London . . . Leeds . . .

Hi everyone,
Mr Hollywood and I are off on a little trip to England to see my lovely mad friend who's highlights haven't been the same since I ran away to France (she would turn up on my doorstep at Midnight once, coz her blonde highlights needed fixing before the school run in the morning....well, a girl can't face the other Mum's looking less than perfect - it was that kind of town. She's finally managed to escape too)...

We are also going to see my gorgeous girl Rebecca... who ran away to Leeds and left her Mummy behind and well quite frankly doesn't keep in touch enough.... on the brightside...she's fine... As some of you know, I haven't seen her since Christmas...so can't wait to hug her and squeeze her and kiss her... She's my baby... I made her, so she will just have to put up with annoying Mother...will also be meeting the boy that has stolen her heart...he thinks I'm scary...GOOD!

I sent one of my fairy's on ahead to Rebecca....

So if you've popped by...I'm not here, I'm away but I'll be back next week with my postcard dairy..... hope you all have a good week and weekend and do stop by Sunday Sketches and Creative Tuesdays ......

Backgrounds. . .foregrounds. . .

As some of you will know...I've been trying to do flowery, grassy, whatever backgrounds and foregrounds.... well...am useless..will have to keep practising practising...probably would help if I actually sat in the garden and did some life drawing...but it's far to cold to be sitting in the damp grass drawing grass and whatnot....

so my imagination will have to do for now... 

A girl just needs to get away from it all sometimes...

As you will see, drawing from photographs..teasels not much better, I tried to make them spikey with delicate buddy things...didn't work, they look more like toilet brushes...but I'm liking my fairies...

I called this one "Bad Hair Day"...

This is also going to be for my Sunday Sketches hosted by Sophia...check out what everyone else has been up to...I know I'm a little early, but have sick people to visit...teenagers sleeping over...house to clean... Bags to organise... Am off to London and Leeds this week... catching up with old friends and going to see my daughter ...haven't seen her since Christmas... can't wait to annoy her with Mummy hugs and kisses...

Lucky

Pop over and see Mr Toast and Jam, Creative Tuesday's.....

If you tuned in two weeks ago, Spencer was giving Boogie a flower for Valentine's....

Lucky Boogie Bedhead, likes Spencer Dubs and is chuffed to bits with the flower....
Lucky Miss Cagouille (the snail) didn't fall on Toggles head...he managed to move aside....
Lucky Spencer Dubs saw Mademoiselle Cagouille before he gave the flower to Boogie and scooped her up...
Unlucky for Mrs Doodledoo, who spotted Mademoiselle Cagouille and rather thought she would make a nice addition to one of her pies.....

(Cagouille is the local name for Snail)...

Sunday Sketches . . .

Good morning everyone,

Here is my entry for Sophia's Sunday Sketches...if you haven't already...pop over and see what the others have been up to this Sunday...and if your here from SS...then, hope you like what I've done...

If your here for the first time...most of my girlie's have stripy woolly tights... Well....

I have been wondering how I was going to deal with stripy woolly tights once the summer gets here..a girl has to think about these things...very important for planning ones whole summer wardrobe...you can't very well go out on a hot summers day in stripy woolly tights..SO... ta da....summer stripy sun dresses...I wanted to keep the stripes see....

I was inspired by the grassy things that I saw the other day by the Estuary post down below...and the prickly teasel things growing there...also the seed heads in my Mum's garden... for awhile now I have wanted to make my backgrounds and foregrounds more interesting...I love plants and I want to incorporate them in my sketches, but in an abstract fun way...basically coz I can't draw flowers and plants for toffee...so these are my first attempts...looks like this could be where fairies shop for their shower heads.....

Hopefully will have some teasel sketches soon......ouch...such prickly little things....

Even Mummy's can have fun with water and crayons. . .

My lovely teenager gave me some watercolouring crayons for my birthday.

The other day I had to pick her up from school. So whilst I was waiting in the car for Missy, I whipped out my new crayons and water brush...and sketched away and painted...have to mention I had the car windows open, bright sunny day...thought Spring had sprung, it was so warm.....we are in Feb...mid winter..so great..but not really for the plants.....

Anyhow, these crayons are great fun...handy to keep in your bag and the water brush and holder don't drip or nothing....can't be doing with drips and mess....Missy eventually found the car, why is she always the last one out....then all I had to do was pop everything back in the tin...here comes the clever part....plopped my sketch book on the back seat to dry and drove off.....

So easy, it's child's play....

What I did today. . .

My beautiful youngest daughter and I went for a walk, well we got as far as the thingy that sticks out into the Estuary... at Port De Vitrezay at St Bonnet sur Gironde.... it's the Estuary that comes by Bordeaux and finally finds it's way to Royan and the Atlantic coast.......French side....

The weather this afternoon was magnificent for early February...about 18 degrees...and no wind... we sat at the end there..... Youngest daughter munched through half a packet of chocolate biscuits..(she's a teenager = hungry)...we chatted about this and that....a perfect afternoon...just me and my baby girl....(I know, big baby - but she's mine - I made her...love her to bits)...

View to Royan...somewhere in the distance...a long way off (my teenager didn't care either)

view towards the Medoc I think....need to look at a map (didn't really care...it was peaceful...warm and sunny...no noise...just me and my girlie....)

The tide was out...hence the mud...

 back up the inlet....

 view from inlet to estuary...are you still awake or have I bored you all to zzzzzzzz

you don't really care that, that's way to Bordeaux via boat...or fishing trawler...no I couldn't give a monkeys either....

 Reed grass stuff...but don't it look pretty.....

 more...lets be arty farty....

 artistic prickly thing...photo op...

 yes, marsh land...goes on forever and ever and ever...lots of birds mooching about...in there somewhere...had lazy teenager so didn't go adventuring in marsh wet land.....just looked from a distance and munched chocy biscuits 

 That dot is a little trawler boat chugging along......

and it got closer and closer....

 Till it was right in front of us...if I'd had me thermos I would offered him a cup of tea...French trawler man so..probably would have said ...Non!....have absolutely no idea what he was fishing...he was not alone...there were other dots (boats) trawling the estuary.... you can see the nets in the front there.....they dip in and out....well I was impressed....

Lots of birdie footprints in the mud...before the tide came in....

That's it...then we went home....great afternoon....back to school for both of us tomorrow..

Postcard Swap

Beth over at Do What You Love is having another Great Stitched Postcard Swap.  Time to get out your supplies, stitch up some lovely postcard art, send it off and receive some love in the mail from somewhere else in the world.   Last time she had 85 people from 13 countries on 5 continents stitching up a storm.  I missed the last one and it looked like a lot of fun...some great ideas going on...pop over, have a look and hopefully join... I have...

Baby Girls . . .

My friend had a baby girl last week....so I just had to create something for the baby and her older sister who is 10yrs old.... Mr Hollywood has been sick, so we haven't been able to go see them...can't wait for a cuddle... (obviously with baby)...I can cuddle Mr Hollywood anytime...

this is for baby...

this is for big sister....who, if you haven't guessed is into Judo...

framed and ready to be wrapped.....

Ruby Brown...

I drew this during the week, for Sunday Sketches and Creative Everyday. I'm also going to link to this new site that I found yesterday which is packed full of arty info, take a look.. Art Journal Everyday ...

Ruby Brown just popped onto my page like so many of my characters....I love her....I hope I can turn her into a story and lets hope for a happy ending... the ideas are floating about in my head, just need to find time to concentrate on what my ideas are saying.....could take awhile (a faith healer once told me that it was complete chaos in my head...at least he didn't say it was empty)....hehe...

The other girls laughed at Ruby Brown's colourful woolly tights, 

the ones her Granny knitted on a Saturday night....

The little dancers tut tutted while Ruby Brown,

pirouetted, wobbled and tried not to fall down...

Finally ! my Big Girl phoned home . . .

Finally, my big baby girl, who will be 20yrs old this summer phoned home.... I'm so happy... As some of you know, she's at Uni in England... apparently she has £4 till the end of the month...she's happy and she and lovely boyfriend have food.....so all is well....     

She also bought an old fashioned typewriter for £2.50 ..."coz it's cool Mum".... (I learnt to type on one of those things...yes I'm that old).....

This is the front and back of the envelope that I sent daughter...yes there was something homemade inside...Mr Hollywood and I are off to visit Missy Minger in three weeks...looks like we will be stocking cupboards and bank accounts...well what are Mothers for after all...... am so glad my No. 1 duckling and lovely boyfriend duckling No 2 are ok....they are too skint to go out drinking, so stay in and drink water....yes, Mother was born yesterday......

Toggle, really is a super sniffy dog....if only he could make Miss Minger phone home more often.....

I wanted to try something a little different, so hence the eyes are not as I usually draw them...it was not my intention, but she rather looks like E.T  ....."phone home" ....now where did that come from....have a good weekend everyone....

A 12 month challenge with SweetLimes . . .

This challenge all started thanks to Art Every Day for a Month (November last year) hosted by Leah at Creative Every Day .  I started chatting to B at Sweetlimes . We were both sorry that AED November was coming to an end. Not quite sure how it happened but we decided to make a challenge of our own. We each had to send each other something on the 15th of each month for a year, starting of course in January.

What I sent in December...

I thought I'd be clever and start early, so sent B a little gift for Christmas, unfortunately my gift never got to her, re snow storms..(very rare in Paris)...so somewhere in the world, probably still in the Paris airport is an Angel...lets hope one day she makes it to B in Canada...where they laugh in the face of a snow storm that leaves 2inches of snow behind..

B sent to me...

Well I was thrilled to bits when my first package from B arrived...this is a beautiful collage, the words are so thoughtful and kind, she describes it as a cosy blanket...couldn't have said it better myself....thank you B. It is sitting on my desk and everytime I look at it, I smile and think how wonderful it is to have a new friend.... as some of you know..I love Snail Mail...can't beat it. (only if your a snow storm in Paris).

My postcard from France...

This is what I made and sent to B. It's postcard size. I had real fun with this..I thought afterwards I should have done something more wintery but as I pointed out to B, it's summer in Australia, a place very dear to my heart. Not sure about all of you..I am so fed up of being cold... and well Spring is calling to me, very loudly....

This is the other side....

B SweetLimes and I will keep you posted on our monthly challenge..... hop over and see her blog...she makes the most amazing things, she's a very talented artist and a great Bloggy friend....