Seagull panel

 I have been busy working on more wooden panels. I love working on wood. It means I can add loads of heavy texture and then sand the surface with a lovely new hand held sander I have. My seagull started off like this a couple of days ago.

I used shades of citrasolv paper for the seagull body.

Then stencilled modelling paste over the surface to create texture, which I then sprayed with iridescent inks.

I sanded the surface, and drew some detail in ink.

Summer Stag

Another of my small wooden panels.
A couple of months back I posted another stag painting and I enjoyed making it so much I thought I would try a similar one.

Easter stag

I forgot to take WIP shots, so I only have one! You can see beside it my new wondertool... a hand held rechargeable sander. It makes sanding the wooden panels so much easier.  ( saves my nail varnish from chipping) :)

The colours of summer; round up

 The' Summer of color' challenge has come to an end for this year and yet again I find that it is by far the most fun Art challenge around.  I thought I would do a little montage of my six pieces of colour. I tried to vary the mediums I used and experiment a little... have fun basically which is what I think the challenge is all about.

Week one, neocolor water soluble crayons

week two, gouache on watercolour board

Week three, stencilled modelling paste, acrylics and embroidered 3D dragonfly on wood panel

Week 4, acrylics on heavy acrylic paper

week five, acrylic, citrasolv papers on canvas

Week six, gouache, ink, machine embroidery on heavy watercolour paper

Thank you Kristin for organising the challenge and all my lovely followers for their wonderful comments, you really do brighten my day...


Linking to paint party friday

Summer of color; Tangerine wheels

This week is sadly the last Summer of color week,
The final colour selection is the very summery.

Raspberry/tangerine and lemon

A very fruity combination, in fact looking at them makes my mouth water!
I decided to do a fruity collage piece.

 Using tangerines as my design inspiration.

Once I had collaged and painted the design I covered it in pieces of orange and cream organza and machine embroidered through, emphasising the scratchy lines.I wanted to trap the segments behind a membrane just like real orange segments.

I wasn't too precious about the lines as I wanted them to be wild and free.

I have recently returned from a little trip to York to visit my Daughter. For those knitters amongst you I thought you might be interested in this wonderful window display on circular knitting!( I have never heard of circular knitting but this book they were advertising seemed to show all the techniques)
I couldn't resist adding it to my post as it is  in the SOC colours .....

The shop is called Knit and stitch and they have lots of great looking workshops which I will have to check out for next time I visit.

Linking to the final Summer of color.

Many thanks to the wonderful Kristin for yet again making the whole event possible.

Wee houses

A few bits and pieces to share today'
I have been working on some more small wooden panels.
I have often wanted to put a small cottage,(or croft as they are called in northern Scotland) into one of my large canvas paintings. However they never seem to look right, so I thought I would experiment on a small scale.

These little panels are work in progress shots. the light was not to good so sorry about the photo quality.

And here are the finished wee houses......

The houses above are very reminiscent of houses built around a hundred years ago, the older crofts look like this.....

Skye has many beautiful little croft houses, this one is near the Skye bridge. If you look closely you can see the stones which hang from the thatched roof. The winters are harsh and the strength of the wind would blow un-weighted thatch away! I noticed in the corner of the photo which I took, a satellite dish. I was going to crop it out, but it made me smile, with the combination of old and new.

sketching in the sunshine

I have been working for the past few weeks on a large canvas which I posted as my Summer of color entry this week. Miraculously the colours I used fitted with the theme. I get my inspiration from both photographs and outdoor sketching.

The island   (Mixed media on canvas)

Linking to Paint party Friday

Summer of color; The island

This weeks summer of color selection of red, royal blue and pale blue had a big hurray from me!!!

It gives me a chance to show you this canvas which I have been toiling over for weeks now.

 It has had a little bit of digital fiddling thanks to pic-monkey to enhance the tones and fit in with the colour prompt.

colour prompt

This is how it began a few weeks back.

Inspired by this wonderful view of Staffin bay on the Isle of Skye.

I had lots of fun dribbling paint, and used less collage pieces than I normally do, concentrating on making the paint work on its own, letting it run and flow using acrylic flow enhancers.

The rocks are made from pieces of citrasolv papers, which I collaged onto the painted canvas and then protected with acrylic medium. I often look at the papers and think how much they remind me of pebbles.

And this is the painting in its true colours, a little more muted.

'The Island' Acrylic, collage

Linking up to the summer of color
click HERE to check out all the other wonderful entries this week.

Four seasons

You may remember a few weeks back I spent the day making citrasolv papers, to take a look at the process click HERE

Well,  the ink on the pages of the national geographic dissolves leaving wonderful patterns and it makes fabulous collage papers.

However sometimes you find a special piece.

A page much too special to tear up. The photo below is a special page.

 Although the colour was washed away, I loved the almost seascape feel to the page. 

I stuck it carefully to a wooden panel and began to paint over it using acrylic paints, intensifying areas I liked.

I love using metallic paints, so added lots of interference metallic colours.

it reminds me of a view out to sea on one of those days where it is sunny and raining all at once,

 Four seasons in one day....

Linking up to paint party friday

Summer of color: pink chrysanthemums

Two posts in a day!!!

well I am feeling much better after being under the weather for a few days and now up to full speed and able to post this weeks summer of color piece.
Each week a colour prompt is published over at  Twinkle twinkle and artists and crafters scurry away to make something fabulous.
I'm not sure my piece could be called that, but the colour prompt of...

Pink, apple green and a smudge of dark green

Made me think of flowers....again :)

As if by magic these chrysanthemums were in a vase on my mantlepiece already....

It would be rude not to draw them,

It is tough to just use three colours, I cheated a little and varied the shade of pink a little with some white... I know... slapped wrist!!! :)
I do really like this colour combination and it is one I feel at home with...

Can't wait to see what next week brings.

WOYWW : summer flowers

My desk today has a summer theme
.
I haven't been feeling well over the last few days, so only just got back into the swing of things, and finally began work on my summer of color drawing.
I also have been having fun leaf printing on my gelli plate.

work in progress

This weeks summer of color theme is.....

To me, the colours of flowers.

Linking up to WOYWW