watercolour course: week 5

It was a great night, everyone is very chatty and friendly... it's so nice to be around like minded, creative people!

This week... more drawing! I think I must have re-drawn every shape about 5 times! As soon as I fixed one thing then something else needed attention and so it went for most of the class! We were all eager to move on! Finally when Kerry (and I) was happy with my drawing, we moved onto the next step! Tracing, which we will use to trace the image onto the watercolour paper, which is a great idea as the tracing can be reused! Once we had trace our sketch of the still life, spotlights were put on the still life to create shadows, which we then added to our traced outline. Next week we will be getting back into watercolour painting... Yay...can't wait!

Still life sketch

Tracing of still life sketch and shadows

Still life set up with spot lights

Knitting: 1 beanie with pom pom

1 Sunday evening + 1 ball of thick yarn + 1 set of 6.5mm knitting needles
= 1 beanie with pom pom

I had a free afternoon to myself on Sunday and what to I do.... I go to Lincraft to hang out!!!  I needed to buy some more yarn for my scarf and also was on the lookout for some yarn for a beanie for my little man M! After spending an hour staring at wool and having a funny chat to a lady about knitting, family and life.. as you do.. I finally got out of there and I couldn't wait to get home and knit the beanie!! I used this beanie pattern from Lincraft's website... as usual I have changed it slightly and added a pom pom! I can't believe I knitted it in one evening! It does help to have big wool and needles! I put it all together this morning and made an extra pom pom for M to play with. I'm so pleased with the result! And M is happy to wear it :)

This also means I can finally cross something off my to do list.. HOORAY!!! I keep getting distracted by other things but I'm glad it's just over there → staring me in the face :)

my creative space: print, wool and paint

This week I have been working on a few things...

screen printing: I have finished the cupcake screen print, which turned out very bright, I love it! I'm sure the recipient will love the gift too!

knitting: My scarf is slowly coming along and so is my trying to conquer continental knitting. I'm not doing to bad and I'm starting to pick up a bit of speed, but my tension is still a bit all over the place... I must persevere!

watercolour: I have been playing/experimenting with spots (love spots) and dots. I love how the edges are slightly darker and a more intense colour! I'm really getting into watercolour... you never know what you will end up with when it dries :)

There are a lot more creative people at our creative space :)

watercolour course: week 4

It was a great class last night! This week we did some drawing exercises, used a view finder and started drawing a still life which we will be concentrating on for the next few weeks and then creating a watercolour painting from the sketch. I love drawing but haven't done any still life drawing for a really long time, so it was really great to get some useful tips.

The still life was a set of white shapes; a pyramid, two bottles and a cube. We used the view finder (a rectangle cut out of a piece of paper) to look through and frame the still life. We drew a few thumbnail sketches, one in landscape, one in portrait and then a close up/crop of the still life.

thumbnail sketches of still life

We then drew the still life on A3 paper. It doesn't look like much but it was a bit of a challenge trying to get everything right! I am really pleased with what I have done though for some reason my bottles were tilting to the right and I didn't leave enough room for the pyramid? (I had to add some paper to the side) I'll be working on fixing everything up :)

sketch of still life

my creative space: cupcake screen print

I'm taking part in our creative space, where there are lots of great people doing their creative thing.

Today I'm working a screen print of a cupcake tea towel, requested by a family member for a little present. I haven't printed this one since xmas, which was a present for my cousin who is totally nuts about cupcakes. She loved it so much that she refused to dry the dishes with it! I love printing this design... it's lots of fun :)

cupcake stencil cut outs for screen printing

one I screen printed last year for my cousin

* Apologies for the photos, the lighting is terrible.. I really need to get a new camera!

watercolour course: week 3

We did a lot more experimenting this week! I went a bit crazy with the masking fluid - which stops the watercolour from going on the paper. I also spent quite a lot of time playing with salt - which soaks up the watercolour. I just loved the effects they created. I do need to work on my straight lines, it's quite hard to control paint, brush and water... water has a mind of it own! But it's ok to make a mess when one is experimenting!  It was so much fun I didn’t want the evening to end!
Here are a few of my experiments:

some of my experimental watercolour work

multi same colour layered wash from last week

layered coloured wash from last week

sprinkled salt effect

two coloured layered wash with sprinkled salt



masking fluid drops (the yellow shiny bits)
- still in progress

layered wash with spots of masking fluid
 - still in progress

screen printing: home sweet home

I have been itching to do some screen printing for the past week... I'm slightly addicted! My brother and his girlfriend are visiting from New York and I thought it would be nice to make them a little personalised screen printed tea towel... they absolutely loved it! I really love screen printing and making special things for family and friends, it always makes me happy to see them happy :)

mixing up some colour and screen printing in my sunny little kitchen

home sweet home :)

my creative space: screen printing

Note: Blogger has been playing up the last few days and deleted this post and the lovely comments I recieved (thank you everyone) Luckily I had a backup!

I am joining in on our creative spaces this week. I have been working on a design for my little boy M… he has some very boring tops that are crying/screaming out for some colour and cars! I really like the design so far…

• scribbled some cute cars on paper
• traced the ones that looked the best
• coloured them in with a black felt tip pen
• scanned them into Illustrator
• made a few different patterns

I have lots of ideas of what to do with these funny little cars… can’t wait to screen print them :)

watercolour course: week 2

This week in class we were experimenting with watercolour and mixed media. Kerry our tutor, showed us loads of examples of what can be achieved using different techniques like overglazing, and experimenting with tone: and using media like sponges, bubble wrap and just about anything you can lay your hands on! I was so interesting and quite a few inspiring ideas!

The time went so quickly, I didn't get to do much experimenting though I did get quite a lot glazes done preparing for the next stage, sorry the pictures aren't that exciting! Luckily we will be doing more experimenting next week so I will be able to have a play with the media! I can’t wait :)

flat and glaze washes

inspiration: Geninne's Art Blog

I came across Geninne's Art Blog late last year and have been in awe ever since. I just love her work, especially the gorgeous little birds she creates and paints! The color combinations she uses are so beautiful and I love the attention to detail, they are all just amazing pictures.

Three Little Birds

I also love looking back through her blog and seeing how her style has developed over the years, it's so inspiring. It's great to see images of her process, from the drawings, to the different stages in painting. She was the one who has inspired me to do the watercolor painting course, especially after watching the watch me paint video on her site, I thought... I really would love to learn! I never ever thought I would be interested in watercolour!!! I always thought it was for pensioners.. how wrong was I :)  I love going to Geninne's site, it always make me happy to read her blog, see her artwork and lovely little birds :)

Big Bird

my creative space: knitting

I'm playing along with my creative space at Kootoyoo...
I recently finished knitting a jumper for my little boy M. I'm so pleased with how it turned out, considering I haven't knitted anything since I was in my teens (a very very long time ago)!  I used a pattern from the internet simple childs raglan jumper. The instructions were quite straight forward, once I unravelled the knitting lingo! I changed a few things, neckline, waist and wrist bands to be a shorter. I thought knitting would be a great way to relax and do a bit here and there.. but once I started I turned into a knitting maniac and couldn't slow down or relax!!! But I loved it! So now I have to get M to wear it... he doesn't seen too keen at the moment... hmmm after all that manic knitting!

Next up is knitting a scarf for me and learning how to knit continental! So far... so slow but I'm getting better, just got to persevere!!

watercolour course: week 1

I love my watercolour course!! My classmates are a great bunch of people, some have done the course quite a few times, which says a lot about the course and the tutor "Kerry" who is really lovely!

We started off doing flat wash and then graded wash. I was really happy with my result... especially for my first time!

Then we moved onto overlapping circles... oh dear... circles are tricky!  Looks like I will be doing quite a bit of circle practice this week!

note to self: be patient and wait for watercolour to dry completely before doing more!!!
I can't wait for next week :)

playing with watercolour

I'm starting a new short course tomorrow "Watercolour painting" at Sydney Community College tomorrow. I'm really looking forward to exploring and learning more about watercolour, which I've only dabbled with recently after doing the "Graphic Design Principles" course! I've got the art materials and I've had a good play around with the watercolour paints, creating a little colour chart... I can't wait!