Sunshine and shadows

Hazelnuts

Watercolour on paper made in India

 

No the nutcrackers didn't have to come out for these, as they were duds.  Still, nice enough to paint.

Eating an apple

Moleskine Sketchbook

 

One day during stewarding at the Exhibition I decided to try out a new hatching design I'd seen.

So as I ate my apple I created this little series of drawings.

Flower Shop

Flower Shop

Pen & ink with Watercolour

A3

Sold

This painting is of a specific flower shop, but because the recipient isn't getting it for a while I've removed the name which I'd put in the top left hand corner.  This is a photo, I got it scanned but it bleached out the pale pink.

I'm a little teapot

I'm a little teapot

A5 size

Sold

A little bit of fun.  One lump or two?

Rose

Rose

A5 size

Sold

Can you guess what I've painted the rose onto?  Not the usual kind of paper... :)
It was nice to talk to the buyer (a man from Cambridge) and explain this piece today.



A little street scene

 Fussen, Bavaria

Hahnemuhle Paper 20 x 50 cm

Sold

Trying the capture the sunshine and the odd angles of the buildings was an interesting experience.
I'm so happy, this is the second piece sold in the first day of the exhibition!

Rose Cottage

Mixed Media

50 x 20 cm Hahnemuhle Paper

Sold

 

This is the piece I have been working on.  Hope you like it.
Created especially for a very dear friend of all her favourites.

Deadlines

I'm going to hold you all in suspense for a few days!  Something particularly lovely is being painted and I rather quite like it so far...

Feather and cotton bud with ink

 On another note the Creative Drawing course has started at long last and I have black stained fingers as a result of spending two and half hours messing about with ink, cocktail sticks, lollipop sticks, cotton wool bud sticks, pieces of cardboard, a feather, a straw and a piece of tin foil.

Cardboard and ink

 My friend Heather loved it and created some fabulous expressive "lines" with cardboard and black ink.  My favourite was the feather together with the cotton wool bud sticks.

Viola

Watercolour

10" x 10"

Sold

 

I was asked to paint some violets for a September birthday, the only problem being that they flower during late Winter-Spring. 

I prefer to paint the real-thing and pondered this predicament.

Last Saturday I went to visit Beth Chatto's garden.  Hurray, there were violets for sale and one had flowers.  When I read the plant label it was called Viola odorata "Miracle Classy Blue".  I was particularly surprised but gladdened by this miracle, I bought it home and set to with earnest!

My friend Janet told me this: In the Language of Flowers, Violets mean "Faithfulness, Watchfulness and Modesty".  This painting is for a beautiful little girl :) and I am so delighted to know this; I shall definitely tell her Mum!

 



Hen Party

Watercolour

Sold

 

This painting caused quite a stir in the Spring Exhibition of Ely Watercolour Workshop.

One lady was convinced I'd sneaked round her house and painted her chickens without permission.  Day after day she came in, making us giggle.  My friends who had seen my hens tried telling her they were mine and even told her the names of them.  I don't think she was ever convinced!

Creative Expression Workshop

This is the work of Marianne.
I love the depth of this, I really feel that I'm the person dipping my toes into the water!
 

This is the work of Sandra. 
The rock is so solid and really depicts security and I can imagine myself standing there being refreshed.

This is my work.
I should have paid attention to spelling; I don't want to change it!
The silver spots are depicting manna - a picture I saw on holiday.  The rest I won't explain.

Today I did a workshop with ladies from church.

I asked them to create a work expressing the word "Refreshing".

Our time of creating art together brought us all joy, next time I hope for more people.

Before Zentangle

Marker on Keyboard

 

Three years ago I had a white keyboard, I doodled on it, bit by bit, through phonecalls instead of on paper.  (My hubby doesn't call this officially art.) 

 

Three months ago a work colleague tipped me off about Zentangle.  I've known for years that doodling aids concentration.  I like to think I practiced doodling before Rick and Maria came up with Zentangle.  For more info about Zentangle see the link:

http://www.zentangle.com/

Goodbye Ely Wool Shop

Mixed Media

Moleskine watercolour pad

 

This painting is in my sketchbook of Ely Wool Shop on St Mary's Street.
Sadly Sandra is closing the shop tomorrow, very sad to see it go.

I sat in the shop drawing and painting this one freezing day in March, warmed up by Sandra's cheerfulness and a cup of tea.

Gargoyle

Watercolour

 

I had a phase a few years ago of looking out for gargoyles.  I photographed them, painted them and created them in clay.  I even immortalised my dog in a gargoyle caricature.

 

This sweet little crowned lion was in quite a state of disrepair.

Featuring on the door posts of St Martin's Church, Fincham.

Rubbish?

Pen & Ink

Sometimes I just have to draw something, just to rejuvenate my joy, refresh my brain and relax.

This was one of those moments.

Spring Forth

Hannemuhle Paper 20x50cm

Mixed Media

For Sale

Ely Art Exhibition

6 to 18 August - 11 am to 5 pm daily

Sun 19 August - 11 am to 3 pm

Hayward Theatre, The Gallery, Ely

Inspired by the walk we did as part of the National Garden Scheme.  We visited Rosewell House, Ely and the garden had a fabulous herbaceous border and a great view of Ely Cathedral.

Sweet packaging

Watercolour

7 x 5"

I had such fun painting this.

Black Canyon

Watercolour

Trying to capture the depth of this canyon was a definite challenge.

Rawr Chocolate Packaging

I can't believe it was so long ago, but I designed doodles for Rawr Chocolate in 2009.

The tree design isn't mine though it looks great together with the rest.
The story is on their blog.
http://www.rawrchoc.com/

See below for what Rawr Chocolate is:
At Rawr we are devoted to making chocolate with the highest quality raw, organic ingredients we can find. Completely dairy-free with no added refined sugar, packed with antioxidants, no artificial this or the other, no hydrogenated or chemical preservative nonsense, no cheap emulsifiers and no colourings. Guilt-free chocolate! Completely raw, completely yummy!

Zooming in part 2

I wanted to re-create this piece on canvas.

Mixed media.

For Sale

For part of this, I dug out the oilbars and forgot that I needed turps to clean my hands.

Thankfully hubby was on hand with some thinners.

See this at Ely Art Society Exhibition

Rug Design re-design

This rug design sketch, now re-designed into cards.

I loved the way these turned out.

For Sale at

Ely Art Society Exhibition

Terracotta Warriors

Another evening, another sketch, now remade into cards :)

The "flower" design came from the box this terracotta warrior was bought in.

For sale at
Ely Art Society Exhibition

After Lowry

A modern take in a Lowry style, of sale shopping.

A bit of an experiment which probably would have gone in the bin at one time.  Glad I kept it!

 

 

Cards
For Sale at
Ely Art Society Exhibition

Collage Cards



These cards were made at a group called "Paper, Patch and Sew"

My first try at collage since the course

For Sale at

Ely Art Exhibition

6 to 18 August - 11 am to 5 pm daily

Sun 19 August - 11 am to 3 pm

Hayward Theatre, The Gallery, Ely

We be vikings!

Mixed media

34x19.5 cm

For Sale

A piece imprinted and then painted.

Just a bit of fun :)

Daisy sleeping beauty

Mixed Media

Size A2 "ish"

Sold

Daisy often sleeps on the windowsill waiting for her master to come home.

Created with hand painted papers during my art course and collaged; extra painting to define.

Rejoicing desert roses

Watercolour

A3 sized on cartridge paper

This was the other part of the stamp I made at art class.  To continue the rose theme, I chose

Isaiah 35 - specifically "the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose; it shall blossom abundantly and rejoice..."  24 roses on this piece.

A dozen roses?

Watercolour

A3 sized on cartridge paper

At the art course, we did printing, this was a random shape taken from one of my sketches on the first day; it reminded me of a rose.  So, I decided to print a random pattern and paint on top of it with watercolour the inside petals of a rose.

A dozen roses, or should it really be a bakers dozen?

Sketch outside

Mixed Media

It's Summer, my watercolour group goes outside and Tuesday I sketched with a stick.

Impossible to photograph, but you get the idea.

Abstract still life

Mixed Media

Apologies for the bad angle, couldn't get a decent photo.
It was mounted on the wall in the studio of the art course.
Hand coloured paper created in one session.
Next session "draw" with scissors the parts of a still life that caught my interest.

Silver Spoon

Watercolour

Here are a couple of Silver Spoon packaging styles.

The one with a pink background was one of my very first attempts.

As usual painted without using masking fluid, don't like to make it too easy!

Twiglets

Mixed Media

This Twiglet sketch was drawn with a twig, which I thought was highly appropriate.

Yummy!

Graphite

Sometimes I just buy something because I love the packaging.

This box of chocolate bears was just so jolly and got quite battered until I found time to draw it.

Afterwards it was snapped up and the contents eaten by one very happy young man...

Zooming in

 

Mixed media

I was encouraged to take a slice across part of the previous painting and this is what I did!

I love the texture, the energy and the freedom.  A far cry from my normal style.

Sweep, crispy, line = flow

Mixed media

I had to choose three words to describe my plant, and sum them up with one encompassing word.  Thinking of those words, the brief was to draw less than 15 lines to describe the plant.

I chose to add black to accentuate the "spaces" and white and green to various parts of the leaves/stalks.  The pink and yellow adds a nod towards the tulip colours.

Tulips Closeup

Mixed Media

During the creative drawing course, this piece was to be a "letter box" view of part of the flowers in front of me, thinking about the "spaces".  It could have been landscape or portrait. I chose the flower heads and put together oil pastel and ink to see what it does.

Tulip Stalks

Mixed Media

This is a piece from the "Creative Drawing" course, in the style of Leonardo Da Vinci.

Bet you won't guess what mixed media is used...

Roman Legionary

Watercolour

NFS

I painted this guy who posed at the English Heritage "Festival of History".

I couldn't resist his knobbly knees!

Chocolate :)

mixed media

sketch

I thought this sketch ended up really enticing!