something small and quick

Sorry for not posting regularly at the moment, things have been so busy. This is my second attempt at this tree in pastel. The first was quite large and the paper was buckled due to water damage so I decided to cut my losses and do a small version and see if I could work out some of the kinks. I don't normally have a huge struggle with water but for some reason this one really gave me the whoops! anyway, I have filmed it for my youtube channel so hopefully I will get it edited and up in the next week, then you can see me blunder my way through! Cheers for now :)

Almost there

Nearly done...as you can see, I have added my little windows, one has the Christmas beetle, one has an Old Lady Moth and some rust, and the last one has a little poem about night life from a vintage book and some handmade paper, a couple of real feathers off some random bird and a pencil drawing of a Tawny feather. You might be wondering why I am not using the real feather? I had an assortment of feathers identified by the Ornithology Curator at our museum and it turns out it wasn't a Tawny feather after all :( Never mind it is still beautiful! I have added some handwritten script with some sciency sounding stuff - white across the dark areas and black across the light areas. I am still waiting on one more thing I want to add and then my friend Catherine (who is a framer as well as an artist) can help me work out a creative frame for this fellow, I have some ideas but knowing me they are porbably all really impractical :) Cheers!

Wanna see my studio? :)

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So as you can see, I have gone back to playing around with pencils again! Can't seem to keep my mind on the job at the moment (actually I am waiting for some art supplies to arrive before I finish my frogmouth). So, do you want to see my studio? If you think you can listen to me drone on for 15 minutes or so about absolutely nothing, just follow this link :)  Studio Tour   Cheers! Have a great day :)

another update :)

Moved along a little...I am going to add this little beetle as a nod to the diet of these birds :) When we changed out our old door locks I kept some of the parts including this old brass ring that has a lovely patina to it - its also the perfect size and shape to cast the little beetle in resin...happy accident! Still mucking around with placement of everything. The next two shots are the next pages in my little book of rust...anyway, cheers for now..:)

somethings cooking :)

Yay, I finally have something brewing :) Only just started obviously...but started nonetheless! Podargus strigoides is the fancy scientifical term for Tawny Frogmouth. These are my favourite Aussie bird. They are nocturnal however they aren't owls. They are fairly common but you rarely see one as they have the most incredible camouflage. Hopefully I will be able to do it justice when this is finished. It all started last week when my other half found a tawny feather while we where walking the dogs. I had already been toying around with this canvas with some kind of  coral reef idea in mind but it wasn't working, when we got home from our walk I put the feather on the canvas and voila! I had inspiration at last. I am kind of toying with ideas of adding old picture frames in various places, some hanging out from the canvas, this way I can include the feather and some of my handmade papers with out glueing which often changes the way they look. Still very much a WIP though. The last picture is a little board book that I am altering with various faux rust effects. I bought 6 of these little board books second hand and I am going to use them as 'recipe' books for different mixed media techniques. I have been filming each page of this one so we shall see if it works as a Youtube vid. Anyway, cheers for now, have a great day! :)

dum de dumm

                                     
Last week I couldn't even sleep properly for all the new ideas floating around my otherwise empty head...as soon as I went in my studio it was like I had forgotten how to do anything. I have been through this before (along with many other artists) and I know it will pass, but for now I am going to give myself permission to just tool around with my new Inktense pencils and do some much needed tidying up. I also made these little ATC size feathers (wow, I have been working hard). You might remember recently I was part of Seth Apter's challenge to post pictures of our messy studio tables? Well I felt a little shame (only a little!) so I have had a big clean up - above you can see my sickeningly tidy work table (there is definitely something wrong!). I do however have a couple of new youtube videos in the pipeline so I think I will work on them too. :) Cheers!