Creative Tuesdays - Dazzle Me

What dazzles, well the male species of some exotic birds do, so that is what came to mind for the Creative Tuesdays challenge of Dazzle Me.

It has been a while since my last piece for this lovely co-op but I do tend to keep an eye on what is happening here. 

Creative Tuesdays - Children

What do you think little girl's story is?  This is the latest bit of fun for Creative Tuesdays, telling a story.

I pondered on this one for a while but decided to make her from scraps of paper I had lying around, with a little bit of paint.  So I ended up very child like with gluey fingers!

If you pop over to the CT blog there will be other untold stories for your imagination.

Creative Tuesdays - Striped Socks

I do love striped socks, which is good as it is the latest theme over at Creative Tuesdays.

Back in May 2014 we did "The joy of socks" for which I did a sock monkey.  Well I thought he might be a little lonely, so along comes Mrs sock monkey showing off her striped socks and her pantaloons!  I think she is a bit of floozy at heart.

This was Mr sock monkey, he hasn't aged a day over the last two years!

More stripes on the CT blog.

Creative Tuesdays - Little Monsters

A little bit of fun and madness for Creative Tuesdays this time around and this is the result.  He was sewn from white fabric, stuffed and then painted, standing at about 5 inches tall. 

Michael, I have realised that this must be my 100th piece for Creative Tuesdays, my first one being in May 2011 for "Breakfast".  It seems impossible that it has been 5 years!

Other monsters are lurking over on the CT blog.

Creative Tuesdays - Easter Egg

Hope you all had lots of choccy eggs to eat this Easter.  As you can imagine the theme for Creative Tuesdays is easter egg.

This was my first try at blowing the yolks and egg white out of an egg.  Interesting past-time!  After painting and decorating I popped one into my favourite Peter Rabbit egg cup.  My lovely tiny rabbit figurine found its way into the picture as well.

I could not resist drawing a basketful of eggs, after all one has to have lots of these to eat at this time of the year. Dug out my trusty Copic and Promarker pens, which I realise I haven't used in ages.

I also dug out my acrylics and did this mixed-media piece.

So all in all lots of eggs.  More eggy renditions can be found on the CT blog.

Creative Tuesdays - Meet Me

Meet Me is the lastest CreativeTuesdays theme, your likes and dislikes.

So that you don't have to turn upsidedown.  My likes are spring, smell of fresh baked bread (takes me back to my childhood at my grandparents),when local cats come to visit, dark chocolate and sunshine.  Dislikes are procrastination, shouting, bad customer service, lateness and litter.

I had a problem with the words on the flowers as originally they did not show up, so had to infill with a solid colour, which was not my intention, so the the finished piece does not seem to me to be as light and frivolous as it would normally have been.

Thank you for all your wonderful comments on the last challenge with my baby slippers. Just to answer a question, these particular slippers could not be given to anyone as the eyes were sewn-on beads and these would be dangerous for little ones.

See the likes and dislikes of others and pop over to the CT blog.

Creative Tuesdays - Fuzzy

Well after the gorgeous softness of chocolates we move on to fuzzy at Creative Tuesdays.

Yesterday (Sunday) I was racking my brains as to what to make or do with some felt, then this idea popped into my head, don't know where from, but had to go with it.  As with most things the second one was a lot easier after I had worked out sizing and how to do it!  They are 4 inches in length so quite small.

I so enjoyed making these baby slippers, especially all the blanket stitch attaching the bottoms to the top.  As my felt was not thick enough to hold this design I had to fuse two pieces of felt together before cutting out the shapes.  Fuzzy and cute!

There should be some interesting takes on this theme, so why not indulge and go and see.

Creative Tuesdays - Box of Chocolates

Well who can't resist a box of chocolates? Now me I am a dark chocolate kind of gal and have a little guilty secret.  I have been a member of Hotel Chocolat's Tasting Club for many years, which means I have a deliciously sinful box of dark chocolates delivered through my letterbox every couple of months. Bliss!!

As you now realise that is the subject of the latest Creative Tuesdays challenge. Not eating them but depicting them on paper.

When I started on this challenge I wanted to make some fabric chocolates, 3D ones, but found I didn't have any dark brown fabric, so thought I would use marker pens on paper, again no dark brown.  This made me realise that I don't use dark browns in anything I do, so had to resort to acrylics.   The browns I had were samples I received from DecoArt when I was being published in craft magazines whilst using their paints.

Lots of lovely chocolatey sweetness on the CT blog.  Sorry  I mean't to add a photo of a box of my chocolates as well, but unfortunately someone has eaten them!!

Creative Tuesdays - Heart

When is a heart not a heart, that was the quest for the latest Creative Tuesdays challenge. The idea was a heart that is either depicted like it's floating, or in the air, or perhaps on something that's in the air.
 
Well, keeping on with my instintive quilt art practice (see previous post) this is what happened, a flower!

Having previously hand painted some silk, I decided to try and incorporate this into another instinctive quilt with just the idea of a heart in mind.  Now I look at it, it rather reminds me of a large strawberry, albeit is using three heart shapes.  Oh well back to the drawing board or should I  say sewing machine!

Pop over to the CT blog to find other hearts.

Creative Tuesdays - Stained Glass Window

Many years ago I used to paint on glass, so thought that this challenge would be right up my street.  Unfortunately all my paints had dried up, so putting on my thinking cap I came up with the following.  Sharpie pens on acetate.  It took a bit of playing with as the pens act differently on plastic and can only be laid down once, so no shadowing etc and with a very careful laying down of colour, otherwise it streaks.  Being in a whimsical mood I doodled the following.

I then taped it to my conservatory window.  Rather a dull day though, so not shown to its best.

Check out the CT blog for other stained glass goodies.

Wishing all the lovely CT'ers blessings for a very happy and positive New Year. 

Creative Tuesdays - Container Garden

Funny, I have a medium size garden but the only containers are my hanging baskets!  This is how I would like to imagine having a container garden. A nice balcony somewhere, hot but not too hot, overlooking the sea! Is that hard to achieve? I can but dream.

 Quick watercolour sketch

Visit Mr T's blog for more Creative Tuesday inspirations.

Creative Tuesdays - Little Critters

Another little animal theme over on the Creative Tuesdays blog for this coming Tuesday.  So still experimenting and trying to come to grips with watercolours I came up with this little kitten.  I hope you like him, although I think I gave him rather a long tail, artistic licence and all that.  Perhaps he will grow into it!

Looking for other Little Critters then check out the CT blog.

Creative Tuesdays - Little Birds

Still trying to hone my skills with watercolours and have discovered that they do rather have a life of their own, sometimes a bit hit and miss as well.  More misses than hits at the moment! Things I have found is that you have to be patient with watercolours as they do take time to dry (this I find hard), especially when using wet on wet and to leave well alone once paint is drying, no titivating!  One big surprise was the watercolour paper, it certainly makes a difference using a better quality and not all papers react to the paint in the same way.

So with Little Birds being the challenge over at Creative Tuesdays I painted a few, not all with the same success I might add. These were the one I liked the best.

 This one might not be a little bird, but it was done on a little piece of paper 2.5x3.5 inches.

Pen lines added after the paint.

 

A very loose pencil sketch with paint added over the top.  Smudged splogges are optional!

An acrylic ink one, dropping colour into wet areas.  I just love the effect that the spreading blue gives on this, just like fluffy feathers. It gets very exciting as you have no control whatsoever!  I have a fascination using inks this way, as you cannot predict the outcome.

I have not just been painting birds, oh no, flowers by the bucket load.  I liked this one so much I actually framed it.  Now that is a first for me! Framing my work.

Sorry for the rather long post but I am having such fun experimenting with my watercolours.

There should be a flock of birds over on the CT blog, go check then out.

Creative Tuesdays - Aqua

Well how could I not resist doing this latest Creative Tuesdays challenge!  See I just can't keep away from all you lovely people. As aqua is one of my favourie colours this challenge also fitted in nicely with my play down time.

Hand painted paper cut into triangles, ink circles and lots of drawing.

As watercolours have always eluded me, I have this desire to get to grips with it but in a very loose wet on wet style to see what happens.  These are my first endeavours.

For the one below I put puddles of water on the paper and then dropped in acrylic inks.  I just love what came from this, especially as the one on the right seems to be a mish mash of both of the other two, perhaps a sibbling?

As you can see I have not been sitting here with my feet up and am excited by the freedom this style gives, as usually I work very tightly. Only downside to this is that I am rapidly devouring watercolour paper. I am so pleased that I have given myself a mini sabatical to play as I have been doing some collage work and torn paper art as well. 

Enough of me. For more aqua gioodies visit Mr T's blog.

Creative Tuesdays - Fairy Tale Tree

Fairy Tale Tree is the next challenge over at Creative Tuesdays.

I very rarely bare my soul in public but I seem to be going through  period of self doubt at the moment with my creative endeavours and feel that nothing seems to be coming from within. When I see other fantastic work I am starting to compare it, which is not good.  My mojo has temporarily danced off into the wind.  To rectify this I am just doing what my soul dictates and playing with my paints, fabric and paper with no predetermined plan or particular end in sight.  I do feel though that there is something new around the corner, I just have to remind myself that my instincts are usually right and to nuture them.

Just to keep in the spirit of the co-op I am showing a clay picture I did awhile ago, which for me is perfect for this challenge.  I know I am outside the rules Michael with it not being done specifically for the prompt.

As you may have guessed from my ramblings above, you may or may not see me at the next challenge.
Just in case, this is not goodbye Michael, just a little vacation, as you know I really missed those weeks when CT was disbanded for a while.  This is a fabulous co-op with such lovely people and that is all your doing, so thank you Michael. 

Creative Tuesdays - One Flower

Something a little different this time over at Creative Tuesdays, a two parter.  The first one is to do a single flower with a whole bouquet following in two weeks time.

Fancied doing some collage as I only had an hour, so dragged out some old papers and just played with them.  I'd forgotten how absorbing this is as I tend to go with the flow when collaging and never worry about the outcome.  So I found this very refreshing. 

Michael has a new blog which is a delight to read, as amongst his talent for all things arty, he has a wonderful way with words, so he can eloquently express himself both in words as well as pictures, a gift indeed. Go and have a read, you won't be disappointed.

Creative Tuesdays - Under the Leaves

Still practising my fabric painting and freehand machine stitchery for Creative Tuesdays next challenge, "Under the Leaves". 

Well you never know what you may find!

I really enjoyed the painting aspect of this one.  Whilst using my fabric paints, I realised I have not had my acrylics out for ages which I think may have to be rectified soon.  I may even try redong this in acrylics to compare the different results.

To find other hidden goings on in the undergrowth pop over to the CT blog.

Creative Tuesdays - Pillows

Well Mr T, I took you at your word!  One pillow, although a small one.  I wanted to pratice my freehand sewing machine work with some dyeing and painting of fabric, as well as trying to keep my whimsical style.  Three days ago this was a plain piece of white cotton fabric.  The fish has been painted in pearlescent paint, so sewing all the details was a bit heavy going at times.  All the stitching was done freehand on my sewing machine. But, although it took me awhile to complete, I must admit I am a bit chuffed with it. It also has quite a tactile feel to it.

This is the fish on the flat before it was turned into a pillow.

Find other works of softness over on the CT blog.

Creative Tuesdays - Around the world

Well this one was a challenge for me!  Mr T over at Creative Tuesdays certainly made me scratch my head on this one.  I eventually came up with the idea of a compass, as my mind could not latch onto anything else, absolutely nothing.

Here's hoping that the next challenge will be a little easier, but then what is the idea of this little co-op but to scratch the old grey cells.  See how others have fared, the link is above.

Creative Tuesdays - My 2015 word

Each January it is now getting more popular to have a word that defines the year ahead, and Creative Tuesdays is no exception, as this is the latest challenge.

After a lot of deliberation and looking at how my life has changed since moving away from Oxford, it feels that it was destined for me to move to Christchurch.  I have sold and exhibited in a local gallery and am preparing for my next one at the end of this month. Have wonderful neighbours and made friends.  Also it is such a beautiful area. Therefore I have 'belief' that this was all meant to happen and for what lies ahead as well.

As I am busy preparing for the gallery I quickly put together this little piece of art.  I dyed the background fabric and then sewed on the word and flower, adding my customary dots!  It is 5x3 inches in size (I must try and take better photos as this one makes it look uneven).  I am going to mount it onto a small deep artists canvas so that it is a free standing piece of art, but don't have time at the moment.