Altering Play

Inspired by the articles in the new issue of Somerset Life, altering household items. The first thing is I made is Coffee filter Flowers. I made mine from flat bottom filters and am trying to make them look like Oriental Poppies. I need to get some floral tape to add stems, but you can see in the picture how I coloured them using watercolour crayons and I also added a bit of acrylic paint for that Rich RED. The stamens or center is tissue rolled up and shredded.

The other item I altered was clothes pegs. What fun this was! :) Not sure what I am going to do with them. Maybe glue them on to a strip of wood to make a place to clip on cards and such.

I am still working on my studio. Here is a more recent shot showing the colour on the walls and my track lighting. This is the wall where my counter will go. I am busy painting trim at the moment and the vinyl floor is on order. Almost there!

Art Studio from the Ground Up

This is the East wall before my door went in.

This is the north wall.

This is the west wall. It is so cool that in my new studio I have a north window, a window in my door on the east side and in my old space a huge window to the west. How lucky am I!!!

This is the north wall where my book cases used to be and where we punched through to my new space. My addition is 12 x 16 ft. Wahoo! Of course I couldn't wait to test it out and moved a bunch of stuff in.

I am going to put on a deck out the same level as my studio.

It will be as wide as my room and go to the corner of the house so it will be about 12 x 12 ft.

Roof is framed in and we are able to stay dry!

Now you can see my door and window placement.

Walls going up. Now it is starting to look like something. :)

Rick my contractor. The insulation and floor are going in. We had strong winds and hail almost everyday for this part of the work! Geesh! I put sawdust down to get us out of the mud.

Floor joists up.

The footings are done, ready for the beam.

This is the beginning, we started the last week in March. Rick my contractor was great! He was very flexible and patient and let me do as much stuff as I was able to save money on the project. In this picture the forms for the footings are being made. I dug the holes, lots of mud and the weather didn't cooperate much!

This is the before. My art studio was approximately 10 x 11 feet. It looked like a closet with all my stuff in there! There was no floor space left except for a skinny trail to my desk!

Thank you Kelly!

I won, I won! Kelly http://www.kelspace.typepad.com had a give away on her blog and I was the lucky recipient of this beautiful felted vase. It proudly sits on my desk in my art studio holding at the moment a big handful of big yellow daffs. I love it Kelly, thanks so much!!! I have been working away on my art studio and I am at the stage of the drywall is about to go up. I am so keen to move in to it!!!

Shadows

I have been adding low lights and shadows and shading to the Red Head. To photograph my journal page the day light was fading so I just went with it. It is a bit soft but I prefer the natural light to the flash. Does she look much different from the previous post? Hmmm . . . . yes I think so.

Watercolour Portraits

The Studio construction is moving along and I also got in some art time over the last few days. I took a workshop last Sunday, Watercolour Portraits with Aleesha Davis Fowlie at Island Blue Print in Victoria and had a great time. I learned quite a few things.
1. Don't be in a hurry to get it done, build your layers up.
2. Use transparent pigments.
3. Use a light a mark maker possible to start off with so you don't see any lines.
4. Mix enough colour
5. My colour mixing is not too bad
I didn't like the image I choose in class. It was too small. I did the one above to try and practice all the things we learned in class I still have some work to do on it. I want to do a series of portraits to learn more, after all its all about the process!

Art Studio in progress!

I may not be posting much art for a little while as my new Art Studio is currently under construction. I am so excited. I have ordered my new door and window. This is what my new door will look like. More or less anyway. I took pictures in the store of the window and then the door and Photoshoped them together. This is my big splurg for my studio and I am so happy I spent the big bucks on this baby. Well I better get out there and get back to work. Insert big grin here!!!

My Moo Card Designs

I had fun coming up with Moo Cards designs from various bits of my art and photography. They should be arriving any day now and I am so excited to see how they have turned out. They are a great deal and you can order yours at www.Moo.com it is really easy. :)

ByHand Bunny challenge strikes again!

Some Bunny loves you! Or Bunny Love This Bunny is definitely all about love, a cupid of sorts that just has to give people the feeling of being loved and loving. I don't know why I like this template so much, but I do. Hugs Pattio

The ByHand Bunny Challenge

This Royal Bunny, Princess Roxanne has the gift of laying golden eggs!

This is for the Tuesday ByHand Challenge. This weeks challenge was to use this template of a bunny and go forth and create with it. I made mine about 6 inches long and collaged on some papers and added the grungeboard flourish and a brass crown for the princess. I am not sure if I will add her to this Journal or I have this other one that I am tempted to use. Hmmmmmm . . .

Paradise Found

The start to this page was inspired by Suzi Blu. I wanted to include an accordion page. I also wanted to incorporate soft blue and greens. I used acrylics to start with white and blue and green painting with my favorite tool, the credit card.

The added accordion page already had the watercolour of the strawberries on the inside and on the outside I added acrylics to match the rest of my spread.

From my colour palette I found items in my piles of ephemera that seemed to fit, an abandoned watercolour of a Calla lily, me in my garden and me at 5 years old on a family vacation.

Paradise is many things to different people and I am sure at different stages of your life you would give lots of different answers as well. My patio and garden are one of my paradises. Paradises, I feel blessed to have many of. :)