Well, not officially for a few days but, I have had anough winter now so as you can see my blog has been updated with a springlike feel. It is a little wishful thinking on a day like today but there are signs.
We have been out enjoying the snowdrops and there are other flowers spring to life here and there too.
Snowdrops always inspire me to complete at least one piece of art and I found some of those cut out rustic hearts online. I decided to draw on the wood in coloured pencil and it was easier than I thought. Now I just want to spray this with some weatherproofing and I shall hang it up in the garden.
Meanwhile, I have been spending a little time in the garden on the days
where it has warmed up a little. It is still quiet out there but those
little irises are making a bright splash of colour.
It has been a while since I last posted and I think that was because I had so little to say. January is probably one of my least favourite months. For sure, it is when I have the least inspiration and that has definitely taken it's toll on my art. However, it is a time when I think things through and almost like the early buds on the trees, ideas are formed and it is a thinking and rationalising time. Normally I would be itching to get out in the garden looking obsessively for the first signs of life so I can get my macro out. But, instead I have gone with the flow......
I don't ever make New Years resolutions......but, somehow in the quiet of it all, there have been a few changes:
1. The house got a bit of a clear out. As I write I now I have another large bag for the clothes recycle! Other things that had truly annoyed me for ages got thrown out and replaced.....it is a GOOD feeling.
2. I have read more than usual and some books that perhaps I normally wouldn't. One of which was The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh which I loved on many levels. Not only did I enjoy the story but, I loved learning more about flowers and their meanings.
3. I have used the time to cook again. So many things from scratch after treating myself to a slow cooker and I have really enjoyed seeking out new recipes.
4. I took more time to go out with the camera walking and take winter scenery!
5. I rationalised some of my on line presence that was becoming a chore. So you will see that Fine Art America has been removed from my sidebar.
6. I have contacted a stock photo company and passed their quality control and now have lots of photographs uploaded and key worded. Strangely the whole experience has been quite educational and has certainly provided me with some new photographic goals for the forthcoming year......as well as going through existing photos with a technically critical eye...........This also had the benefit of making me tidy up my existing photos. There were some that I had never even opened!
7. I have only made art when I felt like it...which hasn't been that often. I think my only production this month was inspired by the discussions of the portrait of the Duchess of Cambridge.
8. I have booked myself onto some wonderful short 3/4 hour courses which really appeal to me. The first one of those is coming up soon and is "Identifying trees in Winter".
9. I finished my sketchbook project and sent it off to Brooklyn. I look forward to the updates but, decided this year, I AM going to take more time out to update MY own journal.
10. In the recent bad weather I took an hour out very day to feed the birds and actually sit and watch them.
All in all, it hasn't been one of my most dynamic of months.....but, it has been interesting.
Already it is December and as usual I am very disorganised! The last month has seen my art take a festive turn and I have been painting and drawing with Christmas in mind. There have been several watercolours which were a mix of actual places with "a lot" of artistic licence.
I have to confess, I do really enjoy this kind of thing. I love to let my imagination go free and Christmas provides free rein to be a little more creative than usual and of course unusually I have had the time.
So Christmas cards have been designed, my Zazzle store has had some serious input and a local magazine featured some of my cards too which was rather nice. Check out page 16, my old card making friends might be surprised that I have actually been doing some of those too ;) http://content.yudu.com/Library/A1zuvk/ShropshireReviewDece/resources/index.htm?referrerUrl=http%3A%2F%2Ffree.yudu.com%2Fitem%2Fdetails%2F648614%2FShropshire-Review-December-2012
I have also been featured as an artist and photographer on paint my photo...perhaps I better mind my p's and q's in this post ;)
I have taken part in a challenge in the Coloured pencil facebook group which was using a beautiful photograph by Lori Fairchild. It was the first time I have used coloured pencil in ages.
I have been playing at graphic design in photoshop too for making backgrounds for some of my cards and I don't think you would believe how long that took! However, it has been of benefit because I have been designing a few bespoke ones for friends.
I have been working on some commissions for Christmas which I cannot show as yet but, here is one where I just had a few hours having fun with pastels.
But, am I prepared myself...you must be joking! I haven't written so much as a single Christmas card, no decorations, in fact no preparation cleaning either ;) So, if you are like me......I raise a toast "clink"...tomorrow maybe? haha
I have been busy over the summer and one of my projects was to publish a photo book. For various reasons, I ended up producing three with very different aims and therefore, pricing has also been from one end of the scale to the other. However, I thought that some of my thoughts and experiences may be interesting for others.
Initially, I just put a lot of my favourite photographs of Skiathos together with quotes and ordered a small paperback copy from Vistaprint. The software was easy to use although the lack of spell checker and not being able to see what I was actually writing because it was so small with the online program was problematic. However, when it arrived, I was pleased with the result, the photo paper quality was great, the print colour rendition was lovely and the binding was quite nice for a paperback. I ended up taking two of them to Skiathos as gifts for some friends who have been very kind to us. One of these friends has a shop and questioned if we could produce something maybe of a bit lesser quality, a little more cost effectively for the tourist market.
So, on our arrival home, firstly I looked into buying greater numbers of the book produced by Vistaprint. Sadly, when I accessed the site, only the very small photo snap books are now available. Therefore, I contacted customer services. The response was brilliant given that it was a Saturday and I had my answer inside an hour! However, Vistaprint have stopped doing photo books temporarily while they increase the quality of their product. Actually, as value for money, I was quite happy initially. Every day, I get an email from the company offering discounts on every product in the sun...apart from the one I want!
So, then I went looking a little further. This time I used Lulu because the pricing was competitive. Especially for what we were thinking of and the discount is good for multi buys. I spent a week creating a 30 page book. The online publishing tool was good and very easy to use. When adding text, it zoomed in large so you could easily see what you had written. As recommended by Lulu, I then ordered a proof copy. When it arrived, it was nicely laid out, the cover was lovely gloss and overall represents fairly good value for money. If I have one complaint, the binding is a little tacky. The print quality is not as good as the Vistaprint one either but, then the price tag wasn't so hefty either. Except.......
After viewing it for real, I had a couple of minor alterations to a couple of pages, only tiny tweaks but, things that stood out to me. After going back online and changing these, the price mysteriously more than doubled! To be honest at the time, I was incensed! Customer services took more than 24 hours to respond and told me to republish. After which, the pricing came down a little more but, even then the cost was half as much again as the original price! After puzzling for ages, I took a good look at the site and realised that in between the first copy and the second, the prices has been increased somewhat dramatically. I wished I had left it as it was, so much for proof reading! Anyway, customer services came back and offered me a laughable discount.....I was so angry, I almost removed it. However, that would be silly, if anyone uses the 20% discount from the Lulu homepage, it is still a very affordable book with lots of images and wildlife of Skiathos. It can be viewed here
Nevertheless, I am still looking around for something along similar lines because I have not been entirely happy with the Lulu experience!
My final experience was completely different but, I decided I wanted a book for our coffee table. For this one of course I was not thinking of commercial viability at all. This was a no expense spared one for us, with our memories and favourites. Having experienced two very different qualities already, I wanted a top of the range super glossy, large, hardback book where the binding lay flat. I came across Albelli who are doing a promotion at the minute of £15 off any photo book. I have to say their editing software was a treat and unlike both of my previous experiences you could see exactly what price you were going to end up with at every step of the way. The price updates as you add pages, photo cover etc in the corner of the software program.
Now, this one has arrived today and it will take pride of place.....The colour rendition is wonderful and I love, love, love it.
I guess you get what you pay for!
This year I have tried hard to get more movement into all of my art. I quite freqently change mediums but I want to inject more vibrance into my subjects. Whilst on holiday I got the chance to spend a few hours with Mary Dillon. Mary paints very beautiful botanical work but, also very loose and vibrant watercolours. Some examples of her work are shown here
Mary is also a very lively person and I knew that the opportunity would also be fun!
The first thing I noticed is that Mary is much more disciplined than I am. I confess to mixing my watercolours very haphazardly and cleaning my brush in between colours is not something I do naturally ;)
The first thing we did was to create a colour chart....given that I have never done this in my life!
Strangely enough I have referred to it frequently in subsequent paintings! Mary uses a lot of splatter and salt which I love. She also builds up her work in layers. This is not unfamilar to me in coloured pencils. Anyone that has ever had a go at fruits will know that yellow is often the base colour. It provides the vibrance and light and this painting technique is similar. We used very heavy paper and in three hours this was how far I got with some pomegranites picked off a tree...I know you cannot really pick pomegranites here unfortunately!
I was going to finish it when I got home but, there were some things I knew I would do differently. For a start, I had been quite tentative with colour and I also found that my pencil guidelines had got lost along the way and I hadn't accounted for leaves in the foreground. So I ordered myself some 600gsm paper and decided to practice.
I was happier with this version ...at the end anyway. I confess that at times, I have been frustrated at my efforts especially at some stages and was so tempted to look more closely at Mary's work! But, I resisted that, the technique can be taught but I don't want my work to be a (very poor) imitation of Mary's. So, for the next one I set up my own little still life and went berry picking. I love Autumn fruits so it was a natural one to have a go at right now.
Something that I did want to do was to ensure that I kept my highlights better. So I used masking fluid. I have to say that masking fluid on 600gsm paper is tricky. It works well for small highlights on berries i.e dots here and there but anything bigger than that took a lot of work afterwards to correct. Needless to say I have been more cautious with it's use since.
Following this one, I though it was time to move onto to move familiar subjects and I attempted to paint a blue tit. I wanted a sort of snowy background and chose indigo blue as the main BG colour. Oh, dear...what a disaster that was! On this occasion, I was far too heavy handed. I tried afterwards to scrub it off but learned that the pigment in indigo blue is much like paynes grey and it doesn't come off no matter how much water you use. I would show it but, in a fit of pique, I threw that one in the bin!
The next effort was some flowers that I had taken photo's of in the summer. This time I made better use of "a little" masking fluid and made sure to leave some highlights. I also found that Inktense water colour pencils really provide a little vibrance and a touch of definition and I liked them whilst the paper was still a little damp especially. I also found that for tiny little highlights, you can gently scrape with a knife...once it is dry.
For some reason after this one, I was disheartened. I didn't really know where I was going with this. Thankfully I watched a video on youtube about painting ponsietta's loosely. On here Debbi Wilson was suggesting that you paint 30 (paintings) at a time, keep going, keep experimenting......so although I was about to give up a while, I took her words to heart. Not ponsietta's though... this time I moved on to holly. However, I decided at the current rate of use that I may have to work a bit smaller. My paper supply is dwindling (doesn't help when you chuck them in the bin), so I halfed a quarter sheet.
I normally like working quite large but, I did find it easier worker a little smaller. Drying time was easier to guage and my flow went a little better.....meanwhile, I have since been back working on that little bird. Iteration number two.....:p.
Thanks to both Mary for her company, time and patience and also Yvonne Ayoub for her generosity once again (giving up her studio and valuable painting time).
I cannot believe it is nearly two months since I last posted. This being "retired" thing is very time consuming ;) I shouldn't have any excuse either. The weather this year was not great and severely curtailed a lot of our normal visits and photographic opportunities. However, on one of the good days we did make an effort to spend at day at Shrewsbury Flower Show. I hadn't been for a number of years so very much enjoyed seeing the exhibits, the arena events and the fireworks at the end too.
From a creative point of view, I got busy creating some cards for my Zazzle store. Firstly, I updated it with lots of images for my regular store but, I also wanted to create some shabby chic cards. It has been a long while since I did the card thing! However, it was fun using photoshop, art and photography altogether.
Meanwhile for my regular art, I had a commission for another wire Haired Vizsla which was for an old customer but, Hooch is a relatively new addition to the family.....
Meanwhile of course there were plenty of wildlife visits, rainy day shots and to get away from it, we were lucky enough to escape to some blue skies once again. However, perhaps that is another post! I hope everyone is fine and well.
After weeks of what seemed like incessant rain, we finally had a week where the sun shone. So everything went by the board and we simply got out. It seemed as though the flowers were fairing really badly. Hardly anything in the garden was flowering. It seems strange to say when people are badly in need of rain but, too much of it also takes it's toll.
However, after a few sunny spells, at long last we got some colour!
We took a trip put to Shropshire Lavender at the weekend and were treated to a
demonstration of Lavender oil distilling.
I don't expect to have clear blue skies all the time, fluffy white clouds are wonderful after endless grey!
It was lovely to see the bee's out and about.....and it was fascinating to see how the process takes place.
On the drive there, the local council had planted several of the islands with wild flowers. I think they probably do it to keep down maintenance costs but, I have to say that it is one cutback that I rather like. The butterflies and bee's seem to like that too! With a little sunshine on them, they made for stunning display!
I have also been working on some vibrant projects of my own. One of these was a Swallowtail butterfly inspired by a photograph taken in Skiathos a couple of years ago....I actually managed to paint some of it outside too!
Sadly, the forecast is looking quite ominous again...but, at least we had a little respite!
