Bandit Sleeping (2.5 x 3 inches) Ballpoint pen on sticky note

I did this picture last night when I was sitting on the couch and watching TV. My cat is pretty cuddly at night time and he snuggled down with me and I thought I should sketch him. But as soon as you move to get something a cat is up and going and won't settle back down for awhile so I decided t be a bit sneaky and just use whatever I had at hand. Which was a blue ballpoint pen and a pad of sticky notes from Meyers. I'm actually pretty happy with this sketch because it captures him at that moment.

These guys below are my second set of Easter goodies I made. They are from an accucut die and I really just assembled them and added some colour and ribbons and candy but they are cute and everyone seems to like them. Marchant Paper Products in Kingston has a die cutting machine that uses accucut dies and if you buy the paper there you can use any of the dies for free. I however was lazy and just bought them pre-cut but I'm not going to beat myself up about that.

Happy Easter!!!!

Talking Turkeys and Tulips Etc

Late last week I was on my way to Ottawa and looked into a field to my right to see a cat stalking through the old corn stalks and wondered what he was trying to catch. About half way down the field I saw these guys....

I'm pretty sure the tomcat was not going to be able to bring one of these wild toms down for breakfast but he was sure concentrating on them. I've seen this group of wild turkeys in that field a few time but this was the first time I'd ever been able to get a picture of them. Never got a picture of the cat though. Too bad!

When I stopped to take the photos this guy walked across the road right in front of me...He's a bit blurry because I was sooooo shocked to see him there and that he stayed close enough for long evough for me to even focus. Normally when you stop the truck these guys are GONE!!! Very shy from being shot at I guess and smart enough to say so long.

Today I made two sets of Mini Milk Cartons for gifts. I got the idea from Inking Idaho (http://www.inkingidaho.blogspot.com/) and if you want the instructions you can purchase them from Becky there. Great value and very clear with diagrams and colour photos.

Yesterday I bought myself some lovely orange tulips and took some photos of them today in the half light from the front window. Nice a cloudy and supposed to be ideal right??? Well I'm particularly happy with this one and hope to do something more with it eventually but for now I'm just gonna toss it out here.
It's nice to have something lovely smelly and pretty and sunshiny to look at after two days of spring snowfall here. These tulips remind me that spring is almost here.

Watercolour Over Gesso Sketches

Both of these sketches are done in my sketchbook in Peerless Watercolour over gesso as an experiment of sorts last week at the urging of my friend Glenda. It was a way to get me painting without having watercolour paper in the house. It was neat to try and I will definitely do it again but it was hard to get as much contrast as I wanted to have, especially in the asparagus painting. I'm not sure if it was the watercolour medium or if it was the gesso. Doesn't really matter though because they were fun to do and got me painting.
Asparagus (6x9) peerless watercolour on gesso (Mar 26, 2009)

Bananas and grapes (6x9) peerless watercolour on gesso (Mar 27, 2009)

Waiting (9x12 watercolour)

This is the first "real" watercolour that I've ever done. I've done watercolouring with watercolour markers before on cards but I have never done a painting with watercolour paints before.

This was done for a challenge on http://www.differentstrokesfordifferentfolks.blogspot.com/ which was to make a painting based on a photo of a beach scene.

This girl was painted based on the gentleman in the baseball cap after my friend Glenda told me that it was cool to change things up and do your own thing. So I also made it a sunset scene rather than a mid-day scene.

I like parts of this painting but I'm not totally happy with the pregnant girl. Of course I don't really ever draw people so... it isn't too bad considering that I guess. I actually quite like the water and the sky, although if I did the sky again I might do it a bit differently but overall I think it's a pretty good first effort.

Just Do It

One of the things I need to overcome with my art is the fear of it not looking good and accept that not everyone creates the same way. I also need to overcome a lack of motivation. And part of that is tryng to do something artisitic every day if possible. That isn't always possible but I want to try. Sometimes and especially lately I've been making my cards (and not posting them here) but I've been toying with the idea of doing some watercolouring and block printing again. My friend Glenda told me that I should try some watercolouring other than on cards and my other friend Sophie just told me to stop being afraid and basically just suck it up and do it. Those aren't her words they are my translation of a much more encouraging email.



But I need to take baby steps and start again with something I'm more comfortable with - like black and white and shades of grey and sketching.



So today I decided to just do a sketch and work from there. I need to start to with a drawing to watercolour anyways and so I decided on a tree frog for some reason. Somewhere around home I have photos I took of a local tree frog on our glass window one night in the dark but I can't find them right now so I sourced a photo on the internet and used that as inspiration for my sketching. The top sketch of the entore frog is the first one I did and was all I really intended to do. The lower one in the right corner was my second sketch. It just sort of happened and adapted and morphed into what you see. I'm pretty happy with how they turned out.

Now the next step will be to put the image onto a piece of watercolour paper and then see what I can do with it. Also I'd like to try block printing this little guy which is more inside the comfort zone. But either way I'll have to translate him into a line drawing.

Maybe tongight after work or maybe tomorrow I'll do that.

Passionately Kissable Chocolate Siamese Brings Me Back

OK. First of all I have been stamping and creating but I kinda forgot I had a blog the last little while because I've been really busy at work and I've been sick for the last two weeks too. Blogging is a bit of work and it gets late and I get tired and I just go to bed. But I made a new friend at SCS mitchygitchygoomy and she came and looked at my blog and I was so embarassed that there was nothing new here since January that I decided this morning that I'd better get on that. So I am back today. Plus if I ever want to apply for a DT job then I'll have to have a blog I update regularly and hopefully my intended bosses would skip this post and not read it at all.




This card was done for the colour challenge this week at SCS.

I don't always get to do the challenges the same day as they are posted and often the colour challenges get missed because I have a loooooong day a work on Wednesdays.

So this was done after the fact.

I was inpired by Karen (k dunbrook) and her lovely gallery at SCS whic can be found here: http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/ga...?si=k+dunbrook. I found Karen through the forums and a commenting game over there that is so much fun.

Karen's lovely use of colour inspired this card. The siamese cat was just on top of my stamp pile so I chose her to be on my card. I often do what I call kamikazee stamping and just use whatever is on top. Part of what made her catch my eye, I think, is that one of the gals on another forum was trying to find the perfect cat stamp and couldn't. This one was just a second hand stamp I bought from Heather's Stamping Haven in Ottawa, Ontario. I don't know the name of the stamp or the company because there isn't a mark on the block at all to identify it.

Chocolate chip was perfect for a Siamese cat too because one of the colours they come in is chocolate point and so I just couldn't resist this stamp on so many levels.

I stamped the cat in chocolate chip and then used pink passion and kiwi kiss ink out of my reinkers and did a watercolour BG effect with lots of water and salt. I masked off the cat and then sponged the lower part of the BG with kiwi kiss and chocolate chip and then sponged around the outside of then entire panel with pink passion. I stamped the flower cluster (from Stampendous - sorry but I have worn the name off of the block but I think it's something like agapanthus) afer I attatched the main panel to the card base of white so that the pink would be on both pieces and lined up correctly. I edged the main panel by dragging it thrugh my chocolate chip pad and then outlined around the panel with my chocolate chip marker. I sponged in kiwi kiss, pink passion and chocolate chip around the card base and added my fuax piercing with my choc chip marker and then stamped the sentiment from Pocket Silhouettes around the edges. Lastly I added the Bella's Baubles in a line along the left side of the main panel.

I really like this colour combo! A friend of mine who has seen the original card says that I managed to make it look oriental to go with the siamese cat. It was fun to do as well which is the main point right????