My photo
Bumblebee fanatic & wildlife lover living in, & taking inspiration from, the beautiful North East of England. I am accompanied on my journey through time & space by my special bloke, gorgeous girl, 3 daft cats, 5 fish & visiting, very shy, hedgehog.

Saturday, April 03, 2010

Happy Easter x x

Easter holidays are upon us and so that means we are surrounded by all things springlike and cute. Bunnies, chicks and lambs - and for those of us who have been very good there may be some nice chocolatey things arriving 'as if by magic'.....

This is my little lamb. It is a mixed media piece (waterclour, ink, gouache) and is a larger version of the ATC that I completed towards the end of March for Tam at Willowing. 

I thoroughly enjoyed working on this piece, although I did have to fight with his legs somewhat !

HAPPY EASTER!!

Friday, April 02, 2010

Feline gorgeousness

Mary has now received the cards I sent to her - we decided to do 2 pieces with a feline theme. The cards are 2.5" x 3.5" as usual. 

The cards were once again mixed media - but primarily acrylic . I also moved out from my usual 'style' & comfort zone for these. I have not had so much experience with acrylics but was pleased with the vivid colours I was able to achieve - and the fact that I could paint light on dark.
The sunset on the cat and mouse card is a watercolour wash. The cat & mouse are black acrylic and the cats collar is a silver acrylic. There is also an element of ink for the details in the whiskers.

The morroccan sleeping cat was worked in acrylic and ink. Here the increased use of colour is more obvious and is something I will probably play as I hope to have an  increased use of bright colours in my paintings.







In return I received two beautiful cards from Mary.

These have been worked using a variety of techniques - including collage, ink, pan pastel, old prints & glimmer mist. They are gorgeous. x

Thursday, April 01, 2010

March ATC - on Willowing

It's April, its sunny and relatively warm and tomorrow is the beginning of Easter - and if that wasn't enough today I received two sets of ATC swaps. I am only posting the cards that I have swapped with Tam (@ Willowing) as Mary hasn't received the ones I have sent out - the other ATCs I will post in the next day or so when I have confirmation that Mary has seen the cards I have sent her :) )


March's swapping theme was Picasso & AN other.

Here are the cards that I created  for Tam -





This is a watercolour and ink card of based on a larger piece I am working on. I chose this theme as we are in the spring leading up to Easter and I enjoy working around various seasonal pieces.








My Picasso themed card was based on an earlier painting of my own ('Making an Entrance' - this can be seen earlier in the blog) which I reworked in a style remeniscent to Picasso's later work.








In return Tam sent me two lovely trading cards which I have sceanned and inserted here so that you can get an idea of them -







 Both of the cards have a lovely texture and the scanned images do not do the colours justice. Some of the overall details have also been lost in the final scan  - this image has beautiful vivid pink text overlayed around the top and edges - this unfortunately cannot be seen on the scan.