Day 25, Saturday

Wow I cant believe we are as far as day 25 for the blog-along. I have really enjoyed being a part of this again, and getting to meet new people and catch up on blogs I had let slip. And trying to set myself up with the daily practice of writing.

Last night I watched Greys Anatomy until around 130am. So late, especially as I was so tired after college. However Friday is our night off, so hubby was xboxing and I got the TV. Normally I would art but, well I was tired!

Today however was homework day. so once we were all up and about, that was my plan. Hubby was planning on being in the workshop making a wooden store box for the front door step, our daughter made fruit scones before finding the TV. But our son, has woken up not being well. He has been super tired since Scouts night on Wednesday, we think that along a late night last night has left his body unable to fight the effects of an cold. We got him to do a lateral flow test as there are positive cases in school and scouts, he has tested negative, we don’t think it is anything more than a cold, but he has been bunged up, sleepy and lethargic all day. I have given him paracetamol and tested his temperature and he seems to be responding. I think he just needs sleep. He has been in front of Netflix all day, ive plied him with fluid and he has eaten well all day. We three are on the sofa catching up on the F1 qualifier, we shall be sending him to bed early though to get a good nights sleep.

I did do my homework today, which was to write up our techniques and evaluations of yesterdays work. I enjoyed the day, and I think I want to try the painting again, just not today.

After this I played with Alcohol inks. Making a few sheets of blue/red and tried to make a jellyfish. Alcohol inks are very unpredictable but a lot of fun.

The qualifier was a bit of a shock and a great line up ready for tomorrow’s race.

I hope everyone’s weekends are going well. See you tomorrow!

Disclaimer: 

All opinions expressed here are my own.
I paid for any products discussed.
I received no payment and I am not affiliated in any way with any brand mentioned herein.

Friday is College Day

I’m writing this on Saturday, I am a day behind, but yesterday was college day, and last night I was exhausted and I had an evening of self indulgent TV watching, catching up on S16 of Greys Anatomy. Yes I know I’m a long way behind, but I kind of gave up TV me time for the duration of lockdown and am only just getting back into the swing of it.

Anyway what you really want to know about is “what Donna did at college”.

So here we go, I had a morning of learning acrylic paints and techniques. Here is the final piece that is being used as the sketchbook piece and is being written up.

Acrylic Paint Techniques

The finished styles here are :

  • Blending : Using a single colour mixed with differening levels of white to blend and create gradient
  • Glazing – overlay a wash of acrylic ontop of other layers
  • Impasto – thick paint applied with pallete brush
  • Broken Colour – using the brush to dab colour on, impressionistic Monet style
  • Sgfritto – Italian for “scratching” into wet paint to reveal the colour below
  • Mark Making – using a variety of tools to make marks with a different colour to the base.

After this we studied Eileen Agar‘s The Bird Nest.

Giclee Print: The Bird's Nest, 1969 by Eileen Agar : 24x18in in 2021 | Bird artwork, Bird art, Funky art
Eileen Agar, The Bird Nest

Our task for the afternoon was to study this painting and then create our own painting from it, using the techniques we have been learning.

Using an A3 sheet of acrylic paper, I decided to create a base colour of yellow, before then drawing the image outline, and beginning to block out colour.

From here, further colour was added

And then continuing to add colour and mark making.

Then it was time to go home!

The drive home was a bit chaotic, not least because of the amount of traffic trying to get out city, but then near petrol stations queuing was starting to form, due to the chaos of our media reporting fuel shortages, but also a little bump with 2 cars at a roundabout, causing additional stresses!

Anyway once I was home, it was kids activity night so they were off here there and everywhere as well as excessive yawning from me, and me as already mentioned in front of the TV.

Disclaimer: 

All opinions expressed here are my own.
I paid for any products discussed.
I received no payment and I am not affiliated in any way with any brand mentioned herein.

Social Media Free Day

What a day, I genuinely took a day off social media. OK not a complete 24 hours, but most of the day. I didn’t use my laptop for anything. Everything I did today was done in the spur of the moment, listening to the radio or a podcast. Artwork, sewing and journal making as well as cooking hubby’s favourite evening meal.

I wasn’t going to write the blog because I was just not feeling it, but I made a promise to blog, and I was just being lazy. So I apologise in advance in this becomes a little brief. I am writing whilst watching TV “Jays Yorkshire Workshop” which is a great show, and just like I want to do all art I see, hubby wants to try all the woodworking we see on the show.

So today I made myself a new journal, it will be used for my college course. I made it from used watercolour papers that I want to reuse; the cover is made from a collage sheet covered in fabric and has a ribbon added to tie it closed as well as an added gem charm dangle for detail. The point of the journal is to use it for paint brush rubs before rinsing in the water. I hate to waste paint, and this gives me new pages to doodle on at a later date.

  • Front Cover
  • Inside front cover/first page

I also made a new face mask for Hubby and altered an existing one, I don’t have photos, we all know what a mask looks like, I try to make Hubby’s with funky fabric and today its an Avengers logo.

This morning I was going to sort out a large sheet of art paper onto the easel and I planned to put art tools nearby, set it up in the lounge and tell the family to doodle, scribble, comment whatever, whenever, for as long as we wanted, and one day we would call it “done” and see what the family could come up with. Instead I scribbled on it with Sharpie pen, I left it a while and then I decided to use acrylic paints to fill in the gaps. And I couldn’t stop. Everyone seemed to love what I did so I found an old photo frame and “framed” it. Its now on the wall! Oh and it was an A3 sheet (i rarely used that size).

Not bad if I do say so myself. It wasn’t planned, but I felt so genuinely creative and happy with the finished piece.

I will setup the easel for the family another time 🙂

For tea I made Hubby’s favourite meal, a Lasagne. Its been ages since I made one, and it was pretty scrummy if I do say so myself.

I’ve just realised today has actually been a good day for doing things I wanted and enjoying doing it.

Well tomorrow is college day, I’m quite looking forward to it. Its another day of playing with acrylics and textures.

Hope everyone is well

Disclaimer: 

All opinions expressed here are my own.
I paid for any products discussed.
I received no payment and I am not affiliated in any way with any brand mentioned herein.

Welcome to Autumn 2021

So today is officially the first day of Autumn here in the UK. I love Autumn, I love the changing of the season, the changing colours, the hibernation of all that was bright and beautiful of summer (not that we had the best of summers) and the hunkering down heading towards winter, but lets not mention that yet, evenings get cold and crisp and days start with the misty coolness before giving way to (hopefully!) warm sunny days.

Today has been a day at the house alone. Hubby off to the office, kids at school. So I had the morning where I did some housework, blitzing some areas that haven’t been done for a while. Once I had done all that I wanted to I spent some time making a video of my Gezellig book, I am not sure if I want to post it as is, I may re-do it and take out the more personal bits, I really need to learn some easy video editing techniques, my phone only lets me add 1 sticker per video, so unless I keep saving it out and adding one at a time it gets very time consuming and space hungry! Clearly I need yet another App on my phone! Gezellig was a paid summer course, held in a Facebook group. It was a book of self discovery and art. It told the story of Anyali and the Last Dragon. I have since bought the book via Kindle as it was such a lovely story.

I went to my 49th Blood Donor session today. Everything went smoothly enough, they are getting busier again so I had to wait quite a while, but my actual donation only took 6 minutes! Honestly I don’t mind, every time I donate that pint of blood I am in awe that my blood could save someones live.

Give Blood logo
What ever country you are in,
please do this if you can!

When I got home I had around an hour before the children got home from school, long enough to visit this weeks wanderlust class (I listened this morning) and so i was able to replay and draw along. This class was all about showing up and noticing what was around you and sketching it, and colouring it. Any paper, any medium, just show up.

  • Week 38 Wanderlust
  • Week 38 Wanderlust

After that I used this months subscription pack from KiaCreates to make 3 October themed journal double page spreads. I used this months kit and spares I had left from last year (i really wasn’t using them then!) I do still need to add any other writing/features etc, but they are at least prepared!

  • Page 1
  • Page 2
  • Page 3

Whilst I was cutting and sticking, I was also helping with French and German homework.. my head hurts now, I’ve never been good at languages I’m ashamed to say.

Hubby came home from work and we had an easy tea of sweet & sour chicken and rice, followed by Cornetto ice-cream cones 🙂

I’m now typing this whilst listening to Shinjini again on her Art with Soul Podcast. I have to say I am loving her podcast. She has such a beautiful soft voice, and speaks so eloquently, and so much great advise in every single episode. I shall definitely be listening to them again, and I love that she always says she is putting notes on her blog as well as is happy to talk to you about anything.

Until tomorrow, happy blogging!

Disclaimer: 

All opinions expressed here are my own.
I paid for any products discussed.
I received no payment and I am not affiliated in any way with any brand mentioned herein.

Kelpie Man….

Today has been a nice quiet get things done day, the sun has been shining, the weather a glorious September sunny warm day, once the fog cleared. So what have I achieved…. a lot of “nothing”.

We went for our 4 mile walk this morning when the grey mist was heavy and the sun struggling to warm up and break through. By the time we got home however it was just about managing it. After that I really struggled to get going. I spent a good hour just deleting emails. Such a waste of time, but I did get it to under 5000 unread… I know I should just delete everything but then what if I need one of those I havent’ read…?

I popped to Tesco, its a quick walk from our house, so 15 mins there and back and thats done, back to more email deletion ha ha.

We sat outside for lunch, by then the sun was shining and very warm, and it was really lovely to sit outside and enjoy the lunchtime.

After lunch I seemed to find my mojo and actually got some art done.

I chose this piece from the Celtic Collective club. This is a collaborative club between artists Karen Campbell and Lucy Brydon. They are great friends and share a love of all things Scottish. For this piece I drew him in pencil, and used Karin Markers watercolours in primaries to make all the other colours, then used black India ink to outline and paint his hair. I’m actually pretty proud of him!

Kelpie Man

After this, the kids came home from school and the evening started its round of homework (them) and food preparations (me).

I also played with my pyrography tool to make holes in papers to create a piece for The Ugly Art Club, I had seen a post in the Facebook page that someone else had done with the tool, so of course I needed to play. This page has the paper with holes in, a piece of batik material and a lot of Posca pen marks, as well as some hexagon shapes that I purloined from @owlsowner from a recent game he had bought.

  • Pyrography Tool
  • TUAC Holey

Well thats about it for today, I’ve definitely not been in a “get things done” headspace, and I am feeling a night on the sofa watching TV with hubby is on the cards.

See you tomorrow!

Disclaimer: 

All opinions expressed here are my own.
I paid for any products discussed.
I received no payment and I am not affiliated in any way with any brand mentioned herein.