A Creative Life

Prima Bloom Girl and Westcott Blog Hop

We are SO excited to present you a STRONG and BLOOMING collaboration between the Bloom Girl line by Jamie Dougherty and Westcott! All the designers have been playing with amazing products from Westcott and we were thrilled to base our projects on the Breast Cancer Awareness campaign that is always held during October.

To celebrate this awesome opportunity, both Jamie and Westcott are doing giveaways* to one lucky winner. Nice, right?! To enter the giveaways, you must comment on each blog listed below and make sure to thank our dear Jamie on the Bloom Girls Creative group on Facebook and Westcott on their Facebook page. You can find their products HERE on the Prima website and HERE on the Westcott one.

*The Westcott giveaway is open to US residents only from Oct. 17th 2014 10am PT to Oct. 20th 2014 12am PT. The Bloom Girl giveaway is open worldwide from Oct. 17th 2014 10am PT to Oct. 20th 2014 12am PT.

 

I have created this page for the Blog Hop using the gorgeous Prima Bloom Gardenia stamp, then colouring with a combination of Copic Markers and Prisma Coloured Pencils.  I then fussy cut out the image with Westcott Craft Titanium Bonded Spring Assisted Scissors.  These are awesome as they help prevent your fingers becoming fatigued from being cramped in the handles or normal scissors.  I then had a lot of fun using the new Prima Art Mediums for the background and finishing off with loads of prima flowers and resins.  

 

Bloom Girl Design Team Blog
Jamie Dougherty
Janine Koczwara (You are Here)
Jeannie DeGruccio
Lisa Adametz
Louise Nelson
Mindy Baxter
Stéphanie Beauchemin
Westcott Blog

Now let's get inspired and start hoppin' 

Kitchen Renovations

I was starting to do so much better with this blog.  I felt like I had taken a step in the right direction.  Then I became even more crazy busy than usual!  Who in their right mind would organise an event with an international artist across multiple states and choose to completely renovate their kitchen in the same month?  Apparently I am just crazy enough to attempt that!  Needless to say I think I didn't get to bed before 1am then up by 7am for the entire month of July!

So what has all this craziness got me?  A new (but not yet finished) Kitchen!  We ended up going with an IKEA flat pack kitchen as it was a fraction of the cost of custom built kitchens.  The down side of that is that we had to do all the work.  They do offer an installation service but that would have cost an additional $3000 which we couldn't afford, hence we tackled this job ourselves.  I should say, hubby did all the installations, but I did build the IKEA furniture for him.

So what did the old kitchen look like?  I had to really search to find a photo that sort of showed what it looked like and this was the best I could come up with!

As you can see the fridge has never fit into the allocated spot for it. I put up with this for over 10 years. LOL!  It did bug me EVERY SINGLE DAY!  I would like to say that the kitchen was always cleaner than that, but apart from the fact that I was about to serve up dinner so there are bowls on the bench it is pretty much how it looked! LOL!  No where near enough space for a large family.  I also hated the grey from the time we moved in, but most of the plans we had for this house have not materialised yet so this is the first major renovation we have undertaken.

So we ripped out all the old cabinets and benches.  Complications along the way..... the tiles were stuck on so tightly that they ripped off the wall while we were removing.  Yes, loads of patching required to fix that up.  One of many unforseen complications we found in this DIY job.  At least the new fridge looks nice in the corner. LOL! Our dishwasher never fitted in the actual kitchen so it was on the other side of the bench and I had to walk around every time to load or unload it!

Hubby's handiwork begins!  The next major complication we encountered was a lack of timber beams to be able to screw these cabinets into.  Paul had to cut out the drywall and then screw in crossbeams of timber between the uprights all the way across the top of the wall as well as lower down for all the base cabinets as well.  Our poor wall looked like it had some major truama with patching everywhere and our entire house was covered in fine dust from sanding back the flushing.  We attempted to screen it into an area using plastic drop sheets used as  a curtain but that stuff manages to get everywhere!

It took us quite some time to get to this point and then we had the dilema of how to do the benchtops.  Both Paul and I wanted it to look professional and we didn't have the equipment to create the mitred masons joints needed for the corners of the benchtop.  We could have cut at 45 degree angle, but decided to pay someone to come in and do the propper joints for the benchtop. That was the only help we had in putting this kitchen together.

Once the benchtops were on, it really began to look like a kitchen.  Don't know if you noticed in the first image that there was yucky grey lino on the floor in the kitchen and timber flooring in the dining room.  We put the floating timber floor in around 5 years ago, but didn't finish the kitchen as we knew we ultimately wanted to renovate and didn't know how it would end up affecting the flooring so didn't finish that area.  Well they discontinued the flooring we used so we had to rip up ALL the flooring we had put in 5 years ago (which was basically through our dining and living areas) and change it over to new flooring.  Another complication that we were not expecting and sooooooo much more work!

And this is where we are up to now.  We still need to finish off the electrical, lights need to go under the over head cupboards and at the tops of the glass door cupboards.  The oven needs its feet on it and that raises it up to the height of the benchtop and the flu needs to be installed.  The splashback needs to go on (that got delivered today) and all the finishing pieces need to go on.  When this is done I will share a picture. I now have sooooo much more room in my kitchen.  It is the little things like having my dishwasher right by my sink, that makes life so much easier.  So that is what crazy business can bring you!  Need Paul to be on holidays again so all the little jobs can be finalised, but we work on it a little bit each weekend.

Then of course there were the fabulous classes with Jamie Dougherty at the end of July (and I also travelled to Western Australia to teach) to really top off a frantic busy July!  The classes went so well and everyone loved Jamie so very much.  She is such an amazing teacher and if you ever get a chance to attend a class with her it is well and truly worth it.

Jamie explaining the magic!

A bit of Prima Girl Goodness. We (Steph, Jamie and myself) were all on the DT at the same time.

It was a fully booked out class in Adelaide, every table was full!

A few ladies had left prior to taking this picture but isn't it awesome to see the different ways peoples art turns out. I loved walking around the room and seeing how amazing all the pieces looked.

So you can see that I have been a very very busy girl and it isnt over!  I will be teaching in Melbourne at the beginning of Septermber at Artified.  You can find details on their website if you are interested in booking in.  Artified  Thanks again for stopping by my blog and putting up with my very long breaks between posts!

 

 

 

 

 

Always Look on the Bright Side

Sometimes when things go wrong, or not as planned it can turn into a positive.... well I hope so.  When you have been married for almost 20 years and your household appliances are close to the same age you realise you take them for granted a lot of the time.  I don't think "will the fridge still be working" when I walk into my kitchen!!  I just expect it will be, but when you start to see a puddle of water developing at the base of your almost 20 year old fridge you know the fridge is on its last legs.  The seals were breaking, draws inside had cracked or broken, it wasn't pretty but fridges are expensive.  There was a plan though. We had decided to buy a new fridge in a month or two's time, hoping the old one would just manage to hang in there that long.  It was still keeping food cold but was growing a large ice mound in the bottom of the freezer, despite being a self defrosting freezer.

While all my attention was focused on the fridge, imagine my horror when I walked into the laundry to collect my load of washing to hang out only to find it in the water in the machine, unwashed and the machine refusing to power up in any way shape or form!!  OK, it was 15 years old, had been repaired 3 times, but I just didn't see that coming and I HAD to do the washing.  That is an ongoing job in this house, every day, day after day it just keeps piling up.  So straight to the electrical store we went and lets face it, we may as well kill two birds with one stone and get the fridge at the same time!!  Yep, that was one very expensive shopping trip, thank goodness for 50 months interest free terms!

How is this a positive.....Oh my, oh my, it is now fun to do washing in my brand new front loader and my new fridge has built in ice maker and filtered water (thanks to hubby plumbing it in).  Who knew that new appliances could be so much FUN!!  But now... now I need a new kitchen to go with my new fridge as we had to pull out my pantry to fit the fridge in! Bwahahahahaha!  Hubby has been wanting to renovate the kitchen for the past 5 years and I have always been the one to reign him in due to our finances, but darn it I have no pantry!!  Serious consideration is being given to this option!  However the first quote was WAY too expensive for us to consider.  SIGH!!  We will see, my pantry may just end up being plastic tubs piled on top of each other for a while to come, but a girl can dream and sit online doing kitchen plans on the online planners!  They are cool fun!  See, look what I can play around with!

From one online planner to another.... (they have different cabinets so some changes in the design)

Who knows if it will ever happen, but in the meantime this gives me something to dream happy thoughts about!

In scrappy news.   I have been creating and teaching a lot.  So I will share a few things here. This was a booked out class taught at Paper Flourish using Prima Colour Bloom Sprays.  I even used the sprays to paint in my stamped images. Due to it's rich consistency, this is a great way to watercolour paint stamped images and they are oh so glimmery.

Then we make a layout from one of the tags.

Another booked out technique class.  This uses Pan Pastels with some Prima stamps to create this fun technique on the card.

I also taught this layout using some super fun techniques using the Prima Bloom Stamps and Faber Castell Big Brush Markers.  I love to think of using products in a slightly different way.  This time utilising the florals around the stamp for decorating my page.

It was a long and technique filled class as it was booked out, but everyone loved it.  I love how vibrant and happy the colours of this make me feel.

I have snuck in some shading practice as well.  I havn't been able to do very much lately but was a lot of fun to create this little number using a Jane Davenport upturned face stencil and shaded with a mix of copics, Prisma pencils and acrylic paint pens.

I feel like I am creating more dimension in my faces now with the colouring so that is good.  Wish I could carve out a bit more time for creating but right now I seem to spend all my time prepping for Jamie Dougherty's Bloom Girl Tour!!  

check out the kit for the Bloom Album Class (and there will be 2 Luminarte H20's added to this kit, they just hadn't arrived at the time I photographed)

 

And finally...... we now have a son who has his Learner Driving License.  Oh please wish me luck with that!!  Thanks for stopping by.

National Scrapbook Day with Prima

Welcome to the NSD Prima Blog Hop! Prima has a fun-packed day planned with the wonderful Ambassadors, the talented Design Team, and our amazing Educators! We hope the projects inspire you to dig out your crafty supplies and have fun along with us.

Prima will be giving prizes away all day long on ALL of their social media outlets, along with a stunning main prize hosted on the Prima blog, so make sure you hop around and then comment on Prima's blog here! Not only do we have TONS of inspiration, but we are offering free classes too! Want to learn new techniques? Join in on the marathon of "Live With Prima" classes filled with gorgeous projects kicking off at 7 am PT! Click here to watch!

For the blog hop today I have created this fun mixed media piece using one of the new Bloom Girl stamps by Jamie Dougherty.  I also wanted to test run the new Prima Bloom Sprays and give them a good test run.

I created this piece by stamping (with Momento Black Ink) onto lightweight bleedproof paper and then colouring her with a mix of Copics and Prismacolor Pencils.  I find this is a really fun mix of medias for colouring a stamped image. I should have done it straight on heavy weight copic paper though as I changed my mind on my original design and needed it to be on a heavier base, so adhered to cardstock with Matte Medium, however the light weight paper wrinkled when I did this.

The base was the back of a Prima Paintable, stamped with an older Prima music note stamp (536312), then sprayed with a combination of the following Prima Bloom Sprays - Soft Teal (573782), Peony (573904), Gold Foil (573805).  I also used these sprays over the Prima Resist Canvas Sheet.  All the flowers and lace on the project were coloured with the same sprays as I used all white flowers and sprayed them all to see how the Bloom Sprays work on different textures etc.

So how did I find the Prima Bloom Sprays?  I will admit, I was a bit of a skeptic at first, as I like the sprays I use at the moment but there are some wonderful advantages with the Prima Bloom Sprays.

1)    The spray handle and nozzle is BRILLIANT!!  It sprays in perfect circles each time, with every different bottle I open and use, it is perfect. There was no clogging at any point with any of the bottles and one of them I used heavily in a class that morning (used close to half the bottle)

2)    The spray handle makes it far easier to pump the spray out.  There is no fatigue in your hands when using sprays a lot.  The little blue lock also ensures that you can protect your bottle when in transit from accidentally spraying.

3)    Love that it has a little ball bearing in the bottle to ensure that the spray fluid is always mixed easily.  You swirl the bottle around for a bit and then you hear the ball bearing and you know that all the sediment from the mica has been mixed in properly before spraying.

4)    Because it always sprays evenly, colouring the flowers, lace etc was made particularly easy as when you aimed the nozzle at the flower, that is where the spray ended up!  Same when spraying larger areas, you are not left with half moon areas from a dodgy nozzle, it goes down so evenly.

5)    Has a thicker creamy texture than some sprays, so colours don't muddy quite as much.  But you can also spray some onto a teflon mat and combine colours to create new colours.  I found it better to combine on the mat and then dip/paint the flower with the new colour.

6) Prima Bloom Sprays also dry to an amazing shimmer which is super pretty and they worked well on all the different surfaces I tried, including Primas Shabby Chic Resins.

All in all I think you really need to try one to see how far superior the spray nozzle is.  It really is like nothing else on the market.

 

I adore Jamies Bloom Girl line and if you are in Austarlia and would love to attend a class with Jamie, she will be teaching here in July!

Perth WA – Sat 26^th July

Geraldton WA -  Sun 27^th July

Adelaide SA – Tues 29^th July (if you wish to come to the Adelaide classes please email me)

Tuggerah NSW – Thurs 31^st July

Croyden VIC – Sat 2^nd August

Please refer to the flyer for contact details for booking into these classes.

 

I hope you have been enjoying the Prima NSD Blog hop, please hop on over to the next person on the list!

Olga Vasilieva

Adrienne Ford

Magda Bolinska

Kasia Krzyminska

Kasia Tomaszewska

Felicity Wilson

Delaina Burns

Louise Nelson

Brit Sviggum

Jennifer Snyder
Solange Marques

Kelly Foster

Keren Tamir

Sharon Laakkonen

Patricia Fernandez

Elena Olinevich

Alberto Juarez

Frank Garcia

Maiko Miwa

Trina McClune

Janine Koczwara **You Are Here**

Misty Olsen

Sarinda Jones

Ramona Downing

Candace Hagler

Erin Reed

Sam Ho

 

 

So Excited!

So you have all seen what doing an online class with the fabulous Jamie Dougherty has done for me, totally changing the way I view my abilities with a pencil!  Well I am bringing her out to Australia so more people can experience how fabulous her creative talents are!!  She will be coming to Australia in late July, early August!  I will have the pleasure of teaching alongside of her in Perth and Geraldton, and she will also teach in Adelaide, Tuggerah NSW and Croydon VIC. 

Here are the details of the Perth and Geraldton classes

and this is a sneak peek of my lesson at this event as well. 

Loads and loads of technique in this class and I really love the pretty colours. 

Below are the store details, dates and contacts for the rest of the classes that Jamie will be teaching around Australia.  This is a fantastic opportunity to do a class with a very talented lady.  You do not need to be able to draw at all to create this amazing Bloom Girl, Jamie provides a template and takes you through the colouring process step by step.  I assure you anyone can do this!!  And look at the stunning piece of art you will end up with to put on your wall!

Here is a closer look at the beautiful Bloom Girl Jamie will be teaching.... SIGH. I love this pretty bloom girl so much!  Isn't she dreamy!

I absolutely can't wait for these classes.  I hope you feel inspired to book into them as well.

This is just a short post today but I also wanted to share this video of a scrapbooking layout that I taught at Paper Flourish using PanPastels for the background. I hope you enjoy it.

 

Thanks for stopping by.

 

Sharing my Homework

I have a tendancy to get a little distracted... you know, those squirrel moments that just come upon you.  Drawing is definitely my latest distraction!  Admittedly I am trying to keep up with doing 3 seperate online classes all at once and I am not keeping up very well! There are lots of "homework" projects that need to be done.  I am around 3 weeks behind with my Express Yourself classes now and have only done one assignment with my I Heart Drawing classes (both of these workshops are by Jane Davenport).  Have not started my Bloom Girls 2 work and of course signed up for Bloom Girl Elements by Jamie Dougherty which I am unsure of when I will fit that in as well. Sucker for punishment I tell you!  But I am having FUN!!

Here are some of my homework pieces.  I am really enjoying learning so much more about drawing and surprising myself at times when I complete a task and find I can do it.  There have been moments along the way that I questioned if I had made a big hot mess at times but I kept going with each of them.  One has proportions that are off and it really bugs me, but hey, that also helps me to learn and lets face it I only began drawing back in November.  I try and remind myself of that quite often as I expect a lot from myself and then need to be reminded I have only been drawing a few months.  I really have come a long way in a short time.  Well I think so!

First up.... We were set a task of playing with copics to draw a face.  Now I have lots of copics and very little practice with them but I really enjoyed this task. Blending with copics is rather fun and you can get a finished project quite quickly.

Next.... an expression gallery from one of the first Express Yourself Homework tasks.  This I found to be rather daunting and quite hard.  It took me quite some time to do these.  I had to do them over a few weeks as I found it hard to get my head around drawing the different expressions but I kept going. One of my girls looks like she got punched in the face. Oops! 

Next.... Drawing a face that is "miffed".  This was kind of fun and I didn't want her too angry, I wanted her to be beautiful still, so she is really just a little bit flustered! Had a wonderful time on the background while I was at it.  I am learning to love my Prisma pencils too, they are really so beautiful to play with.

 

 

Then it was onto drawing an open sultry mouth.  Well this is where I went a little haywire and my girl has turned evil! LOL!  I still need to lay down my guide lines to get my proportions right and I tried doing this one without doing that first.  As the class was on expression, I started with her mouth and tried to draw the rest of her around that, but I got the proportions off, being a 3/4 face and all.  Just makes me realise I need a lot more practice at a 3/4 face.  On the upside I love the funky background I created around her with Inktense Pencils and Luminarte Radiant Rains and lots of other Mixed Media products from my ample stash.  She could be a wicked witch from a Disney Movie. LOL!

Then it was onto wide eyes and kissy blowing lips.  This homework had the extra challenge of working on a black gesso background.  Wow, that really changes the way you work. I drew the outlines in Caran D'ache crayons and blended it out with acrylic paint.  I can assure you there were more times than one when I thought I had made a horrible mess, but I am learning to just keep going and most issues can be solved with a bit more paint and shading. Also attempting to use my own handwriting a bit more on my journal pages..... hmmmm need to improve that to make me like it. 

Then finally my last homework piece done this weekend was an excercise on drawing a realistic eye.  Jane really broke it down so well, explaining how the anatomy of the eye works on the areas of light and shade within the eye. I was super happy with how my eyes turned out on this homework.  This face takes up the entire page of my art journal, so it is really big.

 

So lots and lots of practice happening for me.  I really need to do some more scrapbooking for my lessons, but alas I keep getting distracted by my drawing!  Will have to get back to the scrapbooking requirements very soon though.  Thanks for dropping by.

 

It doesn't take long for those weeks to drift by quickly!  I was trying to be so good and update regularly!  I can assure you it is not for lack of things to blog about!  I have done heaps of things I can share.  So lets start there. 

Firstly, I taught this layout for a booked out class at Paper Flourish.  While I was making it I filmed the process and then turned myself into a speedy scrapper on the video.  Sometimes it is just fun to watch how someone else creates!  I even left in the part where I was going one way with the design and then totally changed my mind as it was going to cover up too much of the background and I loved the background and wanted more of it to show.  I think it is good for you to see that it is fine to change your mind, especially if it is for the better!  I will let you in on a little secret.....I change my mind part way through layouts all the time! LOL!

And here is the link to the video showing you the process of the layouts creation:

 

 

Now I have also taught a set of tags this month. Simple, layered tags as last months ones went a touch overtime so I thought it best to make it easier for everyone this month.  I used an older range of Prima, the Rosarian collection.

and then the layout from of the tags

This layout came together so easily and I was really happy with it once I had finished.  I love it when the design just works. Helps to have such cute pictures of the kids to set it off so well.

I have been practicing my drawing like a crazy girl.  I am having so much fun with this new obsession.  I am also seeing that my work is improving as I practice and learn how to fine tune some of the features. I am also trying new mediums as well, which can provide steep learning curves at times, as well as those moments when you fear you have wrecked it all part way through, but it is amazing what working away on those perceived problems can do.  I have even drawn my first sweet whimsical bird as well.  

In other news, I had a birthday.  Yep another year older.  Uuurghhh.  Can't be helped.  The actual age worries me less than the fine lines that accompany it! LOL!  A huge thank you to all the beautiful people who left me birthday wishes on Facebook.  I tried to reply to them all, but it was a rather large list, so not sure if I missed anyone.  If I did it was not intentional at all.  I got a lovely new art table from hubby along with some deliscious supplies.  I think I have even cracked all of them open and had a play already with them.  I confess there are times I get new supplies and they sit for quite some time before i have a chance to play, but this time I have cracked them all open in under a week.  Woohoo to me!  If you have come this far, thank you for stopping by my blog.

 

Quick Process Video

Yes, I am back at the blog post again!!  Soon I will be so regular with my posting it wont amaze me each time I start a new post!  It also helps that I have been creating for myslef more and not just for classes.  I think you get to a point that you are creating so many classes that you lose a bit of interest in creating for yourself until you truly feel like you are learning something new.  That is why I am loving the new focus of learning to draw.  Each time I learn something new and put it into practice I feel that sense of accomplishment, that moment of "wow" I just drew that.  2 months ago I couldn't draw to save myself and now I feel like if someone shows me how to do something new in the drawing area I will be able to give it a good go.  Maybe end up quite happy with the results.  The change of mindset helps so much towards empowering you in your creativity, Just sayin'.  :)

My hubby dear has recently created me a very cool set up (albeit not the best furniture fashion statement but highly functional) for video recording my projects so I hope to start showing a lot more video projects here on my blog.  I will try and video most of the work I do (depending upon when I can sneak his laptop off him to have it connected for recording).  Then a bit of time editing and viola, more stuff to share here and hopefully a great tool for sharing my creative process.

So this week, I have created a couple of journal page projects and I will share one here with you now.  She started as a quick sketch and then after 5 hours of work this is what transpired...

I tried a new way of colouring her hair, using my brand new Faber Castell Pitt pens.  I think they will be well loved in this house!  Mind you, they will be hard pressed to overshadow my Derwent Inktense pencils that have totally stolen my heart.  Check out how they blend with gesso in the video of me creating this girl!  Seriously once you try these pencils you will fall in love, especially if you are like me and love beautiful, vibrant colours.

 

I can also share my card lesson for the month of January.  These cards were based around the beautiful Prima Optimist range.  Yes my love affair with bright and bold colour continues.  I also really love yellow, it makes me happy when I see it and that is always a good thing!

How can you not love a touch of happy yellow!  I don't want a yellow house, but a touch of yellow here and there is a happy thing.

I also taught this Art Journal class to a group of girls at Paper Flourish and one of them was my little girl. She has loved it and has been drawing and colouring in it quite a bit.  All the girls did such an amazing job of their journals.  They all made it their own, changing the colours and placement of a few elements but they really did all look sensational.  The girls were all so excited by what they created as well and it feels so rewarding when you can see how proud they are of what they created.

Miss Kaitlyn has made her Mummy very proud when she coloured this image I stamped for her from the new Bloom Girl Stamps as she recognised that both the neck and the hair under the fringe needed to be darker!  She is only 6 years old, so I think she is doing a wonderful job with her colouring.

So proud of my little girl for her efforts on this page in her journal!

And that is another quick blog post from me!  Better short and sweet than not at all!  Thanks for stopping by.

 

 

More Sketching and a CHA project

Seriously lamenting the lack of hours in a day to get everything I need to get done in! The last 2 weeks have been a blur of class creating.  Prior to that it was CHA creating with a couple of "me" pieces thrown in there.  I think I only have one more class to sort out and them February is finalised as well. Thank Goodness. LOL!  I did sneak in some fun sketching time and have been devouring videos from another Jane Davenport class as well, so all is good around here.

This is one sketch that I have worked on, but I have not yet coloured it.  I have been trying to keep myself focused on getting all those lessons finished first, but soon I will get back to her.

and then I had a bit of fun trying to draw a body for the first time ever!  A few pointers from the Jane Davenport classes I have been watching and I can do this:

Lets face it, I really need to be able to add bodies to the faces in the long run! Next comes things like clothes and such!  There really is no end to all this learning.

As far as my CHA projects go, I can share with you a few projects.  First off is a piece I made using one of the new Bloom Girl Stamps by Jamie Dougherty.  I will be teaching this as a class at Paper Flourish in February.

Loads and loads of fun techniques, from colouring the stamp with Luminarte Twinkling H20's to so many layers of stencils it is going to be fun to remember them all when teaching this!

The kids have been enjoying the school holidays, but they are coming to and end this week.  Can't believe how quickly they have gone by!!  It is kind of nice listening to them play (well the two youngest as the older 3 tend to have their noses caught in electronic devices).  I am sure my little companion Ashton will be very lonely when school goes back!

Just a short post today to keep me on track with better blogging this year. I am also going to start doing more video tutorials from class samples and upload them here after the classes have been run.  Not quite sure how I will find the time for that, but really want to get on top of all these time taking processes. I do have a couple done already that I will share in the future. Thanks for stopping by.

Canvases and Classes

I am yet again procrastinating!  Surprise, surprise!! Every time I need to do a lot of something I don't feel like, I tend to just want to do something entirely different.  It really isn't a good way to deal with deadlines, or daily stresses, but avoidance seems to be far more enjoyable than digging in and getting the job (that I clearly would prefer not to be doing) done!  Ironically I would be a lot less stressed if I just wrote a to do list and checked everything off one by one and then got onto the stuff I wanted to do.  However I don't seem to be functioning in this manner!  So I have been drawing some more instead and I am still revelling in that feeling of creating for me!  On the flip side I lay awake at night chastising myself for not completing the long list of other things that need to be done!

So, my latest procrastination project is a pretty girl with long hair. I need to keep working at techniques, such as hair as I find this really hard to do.  Each time I start drawing, I try to challenge myself to do something slightly different.  

 

In my head I had a vision of a light and airy background with a feeling of Springtime.  I discovered it can be quite a challenge to create a multi-layered background that is light and airy.  Took a lot of time to do this one, more because I was just trying to figure out what would work in each layer without making the whole canvas look too dark, but at the same time give layers of interest and detail.  I love finishing a project and look forward to what I will draw next.  The possibilities are endless!

I truly believe that just about anyone can create these girls with a few classes.  I know I do go on, but it has been such an eye opening experience after doing Jamie Dougherty's Online Bloom Girl class that I thoroughly recommend doing one.  I am booked into her upcoming workshop, starting in February and just can't wait.  You can find the details for her class here.

I also purchased a Jane Davenport online workshop as well.  That was really helpful for some of the techniques with drawing some of the facial features, but I have to confess I prefer Jamies way of shading and colouring skin with Pan Pastells!  I find it a lot more simple than trying to fuss around with acrylic paint, that stuff can be hard to tame at times!  Right now I am trying to work out if I want to do Janes class on drawing emotion, or her one on drawing figures.  Wish I could afford to do both, but as one is $85 and the other $155 I need to decide which is more important to me right now.  Ah the decisions!!!

So while I am debating what classes to take myself, I am creating and teaching a heap of my own classes in order to pay for the others.  Vicious cycle. LOL!  For those of you in Adelaide, I have been teaching tag classes each month.  This month I have been focusing on techniques with Faber Castell Gelatos.  I have put so many different little techniques in the class it makes it a bit hard to get through all 3 tags in the one lesson! I seem to do that to myself (and those attending my classes quite regularly!)  I used the Prima All About Me Range for these.  Love the shades of Blue and Teal.

 

For those that want to do more with these tags they can book into my layout class where I use one of the tags to create a layout.  

So this is me for the last week. I really am trying to remedy my bad blogging, so I am making shorter but more frequent posts, hopefully.  Thanks for stopping by.