Struggling to Create!

Since moving to our new home, I have really been struggling to be creative. It’s not been helped by the wasps who have invaded my new studio space making it difficult for me to get unpacked. Not that we haven’t been busy.

We treated ourselves to a brand new Dyson. I really love the quality in these machines, but today I discovered a whole new meaning to precision engineering – every single piece of cardboard used in packing the machine was a work of art! They were scored and folded just like pieces of origami to exactly fit round each part of the machine. Absolutely amazing! I sat and patiently deconstructed each one because I was so fascinated by their construction!

On a more artistic note, I also treated myself to some Pearlescent Fluid Acrylics. I tried them out in my notebook…

… then just had to play digital blending with the photos I took! Hopefully I’ll be getting really messy very soon now!!

Digital Blending!

As promised yesterday…

…today I played with a spot of digital blending! I blended the original photograph together with a scan of the blue green mail art I created a few days ago. I’m quite pleased with the way it’s turned out. What do you think?

Exploring the Garden!

My brain is willing, but my 60 year old body is feeling the strain after all the exertions of the last few days… but each day the house is getting straighter. I didn’t get as far as doing any artwork today, however I did do a spot of exploring in our new garden. It’s rather overgrown and neglected, but there are some interesting looking plants hiding amongst all overgrowness!

Not being a particularly adept gardener, I have no idea what this is called… it’s very pretty though. Can anyone help me with a name? It looks like a candidate for a spot of digital blending. Maybe tomorrow, I can barely keep my eyes open at the moment – I think it’s time for bed!

Back On Line!

I know I only missed one day, but it feels so good to be back on-line! We’re safely installed in our new house – and about half-way through the unpacking! The kitchen is more or less straight, the living room is beginning to show some floor space, and I hope to get the clothes unpacked in the bedroom tomorrow. I’ve found my big box of essential art supplies, and hope by tomorrow to be able to do some creating… Yeah… getting messy again!! Bry is an extremely happy man; we had our new fibre optic broadband installed this morning, and he’s busy testing it’s capabilities!

Exchanging life by the sea for suburban life has mixed blessings, but the greatest blessing of all has to be the lack of seagulls; their mess – but most of all their noise. If you have ever lived near the coast you will probably know that seagulls never sleep. Where most birds settle down at night and are quiet until the daylight begins, seagulls just never stop screaming at each other!! It is just so nice to go to bed at night and hear nothing but the odd passing car!!

Talking of bed, I just have time to unpack a few more boxes before I turn in for the night, so I’ll catch up with you tomorrow.

All Packed Up!

All Packed up and ready to go… in just over 12 hours we’ll have the keys to our new home – very exciting!

These two boxes contain essentials … my paints and brushes, recycled stamps, gel medium, stencils and many other goodies that I have been using for the last week or so. I feel as though part of me is missing at the moment! So to keep me out of mischief I’ve been playing image altering on my iPhone!

We were given this plant by a good friend just over a year ago, and it is still flowering and flourishing. I have no idea what it’s called, but I love the colour and the shape of the flowers. Can you put a name to it?

Playing With Paint!

It’s less than two days now before we get the keys to our new home and it’s getting to the point where I will have to seal up the boxes with my paint in. But I was determined to have one last play before that happens.

As you can see by the state of my hands, I had a lot of fun!

And this is the new mail art! I really wanted the colour to be all blue, but as you can see… the red and purple just couldn’t help but creep in! I used acrylic paint with stencils and fingers and home made stamps, and lots of layers – so many layers, that I don’t think any of the original envelope shows through at all!

I hope to be back with the paint by the weekend, but till then I’ll be playing with photos and blending and possibly some words!.

Front Room Blend!

I took this picture of our front room today to show my daughter how the packing was going. I was wondering how it would look if I blended some of my scanned mail art with it …

… this was the first version with just one image blended…

… and this is the second version with another image blended. I can’t decide which one I like best. What do you think?

Purple Mail Art!

Four days left and counting! The packing is done except for the last few bits, all the boxes are taped up except for three of my art supply boxes, so we’re almost there!!

Carrying on the addiction, here’s another recycled padded envelope. This one originated from my pen supplier!

I started out with the ‘Fragile’ tape again – I do like how that looks through the paint! Then I added a couple of small gel medium transfers, and followed it up with lots of acrylic finger painting, recycled stamping, homemade stamping and stencilling. I finished off with a little metallic paint drippage. I think this one may have a face lurking in its depths … keep watching to find out!

More Mail Art!

Moving day is less than 5 days away. Almost everything is in boxes, but I keep delaying sealing them up so that I can keep painting! We’re moving into deep clean mode now – cleaning out cupboards, washing down paintwork and stuff like that. I ache all over from all the unaccustomed exercise!

I think I may be getting addicted to painting on recycled padded envelopes! They are so much fun, plus they’re about the only things I can find to paint on at the moment! After the move I’ll have loads of recycled cardboard – but for now I’m really enjoying my mail art.

I began by adding some “Fragile” tape to the envelope to get it started, then added lots of layers of acrylic paint with my fingers. I originally intended to use ink pads to do my stamping, but they are packed too deep for me to get to them right now, so I used some more acrylic paint on my homemade stamps. I finished off by adding a bit of drippage – very watered down acrylic paint. I’m not sure if it’s totally finished yet, but it felt like the right place to stop for now.

More Link Love!

It’s Friday again, and I’m joining with Tammy from Daisy Yellow on her link-love mission.

Today Tammy suggests we link to 5 of our favourite topics… so here goes.

Healing and Natural Living:
I love reading Rose’s blog Walk in the Woods and looking at all her beautiful photographs of the things that she makes. Rose has a home-based holistic wellness practice and creative studio, and blogs about her daily life.

Inspiration
The Tiny Buddha site run by Lori Deschene is a wonderful place to get daily inspiration and encouragement.

Hand Made Books
Robin creates the most amazing hand made books and journals – wonderful inspiration if you’re a compulsive bookmaker like me!

Journalling and Mixed Media
Rhomany’s blog is a wonderful and constant source of information and inspiration on all aspects of journalling and mixed media artwork.

Self-Care and Inner Exploration
Liz is a teacher, author and artist. I’m currently working through her book, ‘Inner Excavation’, for which she has blog posts and videos from a free read along she hosted last year here. Brilliant!

I’ve already had a sneak peek at some of the other links out there, but I’m off to have a proper look now. See you tomorrow!