Sometimes Here Sometimes There

The Flue, a Deadline and So Much More!

 
I've been so busy lately! First I had that art related event to deal with, then the flu hit my little family hard and nearing the end of it I suddenly realized that I literally had one day to put the finishing touches on my art exhibit proposal before the deadline. I was dealing with a bad flu, sinusitis and two sick kids while trying to write a proposal and THAT right there was quite a tall order! Luckily I managed to get things together and handed it in just in the nick of time! So now I just wait and see what happens. I'm not sure when I hear back from the gallery to find out if I got in or not so I'm trying to just put it to the back of my mind and get on with life for now. In the mean time I'm drawing and painting and painting some more! Here's some of my latest work....

 
Acrylic on an 8"x 8" canvas. This painting came about after looking through my newest interior decor book by Rachel Ashwell entitled Shabby Chic Inspirations. A really lovely and inspiring book :)

Acrylic on a 5" x 5" canvas. Tiny but so very pretty!

Acrylic on an 8" x 8" canvas. It started life as a tea cup painting, then came the strawberries and then later a bird when I felt completely bored with a cup of strawberries. Who puts strawberries in a teacup anyways? I guess I do!

Coloured pencil on 100% recycled paper.

Coloured pencil on 100% recycled paper. I made this little illustration to go on the front of my sister's birthday card. She likes owls and her favorite colour is blue so a blue owl was in my mind a must!

Coloured pencil on 100% recycled paper. This was very much inspired by my favorite artist's (Mark Hearld) work.

For All the World to See!

My display table at the Culture Connecting Cultures event.

Monday was a big day for me! I participated in an event put on by the PEI Association for Newcomers.  But before I get into that I must first mention that my beautiful wonderful dear husband Oliver woke up early Monday morning and from then till about 2:30 pm he stayed in the dungeon (basement) constructing a most wonderful painting easle for me from scratch. He didn't have a plan or sketch or any such help, he just constructed this amazing easel out of some wood he purchased at Home Depot! It's every bit as nice as anything one could buy in an art store if not better! It's fully adjustable too and I can use it for even really big 48" canvases! I didn't ask him to make it, he just decided all on his own to do this for me. Now if that right there doesn't make me one of the luckiest girls in the world then I don't know what does!

Now back to the event I mentioned at the beginning of this post. The event was basically a place for new artists and artisans to PEI to display their work with hopes of meeting interested shop owners, gallery owners and so on and so forth.  All of the exhibitors were given a table to set up on and the rest was up to us.  At about 2:30 Oliver the kids and I all left to head over to Murphy's Community Centre where we began to set up. I brought a rather large number of paintings simply because I had no idea how much space I would have for my display so I figured having too many was better than having not enough. At 4:00 the event began and the gym was soon packed with people. Oliver was as usual a wonderful help watching Elsa for me while I chatted with people and Liam was my amazing little assistant! He practically chased people down giving everyone my business cards. Funny thing was that it was all his idea to do so, he really wanted to help and his shear cuteness was such an icebreaker! I LOVE my little guy so! The night went really well I think and I met some people that may just help get my little business off to a great start! I'm VERY thankful to the people over at the Newcomers Association for putting this event on! It was SUCH a wonderful idea and the exposure was wonderful for my work! And now for the pictures!

One end of my table. I wanted my display to be as pretty as possible :)

The other end of my display. I made the framed name sign the night before the event. Very last minute!

Liam, the very best assistant a person could hope for!

My little bunny rabbit 'Elsa' scooting around the room on her bum in a tutu and a hat with ears.

 
The super nice lady that makes this jewelery is from Japan, her name is Kaori Sho.  That rose you see is a preserved flower, meaning it's real! It looked and felt like a living rose but is preserved making it stiffer and not as fragile. She also uses jade and some sort of beautiful crochet. 

This display of jewellery belongs to a lady named Hayeon Baek.

Another display, this time pottery! Unfortunately I didn't catch the artist's name.

 

This was the table to the left of mine. This lady named Vahideh Nasayehi designs clothing and does her designs in coloured pencil. She was very nice as was her husband who was so very thoughtful and brought me a coffee :) 

Facebook

 

I've got to say it, when it comes to facebook I am CLUELESS!!!! Never have I felt so confused than when I'm trying to figure things out on facebook. Not too long ago I set out to create a place on facebook where I could keep people updated on my artwork. Accidentally I wound up creating a 'group' when what I wanted was a 'page'. Just today I realized my mistake and after three hours of work I finally have what I initially set out to create. So, now if you are interested in seeing the latest artwork I have created, or you would like to know about upcoming shows, stuff for sale or anything else related directly to my handi-works all you have to do is click HEREwhere you will be taken to my facebook 'page'. Once there click on the 'like' button and there you have it!

Liam's First Halloween

So up until this year we didn't bother taking Liam out trick or treating simply because Halloween in his opinion was just too scary. But being so close to five years old we figured he could probably handle it this time around. Which made last night Liam's very first official halloween. As you can see from the above picture Liam's costume of choice was a green dragon complete with tail and wings. He did pretty well, remembering to say "trick or treat" and hold his little bucket out at each house. We did have to remind him to say thank you most times as he was just so eager to get to the next house that as soon as the treats were in his bucket he was high tailing it to the next score.  About half way through the evening we started coming across more and more heavily decorated houses which had Liam telling us "No, sorry...too scary". He refused to go anywhere near houses with skeletons, bats, ghosts, spiders and spider webs and any less than happy looking jack o' lanterns. So what was his best treat? Definitely the can of Play dough! Something that he can enjoy longer than any candy or chips will last and mummy likes that it's not going to rot his teeth!  Now can someone please tell me where I can donate a bunch of the candy because there's FAR too much of this stuff?!

A New Approach to Painting

So I have been trying something a little different as of late in regards to my approach to painting. I'm painting quickly, slapping paint on thick and not blending and blending and blending to perfection. I'm not looking at reference pictures for hours on end studying them carefully. Instead I'm just glancing at my reference material briefly and as little as possible, trying to just go with the flow and not allowing myself to over think everything as I would normally do. I'm also open to flaws, imperfections in anything and everything. So it's not perfectly straight, the angle is just a little off? So what! Art isn't about perfection, for me it's about enjoying what I do and this is enjoyable!

Above is a painting I did last Friday. It took just over two hours to paint. It's a portrait of my own real life antique Singer sewing machine. I didn't pay too much attention to whether it was in scale or not, it's a little off but I love that! I had alot of fun with this one and I LOVE the color combinations here! 9" x 12" on watercolour paper.

And here (above) we have my latest coloured pencil sketch. This one depicts a Gypsy Cob standing in a field next to a bow top Romany Gypsy vardo. A gypsy wagon is called a vardo. They are usually painted in bright lovely colours with a good deal of decorative painting. We have one Gypsy Cob here on the Island. A gorgeous horse I was lucky enough to visit at his home. You can read about my visit with Fynn here.