Creative Tuesdays - Ideal Coffee Break

Creative Tuesdays challenge this week is Ideal Coffee Break, well being quintessentially British, for me it had to be afternoon tea.  It was pointed out to me a few years ago that whenever time permits, I also stop for a cup of tea at around 4.00pm.  I hadn't realised this trait until I was told about it!

It would be such a treat to have afternoon tea at the Ritz, so my entry this time had to be afternoon tea and cakes.

Pop over the Mr T's blog on Tuesday to find other ideal coffee breaks.

Recycled Owls

These are the owls I promised to upload.  They are all painted on the cardboard centre that is left when the toilet roll runs out.  The lovely Monica Zuniga from Hands and Heart did a free lesson on how to recycle these and use them as a basis for art. 

Once flattened I covered with pages from an old dictionary and then painted on thinned acrylic paint. Drew the outline of the owl and then painted it. Once dry I reoutlined and did all the line work.

It's strange, but there was absolutely no pressure with these, as for some reason painting on each toilet roll holder was quite liberating, and these characters just appeared.

 

Owls on the brain

This week has definately been an owly one, I have had time off work this week and managed to do loads more art than normal. Wonderful! These two pen and ink owls are as a result of randomly putting colour onto paper, letting it dry and then quickly drawing over the top with little thought. Both are ATC size.

I am also in the process of painting some owls on the card that comes from the middle of  toilet rolls.  This idea came from the lovely Monic Zuniga at Hands and Heart. I will post all these in a couple of days time.

"Be Wise" Owl

I seem to be in an owl mood at the moment.

Mixed-media is not really my forte but I found a small canvas I had prepared ages ago which had been covered in tissue paper giving it texture. So I thought go for it.  I added paint and paper from an old dictionary and then drew and painted the owl.  Added more paint and stenciled "be wise".  I think he is kind of cute and is sitting proudly on my desk.

Creative Tuesdays - Moon

Creative Tuesday's next challenge is the moon.  Well, I am afraid that my imaginative muse flew out the window on this one.  As all I could think of was an owl and the moon, I had to come up with something that was not in my normal style or using acrylics, so I tried a lino print.  In the UK speedycarve is not readily available so I had to resort to cutting it out of printers lino, which I found quite hard to cut. 

Anyway this is the result, which I am not that happy about, and also a picture of the cut lino, which I put a little orange on it to make it stand out better for the photo. But that is what this co-op is all about is to push yourself.

As I was drinking a cup of black coffee as the time, I sploshed some of my coffee onto some watercolour paper added a few granules of coffee, let it dry and then drew the same owl and moon.  Dried coffee actually give a lovely surface to draw on and it smells heavenly whilst you are working. Sorry I had to resort to some of my usual line work, but I did not use acrylics!

Mr T, feel free to use whichever picture, as I am not sure if the lino print qualifies.  Come next Tuesday go and see how others have been more inspirational than me with the moon.

Summer of Color - Show and Tell

Well this is the final week of Summer of Color 2011 and a great huge thanks to Kristin for doing such a fabulous job on this and for all her hard work put into keeping us all entertained for 10 weeks. I have had a ball, met loads of lovely new people and also grown in my art.

I would also like to thank everyone who has looked at, or commented on my blog throughout all these weeks, your comments mean so much and have spurred me on no end.

For my front cover I took something from each week and then redrew and painted. Each small picture is 1.5 inches square.

To see how each colour and subject looked like together, I montaged a copy of each week onto one page.

These are general pictures of my little art book, so you can get the overall idea.

Now onto the flowers.  This is the front cover, one flower in each  colour.

And this is a montage of each of the 8 colours.

These flowers were painted into an art book the same size as the one above, so I now have two nice keepsakes. When I get a moment I think I will add bits and pieces to the spines to make them even more special.

That's the end of Summer of Color 2011.  You should , therefore, pop over to Kristin's blog from Monday onwards and see all the other wonderful show and tells.

Creative Tuesdays - Ice Cream

The Creative Tuesday's challenge this time was ice cream, which is quite fitting with the hot weather.

My ice cream shop would be my idea of heaven. Each summer, many years ago, when I stayed at my grandmother's she would allow me to have ice cream every day, which was then a real treat. Painted in acrylics at just under 6x5 inches.

Why not check out Mr T's blog to see other great work.