I managed to remember to take a couple of shots of the other paintings I did the other night so here they are.

I singled one of the pods out for this one. The white part is the shininess from the oil which is not dry. Red takes ages to dry!

The burnt sienna painting ready for layer two.

This is to show the size difference. The smaller one is 4″ x 4″.

Sometime this week I will get the paints out again and continue with these. I am loving that bright red!

I got the oil paints out again last night and set up a little study to practice on. These are seed pods I gathered in New Norcia last year and they were a vibrant yellow when I first got them. The yellow has dulled but I still painted them as their bright original colour.

This time I had a few rules for myself.

1. Treat it as a study not a finished painting
2. Use a limited palette
3. Do more than one

I did three in total, one of them has no colour at the moment because I’m using the method of under-painting using burnt sienna. When its dry I will paint over it and share it. The other study I did I forgot to take photos of, mainly because it only started to work when I was nearly finished for the night.

I have been more of a painter of people and portraits in the past but am finding these studies a good way to get my painting hands back again. This one is still quite tiny, 4″ x 4″.

This is the still life setup

The painting area

The study so far

Its time again for the Weekly What List. Here’s a review of last week:

Weekly What List for the 22-28 Feb.

Physical
- drink 1 litre of water a day. – mostly
- Eat two pieces of fruit a day – mostly
- Eat less lollies. – epic fail!! Fantales, you are my enemy!

Spiritual
- Go over the same verse and study it: Romans 15:13
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace
as you trust in him,
so that you may overflow with hope
by the power of the Holy Spirit.
I did think more about this verse and even found that it was helpful for a couple of people as well as myself. Great verse!

Creative
- Get out oil paints and paint something – Yes!! Finally!!!!

- Make pendant for C - No, but thanks to my friend Gail I have the right clay to start it!

Family
- Go somewhere outside the house with L, not the park, gonna be too hot! – yes, went into the city with her
- Continue Doll’s House with K – Sort of. I purchased some scrap booking paper that was on special for doing the wallpapering with.

Friends
- arrange more morning teas – Yes, arranged a couple and had a few unexpected visits too.
- birthdays – finally posted a birthday card, one day after the actual birthday (even though it was in my handbag all week!)

So its time to make a new ‘what’ list. Here goes.

Weekly What List for the 1-7 March.

Physical
- drink 1 litre of water a day.
- Eat two pieces of fruit a day
- Eat less lollies.

Spiritual
- Memorise this verse (emphasis is on the word PATIENCE): Ecclesiastes 7:8
The end of a matter is better than its beginning, and patience is better than pride.

Creative
- Get out oil paints and paint something AGAIN
- Make pendant for C
- Sew another dress

Family
- Go to the park with L, weather permitting.
- Continue Doll’s House with K

Friends
- arrange more morning teas
- birthdays

So, after getting the paints out after a very long time I laid them all out today to have a good look at what I’ve got. Looks like I’ve got a decent amount until you look very closely.

I laid them out in their brand groupings to see what was there. I’m having trouble remembering what the really good quality brands are so I’ll have to look that up. I know for example that this lot are all cheap and nasty paints. Brands that are made for cheap selling and not for long lasting paintings:

Due to my lack of actual good paint, these will have to be used by mixing in with better paints for now, while I’m getting used to it again.

This lot of Windsor and Newton are pretty old, some have started to dry out, the same goes for this lot, the silver tube is the oldest I think:

and this one is so old that its rusting! Dare I keep it or should I just throw it away. Not sure.

These are Holbein brand paints and I’m pretty sure they are a good brand. I’m really going to have to do some research.

I know nothing about this brand, I don’t even remember buying them. Must have inherited them in a bulk buy or something.

Anyway, I haven’t really paid a whole lot of attention to my oil paints for around 4 or 5 years now so its high time I got reacquainted and figure out what to use. Time to get researching methinks!

So, this afternoon I got the oil paints out (post coming about them after this) again and spent three hours on my peacock feather. Seems like a long time for a small painting but its taking a while for things to click back into place with oils. I am enjoying it though and I suppose thats the main thing. I put my ipod onto shuffle and got to work. Now, I’m not sure that this is really finished but its getting closer. I might leave it for a while and come back to it again after doing a second painting.

I have decided that peacock feathers are really hard to paint. They change colour when you move them and its very hard to get a true colour interpretation. Still, I think its recognisable!

In 1988 the famous shoe company Nike came out with the slogan ‘Just Do It’ to sell their shoes. We all remember it and we all often quote it. In 1990 I went on my year 10 camp and it involved a bit of abseiling. Not something that I was particularly excited about but I took the Nike quote and made it my own. I said to myself at the top of every cliff we faced, ‘Just Do It’ and so I did. In fact I quite enjoyed it.

Procrastinating is not really my thing. I hate having piles of things I need to do and have tended to apply the ‘Just Do It’ slogan to my life as time has progressed. It helps me to not think for too long and worry too much before doing something scary (although for some reason it does not work when it comes to my biggest fear – driving).

This all brings me to my love of painting (wait for it, you’ll see the connection). The other night we watched the movie ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring‘. Its a made up story about my favourite Vermeer painting (with the same title as the movie). I have always loved this painting, even before I knew that it was very popular and famous. The first time I saw it in an art book I loved it. I wasn’t so much drawn to the expression on her face but more the way he painted the fabric and the use of chiaroscuro. Looking at it again in the movie (which I found to be bland) just makes me want to paint again. Not just paint but paint portraits in oils. I keep throwing my old friend ‘Just Do It’ at my brain but for many reasons it slides right off.

I haven’t painted, I mean really painted for a number of years. I keep referring to myself as an artist who loves to paint which is true, and yet I don’t. How can I really paint when I can’t set up my easel anywhere permanently? How can I paint without interruption? I worry about the smell of oils and turpentine around the kids. I could just paint in acrylics but I’m still stuck with the issue of space. Our house is small but one day I’ll be able to set myself up again and get moving.

‘Just Do It’ no longer cuts it. I can no longer just do things without considering all the factors involved. My kids have to come first and our house has to be safe for them. I physically can’t seem to get beyond buying supplies and scribbling in my sketchbook until I can set up a space safely and leave it there for more than two hours.

Ahh how things change when you have children. I wouldn’t swap it for the world although I might buy myself a print of ‘Girl With A Pearl Earring’ and put it where I can see it to keep me inspired.

While I’ve been away I have not been using my creative skills as much, well not for the usual things anyway. Instead I feel as if I’ve been gathering information in the form of photos in order to inspire new artworks and jewellery.

The challenge will be however how to turn some of the things I’ve photographed into pieces of art. How do you go from seeing something inspirational to creating something original? I know of a lot of artists and jewellery makers who would class themselves as nature-inspired/organic artists and I would love to put myself in this category too, except that I would say that God is my artistic inspiration. His work is what inspires my work.

I will be spending a bit more time this morning at the botanical gardens as we only got half way around last time. Hopefully I can have a few moments to do some sketching not just take photos.

Here are a few of my favourite shots from this trip so far, these are what I would say will be a starting point when it comes to going from inspired to original work.

Feel free to make any suggestions as to what you would love to see using some of the pictures below (click on them to make them bigger):

Recently Spoonflower had a special on where they would print up two swatches of your own design for free, including shipping. Irresistible for me (I had some fabric printed there a while ago) so I uploaded my two experimental designs. One is from an acrylic painting I did a while ago and the other is from my own design of ‘beans’ which I started drawing as a teenager. The beans were originally done in gauche which gives a very matte, chalky effect. So here are my two swatches, I quite like the beans and can see myself doing something more with them in the future:

A few months back my hubby asked if I would mind making a Pinata for the youth group which he helps with each week. I had plenty of notice so put it on my calendar to start 3 weeks beforehand. This turned out to be a good thing because in-between getting it dry during winter and having a lot of other things to do (including that week of sickness) it took me exactly 2 weeks from start to finish. Before you look at the photos below let me explain. The pinata is meant to be a calf and the reason its yellow is because it coincides with the story of the golden calf found in Exodus 32:1-35. I’ll admit, mine turned out to be more hippo-like than calf-like but somehow I don’t think the youth group kids are going to care. So here goes, the series of steps on how I made a pinata (including the things I’d do differently next time):

Gather newspaper and a balloon

Put flour (3 cups to 2 cups water) into a bowl (a nice wide one is easier to use)

Get your helper to stir the mixture till all the lumps are gone

After tearing newspaper into 1 inch thick strips, dip into the flour mixture and stick onto the blown up balloon

Layer one complete (make sure you cover every tiny bit of the balloon)

Layer 2 complete. I only did two layers due to time but I would recommend doing at least three layers. Make sure you allow the pinata to dry completely in-between layers, otherwise it will become moldy.

Add legs using cardboard tubes. I cheated a bit here and used wide packing tape (clear) to hold them on under the newspaper.

Add a head. I used half an egg carton

Cut a hole at the tail end of your creation (yes K is looking inside). Keep the piece you cut out.

Once the head and legs are dry, put lollies inside the pinata. Make sure they are sealed lollies. Put a hook of some sort at the top of your pinata before sealing the hole. (see how I did it two pictures down).

Seal up the hole using the piece you cut out. As you can see we had no newspaper left!

Create some way to hang the pinata. As you can see I used string but this is not the standard way to do it. Most pinata’s have a hook at the top but mine was not thick enough to hold the weight, this is why its a good thing to do more than two layers if you have time.

Add ears

Add Tail

And now the fun part…paint! I mixed a couple of colours to get mine more golden-ish.

Once dry do the very last step…..let your helper add eyes using a black marker

And here you go, one painted golden calf/hippo-looking pinata.

Most pinatas are brightly coloured and often have layers of crepe paper so you could add that too. I’m hoping someone takes some photos of the kids destroying this little guy and enjoying his contents. Hope you’ve enjoyed our pinata progression.

Last Friday my wonderful in laws took the girls again for the whole day. I needed to pack and get ready for a trip to the country but I did manage to squeeze in a couple of hours of painting. Continuing on with my butterfly inspiration, this time I zoned right in on the wing and painted just that. I’m not sure if this is finished yet but this is it for now.

The inspiration

I masked off most of it so I could focus on this part of the wing

Drew on a rough guide

And then started to paint:

Finished (for now)

Next time I might zone in even closer. I only have tiny canvases to use this week so they will have to do. My wonderful in laws are taking the girls again this week (last time on a weekday for a long time) so I might do a few more. I’m tossing up between that and sewing something…decisions decisions!