Mixed Media Jackalope

This one has reached it's new home so I can blog about it. Mr Jackalope. I can't believe I hadn't heard of a Jackalope before. Me - who supposedly loves folk tales. This one is of North American origin and a quick google will throw up lots of web pages with "sightings" and such like. This is the Wiki page if you'd like to read more.

Mine was created over the base of collaged papers on canvas. Painted and glazed with acrylic paint. Various doodads added... off the top of my head there is stamped images, gilding flakes, I scrawled some lines of a song from Pixars Boundin' (of all things) that spoke about the Jackalope...

I found a Jackalope image online, blew it up, cut it out to make the mask and went to town with the black and copper paint. 

I've seen a picture and he looks very at home with his new Jackalope aficionado owner and I had the best fun making him.

Thanks for stopping by today :)

Stay at Home CJ - Mermaid Tales

The CollaborArt "Stay At Home CJ" is a project where  all the participants made just one background and come up with a theme for that background. We then sent our background  to our host, Sarah. She photocopied them and then we all got a full set of backgrounds (and our originals) back to work on. We all work on the same background each month - to the theme set by the backgrounds creator.

March was the turn of Sami who set the theme as Mermaid Tales. I loved Sami's lovely blue background and thought I could see a tail sweeping up the middle there...

I'm loving illustrative styles at the moment. So I wanted to go for a story book look, like it could have fallen out of an actual 'Mermaid Tale' kind of thing...

Sami's background
Fineliner
Neocolour ii's
Posca Pens

Very simple again this month, but I'm learning that I don't have to tip my whole stash onto a page to love it. This CJ has been really good for me to work through ideas and experiment because I know I'm keeping the pages - they aren't going on to someone else. It takes the pressure off and I'm really loving just experimenting.

If you'd like to see everyone elses take on the mermaid theme, click here. Again, all so different and yet using the same theme and same background. Thanks Sami for the lovely background to start with.

And thank you for stopping by today :)

Birthday Card - Cheeky Smile

This is the card I made for Devon's 17th (*sob*) birthday. I found this image online and used it as a reference.

Image source

I cracked open my new fineliners and had great fun playing with those, my Neocolour ii's and coloured uniball pens. I changed her to a little blondie to represent a younger Devvie.

As usual my rubbish photography skills aren't helping me here.

Natural Light

Scanner

 Here's she is on the day... :) 

My Baby

 I'm also counting this as number 11 of my 40 Portraits. 

Thanks for stopping by today :)

Rocking My World Friday...

It's been a couple of weeks since I blogged my Rocking Friday but I'm still counting those things that make me smile every day. I think Virginia has me doing it without even thinking now - that's got to be one of the best gifts that has come out of knowing her! I'm still doing the 100 Happy Days photos on Facebook which also helps me keep track of those positives. Here are just a few from the past couple of weeks...

17 - Finding one of my favourite childhood programmes being repeated on Challenge. Knightmare - obsessed with that show I was ;)

18 - After a week of non-creativity (annoyingly after being ultra-inspired at Comicon) managing to get a chunk of time in the shedio.

19 - Having a moan at my internet monitor (Craig) about not keeping my internet time under control. (Yeah - I have zero willpower) Means he has gone power mad but also that I had time to have 'structured' internet time and crack through a class.

20 - Asking and finding out that my favourite entry to the Twitter Art Exhibit hadn't sold. I dibbed into my birthday money and it will be coming to live with me when the exhibit ends. It reminds me so much of my Little Bear. 

There is still time to buy a mini masterpiece from the Twitter Exhibit and 100% of the proceeds go to the excellent cause. More info and the art that's left is here

21 - Wondering why the Bear was so quiet - only to find him engrossed in a book.

22 - 5 teeny caterpillars came to live with us. Pheebs got a butterfly aquarium a couple Christmases ago and she only just got round to ordering the caterpillars.Think she's got some helpers - don't you? 

23 - Carol, a friend and huge supporter sent me a picture of two canvasses I have done for her. Lovely to see them together.

24 - A tired out Bear, pooped after a day at Nanny's. She had him running round the park, down the slide - up and down the alleyways on a little bike... no wonder he was tired!

25 - Even though I told the girls I don't really go in for these 'special days' they still spoilt me with chocolate and art stuffs on Mothers Day. They know to well that I wont turn down chocolate and arty stuffs ;)
26 - Finding a book from my childhood thanks to http://www.reddit.com/whatsthatbook I didn't know the title/author/illustrator or anything. Just remembered the gorgeous illustrations. Well chuffed!
27 - Ruby and her pink Eiffel Tower for her Capital Cities homework. Job of chief cutter upperer was a nightmare but she was so happy and proud. Yep - it was the only pink, spotty Eiffel Tower on display!
28 - Proud mama Pheebs and her babies. How they had grown already!

29 - Mince & veggies a plenty in our lunch of leftovers from the previous night. It was the first time ever that the Bear had asked for a second bowl! That's appreciation for home cooking!
29.2 - I snuck in a second picture for this day. Ruby won the Easter bonnet competition for her class. Not bad considering she didn't decide to tell me she wanted to enter till the night before. Covered in so much glitter glue it looked like the glitter fairy had sneezed on it!
30 - After helping Devvie format her lappy (without discs!!) and the Bear being over tired and grumpy all night... the glass of whiskey and ginger that Craig gave me was very much appreciated. And didn't last long!
31 - Becoming reacquainted with the Family Canvas.

32 - Ruby's apple tree that she grew from a pip has come back to life. It looked like a dead twig all winter!
33 - The Family Canvas is finished! Hurruh! Proud Little Miss wanted a photo with it before we hung it above the fireplace.
34 - Rediscovering a photo in my archives of the Vans I won and painted with fabric paints. Cooper chewed them up when he was a pup - I miss my Vans!
35 - The Bear was a monster all day this day. But he loves Mr Tedward who has magic calming powers! Yay for Mr Tedward!

36 - Stumbling downstairs to be presented with a cheesy herb omelette and builders strength sweet tea. All made by Pheebs. A lovely, unexpected and very tasty treat.
37 - My first baby turned 17! How can that be? This is her with the card I made her. Of course a birthday also means chocolate cake and a Chinese! Nom!
38 - We have cocoons! Shortly after this picture, proud Mum Pheebs transferred them to their netted aquarium. We watch and wait - this has been so much fun to witness part of the miracle of nature!

Other things that have made me smile...

• Getting out into my shedio today and giving it a good Spring clean, sweep out, wash down, sort my paints and brushes out and give it a general tidy up. Just in time for Devvie to get out there and use it  ;)
• Crossing things off my to-do list this week. You know, the one hanging up in my shedio. That felt GOOD!
• Getting caught up on my blog reading.
• Getting more organised with my time in general after majorly falling off the wagon. Am remembering my word for the year and getting back on track.
• Less internet and TV has equalled more art time. I'm loving it. Someone told me last week that to do what they wanted to do they had to cut out other things completely to get it done. It's true. That's stuck with me this week. I aim to cut out more to do what I love.

That'll do me. I'll try and post more regularly for shorter posts. I'm smiling just typing all this so will have to remember to post on time! To join in, follow me over to Virginia's for the link up and low down on what it's all about. You wont regret it, I promise you!

Thanks for stopping by today :)

Family Collaboration Canvas - The Crow Family

Last year we decided to make a canvas that the whole family would have a hand in making. Something that was ours. I had a big old canvas I had bought to use in a class project and just never got round to it - so it was sitting there, gathering dust. We hauled it out and started adding layers of yummy texture of the top with various papers and Gesso...

Then we all took turns adding splashes of colour to our background.  No rules - just whatever took our each individual fancy. Even Craig had a go splashing some colour and adding a smiley face - and the Bear had a few finger smears on there too.

When we got to this gorgeous riot of colour - I was told it was my job to 'finish it'. We thought a family of crows - six, one to symbolise each of us. And I became a big ol' fraidy cat. Scared of ruining everyone's lovely work. So there it stayed in my shedio all Winter, looking at me accusingly.

Spring rolls around and I get to doing the Soul Food class - one of the lessons was to take inspiration from Pinterest. Well I have a board full of crows on there so that wasn't hard. I also love the painting styles of Flora Bowley and more recently had discovered Tracy Verdugo. I knew I wanted to do crow silhouettes but not heavy black ones. So that's where my using Pinterest as inspiration came in. This weekend I finally bit the bullet and went at it.

Here's a couple of the stages... 

 And the finished canvas  modelled by a proud Little Miss...

We all signed the back and it's now hanging above our fireplace. Guess what? It's the first thing that I have had a hand in making that I have let them display in the house. No kidding - I never display my stuff. I sometimes pin up a postcard sized piece beside my desk if I am particularly happy with it but they usually end up in my journals or folders after a week or so.  I really, really love this canvas. I think it's because we all did it.

Thanks for stopping by for a peek today :)