It’s Never Too Late ……

Posted on May 12, 2019 by thecontentedcrafter

Ha! Did that catch your attention? I hope so, as I’m stuck and I thought, I wondered, I hoped, just maybe you might have a bright idea – or two!

I’ve been making some cards. I found some stamps and thought I could have some fun with them. They feature, ahem, well endowed ladies and will follow a certain theme …………

Here is the first completed one – done in water colours

It’s never too late

Isn’t she gorgeous?

Here are the others, all made with inks of various types

Or, maybe this way up?

The last three/four don’t yet have WHAT it is not too late to be.

I have thoughts, but I think they might be a bit, you know – blah! And I don’t want to put you off your creativity by blurting them out here……

So, if you can come up with a tagline that fits any of them and I use it, you’ll receive a set of all four of the printed cards.

Over to you my creative friends. I’ll close this off in just four days ………… and thanks so much for coming by today, I love that you did!

365 Words – A Beginning

Posted on January 15, 2014 by thecontentedcrafter

My personal challenge this year is to make a small art piece every day and to record a word or short phrase that encapsulates some aspect of each day.

I didn’t actually decide to do this until 3 or 4 days into the New Year, so I started on the back foot. Which is a fairly typical place for me to start anything really.

I settled into work one afternoon and began by preparing a load of old defunct business cards. I taped two together, then another two, then another two, until I had about a months worth of daily cards.

I adhered some torn book pages to a few of the cards and then happily sploshed some paint around and got something happening colour-wise:

Here is what I had produced at the end of the first seven days of January:

These are the second 7 days:

I journal a bit more detail on the backs of the cards because I know that in six months time I will have no idea where my mojo had got to or why I was urging myself to ‘slow down’ …….. And why am I surprised that it is virtually impossible for me to stick to one word every day? If you’ve been tagging along for a while you will be well aware I am a woman of many words – how can I use just one or two words when sixteen or twenty give a more in depth and juicy image? 🙂

Here are a few individual days cards. This first one refers to how I felt the day after I had remembered to take the long view and see just what had been achieved and how I had been blessed in 2013……

Surely you know what this one refers to:

This one celebrates the life and memory of someone very dear to me still:

This was a happy day – the sun actually shone and we reveled in it – the next day it had gone again!

This is the latest one. One of my oldest friends blew into town – [I’m god-mother to their youngest daughter]. He turns up three or four times a year and we sometimes miss each other as he never thinks to actually give me prior warning. But this time it all worked out and he took me out for a meal. We teased the Italian waiter for leaving Sardinia to come to a place that Summer had deserted, ate probably the best fettucine and calamari I have ever tasted, drank good Otago chardonnay and finished with real Italian dessert – I had Tiramisu which had a party in my mouth and he had Chocolate Torte….. We watched the waves thundering and crashing against the sea wall and had a wonderful three hour long conversation that served our souls well.

So there we are – the first two weeks of January are gone already. In retrospect I realise I spent it dealing with technology issues, pining for my lost summer and being saved by charming men! 🙂 Happy Dance!!

Thank you for coming by today, I’m so happy that you did 🙂

Smallest Things

Posted on November 21, 2013 by thecontentedcrafter

It’s raining today – still warm, but wet and grey. Typical spring weather really, yesterday I found I had a tinge of pink on my arms and shoulders after an hour sitting in the garden – medium rare 🙂

I’m been working on 180 gsm water colour paper – but from now on will move to 300 gsm – I don’t like the amount of buckle and curl on this lighter paper – you’ll see it in the photo.

It’s because of all the different mediums I’m playing with.

Acrylic paints, papers, stamps, pencils, pens and inks.

It makes for an interesting texture, there’s loads of ‘layers’ so the eye has a sense of depth.

As so often happens with me, I thought I was painting one thing and ended up painting something else – but I quite like her:

The legend is a quote from AA Milne – it’s in one of the Winnie-the-Pooh books, but I can’t remember which one ‘Sometimes the smallest things take up the most room in your heart’

Painted on A4 paper, ready for framing – she is going into the shop today! 🙂

You will have noticed the watermark? I’ve been warned that there are people out there who steal your work and pass it off as their own. I knew this before, but didn’t think that anybody would bother to help themselves to mine – but apparently they have and so now I have to do this for anything I load onto my blog or pinterest .

On the up side – I am flattered that my work is considered good enough to steal. Thank you for the compliment 🙂

Thanks for coming by today, I love that you did 🙂

All I Am – Another Art Journal Page

Posted on October 12, 2013 by thecontentedcrafter

Orlando the Marmalade Cat has been the star of the show for the last three posts, I decided it must be my turn again! And today I decided to work in my art journal again – I haven’t since September 14th [Be the Change …….] My how time flies!!

All I knew when I started was that I wanted to work with my new Monte Marte acrylics, which I’ve had since the end of August and still hadn’t opened. They are beautiful – rich, thick and creamy and as you will see, with a fabulous depth of colour.

I started by laying down some old book pages, which I gessoed over and then I painted.

When the paint was dry I used a couple of acrylic stamps – one with scratchy marks on it and one with words – and randomly plonked them around the pages. Finally a small Dyan Reavelly stencil came into play and I used a dry sponge with almost no gesso on it to dab out the spots and flowers.

With the background done I sketched the head outline in pencil then painted the area white. Once that was dry I could settle in and let the features begin to reveal themselves.

I had three colours on my palette for the face and added in some metallic bronze for the hair – in real life when the light hits the page the hair sparkles 🙂

By the time I had finished painting her the words were clearly in my mind, so I wrote them out onto book paper, cut them out and stuck them in before I could change my mind.