More goddesses from Suzi Blu's fab workshop

snowflakes for the soul




The moon behind her is full of spakly microbeads. I think she comes over all christmassy?
I think need to stop watching Desperate Romantics! Atleast it makes you hit the art reference books all over again to see what was really going on!and this one is to be a present for my biggest baby - 14 years old on Tuesday and an amazon who towers over, and terrifies, her mother! Happy birthday sweetheart!

More goddess faces, courtesy of Suzi blu's great workshop

Busy, busy, busy

I've become a bit of a drawing machine these past few weeks. It's the fault of Suzi Blu and her wonderful online class The Goddess and the Poet. It's basically a drawing class with knobs on. I needed a refresher as somewhere along the line I had forgotten how to do it properly. I mean I can, but I had forgotten. So this is a small sampler of a few of the pages in my journal, some with paint and colured pencil, and others still just plain drawings.

Why - no.2?

Why, why? What did the poor pizza ever do to deserve this? I have no idea, but it must just have been the wrong pizza, in the wrong kitchen at the wrong time.

Why - no.1?





Why did I lend him the camera and show him sports mode? 175 photos in an afternoon!!!! He sat in the back of the car and documented our trip to Dundee and back home. The joys of digital. And you know, I think the boy has an eye for reportage photographs.

Recent journal pages

While man goes sailing.........
a sensible woman enjoys home baking in the clubhouse and wanders about with her camera in one hand and a coffee mug in the other, looking for a few interesting things to snap. What a great tree.



It's slippery on the rocks, glad I didn't fall in!




Poor wee abandoned boat......and look, I made the grass purple! Why? Because I could........

I'm window shopping for a new camera. That's almost as much fun as actually buying it.

Oh the possbilities

GPP Crusade - I finally completed one after long gap!!


I seem to have unintetnionally taken a bit of a blog break. Work was just too demanding on my poor little brain cells, and on the fading strength of my right arm. Both needed resting, so I had to cut back on the surfing and the arting. Plus, I'm still looking for the ejector seat button for the teenage girl on the big pc, which houses all my images.

I enjoyed the april GPP challenge, which was to add text, and I was trying to make it an integral part of the piece. In the first one I was inspired by an add which had a model's face as the canvas for graffitti.

This second journal page was inspired by a Suzi Blu video in which she was painting something inspired in turn by a book, which I think was In the Night Garden and had to do with a person who had an entire book written under their eyes. This technique allows you to write over lines of text and make shapes, thus obliterating the distinct text from being read. Pretty sure I didn't write anything profund or revelatory under my eyes!

I love car boot sales!

May marks the start of the car boot sale season in my area. I love them to bits. Yes, I'm a thrifty blogger - there should be a button for that! Last year, I hardly got to go to any, so I was raring to go. The first one was fun and yielded lots of things off my list. Yes, I make a boot sale list. I find it helps to focus me, and stops me buying too much of stuff that I really don't have use for. The best bit, apart from the Yu-gi-oh cards for D S which kept him happy and quiet, was the big brown Victorian charger. It was the last purchase of the day, found while idly glancing at a stall while the others chose home baking. It had a ton of stuff on top of it, but there it was in perfect condition. Now it it one of my fruit dishes on the dresser, and looking good with the oranges. I always prefer to use stuff like this rather than put it in the cupboard. The blue plates are going to be my pudding dishes. Can you imagine eating apple crumble and custard from these on a cold winter night? I can! These came from the most amazing place a couple of miles away. It started as a sideline to the farm and has taken over. There is a huge barn piled high with furniture, and not for the faint hearted. The words health and safety have never been heard in this establishment. Tons of stuff lie on the ground, in old shopping trollies etc in the open air, getting wet and green with mould. These beautiful blue and white plates were lurking in shopping basket on the ground, an interesting shade of green. I pretty much fell in love with them at first sight. The guy said he bought them at a big country house sale, once the home of a famous Victorian prime minister. Perhaps Gladstone ate his pudding off them? Or maybe it was just a story. But they were made in Kirkcaldy and are early Victorian, so I'm happy with them. The colour makes me smile.

And so does this colour................................

Monica at Hands and Heart is celebrating her first blogiversary and is hosting a lovely giveaway. If you like painted ladies check it out!

Inaugural bears!

My Colourbox teddy bears are gathered together to join in the inauguration celebrations. Yes, they are inaugurating a new home in the printer's tray in the conservatory after years in a dusty box. They've even had a bath! They were happy to be reunited with their American fimo friend, sent as an ambassador many years ago by our American cousins, well mother in law actually. Much cake and ice cream, and no doubt much giggling will ensue.

Oh yeah, isn't there some kind of huge inaugural party going on somewhere else as well?!? Hope they have fun too!

The story of the yellow dress


Oh dear, should have used the scanner for this page! I was wondering what to do for yellow. Not a colour I use much. On Sunday my little boy was asking about my rings. I have a ring from my mother, grandmother and great grandmother which gets him interested in family history. We looked at some photos of the women in question and answered his questions. Sadly he never met any of them. He also divied up the rings between him and his sister! In his dreams....

But in the same box as the photos were 2 old jotters from P4 (3rd grade in the USA) which I had written. That year we had to write a diary entry every day. My spelling was dreadful and little was usually written but I loved to draw even then and drew loads. Every now and then I got quite enthused about an event. The last page has an entry about a play that was staged in the gym hall called "The ring and the rose" in which, apparently, a lady wore a yellow dress at the end! This is what I would put her in today.

More January journaling catch up ---orange, white, and green

Phew, getting caught up on the scanning and uploading. I've enjoyed the colour part of the challenge, even the yellow. Although orange proved to be my least favourite thing I've painted but hey, we can't all produce masterpieces (!/) each time we lift up a paintbrush.

White was fun. I used lots of yellow and gold under the white.

Green was loads of fun and I used lots of layers many of which I sandpapered away to reveal the colour underneath. Just can't resist the white dots....


But I really hate this profile and think I'll paint over it later and try again. Oh well.

Blue.........
Colour challenge week is certainly interesting. I found blue to be more interesting than I thought while orange turned out most unsatisfactorily. Green is going well but I need some daylight to do the skin tones. Ah, the joys of layering paint and then applying sandpaper! A revelation!

The blue page above is mainly ocean blue graphitint pencil with some paint washed through and into some doily masks. The whole feel and imagery was inspired by a wonderful Glasgow Girl artist called Jessie M King, a contemporary of Charles Rennie MacIntosh. Google her and check out her wonderful detailed fairy tale romantic illustrations - much to enjoy and inspire. I used some of her elements and cunningly avoided drawing her hand. As my bloggy friend Rhomany says, life is too short to draw hands. Excellent philosophy in life, one I apply to ironing too.

Off to paint more. White is next I believe - exciting!