Sunday Sketches

I've made it to another Sunday Sketch and I have learned not to declare that I will make sure I do one each week (as typically say that is a kiss of death for me), but I will enter as often as I can.

This week I was doodling ideas for Christmas Cards and I doodled up a Father Christmas and put some light watercolours on it. Just having a bit of fun really, but that is what it is all about.

Please head over to Sophia's blog where you can find lots of other creative people showing their amazing artwork.

Today I shall be cleaning and putting back all my crockery etc into my new kitchen and then once the floor has been laid it will all be done. Hurrah! Only 5 years after moving in, I now have a new kitchen.

Hope you all have a brilliant Sunday xx

Paint Party Friday

I am in the process of painting two more pictures with the Forest Garden theme and this is one of them. It's not finished yet but I've let it sit for a bit until I decided what else I would like to do to it. I will share the other one with you in another post, but you can see it here on my workdesk.

I'm off to check out the other Paint Party Friday paintings and I hope you all have a lovely weekend!

Helen xx

Handmade Britain

Image courtesy of Channel 4

Last night after a tiring day at work I settled down on the sofa with a cup of tea and watched Kirstie's Handmade Britain on Channel 4. And I was in heaven. All I can say is that it's wonderful that we are starting to embrace creativity and show programmes on television that encourage us to have a go. And not only that, but the show explores crafts that we may not have thought of trying before, or even known existed.

So there I was sketchbook in hand, doodling ideas for Christmas cards whilst sipping tea and eyeing up birds made of newspaper, cards with paper stitched on and a really funky ring made from an old book.

This is episode 2 out of 8 and I can't wait for the rest. Well done Channel 4 for bringing us such a fab programme.

My work desk

I looked at my desk tonight and thought I would share a picture of what it currently looks like.

I love being nosy at other people's workspaces so thought I would share mine, especially as it is relatively tidy. Click on the picture for a larger image.

I am thinking up ideas for Christmas cards at the moment and would love to use my new pen tablet to draw on the pc but I am just getting used to the way it works. It feels a bit weird at the moment! I am sure this will pass once I start to use it.

Hope you are all having a good week so far. It's mild here but has been raining today and right now I am feeling a bit chilly so might cuddle up on the sofa for a bit!

Gruffalo party time

I made a Gruffalo invitation for my friend's little boys second birthday party recently and she asked if I could create a menu to give to the children so they could select the food they wanted in their little lunch bag.

So I set to work and instead of painting this one I decided to really try and get to grips with Photoshop. Over the years I have used it but I really do have a limited knowledge. Fortunately Jim doesn't and after installing a Wacom pen tablet on my laptop (which I have had for 2 years but never used), I decided to use it and have some fun. Again with help from Jim we got it up and running and then I just played about.

Here's the menu as it is right now. Not sure I will change anything else as my friend loves it....it just depends on how well it prints as I hope the background won't be too 'busy' once printed.

Hope you are having a great Sunday. Today has been lovely and relaxing so far with the family. Perfect!

Added to Sunday Sketches - please head over to Sophia's blog to check out the other entries,

Artist D.D Gadjanski

I stumbled across this lady on You Tube and wanted to share it. I love the looseness of her demonstration and her accent is just wonderful!

Have a great day

Watch out there's a Gruffalo about!

Ages ago I created a Charlie and Lola party invite for my best friends daughters 5th Birthday party. And I loved every minute of it. I learned lots in photoshop thanks to my lovely Jim and I was quite pleased with the invite. You can see it here. It's now approaching her 2 year olds birthday party and I have been given the task of producing a Gruffalo themed invite, so last night I got stuck in!

As I was waiting for the wash to dry I looked around and my other paintings winked at me.....so I got out my yellow acrylic ink and did some drizzling. Then sprayed water over it and tilted the canvas until I liked how it looked.

I also decided where I wanted the flowers to be and used the children's numbered tubs to draw round for perfect circles. And to think I nearly chucked these away - these are perfect as you have all different size circles!

And once done, I laid the canvas flat to dry.

I will do some more to the invites tonight as my 'client' is very demanding :o)

Good times

I had a lovely weekend as it was spent with friends and family and lots of children. My best friends little boy is 4 on Tuesday and she threw a party for him at one of those indoor activity play centres yesterday. Needless to say Daisy had a brilliant time and slept all the way home.

Here's a photo of me and Daisy just before we left the centre.

This week I will finish off Gruffalo party invites for my best friends youngest boy who will be 2 in November. So quite looking forward to that!

Have a great week and a Happy Monday too!

Unfinished Symphony

I currently have four unfinished paintings. One here which was started ages and ages ago. This one which drove me to distraction so I opted to leave it for a while and these two, which have just sat on my easel patiently waiting.

How am I ever going to exhibit if I don't finish them.

I also find it strange that on Tuesday I posted about not being sure how often I will be able to blog at the moment, and here I am three days running, blogging. Maybe giving myself the freedom and permission not to have to blog every day makes me want to. Or maybe I am contrary.

Anyway, I will leave you with a picture of my cat who is no longer with us. Mainly because I think she was beautiful and I wanted a cat picture to brighten up my post. Wow, I really really do miss my cat. She was a real character as most animals are.

Have a good day

A magnificant human being

I switched on the computer today and saw the news that Steve Jobs passed away yesterday at the tender age of 56.

This man was a genius, a visionary and inspirational and it is so sad that he now is no longer with us. I am lost for words.

If you have time I would recommend watching this commencement speech back in 2005 when he addressed Standford University. It is awesome. The strange thing was, I watched it again yesterday lunchtime....

A sad day for the world.

Taking stock and a video

Kind of lacking inspiration at the moment, so I’ve been looking at some blogs, watching videos and trying to get motivated.

I think this girl can only juggle so much in life and right now she needs a break. Not sure what this looks like and for how long but all I know is that I won’t beat myself up if I don’t blog or paint. Sometimes we need time to recoup and take stock and make decisions.

I hope you enjoy this snippet which I came across on Empty Easels blog. I loved her technique. I tried embedding the video but it wouldn't work and kept crashing blogger, so please click on this link.

Helen xx

Happy Sunshiney Saturday!

What a glorious day x