Chocks away. . .

Chocks away and here I go...  I decided last week that I needed a website to showcase my portfolio and get my name out there as an Illustrator for children's books. A friend of mine suggested that I use Wordpress themes.  Jolly good I said and merrily went off to look up Wordpress etc and launch into creating my very own professional looking website that will attract a flock of publishers. I was all fired up and excited, this was going to be a piece of cake.  All the blurb says it's easy peasy lemon squeezy.  The website creating bit not the attacking of publishers bit.

AGGGGGGGGGGGGG.....I couldn't even get passed the filling out my name properly.  I had to download Wordpress then open it then find the zipper to unzipper it. Then what to do? Which theme to choose, still haven't worked that one out.  I've tested a few but they won't let me do what I want to do. At some point I decided I needed a teenager but my teenager has gone to Uni, far away from Mummy.  So I can't even haul her cute little bottom back here and get her to do it for me.

I've spent hours, scratching my head, drinking cups of tea and staring at Wordpress pages and I've decided that suddenly I'm as thick as a brick.  I'm a dummy :(    and I'm stuck.

So for now I'm looking to thin out my brick and undummy myself.  I know I have a brain, I'm sure I do. It's here somewhere, I just can't remember where I put it.  I think I'll have a cup of tea and think of a Plan B...

That's my Fun and Nonsense for this week.

Black or White. . .

Things are seldom black or white...these two sad characters popped up in my sketchbook this week. They haven't uttered a word, so I have no idea what the problem is, if there is a problem or if I can fix it, if it needs fixing....maybe they like being sad.  Thankfully I have lots of happy people in my sketchbook, hopefully they will cheer these two up... :)

That's my Fun and Nonsense, what's happening in your world? xx

Sitting on a cloud. . .

It's the weekend and I can't think of anything I'd rather do than sit on a white fluffy cloud and watch the world go by and wait for a little inspiration...

What Fun and Nonsense are you upto this weekend... I'm also floating off to see Lottie at Paper Saturday, come with me... xx

Croissants, fish and a polar bear. . .

 These last few days there has been quite lot of activity in my little sketchbook.

I never know who or what is going to turn up.

You can imagine my surprise when I turned the page to find a little inuit girl called Chu happily fishing away in my sketchbook. She said she had been there all morning and the fish were not biting.  I offered her a cup of tea and half my croissant.  She really liked the croissant, especially when a crumb dropped into the ice hole and gruuuumppp that very second she caught a fish.  Fish like croissants too.

That fish wasn't even unhooked before all of a sudden, there appeared a polar bear.  Nanook (the polar bear) said he had smelt something really yummy...my croissant obviously...and had decided to come and see what it was.  On spying the fish dangling from Chu's fishing line he instantly forgot about the croissant smell, thankfully, because there was none left. 

"Can I stay for supper?" he asked

Chu and I looked at each other, gulped and said "Sure, no problem"

I went and got some croissants, one little fish was not going to be enough....

That's my Fun and Nonsense for today...
Come join me at Lottie's Paper Saturday
and Sunday Sketches... :) xxx

Playing with colour. . .

 Head's up...

I'm having a little obsession with Hopi Indians at the moment. I foresee a lot of little indians popping up in my sketchbook in the near future. 

This little girl started as line drawing. Then we couldn't decide whether she wanted to be coloured in or not. We were both dithering...colour, no colour, colour, no colour.

So I took the advice of my lovely FB friends...they said COLOUR...

Unfortunately or fortunately you may think, I don't possess a camcorder or I would have recorded the colouring in process. You have been saved... :)  (I want to record the process for lots of you that have problems with watercolour.)  I know a few people who say they just can't get the hang of watercolours.  It's all about layering colour. Putting the colour down, adding, pushing colour about and dropping colour in.  Wet on wet or wet on dry. If there is too much water, just lift it out with your brush or a tissue. It's a matter of building the colours up and having fun. 

So back to my little Hopi girl, I grabbed my watercolours and Pitt pens and decided on the colour pallette I wanted to use. I went with my idea of traditional Indian colours.

et voila...

lots of colours running into each other and then

a bit of splattering...can't beat a bit of splattering I say...

While I was reducing the image sizes to put on here, I had a little play with my very old version of Fireworks...

Lovin' the way this turned out...

I think she may get printed onto a new pouch for my phone

That's my Fun and Nonsense... 

It's Friday so I'm sharing with Paint Party Friday... :)

It's Saturday so I'm popping over to Paper Saturday...:)

Keeping busy. . .

It's been a funny old week. I've turned another page in my life. My baby girl has left home to start her new life in England.  I'm sad and happy and redundant till holiday times.  I liked being a full time Mum, best job in the world. It has come to an end and I have to be grown up and adjust.

So after mooching about and feeling sorry for myself I got out the paints...

Acrylic paints take me right out of my comfort zone...which I hate hate hate double hate! Being out of my comfort zone that is. So I put on my big girl pants and took the bull by the horns and I'm really pleased with how this painting turned out.  I don't know what I was fussing about. I used lots of gesso, acrylics, pastels and ink etc. Funny how you start with one idea and then it evolves into something else. This little girl is off to England to live on Ellen's desk at Uni.

 And this little girl and owl are still at the WIP stage.  I think the problem with acrylics is I need lots of space and time and I hate to waste the paint. It annoys me when blobs of paint dry up. With watercolour you just add a little more water and your good to go. This is a completely different style for me but I like it. It still needs work and that's ok.

These little watercolour and ink girls are bookmarks that went to live with my eldest daughter Rebecca.

These were two ideas I came up with for the course that I have just finished and PASSED....yay!

And last but not least, this is me being a bit of Princess...

It helps to keep busy when life hurts...I'll get over myself in a day or two...just wishing I could turn back time for a little while anyway...

That's my not so Fun and total Nonsense for this week...x

My list. . .

My list of things to do this summer is ridiculously long. One biggie was ticking off finishing my course......5 minutes ago I ticked it off my list... feels good.  Now I just have the nail biting wait to see if I've passed.  

My little cowgirl was inspired by a sketch I did awhile ago and The Lone Ranger...love a good cowboy film... yeeeeehar...

That's my Fun and Nonsense, what's yours?...

Magic is childs play. . .

My mega "things to do" list, this holiday is getting bigger and smaller. Just when I've ticked one thing off the list something else gets added. One of my things to do was to paint without having sketched something before hand. I like to draw then colour in, it's safe and I can rub out any mistakes. For ages I have wanted to get messy and loose.  So,  Yesterday I started 22 days of Intuitive Art and decided to just go with it. Today's theme was magician (it's all based around the 22 main tarot cards).  I printed the background using my new Geli plate, then finger painted the girls face. I used some cheap kiddies brushes for printing the flowery things, some Posca's and voila.  My child within, loves painting with her fingers, messy messy messy and so much fun.

Hope you've had some Fun and Nonsense today... :) x

Good Morning Tuesday. . .

 You can't help respecting anybody who can spell TUESDAY, even if he doesn't spell it right; but spelling isn't everything. There are days when spelling Tuesday simply doesn't count.” 

― A.A. Milne

I'm wading through my list. Nothing is finished and everything is started. Renovations on the house are slow. I've been getting up at 6am to work-work, before it gets to hot to do anything. Work-work is cleaning the house and hard manual labour, the boring, it's got to be done work.  In the afternoons I've been concentrating on book work and artwork and generally messing about with my watercolours. Bliss. I love being on holiday.

ps...for all us dyslexics...chewsday, choosday, choseday...TG for spellchek...:P   That's my Fun and Nonsense xx

Holiday time. . .

Sorry I've been away from blogland for so long.  I've been busy with end of term stuff. We broke up yesterday...yippeeeeeeeeee!!!!

I now have two whole months of no school. 

Unfortunately I won't be having lazy mornings in bed or flopping on the beach with a good book or vegging on the sofa. I have plans, big plans!

1. Finish my course
2. Sort out my Portfolio
3. Work on my book about fairies - what else would I write and draw about... 
4. Finish a cookbook for my youngest daughter who is heading off to Uni coz she passed her Baccalaureat and has been accepted to Oxford Brooks
5. Start a new cookbook for my eldest daughter who got a 2:1 and has finished Uni and is starting her new job on the set of "Into the Woods" starring Johnny Depp and Meryl Streep amongst others  
6. Stop grinning like a demented cheshire cat :D, it's really not good for the wrinkles but who cares they are happy wrinkles and I'm so proud of my two girls
7. Get the house ready for selling
8. Get on with the renovations to the farmhouse so we can move into it IF we sell our house quickly
9. Organise Mum and Dad's loft..50 years of rubbish is being stored up there because they are worse hoarders than I am....so will mean trips to the dump, I'll be needing very large kid gloves and massive big girl pants for that.
10. I'm sure there's a 10, just can't remember what it is... it will probably come to me at 3am..don't you just hate that..

I don't think two months is really enough...If get halfway through my list of things to do I'll be amazed.

Am also joining Illustrations Friday this week 

PROTEST is the topic for week...

Some of you will have seen this one before but I think is suits the topic. How many of us have had youngsters protesting about eating carrots... um

That's my Fun and Nonsense...off to enjoy my holiday...wish me luck... :) 

Pop over to Lottie's Paper Saturdays... and Sunday Sketches ...