Works in Progress

Heres a few of the collages I'm working on at the moment....
And here's some of my new ACEO's to list/have been listed in Etsy!



And if your interested in trading send me a convo on etsy and we'll go from there!

My first BNS on Etsy

Woohoo! My First BNS!
For everyone who doesn't know (and I only recently understood the concept), a BNS or buy and stay is a treasury list to promote sellers.
Its held in a number of rounds, and some have different rules with minimum buys etc. But basically you buy something from one of the shops listed and then post a comment listing the transaction id and the shop name. And then your shop gets a turn in the next round. Simple.

http://www.etsy.com/treasury/MTIzNTgzMDJ8NTc4NDkyNjYy/open-bns-oh-so-blueby-comfy-36-sales

So please go and take a look at the wonderful stuff on offer in the shops (mine included) and don't forget to leave a comment saying pixiecorpse sent you offer, I would totally appreciate that one!
Thanks and don't forget to check out my new ACEO's and paintings while your there!

Update on Sisters Painting...

Well I knew I was terrible at taking photos so here's my sisters fantastic photographic skills (oh and a better camera than my lame camera phone) at work.

Thinking about the New Year…

I know there's resolutions to be had, which I will decide upon later..

But the main decision has to be which way my art work is going to go, and I had a brainwave of doing nude ACEO's, I've always liked painting nudes and seem to do it best so I think that is how its going to be this year....

Nudes, nudes and more nudes...

A Belated Merry Christmas

Well here it is better late than never, hehe.

So I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and Santa brought you everything you asked for!

Ours was good, a little stressful with all the toys that needed an engineers degree to asemble, and the fact that I went out to buy batteries on Christmas Eve and came back with AA's and all the toys needed AAA or C batteries. Oh well...

But at least we have a giant stash of AA bateries now should we need them...

And I'm super happy that my mum and sister both loved their knitted hats and neckwarmers (my sister also got wristwarmers too).

And the text I got from my sister telling me she had already hung the painting I did for her, was a little worried because I didn't think it looked like Tim Minchin, but she loves it so wahay!

Now I'm just getting itchy fingers to start the 100 books in 2010, I have just got 3 new books that are just screaming "read me" but I must be patient, it's only a week...

Family Update

Well that's the last playgroup for a fortnight, daughter did really well today and was quite chatty with some of the other mums which isn't like her at all so was very proud, maybe it was the potential Easter egg.
Was a bit strange hubby not being around for most of the day as he had to go to his mums, first it was to sort out her cats injections (why she would book the cat in for injections when shes just had a foot operation is anyone's guess). Then it was to move her TV and laptop, and then it was to be a witness for the council because she was allegedly being a bad neighbour to the lady who lives upstairs (whilst she was in hospital?).
I still haven't finished sorting out all the stuff from the loft! And its getting me more and more angry as I am sleeping on the floor in the kids room.
Today I wanted to give the bathroom a little clean, do the pots and some ironing and maybe get through some of the loft stuff but there's little use in trying to do anything with the kids around because one of them always wants something! And trying to get anything done in the kitchen with daughter in the garden is nigh on impossible.
although the previous two days we've been trying to sort out the garden and daughter has been a bit helpful with that. We were going to get a skip for all the rubbish but my life its expensive so the pile of stones I made by the shed on the first day had to be moved back to the bottom of the garden because then at least we can have a lawn by the summer for the kids to play on.

Piet Mondrian

This is a sneaky post really to plug my etsy shop because I have just made an ACEO (2.5" x 3.5") in the style of Mondrian. And even the simplicity of his images is very hard to do, getting straight edges for starters, drives me crazy. But the effects are amazing. When I saw the image of the Mondrian Building above I thought it was a museum of Mondrian's work but I'm not sure I think it may just be someone's house. I wonder if hubby would let us do it to ours? I doubt it.
And considering Mondrian died it 1944 its great how his paintings are fresh and exciting even today.
If you want to know more about Mondrian click here for the Wikipedia.
If you haven't guessed already the bottom image is the one available in my etsy shop. Just click the image to view the listing.

How do they do it??

How does everyone manage to get so much done while I'm left floundering about and scratching my head (better time management you say....Yeah your probably right)
But what I mean is if I try to drop the requisite numbers on entrecard, I don't get anything else done. If I actually get some art work done nothing gets done on the pc.
Although with my new found information on ACEO's I have managed to do some work on those whilst putting the kids to bed but its only the initial Biro or pencil sketch that needs painting afterwards, but that's a definite saving of some time once they're asleep. But it can be a struggle if our daughter is feeling a little bit naughty and decides that I'm not really using the pencils etc. and she wants them.
And I need to buy a marker or a stupidly small paintbrush for the more fiddly pictures, because the ones I've got just don't cut it. And it doesn't matter if I've just bought them or how pricey they are the bristles ALWAYS start to deviate from the initial shape and blob paint all over where I really don't want it to go.
So how do you manage it all, the work and all the social networking/ promotions stuff and painting so little and finely because I want to know!

Resolutions Anyone?

Well its almost upon us...

Yep won't be long before its 2009 and how long will it take you to get the date right when your writing cheques or paying in at the bank...

Its usually about May for me hehe...

Anyway have you all decided what you will be giving up/trying to achieve in 2009. Personally I would love to drop about 4 stone ( she says whilst munching on chocolate), I have very bad will power when it comes to food, just ask my hubby...thats why he does the food shopping now.

So I thought I would go with something a little more realisti and obtainable which is to enter as many open exhibitions as I can this year. Even if I only enter one that will be a start and one better than 2008.

To get the ball rolling I have the January edition of "The Artist" magazine with a list of exhibitions going on throughout the country. I've had a little look and am already wondering how I will manage it. O.k so the local gallery in Hull holds one every year so I had better enter that one, but with the others dotted around the country I'm beginning to have doubts on how I will manage to get the work to the galleries in question. Obviously travelling up and down the country dropping off a painting here and a painting there is out of the question. Especially with no car and 2 teeny weenies in tow. So I think a whole bunch of emails will have to be sent out this week making enquiries, as I don't want to get the forms and fill them in to be told I have to get to London to drop the painting off in person...

Plus with the different types of categories within all the exhibitions it would cost me a fair bit in supplies, but the challenge to do landscapes and portraits in a variety of mediums would be very exciting. Hmmm maybe if I don't manage to enter any of the exhibitions I could still make a piece of work within those fields just to see how it goes.

So thats mine...What's yours???

Doodles...

Hubby was kind enough to get rid of some junk from my computer today so that gave me some free time to get a few pots washed and a little bit of ironing done.
I'm also working on a new series of paintings, it's almost a collaboration with our two year old daughter as her doodles/drawings have given me a lot of inspiration.
It's amazing what some of her scribblings resemble. There are fish, dogs, birds even one that looks like the devil, but then she was born on 06/06/06 so I'm not that surprised by the last one.
I've just done a few simple sketches in my sketchbook at the moment, still mulling over how to do the background, but I'm going to have a look at some landscape photos online to see if any catch my eye.
Once that's decided I'm all ready to paint, paint, paint!!!

Hmmm....

Well the cheque I was hoping to recieve on Monday hasn't arrived yet so I'm still busy working on the greetings cards so as soon as the cheque arrives/clears I can pop them in my etsy shop. I have four almost five sets done now so that should be good.

We're also in the process of moving the kids into the bigger bedroom so they have more room to play and hubby and I get the small one in the back, so that's been keeping me pretty busy too, especially since both rooms need the wallpaper taking off and painting, why we didn't decorate as soon as we moved in over two years ago I have no idea, but at least its getting done now.

At least Christmas is sorted out family wise so that's one less thing to think about. Now we just have to put the decorations and tree up on Monday and then work on getting the kitchen sorted out if we're having two extra for Xmas, then its just work that I'll have to worry about until the cleaning needs doing hehe...

So tonight I'm going to be finishing up the cards I have done already and adding a few extra to the ones I messed up with paint on the inside of the card oops...But that's OK because I can use them for the postcard exhibition that I think its a bit late for entering this year but I can always get a heads up for next year...

http://www.surfacegallery.org/index.php/whats_on/forthcoming/postcard_show_2008/

For anyone who's interested in taking part.

Getting There Slowly

Well I've been busy busy busy, not necessarily all work but it doesn't feel like I've stopped for a while now.

What have I been up to...Well firstly I've been researching which banks it would be best to go with and I'm going to sort that out on Tuesday as I'm in town for an interview, I know another one, also Wednesday I've got a 3 hour course to attend to do with market research and the initial stages of starting my own business. Had my initial funding interview on Wednesday afternoon, it went well and didn't take the full hour like it was supposed to.They never do even the doctors I spend longer in the waiting room hehe.

But I digress, got a few forms to fill in from Wednesday and have to fill a couple of them in by Tuesday so I can get a market research grant, which will be a great boost, means I'd be able to get a lot of work done in one go and put it all in the shop to see if it sells. Very handy.

I've also started phase 3 of the cards, hopefully by the end of tomorrow I will have finished at least one set to put in the shop. I also thought of a few more things I could paint etc. so phase 1 of the new batch is also under way. So its quite good at the moment, with plenty to do and with doing a combination of phases 1,2 and 3 I can mix it up and not get fed up of just tracing images all day and night for a fortnight.

Also hubby's taking our 2 year old daughter on a play date tomorrow so they will be gone all day so as long as I can keep our son quiet or asleep I can get a lot more work done, although we are swapping the bedrooms over at the minute so think that will be the main job I do tomorrow.

Phase 2

As I now have over 73 images to work on although I am still finding more and more to tweek before I adapt them to stage 2 I managed to get some cards and some tracing paper when I left my interview yesterday.

The interview went well but need to speak to the bank before I can go ahead with the course although if the interview next Wednesday goes ok it won't really make my need for the bank to be so great so hopefully it will all work out, if not I'm just going to have to get any old job and save up some cash to keep funding my art and the projects I want to do so then it won't matter if it takes a little while to sell anything.

Anyway back to phase 2, as I've realised I don't have a scalpel any more...Its gone awol somewhere in the house, I need to buy a new one and may as well buy a new cutting board too. So that will be the next purchase, but for now I can work on phase 2 which is getting all the images I have done so far onto tracing paper ready to transfer to card to cut out once I have the tools for the job. Plus I.m thinking of actually painting some of the images onto the cards instead but I'm still a little undecided so doing it this way gives me plenty of time to think about it.

Crazy Days

Phew its been a crazy start to the week, been so busy. Hubby's had toothache and a swollen face from an infection so I've had to keep an eye on him hopefully the swelling will go down tomorrow then he can eat something. And because he's unwell the kids seem to want even more attention just to get me as burnt out as quickly as possible.

Managed to get a little bit of painting done last night in between making sure our daughter stayed on her bed and checking on my hubby asleep on the sofa. I just wish the paint I have would go on smoother than it does, I don't mind brush strokes on my work but the paint seems to be so thin and won't cover my pencil underneath unless I do about 30 coats... oh well, better get the stuff out to do some more. Might have to cancel my interview tomorrow and rebook it for another day once hubby's had his tooth out, its so much harder trying to sort out things like appointments when there's 3 other people in the mix, but I wouldn't change it for the world...

Black and White

Managed to start a painting last night but it was getting late and I was getting a little disillusioned with my paint mixing abilities, so I gave up and went to bed instead, feel a bit more confident that the paint will mix better for me tonight if I don't decide to just do the painting black and white instead.but going to wait til daughters asleep before I start because I'll have to keep running up and down the stairs to make sure she's still in her bed. I'm sure she only does it because she thinks I need the exercise.

But whilst I'm waiting for her to sleep I'm going to be putting some images into my sketchbook to show my greetings cards line at the interview on Wednesday.

I'm also going to put some songs onto my internet playlist so I have something to listen to to keep me working.

Update To Rain Stopped Play

Well I've found some canvas board its for oils and I'm painting in acrylics but I need something to take with me on Wednesday so I thought I'll give it a whirl, it feels a bit sticky so I don't think I'll be able to sell them...

i was going to use them to paint oil paintings of the kids for the relatives but now we're going to get a family portrait done and I've been making some calenders and photo diaries on line. Should be able to buy them in a couple of weeks and if they're any good then that's what they'll get every xmas.

If not I can always make them little photo scrapbooks every year. Already get our daughter drawing and painting pictures for them to put in frames as like a little extra present. She's very good at it already, the other day I got her painting and one of them actually looked like a boat and another looked like a snail. Not bad for 2 and a half.