Getting ready for wednesday...

..when I hang four pieces at the Pizza De Casa Restaurant which is in the grounds of the Albany Garden Centre. This first one is large, 1220mm x 610mm x 40mm which will go in the main wall of the restaurant. It is called Reflected Serenity to keep the whole serenity connection with the other two similar ones.
This one is smaller 750mm x 375mm x 40mm and I just can't get the colours to photograph right, it looks completely different in real life. This is one that I reworked as I started it ages ago, thought I had finished it and then got very dis-satisfied with it. So I sanded it down and smoothed out parts and re-painted them. This is called Piha Reflections and is from a photo I took out at Piha (famous NZ surf beach) last summer.

The other two are waiting for the final finishing tonight. I've been using Liquin with my oils paints but because it is so damn cold here at the moment, they are not drying quite as quickly as they normally do. But if I finish those last details tonight then they should be ready for Wednesday.

Today was a good Monday, firstly both babies were well enough to go to daycare - YAY! Secondly when I listening to the radio in the car this morning I heard about a competition to win a spot in a day-long workshop with Sarah Laurie who is a life coach and who currently writes a monthly article in one of my favourite magazines Next. I had to email to say why I wanted to go along and I got chosen! My reason for wanting to attend was about how I balance my life with being Mummy, accounts lady for DH's business, artist and Human Resources Consultant, especially given that I really want to start taking my HR business to that next level but balancing time with my children and husband and my art. So it is a full-day workshop later this month with a fancy lunch included and a gift pack from Clarins so I am really really looking forward to that and thank you Easymix ZM!

A sad yesterday

This is Stray. He was a puppy about 10 weeks old that belonged to one of our employees. Stray was abandoned when he was about a week old and was going to be put down because he was so little. Our employee adopted him and fed him around the clock and Stray lived and thrived.

Yesterday we puppy-sat him during the day while his owner was at a funeral and this is one of the many photos we took of him. He was such a lovely puppy, loved playing with our dog Connor and the munchkins. He was sitting and lying down on command and was such a good intelligent little dog.

Last night after he was back with his owner, he was outside to go to the toilet and saw a leaf or something blowing and chased it onto the road and was hit by a car. He died shortly after.

I just feel so sad because he was such a good little dog and had so much potential. I also really feel for his owner, our employee who is a young guy who spent so much of himself looking after this wee dog and training him. Stray had a short life but it was a good one. And yesterday, he had a brilliant day when he was here and played all day long. I feel sad.
And here is a quick update of Tayla's portrait. The hair still needs more work and ignore the funny spot on the left hand side - that was where Lucy scratched it. I tried spraying fixative and working over it but that didn't work, so I painted some Art Spectrum pastel primer over the fixed area and that seems to have worked. I just need to draw over that area to cover it.

I also have 4 paintings in the final stages of completion to be ready for Wednesday when they will be hung in a restaurant in Albany. I plan to finish them all over the next few days and I will post updates when each one is ready. I'm still sick but the kids were a lot better today.

Working through it and feline dementia

Last night I drugged myself up on lemsip and went into my studio to paint. Here is a better photo of Twilight Serenity (oil on linen 810 x 630mm) but I still may do some final tidying up before I sign it. I have blocked in the entire canvas for a large seascape as well and I just need to add rocks and tidy up and I am currently completely over sunset seascapes for the next wee while.

I have been reading some blogs of some incredible daily painters recently and have been getting really inspired by their small still-life daily paintings. So I set up a variety of props and fruit and veges the other night and took heaps of photos to start playing with. Last night I started this one of a wine glass with cherries on satin. Please note that this is in a very rough stage at the moment and needs heaps of refinement, I just can't wait to get back into it today and see if I can pull off painting glass. I've never tried glass before so we will see.

Also some news about my cat Lucy, who you may have seen in a painting I did of her recently. She is almost 15 and has been acting somewhat strange for a few months, crying during the night and wanting to be fed constantly and demanding of me. I thought that it was from me having babies and that she needed reassurance that she was still number one in my world. However I bought a newspaper the other day and read an article on feline dementia. And guess what two of the symptoms are? Howling at night and forgetting that they have been fed and demanding food all the time. Suddenly things made sense. Also they reckon half of all cats over the age of 15 have dementia to some degree. Lucy had also done some weird things recently like jumping on the bench (she knows she isn't allowed and never does that) and getting confused if my husband is sitting where I normally sit on the couch. So I am giving her lots of love and affection and it is now easier to deal with her demanding as I understand she is confused and not attention-seeking. My poor wee girl, I don't like her getting old.

Be back soon..

...I have my almost one year old and almost two year old both with a nasty flu as well as bad ear infections in both ears so I haven't been doing much painting or drawing to post. I've caught the bug now too so the three of us are coughing and spluttering and the two munchkins have high temps and very snotty noses so its all fun and games at the moment and sick babies are grumpy babies and right now are fighting over the duplo. Oldest child doesn't like it that baby sister is now standing up and almost walking and is asserting his dominant status. So I will be back, and I have all these ideas for paintings and all these reference photos so can't wait to get back into it.

Twilight Serenity seascape - almost finished

I managed to get some good hours painting last night and have almost finished this. The black rocks are still very wet this morning so were reflective when I took the photo so I tried to adjust the contrast in Photoshop Elements but the rest is now not quite right. I'll hopefully finish this tonight with the final tidying up and then post a better photo of the final version with all the details.
And this is where I have got to with my portrait of my wee girl. Still a long way to go. I thought that I had put it in a safe place far away from little prying (and colouring) fingers until last night when I saw my cat Lucy sitting on it. And she had been cleaning herself and scratching on it so she has actually scratched off some of the tooth on the pastel card as you can see from the white mark above. I will need to work out how I fix it as I am not sure if coloured pencil will adhere to the white card under the grittiness. I might have to get out some acrylics and colour match. I was planning on leaving the background as it was anyway so I'll have to figure something out.

I was not impressed with my cat and she didn't care one iota.

And apparently my lovely toddler Carter drew all over the walls at daycare on Tuesday too... I feel just slightly embarrassed.

Coloured pencil portrait

I really like coloured pencils. It wasn't that long ago (3 months perhaps?) that I didn't really even like drawing. I much preferred painting and I had to force myself to do drawing exercises.

I think the shift came when I stopped using charcoal for looser drawings and then used graphite for quite detailed drawings. All of a sudden I liked the outcomes I was getting and every drawing was better than the previous one.

So now I have discovered colour pencils, which not that long ago I probably thought of as something kids play with, rather than a serious artistic medium. How wrong was I and part of this discovery process is seeing some of the amazing artists that use coloured pencils on the net. And they are fun, time-consuming but fun. I have only tried two brands of pencils so far and I like them both. Derwent coloursoft and Lyra Rembrandt are the pencils and I've found that pastel card is really good for using these on. I like the tooth on the pastel card or colourfix paper and you can do layers and layers.

This wip above is yet another portrait of my darling daughter Tayla. She will be one in September and this is based on a photo I took of her a week ago. It is on Sennelier Pastel Card 240x320mm.

Virtual Sketch Date

Here is my attempt for the Virtual Sketch Date. I rushed it at the end in order to get it finished today while the babies were asleep and then decided to crop and cropped too much so I'm not that happy with it. It is coloured pencil on pastelboard (which really does eat coloured pencils).

I do like coloured pencils though and it is a medium that I can use when the babies are up. My son loves my coloured pencils too and was having great fun with my artist quality ones yesterday. So I went to the bookshop and got some kids colour pencils but he still prefers mine. We also now have coloured pencil drawings on 4 doors at the moment that replace the crayon drawings that were cleaned off the other day. He is very happy to help clean his artworks from the doors, I just need to keep on re-iterating "only on the paper". Any hints from anyone that has gone through this before? I know that as a small child I covered a whole wall with my artwork when we were visiting my father's cousin and apparently it was a brand new painted wall too. So perhaps genetics tell....