The other night Tom came home with this little package from our friend Darwin who is an agricultural specialist. He must have picked this up at a farm show where Brodbeck Seeds were doing a little marketing. I thought this was quite cute!
Here the hidden product was a T-shirt still retaining the shape of the pea pod.
Unfolded now and the both of us grabbed each end and pulled. This is supposed to be an extra large. Darwin said it’s kinda hard to get the wrinkles out and I do believe him. We will see what a washing can do to it.
I picked up two new succulents at IKEA a couple of weeks ago. Eventually I will plant them but I am still just learned how to take care of these kinds of plants. I was given a lovely container a couple of months ago and didn’t do a good job at all. So I am trying again and educated myself a bit more by going to the site succulents and sunshine. The name and the cuteness of the site won me over. She looked like someone I would like. That’s what it’s all about!
Shelves #2 and #3 were put up this weekend. I am sure I can figure this out but I let Tom do it because of the holes that get drilled into the wall. If something happens I don’t want that on my shoulders! I have learned a few things in 35 years of marriage! He looks at my bag of shelves and says with a raised eyebrow “you have a lot of shelves in there”…. yep…he will just have to go with it. There was a little grumbling…but all in fun.
I started a new mixed media painting of a beachy, Cape Hatteras lighthouse scene. It is on a 24 X 24 canvas. I first started with a coat of gesso to give it tooth, so everything will stick to it. Now the canvas I use has a coat already on it and it would be fine but I do it more for me. You have a blank canvas and by putting something that drys clear it helps getting over the trepidation of starting a blank canvas.I then put a wash of blue that will have some runs and spots that are darker over the whole board. I then drew lightly where I was going to place my scene. In 1999 they moved this lighthouse because the ocean was getting too close to it. It is not at the waters edge, it is really in the middle of a forest now. I wanted it to be the prominent focal point and to stand boldly and tall in the painting. I wanted to get the subject out of the way first. I drew it in, got the stripes positioned the way I felt they were correct. I then decided to paper piece the lighthouse in. I have heavy, outdated wallpaper books. I used tracing paper to get each stripe right and so they would piece together exactly. I didn’t need to trace the bottom, I was able to just cut pieces of wallpaper for that area. I painted the top, or the lantern part with black acrylic paint. The other elements that will be on this painting is the ocean, the beach, sand dunes with sea grass, trees shore birds and a sea turtle. I will not only be using acrylic paint but fiber and molding paste, ink and torn paper to name a few.
Saved the rest of my wash to be used at a later time. Little jars work great. Please check back for updates on the cape or you can sign up with your email to automatically get the blog post in your mail box. The sign up box is on the first page of the website.
See that says October of 2014? That’s when I signed up for this course. I had not been able to get to it and it will all disappear in October of 2015. I have downloaded all the lessons so I can do them at my leisure and I started the first one this week. The very first lesson I did a very long time ago which was to make this note book. All it is is one of the composition books that has the hard back. It has gesso and ink brayered onto it and then stamps pressed into it. I used washi tape and liquid pearls and printed off the picture of the class for the front. It was fun to make and I even made a few for my friends.
I started taking notes on the first video and also just showing that it is just one of the school composition books.
Now the reason I decided to sign up for this course was because I needed major help on drawing faces and I wanted to get better. The first artist was Jane Davenport and the title of the lesson was the nymph. In this lesson she was using the work of John William Waterhouse which focused primarily on beautiful women. So I chose my picture and just started in drawing it. Now in my defense on the top one I was using a china pencil, which you can’t erase and I was just trying to get shapes from the face first. BTW a china pencil is one that marks tires to see if the car has moved. They write on everything. The top picture looks like a mean, mad, old woman. I just used a #2 pencil on the bottom lady and it’s better but it still doesn’t look like my chosen picture.
The next thing we were to do was take some gesso and acrylic paint and spread it on a journal page. She had a really neat antique book that she wanted to draw in but I had none of those available and just put it in my sketchbook, and it is to dry completely. We used colored pencils for this area and drawing on the substance it really grabs hold of the colored pencil and felt good. Also generally colored pencil cannot be erased but on this substance it can. My top lady has kind of a Richard Nixon nose and my bottom lady has a Gaston chin of Beauty and the Beast. I am going to watch her video again and try a third face on here. The old adage….back to the drawing board!
Here is my lovely lady that I chose and you can also tell why I want to work on my faces. Practice, Practice, Practice! The one problem I see that I need to do is tilt her head forward a bit. The title of this picture is “Destiny” and I found an interesting site called Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood that gave description about this picture. Thanks for stopping by!