Happy Monday

Here's to a creative, fulfilling, happy and fun week to you all. Let's be creative, let's eat cakes, let's drink tea and above all. let's enjoy every day we have. It's all about gratitude.

Helen xx

Sweet Magnolias

I had a lovely weekend. It included; family, children, sketching, sunshine, relaxing, Kew Gardens, photography, magnolias and best of all, no renovating a cottage. It was lovely.

The magnolias smelt lovely and they were out in full bloom, attracting tourists, keen gardeners and also students using them as backgrounds in their photoshoots. Mind you these trees are so beautiful it's no wonder they attracted such interest.

I hope you all had a good weekend. I can't believe it's all over and it's Monday again.

Have a great week!

Pip's journey continues

Last night I did some more to my Pirate Pip sketch, It's still a work in progress - I left it to dry and need to go back to add some lines to it.

I've enjoyed doing something different and not worrying too much about the outcome. That's one of the joys of a sketchbook.

Happy Wednesday - I hope you all have a wonderful day!

Thelma and Louise

I was talking to a colleague at work the other day who was planning a road trip to the west coast of the USA and it reminded me of the road trip I did. Arriving in San Francisco and spending two weeks in a car with my best friend, Thelma and Louise style. A fantastic adventure seeing parts of the USA that I never knew existed.

This photo was taken in Yosemite and it was about 7am in the morning. It was also one of the most peaceful places on earth I have ever been. Sitting on a rock taking in the view has stayed with me. Some places do that.

Have a wonderful Thursday.

My little sewing project

At last my little sewing project is finished....and here it is in all it's glory. Nothing exciting I know but after a lot of trial and error I eventually managed to sew a little cover for my banking pin pad.

It wasn't difficult at all, but I cut the felt wrong, made it all up as I went along and decided that I would not put on the embellishment I had made as it just looked silly. I don't like anything too fussy and I really just wanted something simple to protect the pin pad from all the dust and bits when it is kicking around my handbag.

And although it's not perfect I found the sewing very therapeutic and immensely enjoyable.

To think today I was looking at sewing patterns for a dress....talk about run before you can walk. Anyway, I love my little pouch and feel very proud of it.

Hope you all have a happy Wednesday. Tonight Jim and I are off to Notting Hill to watch a special pre-release of Elbow's latest DVD. Should be a good evening!

Having fun!

I know I have so much 'stuff' to do. Rennovating a cottage in a short time frame when you are working full time and not being able to do things to it as often as you like is frustrating. Especially since so much hinges on it.

So picking up a palette knife and starting a painting which invigorates and inspires you...which makes you feel alive.....which gives you tonnes of fun and warm fuzzy feelings is just what the doctor ordered.

Creativity = Happiness = Smiles = Peace = Fulfilment EQUALS Me xx

Another sneak peak ~ a different painting

Little Red Riding Hood

Well here she is:And doesn't she look miserable. Either she was looking at the wolf saying 'give it your best shot', or she really wasn't impressed with me!

Still it was fun to splash the colour on to see what she would turn out like.

I am very excited as I have a new monthly project in the pipeline...all will be revealed next week!

Have a great day!

Helen x

Maddie's invite

I’ve had so much fun this week making the party invite in photoshop. Lovely Jim helped me with some of the technical stuff I wasn’t too sure on and then came up with some great ideas to make it a really special invitation. It was fun working together with him on it especially as it made a really nice change to be creative using a pc and not a paintbrush.

I’ve been so tired too as going back to work after some time off over Christmas is taking it’s toll. But I will not let this stop me from being creative in the evenings and weekends....just need to make sure I plan things right and look after myself too so that I don’t burn out (ooh am I really living and learning from my past mistakes)!

Now the invite is done I will look at finishing the Esher painting I started some time ago, then there is just one more to complete in my series. And I already have a new painting project bubbling away which I will share once I work out the details. All exciting stuff!

Anyhoo, here’s the invite and if anyone would like one designed for them, just drop me a line.

Have fun and be creative x

Ps, I've changed some details to protect the innocent ;o)

Time to learn and have some fun....

The friendly and inspiring Tam from Willowing.ning has created a free paint class called ‘The Heart of Art’ which I have just joined. Normally she charges for her workshops, but she has offered this free to anyone, and at the last count, 865 people have signed up – that is amazing!

It’s not the usual type of art I do, but at the moment I am trying out all different methods and mediums to see if I can find my style. So I am looking forward to being crafty, arty, sewing again and trying something new.

The class starts on Monday 18th (oooh tomorrow!!) and runs for 4 weeks.

I will post up my attempts here, and thank you Tam for being so generous. It is true what they say, by giving to others you receive back tenfold, so you will absolutely flourish!

Have a great Sunday everyone....I'm off to take up another creative challenge - post to follow soon! x

Three out of four aint bad....

In my last blog entry I mentioned that I wanted to do one painting a week, for four weeks. Am I on track. Well kind of. One isn’t quite a painting, but more of a sketch, but illness, and having a bit of a social life got in the way.

So far I have completed three out of the four pictures and just have one more to do, which I don’t think is that bad going.

I started off painting a version of a St Ives scene, although my artistic licence meant that I opted not to put in a few buildings. I then decided that all of my pictures would be of the same scene. I find it quite interesting to paint the same scene using different materials and mediums as it not only helps me familiarise with it, but I like to see how using different mediums changes my style.

The first painting was on canvas and painted using acrylics. I primed over an old painting I didn’t like – this is well worth doing, as canvas’s can be expensive. Then I sketched out in yellow ochre the outlines of the buildings.

I selected my palette of muted colours and set to work. Here’s the result.






My second painting was created on arches watercolour paper and collage, acrylic inks and acrylic paint was used.

I tore up some handmade paper and stuck this on to the watercolour paper using Golden Gel Medium. I then started to drip inks over the canvas, using a misting spray to help the paint merge on the paper. This gets quite messy so it’s best to put down some plastic sheeting or newspaper if you don’t want your worktop to get stained.

I then dipped card into paint to create the outline of the buildings and started to build up the picture. For the beach I used a texture medium and once dry I painted over it and dripped inks and sprayed water.

I will say out of all three paintings I had the most fun with this.

The final picture was drawn using a fountain pen and Quink on cartridge paper. I then used water to give it some tone. This is great fun to do and because I didn’t draw the picture first, it really makes you concentrate on the lines. I made some mistakes but as far as I am concerned, it all adds to the picture.

My final painting in the series may well be done with pastels....I’m not sure yet!