Exciting news!

I'm interrupting my summer break to bring you some exciting news!

My first book of short stories is now available on Kobo's bookstore, for the princely sum of 1.99p!



You can find it HERE

If you buy it, I hope you enjoy it!

I, of course, am ridiculously excited at this dipping of toes into the water that is the self-publishing world!
Right, back to my hols :) 

The Laughing Chief, Mollie's Picnic and a Summer Break

Good morning friends, I have a couple of paintings for you, before I start my summer break!
Every year I take the whole of August off, to keep my hubs company. We spend the time enjoying the local area, time in the garden and being together. Mostly the computer is off. I look forward to it every year.

To the paintings - this first is our darling Missy, painted in a very experimental style - I mean, there's no way she's shades of yellow and green!
The second is a more traditional style painting, and one that was demonstrated by Painting Friends very own Mollie Jones. The link to Painting Friends is on the sidebar, all artists are welcomed.

The Laughing Chief 

Mollie's Picnic

I hope you've enjoyed seeing these. See you in September!
Enjoy your summer, whatever you do.

Pure Pleasure

Painting is pure pleasure to me.
There's something about wielding a brush, or pouring paint and tilting a board, that makes me smile.
Time is of no consequence when I paint, I am lost in swishing or tilting, then making something recognisable from the results.
Its a fabulous hobby that can make you forget time and the pressures of a day.
I'm not surprised so many of us enjoy it.

I hope you enjoy viewing the latest results of me, having fun.

Firecracker

To Be Free

both are painted on Saunders Waterford, 140lb Rough.
That's my new favourite paper. I love rough paper for all the texture you can achieve on it, as well as the way the paint flows and fizzes together, effortlessly.

They are also both quarter sheet in size - 15x11 inches - which is my favourite size to paint. Its my favourite size because its one easily accommodated in most houses; easy to file too, should I be keeping the painting and rotating it in my own house.

How about you, do you paint? Is it enjoyable to you? Do you have a favourite paper or size? Or are you one of my many followers who happen to love looking at my pretty pictures?

Whichever you are, wish you a fabulous week. Until next time.

Two Paintings, one competition and much experimenting!

I've been experimenting again!
These two are the results.

The Fisherman

15 x 11 inches

Saunders Waterford 140 Rough

Toward Skye

15 x 11 inches

Saunders Waterford 140 Rough

The first of the two to be created was Toward Skye.
I poured some blues and blue-greens onto wet, stretched paper.
(I do use a paper stretcher when I know I'm going to use a lot of water. The  one (five!) I have came from a UK seller on ebay, called Arthur, whose page you can find HERE, should you wish to buy one.)

Then I used a spray bottle, with the nozzle set to fine jet, to move the paint around the paper in various patterns.
How do I know where I want to spray the paint? In this case, it was random, because the whole object of this exercise was to make something up from the result of random spraying!
When I'd had enough playing with squirting paint - which by the way - is immense fun, I left it to dry in the sun. (A mere 92 in the garden at that point!)

When the painting was dry, less than five minutes later, I took it inside and propped it against the TV cabinet. I retired to the sofa to contemplate. The whole painting screamed to me 'sea'.
It still needed something, so I decided the something would be seagulls. Two in the top left and one lower right, flying across the ocean to be where his friends were flying. Once the gulls were in, I was satisfied. The painting felt complete.

Because the sea looked good to me, I decided next painting had to be The Fisherman.
This time, I wanted a recognisable face. So firstly I drew him lightly on the paper. Just enough lines to give me a feel for the face. Then I masked the pieces I wanted to stay white. I use a fine needle for applying thin lines of mask. When they were all dry, I wet and stretched the paper.

Once the paper was ready, I poured paint and sprayed it again, this time lighter blues and blue-greens to give the man the feel of the sea. When I was happy with where the colours lay, I stopped spraying.

When that part had dried, I darkened up a few areas, using a damp brush to fade them into the surrounding area. Satisfied, I removed the mask - and the resulting painting is the one you see above.

I quite like pouring and spraying - it's fast, frantic and great fun!
Give it a go - you might enjoy it too!

I've entered The Fisherman into a competition! Ken Bromley Art Supplies (here) have a cover competition once a year. The shortlist will be made public on the 23rd July. I'll let you know if it gets through.

Here comes the Sun..

I so enjoyed posting once a week, that its going to be my new normal :)
Here's this week's efforts on the painting front - and all to do with sun!


Sun Worshipper

11x8 inches

Saunders Waterford 140 Rough

Sun Dance

15 x 11 inches

Saunders Waterford 140 Rough

The end of the June Challenge

Today is the last day of the June Challenge - and I've done it!
A painting a day every day in June.

Here are the last seven paintings.

We'll start with this beauty

In the Wildflower Field

then Glass 1

with this one, I painted the glass and used some gentle washes in the background

Glass 2

with this one, I painted the paper with a light blue tint, then painted the shadows and shapes around where the glass was. This gave the impression of a glass vase, though I never painted that directly. Hope that makes sense.

Wimbledon

of course, I've been watching the tennis at Wimbledon this year - and this is my little homage to the tradition of strawberries and cream.

Sailing Away

just a seascape from my imagination.. water, reflections, red boat, rugged mountain. I can taste the salt air, mmm !

Breakfast

a freehand set of fish, feeding in a pond

and finally, Splash!

a little flower, in watercolour, with touches of ink.

I hope you've enjoyed the June Challenge paintings - all thirty of them.

I also have some great news. One lady saw my pears and wanted all four.
She's agreed to sponsor a kennel at Battersea Dogs Home as payment.
As you all know, that's where my Missy came from. I couldn't be happier.

If you're wondering what's happening with my novel, there's a new post about it on my other blog HERE

Thanks for bearing with me through this Challenge. I'm going to continue to post once a week, because it gives me more time to come visit you  - and that is important to me. Now I'm going out to enjoy the Sunday sunshine. Tomorrow I'll come visiting. Cheers!

June Challenge paintings

In this set of paintings, there's one from a friend's photo, taken in Scotland.
In the others, I decided to take one drawing and then to be creative with it - and attempt to make six very different versions.
I've written what I did to each, for those who like to know these things!
Enjoy.

Exodus

Take One - the drawing
from this simple drawing, I attempted six creative versions

Take One - 1

watercolour, wet in wet first layer, wet on dry second, softening edges as I go.
Dabbed some white gouache with fine brush around seed head where dark paint felt too strong.


Take One - 2

watercolour, first layer wet in wet, second layer wet on dry, no softening edges and third layer wet on dry, again no softening of edges. Dabbed plain water with fine brush to lift clear spores around seed head.

Take One - 3

watercolour. first wash very wet, scrunch up a sheet of cling film and pressed into wet paint. Let dry for a few hours, remove. Second glaze of paint on outside leaves only. Seed head, shadows and background painted wet on dry.

Take One - 4

watercolour, first wash very wet and then table salt dropped in. Waited for a few hours to dry, then brushed salt off. Second wash wet on dry on outside petals only. Second wash on green background wet on dry, slight softening of edges. Seedhead and spores wet on dry.

Take One -5

watercolour, first wash wet in wet. Second on outer petals and background wet in wet again, taking care not to lift the first wash. Decided to use rigger to paint veins on internal petals - wet on dry. Spores and seedhead, wet on dry.


Take one - 6

watercolour, aquapasto, ink. The aquapasto (thickening medium) was added to each wash as it was in the palette. Then first wash was painted wet in wet. Second wash on outer petals and orange parts of inner, were painted wet on dry. Ink was used for spores and seedhead. Background around signature was one wash of pure watercolour.

That's been my creative week - I hope you've enjoyed watching what I've been experimenting with. There's one more week of the June Challenge left to do and I'm still aiming at a painting a day to complete it. Right now, I have no idea what I'll do for the final week, but I do hope you'll be back to see!