25 Flowers for The 100 Day Project

Hello Creatives!

I recently committed to the 100 day project. It's an art project that challenges you to do creative for 100 days. I chose to paint or draw 100 flowers, and although the challenge has passed it's 100 days for this year, I am still doing the 100 flowers, just not as an every day thing.

The challenges I faced when I started this is I officially have Art- Attention- Deficit- Disorder (ha) and sometimes I would sit down to paint a flower and find that I've all of a sudden started a new painting. Not necessarily a bad thing but sticking to the plan would be better...

Also, announcing on social media that that is what I was doing committed me to show every flower I drew, when usually I do not share everything I do as an artist. I pick and choose what I share. I don't share every failed drawing, that's for sure! I didn't think of that before I started!

On the positive it challenged me to do regular entries in my sketch book, a practise I should aim to be doing as an artist. But as a busy Mum and running my own creative biz, I juggle many balls and sometimes I drop some (or all!) of them.

Enough chit chat! Here are the first 25 flowers in no particular order:

This last one is a pattern made from some of the flowers already shown

So, there you have it, 25 of the first flowers completed by either drawing or painting (with acrylic paints), and there's a quick digital one in there too.

I hope you enjoyed the show!

Jules :)

Studio Wall Mural

I have a new wall mural in my new studio!

We recently did some room shuffling in our house, and I moved studios. The room is slightly bigger with more storage than my last studio, but with all my stuff in there it looks small again! Oh well. I have plans that when my kids are all grown up and moved out I will take over so many rooms. 

Imagine that! A designated room for each area of my work.. a sewing room, a clay room, a computer room, a painting room. One can dream, ha!

I'll share some finished photos of the whole studio soon, but for now I'm showing this one corner. (I really need to clean the rest of the studio and I'd like to buy an outdoor rug to save the floor from a bit of paint.)

Here are some of the progress shots of the wall mural in progress:

I used a mix of student grade acrylics and house paint sample pots from the local hardware store. 

And some more photos of the finished wall mural:

The pre exisiting-shelves are handy to keep artworks-in-progress on, little creations and collectables.

I hope you enjoyed looking at this part of my new studio! I had a lot of fun painting this new mural.

Jules :)

Creative Life Round Up

Hello Creatives,

Time for a creative life round up I think!

All of these photos have appeared over on Insta, where I am most active. So come join in the fun over there :)

Recently I've been trying to finish a lot of paintings that are lying around my studio, to make way for the brain-space that is needed to undergo some BIG canvas paintings! They are big for me anyway. You can see my stretcher bars in my (new) studio that are awaiting canvas.

Below is a section of one of my paintings I've recently finished.

I'm working on 6 new large scale paintings. If you'd like to be notified when they're realised, sign up to my newsletter which you can find in the sidebar of this blog.

I have also completely moved my studio into a new room. You can see my new painting desk (table) that I bought second hand. It was an ex-display table in a shop, so it's a bit dinged up, which is fine because it will get no special treatment in my hands! I'm also painting a bit of a mural in the studio which you can see I started already in the corner. Proper studio photos in the near future.

Sometimes being a creative takes you in all sorts of directions. I painted a backdrop for a photographer friend of mine. I learnt a lot of things whilst painting this backdrop! I learned they are not as easy as they look, and that I do not want to start up a business painting photography backdrops in a hurry! Lol. Hands up if you'd like to see my process and hear about that project.

I finished my short ceramics course, and these are a few things I made from out of that class. I'm now working on a collection... when I don't get sidetracked by other little items that I can make out of clay.

I have been gifted a kiln by a very generous person who I'm sure mega good karma is coming her way. How nice is that!? Some people are so nice. Let's hope I don't melt everything in the new kiln.

Let's pop this photo in below just for fun. I'm stitching this Anna Maria Horner embroidery. Sometimes I like to work on projects that aren't my own designs so I can switch off and just create for the joy of it and not have to feel like I'm working. This project is 99% finished now and it has plans to be in the master bedroom when I finally get around to that project. (Do any of you creatives feel like you have an overwhelming amount of projects going on!?)

And here's me being colourful. Hashtag wear your joy. Just so you feel like an actual real-life-person is talking to you. Which I am.

Ooh! Our graffiti wall got a bit of love over the school holidays! Here's a snippet. Check out this post to get more mural/ graffiti wall inspo, or to read the story behind it.

Ok! I feel like I've sufficiently caught up here with creative happenings. 

I love feedback, so please do leave a comment or tell me what you love about the blog, or what you'd like to see here so I can keep posts relevant to YOU and what you'd like to see! 

Cheers!

Jules :)

Art Journaling Prompt

Hello Creatives,

It's art journaling prompt/ sketchbook time!

This project is in a mixed media art style and pretty easy, so it could be tried with kids in an art class as well. I created this as an example for my art class in the small group of kids that I teach, I will let you know if it's a success!

I think sometimes all you need to get going in your art journal is some instructions or a few prompts to follow.

So, I have created this for you today. Let me know if you try it, I'd love to see what you come up with!

You will need:

-Art journal/sketchbook
-Scrapbook papers
-Mod Podge
-Back & white print out of yourself or a loved one
-Acrylic paints
-Matte painting medium (I love to use gloss but I find it makes the pages stick in a sketchbook)
-Paint Pens

I began by sticking various pieces of scrapbook papers onto the pages. I had some scrappy bits that my art-class-kids had messed up. But not to worry, that adds to all the layering and textural effects! Tear or cut them up. Torn edges look good. Don't get precious :)

I paste the back of the papers with mod podge first, press them down, then paste more mod podge over the top. This helps to minimise wrinkling.

Cut around your black and white figure print out and paste onto the pages where you'd like it to be.

Then using medium & paint, add washes over the top varying from transparent to opaque. In some places the scrapbook paper gets completely covered. I added some petals around the 'love you more' piece, then painted in some dots and splodges.

Next up, take a small paintbrush and add some detail with a darker colour. I added outlines of a flower, but you could do anything here. You could add words, or shells, or toadstool for example. If you look at the last photo, I have added 4 points of interest with some visual space in between around the figure. 

I also added a wash of pale yellow over the cardigan, and painted some pink cheek circles in :)

Add more paint and washes if desired. I used a white paint pen to bring some texture back into the clothing.

Add some more medium-paint-mix here using darker colours thinned out quite a bit, and rub back, manipulate and push the medium around using a tissue. This creates some extra depth and texture.

Last of all, when it's completely dry (don't be impatient like me and ruin your paint pens), take some paint pens and doodle over the top however you would like.

All done! What I love about a set of "instructions" for art journaling/ sketchbook work, is that you can take some of the decisions and fear away from what to do, take the cues and just enjoy the creative process.

Enjoy!

Jules :)

Creative Life Round Up!

Hello creative friends! What have I been up to?

Sorry it's been a while, I think I'm way overdue for a catch-up :)

I have started a ceramics class, which actually only has two weeks left for the term. I am totally smitten by working with clay. I really felt I wanted to learn, as I couldn't remember all the clay joining rules and techniques that I've learned in the past, and wanted to make sure I didn't make something and have my work explode along with blowing up other people's work that might happen to be sitting next to mine in the kiln.

I've done one class per week so far and it's given me enough knowledge of the basics to start creating.  I can see you could study pottery for years and still be learning.

I've purchased some of my own supplies so I can carry on learning ceramics at home (thank you, youtube!)

I also think it's a perfect craft for holding my attention. As I suffer from craft- attention- deficit- disorder (alongside many of you I'm sure) and struggle to commit to any one thing, I think that the excitement of opening a kiln and getting to see what comes out might just be enough to keep me coming back for more. I am really into it. I even dreamt about glazing last night!

So yesterday I got to pick up my first two finished pieces! A little mini pinch pot, and this texture-decorated tea light holder. I played around with the tea light holder to see if I could add pieces on that didn't fall off in the kiln, and they didn't, hooray!

A new DIY craft tutorial I've been working on involves cement & creating something for the garden, oooh! *rubs hands together* :)

Some table bling... from a while ago, but I love the photo!

This illustrated quote available as a print in the shop. "Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working." Drawn using coloured pencils and acrylic paint. A reminder to myself that sometimes I need to stop thinking about what projects I'm working on and just get working! This would look great in a plain frame, but if you're over-the-top like me and feel more is more, an ornate frame would work just as well.

And an image from my sketchbook, just to pretty up the post a bit more :) 

I'm also running a weekly after school kids art class, which has taken up a fair bit of my time too, planning and getting things ready for that through the week. And researching how to teach and manage a kids class room! I get all the art stuff, that is covered, but class room management!? Holy moly..

So, I'll have some more clay stuff soon. Who knows where I'm going with this! I'm also entering into the Illustrators Australia & New Zealand 2018 Awards, with an unpublished illustration (pictures to come). Also- a chook pen reno coming up! Hopefully with the arrival of spring, sunnier days and longer light hours, I'll be less tired and more motived to create more.

Hope you've enjoyed my update, 

Jules :)