Recent stuff.

A portrait of siblings for a friend's Mum, and a portrait of two girls for an insanely belated gift for a gorgeous Mumma friend from a lovely Daddy friend.

Out of Practice.

I'm a little out of practice, I know, but geewhizz, I'm struggling with my latest portrait for a friend.

Today.

Rainy days are filled with so many possibilities…
Armed with a coffee I plot and I plan.

The Start of Things to Come.

It's not like I'll be making masterpieces... and I can't ignore the housework every day... but tonight the boys all sleep, and I scribbled instead of joining them.

F*ck It.

It's come to my attention that I don't draw enough.
Every now and then I'll pull out the brushes and the half empty tubes of paint, and I'll produce something because someone's asked for something. Unless there's a show or opportunity, I seldom paint... and I never, ever draw.

So as of today I'm going to draw/paint/sketch/doodle/create every day. Every single day. Because I'm out of practice, and one day I might need to be practiced. 

Working Larger with Gouache.

These three pieces travelled down to a show in Sydney. I've never had my art taken anywhere before, it was pretty cool.

Friday Night Activities.

Tonight needed a little bit of spray paint.

Till Midnight.

Every night this week I've stayed up till midnight. It's not quite the almost-dawn, V'd up paint sessions of my earlier artistic years, but it's certainly an improvement on the more recent months.
It's getting warmer, which helps, and I'm about to tackle the third trimester which, if I remember anything from last time, came with a suitable amount of energy.

Thankfully for my crafts this has happened during a several week stint of The Boy working early (therefore going to bed early) and with a mostly cooperative toddler I've managed to spew out a few new paintings.

I'd like to do something a little more consistent, but there's a little alarm in my brain reminding me that, come November, my time won't be my own once again - for all the best reasons.

 

This week's accomplishments.

Recently on the Easel.

Being playing with gouache again lately. I like when it acts like watercolour, but isn't watercolour.

How Does One Paint Without Chocolate?

Working on a commissioned piece tonight.
Struggling to stay awake long after Our Monster and The Boy are snuggled up in bed together.
Thoroughly enjoying the feel of a paintbrush back in my hands after two months away from a canvas, but here's my question: how does one paint without chocolate? Chocolate, or chiccos or chips at the very least. Hell, right now I'd settle for a honey sandwich.
No energy and temporary diabetes are the two fun things I get stuck with during pregnancy. Looking forward to meeting the reason for my first world suffering :)

Productivity.

These past few weeks I've had to relearn a lot of things when it came to painting. But as the nights ticked by I felt like I got the hang of it again.

Little By Little.

It's taken a lot of patience to stare at my incomplete work day after day. But every now and then, when it's way past my bedtime and the house is fast asleep, I add a smudge here or a stroke there and, little by little, the faces grow personalities.

Blank Canvases.

I bought some random, off white, paint from Bunnings last week (thank you whichever person was not happy with their sample pot, allowing me to purchase it for three dollars), and brushed over some old pictures. 

I have more bad portraits than I can count on my fingers and toes, lining the walls of our crammed shed; unseen and unappealing. There's sentimental attachment that goes along with a lot of them, but there's also a lot of wasted canvas. 

On Friday I blocked in a few new sketches.

Draw, draw, draw.

The Sketchbook Project...

A few of the pages:

A Totally Pointless Task.

Today it rained. 

Our patio flooded with fresh, cold water, with dirt and with leaves. My memory flooded with other rainy days; a little girl all dressed in pink, stomping around in puddles and making little boats out of styrofoam to float in the flooded area under the house. 

Our Archer is still too young for me to captivate him in the world of make believe... but I thought maybe I needed a refresher course in case my imagination had dried up.

So tonight, I made a little boat out of styrofoam.

The Boy, to my delight (though not to my surprise), picked up sticky tape and stanley knife and humoured me.

I feel better after doing that. More... I don't know, childish, I guess. It was refreshing to do something totally pointless for a change.

Birthdays.

Birthdays are one of those nostalgic kind of times.

Last week Our Archer had his first birthday. The day itself was casual - the poor little monster wasn't well, but as a bonus this allowed The Boy to stay home from work with a doctor's certificate. 

I am only now reminded at how an entire year has gone by and I still haven't sat myself down to quietly admire the miracle that is a newborn baby. I told myself every week that I would take the time, maybe have a long soak in the bath, and re-live the whole process in my head. I'm sure I'll get around to it, maybe in another ten or fifteen years.

The weekend that followed turned me into a "real mum." I baked the cake, hung the decorations and invited other pint sized human beings for an afternoon in the ball pit.

I'm not a baker, or a very organised hostess, but I did enjoy the decorations and my first attempt at playing with fondant. 

Kids - a constant excuse to be creative.

One Week Down.

I had a New Years post half written up on a crumpled piece of paper, but amidst  the expected and unexpected invasion of in-laws I never got around to half a minute at the computer.

This year I've set my self the resolution of drawing more. Nothing more concrete than that - trying to keep it simple.

I would also like to find my lost camera, but as it was last seen at a large family gathering I'm beginning to lose hope.

New Years Eve itself played host the an extreme water balloon war. It was a good start to a year.

An Update For Update's Sake.

I've been off the artistic bandwagon for some time... but I am at least skimming through my self set deadlines.

Treasure boxes for my nephews and niece for Christmas.

November In a Nutshell.

If there's nothing else I achieve this year (you know, aside from hatching a tiny human and keeping it alive for -still counting- ten and a half months) at least I have another fifty thousand word novel locked tightly away in a computer folder. Where it will, undoubtedly, remain untouched for many years to come, but that's not really the point.

November was cause for much celebration... the tinsel began to sneak not-so-stealthily into stores, the fruit aisle smelt all of a sudden like mangoes, Purple Tiger returned to our location, bringing with her many a tale from the strange, cold lands far across the seas.

People who I love and admire turn out to not be as perfect as I imagined, or as they imagined themselves to be... I'm gutted and lie awake at night and hurt for them... but life goes on...

If I were a vague person in someone else's dream I would look out the window right now and say in a resigned and knowing voice, "a Storm is coming..."
Change is stalking us, steadily and unrelenting. I put my back against the wall, let my lips curl and my hands fist. Bring it on. I'm ready.

Because I Can.

And as if I don't already have enough projects on the go, I started early on Christmas presents for my nephews and niece. Trinket boxes, to keep their little treasures safe.