Anyone for Abstract?

So, this is what I have been up to for most of the week. Its a bit on the large side at 30" x 30" and has no hanger on yet, so if I do decide (after varnish) I want to hang it somewhere I will need to speak to my joiner friend about adding a frame to the back.
Mostly Acrylic paint, with a bit of inks.

I have today scaled down to an A3 watercolour pad, and a couple of smaller works to practice on. Must say I could quite easily get used to working on a larger scale.. might need some more paint first though.

I have seen some great groups on Flickr so going to join a couple of groups on there, even found a couple of local artists which was interesting.

I am starting to think I was born to do this, just should have realised it a good few years ago, ok my paintings will not be to everyone's tastes but I can live with that, I just love to paint.. once I have walked the dogs, done the chores I cant wait to get out the brushes and thats me till teatime (and often beyond).

new easel fun

On Saturday I took delivery of a much needed new easel, my others were quite small and the week before I visited a car boot and purchase 4 very large canvas's to paint on, around 32" each, seemed like a good idea at the time till I realised I had no way to use them, plan for the future is clearing out a room to use the wall with a hook on. Anyway, my easel arrived wrapped in a huge piece of card, cut in half made it around 25" which fit nicely on said new easel. As it was a bit wonky I tried covering it in newsprint and pva to make a stronger surface to work on....

Turned out not to be one of my better ideas, but it did give me more confidence to work on my first larger surface before moving to either a board or a canvas. So, here is my first larger abstract, still a bit wonky due to the paper and card but gave me practice and the fun. I varnished it too just to see how that would look.



Still not overly confident I am priming a large piece of board which is about 36" to have another go on... think maybe I am spending too much time watching Rolf Harris, he was on the tv last night with the Jubilee Art, how fab was that? only wish I could have got to London to see the exhibition.

I am also having a go at a wooden box, that too is at priming stage at the moment, but I have plans to give it a new bright and lined look and pop it in the Etsy shop.

Hope everyone had a great Jubilee weekend, I did enjoy the coverage I saw and cant wait for the concert to be on CD.

The Cosmic Garden

Yes, I know I said I would return to sewing, and I did make a start... but now the weather has gone soooooo hot its just far too hot in the sewing room to do a thing, so I did more painting without any pressure and found myself doing something with the canvas I primed and painted blue some time ago. I watched a great video on youtube yesterday by Donna Downey for one of her inspiration Wednesdays, during her tutorial she used this fantastic quote from 'Andy Warhol' that I am going to use every day and print out somewhere very large...

"Dont think about making Art, Just get it done, Let everyone else decide if its good or bad
Wether they like it or hate it,
While they are deciding make even more Art."

So, thats what I am going to do (or at least while my confidence lasts).

My painting is called Cosmic Garden, and its my own creation of garden with the background of the northern lights from earlier in the year.

I am finding I have a need to paint each day, and I am at my happiest doing so. Although must admit its been tough going today, its very hot for us here in the UK and my house is getting towards unbareable now, we have had no sleep for a few days now as its just too much, sorry for those who enjoy it but can we please have it a few degree's cooler now? and some clear chilly nights would be great.

Hope everyone is enjoying the weather but being careful, we are not used to such heat here.

Walker Art Gallery

Here is me at Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool yesterday - in awe of the sculpture with the toilet behind me there, and just loving all the abstract Art.
We went to see the Rolf Harris Exhibition, WOW!!! is all I can say, I was totally gutted we got there quite late (about 11.30am) so the book signing had closed as the queue was just huge. I did manage to get a glipse of the great man though, he looks amazing, I think he is 82 years young this year. I purchased the book about his paintings on show, some cards and a t-shirt (I just love the t-shirt), we had to queue to actually view his exibition but was well worth the wait, I loved his work but most of all enjoyed getting to see the actual painting he did of the Queen.

As the husband had taken me we were not there as long as I would have liked, as its really not his thing - so I dragged him round till he did start to appear a bit weary then we went for lunch. I will go back in a few weeks with my friend, who loves art.

This visit and a few weeks of deep thought has brought me to the conculusion I am going to have to return to work, so I have started designing a new bag today for the Etsy shop. I love art and painting, but it will be a few years before I am good enough to make any money from it and the pressure of trying too hard is not a good thing. Somehow I am going to have to divide my time to going back to sewing and having some fun art time too.
My designs have changed, If I am going to sew its going to be designs I like.. so at this rate it might take me all week for bag number one of the year, but should be worth it.

If blogger continues to behave I will show you when the bag is done later in the week, I have gone back to 'old blogger' while it will still let me, unfortunatly I lost my old page design so still have the awful colours but at least I can follow everyone and post again.

I have done a few hours sewing today, so must be time for painting now.

have a good week x0x

Coming soon to Etsy

First of all I do apologise for the look of my blog, blogger 'forced' me to update it and I really do not understand it at all, so its now an awful colour scheme till I can work out what to do with it, seriously thinking of just starting again elsewhere. I am also now finding it very difficult to follow other blogs, as my faithful list has disappeared and I have to go in search of others new posts, so again if I miss you I am so sorry, will try find some time to sort it all out soon, even if it does mean starting again and putting up a new link here. Hopefully somewhere on this post has appeared a preview of one of the cards I have been working on, I have just draft listing a few cards to add to my Etsy shop, my dreams of filling it with wondeful art works are taking a bit longer than I had hoped so had to think of something I could do to keep it going, and still give me enough free time to sketch and paint, with plenty of much needed practice, I will get there just taking a bit longer than I thought. Sales of bags are down everywhere, shows how things are going not enough spare cash for anyone for treats these days, so little point in getting the sewing machine out for more bags, I am still using it though to have fun with cards, I am working on some patchwork card designs, everyone buys cards... right? The cards drafted to go in the shop are a mixture of fabrics, stamps (my new love in life, I do love ink stamping, what fun!) and I have added a couple of sketches to see how they go, gulp... Hope everyone is ok out there, believe there are a few flood alerts around the UK, not too bad here, got a bit wet on the dog walk this morning but first time in longer than I can remember, so cant complain. OK, time to hit 'publish' and hope you can see the card. NB - SORRY, NO IDEA WERE THE IMAGE HAS GONE??? TIME FOR A NEW BLOG SOON I THINK:(

Dads Birthday

Whoops, been a bad blogger again - though I did have a spell of blog block. Here is the gift I made for my Dad for his birthday on the 4th April. The picture is of him and his mates whilst on National Service in Cyprus in the 50's. Dad is the shy one on the right! I mounted it on mdf, which was painted, collaged and varnished. Here he is on his birthday, he is normally dressed but had a nasty fall the day before so was unable to walk, so we normally go out for his Birthday this year we had to fetch it all to him.



I'm still busy drawing and painting every day, every evening is spent sketching - I 'think' I am starting to improve. Also spend far too much time on the book of days facebook page, and watching all the wonderful videos available to help me with my art, I even attended the 'live stream' at weekend, which was great fun. If you are interested in mixed media and/or Art Journal, do take a look here Book of Days best thing I did, has done wonders for my confidence in art and in other area's.

I do check in with blogger each day so always keeping an eye on everyone, I might not always comment (often I think I have only to find I didnt, sorry) but I do always read.

Thats all for now, back to the sketchbook.

Lynda x

New Art Journal

When the going gets tough... the tough make a new journal. Yesterday was a pretty awful day. Due to having to protect the identity of the person concerned I cannot go into detail, but sketching around the details it involved a family I know quite well, a young girl and an individual who is it seems on the sex offenders list. I only hope the young lady and her family can come to terms with this in time. I have said this before here, but I truly do not understand how some people can live with themselves.

Not my problem of course, but the only way to deal with the upset of the whole thing for me was some retail therapy, so off to the charity shop I went and came back with a few frames to paint and this...





which I then turned into this...



It started off as a bright cheery journal to take me away from the horrors of the world out there, but has now turned into a new journal of faces. Somewhere I can work on them each day. I took the picture before the journaling, as if it turns out anywhere near ok there is a specially brave young lady it is dedicated too and may receive it.




They should get better as I have been following a lot of tutorials on faces, some from Effy Wild and the Book of Days
and some on youtube by Jenniebellie, who is also a good teacher for the faces, art journalling and mixed media.

Well, paint should be dry now for Dads birthday pressie which I am also working on so back to it. Have a good weekend all. xx