those along, seven letters to be truthful and so I got ALL of those written and posted! Yay! that in itself is a job well done, because I hand write all my letters and  they are usually 4 or more pages long.

Next on my list of “to do” was to finish a book I started back in April it was called “Adams Empire” by Even Green..

Mine was a different cover, but this is the one “god reads” has on display..

From Publishers Weekly
The protagonist of this robust and sprawling saga set in the untamed Australia of the first half of this century is a true child of the outback. Orphaned at age nine, at home under the stars, completely unschooled, Adam uses his fists and his wits to rise from poverty to prosperity. He befriends an aborigine, performs dangerous work in the opal mines, falls in love with a sensual half-caste, has a run-in with a murderous policeman, marries a cold and manipulative beauty and finally treks west to carve himself an empire. This striking first novel tells a colorful and entertaining story, vividly evoking a vigorous, multiethnic society and a beautiful, diverse, often dangerous land. Green is a journalist and the author of Alice to Nowhere.

Nine-year old Adam is orphaned when his father is buried during an Australian desert sandstorm. A childhood of roaming the outback with his father’s drilling partner instills in him a fierce determination to have a place of his own. In this fast-paced, gripping saga, the reader follows the hard-working Adam and his mates, Jimmy, the practical aboriginal, and Josef, the impetuous young German immigrant, from the opal mines to the desert. They feint with death in mine disasters, at the hands of Mailey, the revenge-seeking law officer, and in the ravages of flash floods. A more deadly threat for Adam is his beautiful, calculating, near-mad wife, but a seductive half-caste woman lends her own type of danger to all of the men.

Taken from https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4116936-adam-s-empire

So it had 780 pages and normally that doesn’t phase me but I’ve been so busy it’s taken me almost three months to read it all.. shame on me.. but to be honest I did read other things in between..I loved this book which started in 1919 and went up to I think about 1940’s so a nice long-span of time, and I like that it mentioned places we have been as a family. I enjoyed it but it was time to finish it and move on… I’m giving this one a 4 out of 5 star rating

So I wiped that off by Saturday morning and then, my cousin Lee went to a charity shop to look for bargains because it’s kind of a thing we do whenever we are down there together, and while we were there we heard about a BOOK SALE! at the St. James church. They have two a year one in January and this one in June, and this year I missed the January one because it was star son’s 13th birthday party weekend.

So we went to St.James in Drysdale and spent an hour wandering through endless rows and tables and shelves of books! I love it! I was able to replenish my supply of “Christian books” and I was very pleased about that and I ended up with about 10 books or sets of books for only $8.50! Bargain!

So while I was book shopping I found another book which was “Australian” for my “Read Australian Authors” challenge..

This  book was called “Diamonds and Dust” by Sheryl McCorry

Sheryl McCorry grew up in the outback carrying crocodiles to school for show and tell. When she was 18 her family moved to Broome, and it was the first time she’d ever used a telephone or seen a television.

A year later, only hours after being railroaded into marriage by a fast-talking Yank, Sheryl locked eyes with Bob McCorry, a drover and buffalo shooter. When her marriage ended after only a few months, they began a love affair that would last a lifetime and take them to the Kimberley’s harshest frontiers.

Sheryl became the only woman in a team of stockmen. She soon learned how to run rogue bulls and to outsmart the neighbours in the toughest game of all mustering cattle. The playing field was a million acres of unfenced, unmarked boundaries.

Sheryl went on to become the first woman in the Kimberley to run two million-acre cattle stations, but her life was not without its share of tragedy. Her story is an epic saga of life in one of the toughest and most beautiful terrains in Australia a story of hardship, drought, joy and triumph.

Taken from: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11864222-diamonds-and-dust

This one was much easier to read it’s a true story and therefore fascinating to me a “City Slicker” I loved it and finised reading it this afternoon! I’m giving this a 4 out of 5 star rating.

Another thing on my “to do” list was.. “do some art”

I had downloaded the video clips at home while I had the internet connection and so I was able to just watch them from my lap top computer down there, Last week I mentioned about a friend of mine who had gifted me some art classes… you can read about it here: https://kimlhine.wordpress.com/2015/06/01/im-back/

So I wanted to do some of the art classes Carrol had gifted me.. first class I did was from the 2013 version of LifeBook the “Tam Edition” which was “Celebration and Journey”

I forgot to take progress photos! Never mind here she is finished.. the Clouds are things we are grateful for and the flowers are things we want to journey towards.

Next up in the series was “our art guardian” and here’s how she turned out..

More info about Tam’s courses here: http://willowing.ning.com/group/lb2013-tam-edition

I also had downloaded a few of Mindy’s lessons from “Sunday Mornings 2” and So I also got done a double pages spread titled “The Crucifixion” This is the second time in the past three or so weeks I’ve painted on this theme and both times it made me cry. Maybe because I understand the background of the disciples deserting him in his time of need.

I am so loving this piece!

Here is the previous “crucifixion” painting I did- I am calling it “Mary’s tears”

But you know what I am finding annoying? I am doing all these lovely pieces in my art journal! Arghhhh.. I had a Facebook friend ask me “how much for a signed copy”? and I replied “Priceless it’s in my art journal” so now I need to do it again and send it to him! I found this weekend that whatever I was touching was turning out nicely!!

More info about Sunday Mornings 2 here: https://app.ruzuku.com/courses/7987/overview

I also got caught up on my ICAD project…

This week the prompts are

and you can find out more about this challenge at: http://daisyyellowart.com/vividlife/icad-2015-index

Tam’s and Mindy’s classes are at a cost.. and the ICAD is a free challenge.

Today we got back home and took Star Son’s friend home, we took a friend down to the holiday place to keep him occupied and once we had dropped the friend home, we un packed the car and went to visit my Mother-in-law at her facility, we took Sweetpea with us which is always fun because she’s so tiny and doll-like people just cant help but love her.. the Oldies adore her and she’s happy to perform for them, today’s little game was taking off Star Son’s hat and putting it back on each of us in turn, at one point she dropped the hat and as clear as a bell she said “oh shit!” I guess that means now we will all have to watch what we say!!

I wish she’d say Grandma like that!!

How was your weekend?

“Flora- Goddess of Spring”

Yes I know I know… technically we’re not in Spring here in Australia but I wanted to use this pretty green background and I was only doodling in my Altered diary/book.

I really hate it when you want to do something special in your good art journal and it doesn’t turn out and then I always think to myself “well that was a waste of a page” and then I hear Violette’s voice in my head saying “It’s only paper people, don’t fuss”  Anyways I was just messing around in a book and I had the black sharpie now normally I would carefully draw up this face and work from there but I just started scribbling and look who appeared “Flora”

Full page “Flora”

I was thinking she should be surrounded with Nature stuff, flowers and things, So I cut her hair away from the page so I could slip the flowers underneath!

Flora- close up face

For some reason I’m happy with how her face turned out, of course I broke the “rules” I didn’t do any of the things Tam or Milliande had told us but it seemed to work.

I love that I tied her hair in green foil from last years Easter eggs!

Super close up!

I thought briefly about getting out the skin toned paints and doing the highlights etc but then I remembered a you tube clip I’d seen and the lady didn’t do that and her work was stunning so not that I think mine IS stunning but I left her natural. You can see the bubble wrap print in the background of her face. I painted her eyes and lips with glitter paint so something a little bit extra. I’m happy with Flora and I’ll photo copy her and re-use her for another project.

Heart, Art &Healing course- Week 3- Cover, Celebration page and Empathy Monstar

Celebrating ME- cover

So Again, I learnt new skills to use this week when we had to make the swing tag with a special quote, decorate the cover with an “altered” photo of ourselves, more new skills. and then put all the elements together, I’m happy with how this turned out.

For the Celebration page we had to focus on good things that we could celebrate about our lives.

Celebration page

So we made a list of things, typed them up on the computer and printed them out, decorated the background and added more photos, I al always celebrating the fact that I am a Mother of five and so I had to add my kids and I celebrate friendships so I added this photo of my friend and cousin and I.

Final book

 

Then this was the finished products, there are extra pages waiting to be filled but Tam thought that we knew enough that we could make up our own pages and I am going to turn one of mine into a travel page. I’ve started preparing the background with letters and book pages that I am recycling.

 

The second part of Week 3- was to make an Empathy Monstar (yes I am spelling it wrong, but mine monster is a STAR!)

I loved this bit, I’ve always loved to sew and so any excuse to get onto my sewing machine is a good day. He took very little time at all and I changed him, which is OK, because no two in the course looked the same, just as they shouldn’t since we all have our own energy to put into a piece of work.

With a tail!

because around here I am called “Kimmy Kitten” I added a tail and made mine look “cat like” it was supposed to be a “zippered” mouth so that you could unzip the mouth and fill it up with stuff and then it keeps your secrets, I didn’t have a zipper.

Monstar!

Monstar turned out so cute that all the kids want one now. so I’m thinking they should all have their own little friend who will  always keep their secrets! I’ll alter the pattern slightly so that it’s a bit different that Tam’s pattern.

Everyone who did Tam’s course has loved it, and it was FREE

 so for more information about Heart, Art and Healing please visit Tam’s site: http://willowing.ning.com/group/theheartofart/forum

Heart, Art & healing course, Week 2- Creating Whimsies

The second part of week two we had to prepare a double page

Layer upon layer, Tam likes layers!

So by this stage I’d started to collect the correct materials to use, so I layered this page, Tam loves to layer and previously I hadn’t been doing that. Tam is based in the UK and here in Australia the things she uses have different names and so it was trial and error a lot of the time. Here is the base layer pages ripped from an old book *gasp* me ripping up a book, UNHEARD OF!!! but actually this one was falling apart at the spine so I didn’t mind too much! So that was attached using PVA glue which dries clear.

Colourful background

I sort of had an idea of how I wanted my page to turn out and so I prepared a soft outdoors type feel for my page, water colours, tissue paper and glue, with some letter stamps.

bestest Best friends

And so came the final stage putting it all together, of course I did my whimsies and they were too big so I had to start again, this is the final page. “Best friends”

I added some stickers to make it have an outdoor party feel.  This page was to heal Child hood Traumas.

Heart, Art & Healing course- week 2- Altering a board book

So for week two Tam said:

Week 2.
Art techniques: Altering a Board Book – Acrylics Transfer & Creating Whimsies
Healing Focus: Healing childhood trauma/ Honouring the Self

This was the fun bit we learnt how to draw “whimsies” and I loved those. We also learnt how to transfer a photo of ourself onto another surface. It had to be a baby photo

Here is the Original photo

 

here is the finished piece

So as you can see (faintly) I got the photo of me onto the background, I missed some steps about painting and preparing the back ground, but I used Acrylic paints and water-colour pastels.
We had to make a list of things that we would tell our younger self if we had the chance and so I typed those up and cut them out and pasted them on. I’m not going to go into the details of the acrylic transfer it was a bit tricky and I’m sure I’d mess it up so please visit Tam’s site and course and learn this step it was a new experience for me and not one I did well.

Overall I was happy with how this page turned out. I might have done things different now but back then I was working with the wrong equipment. It’s all good I can go back and re-do it at any time I guess.

So that was that page and then we learnt to draw Whimsies and that’s a whole other page.