How to...

Here's how to get the effect with the acrylic inks (which by the way are the kind used with an airbrush - they come in a bottle with a dropper built in the lid).
Use good-quality watercolour paper and wet it thoroughly both sides. We brushed the water on with a 1" brush - and it takes much more water than you think as the paper soaks up a lot!
Then drop the inks on - any colour from any height - they immediately fan out into the most amazing shapes!
Then FLOAT the cling film (Saran Wrap) down on to the paper - it needs to be larger than the paper. Then play - bunch the cling film up leaving some air bubbles, drag the inks through the film, gently rub circles through the film - anything goes!
Then leave it to dry. Overnight is best, but we didn't have that luxury in class so we air dried them near the radiator.
After about an hour we gently peeled back the cling film. Where it had stuck to the inks, you get the amazing sheen. Where there were air bubbles and crinkles you get the amazing organic shapes of leaves and feathers. One woman had a distinct frog on hers, another a dragonfly, me - a tudor lady :o)
Let me know if any of you try it and be sure to post your results so we can all enjoy!!

Playtime!!

After the week I've had nursng poorly kids, I was desperate for my art class last night! And boy did we have fun!! We played with acrylic inks and cling film... don't you get the funkiest results?? Guess what will be on my Xmas wish list?? Can you spot the spooky tudor woman in among all the great leaf and wing shapes??? (You might need to enlarge the pic to spot her...) I plan to cut pieces out for collage later. But this is definitely a technique I'll be using a lot!! I just LOVE the amazing shapes and the funky sheen - which sadly doesn't show up on the scan!

Soul-rending music

I got this new CD yesterday - I adore Ms Peyroux's voice and style! But I was totally unprepared for having my soul turned inside out by one track... I'm something of a purist when it comes to my all-time favourite female singer - Joni Mitchell - and always maintain no one can sing a JM song like the incomparable Ms Mitchell! But I was WRONG!! Madeleine Peyroux teams up with KD Lang to sing 'River' and OMG.... I just kept playing it over and over... their voices, their harmonies, the bluesy rendition...
And is this not THE most beautiful CD cover??She's a true Pre-Raphaelite beauty!

Autumn sunrise

Well, there have to be SOME perks to these long winter nights - the sun doesn't rise till 7am - and what a show it put on for us this morning!!
Sadly though the old saying: 'Red sky at night, shepherds' delight. Red sky in the morning, shepherds' warning' is all too true!! An hour after this shot, it started to rain, then to pour and now it's lashing the windows!! My heart goes out to any poor shepherds working in this - and the poor construction guys laying pipes at the end of our street!

The true artist...

... knows exactly how she feels - and makes art accordingly! This is what Esther made last week when she was off school feeling lousy with a sticking head cold (I just wanted to bury my head under a duvet!) This is how she pictured the cold inside her head. I asked her if making this made her feel any better - she said the cold was still horrible but deep inside she felt better. Do I not have THE most gorgeous daughter on the planet????

What DOES snow smell like?

Those of you who know me well will know I become passionately evangelical about books I love! I want everyone to read and discover books that have an impact on me, so it's strange I haven't yet put up a list of Books That Have Changed My Life on this blog - something else I must do! But in the meantime here is the current book I'm being changed by... From the Introduction: 'To be an artist it is not necessary to make a living from our creations... It is not necessary that we are published... To be an artist it is necessary to live with our eyes wide open, to breathe in the colours of mountain and sky, to know the sound of leaves rustling, the smell of snow, the texture of bark... To be an artist is to notice every beautiful and tragic thing, to cry freely, to collect experience and shape it into forms that others can share.'
And this next paragraph hit me straight and true: 'There are alot of things we don't have in life, but time is not one of them. Time is all we have. One lifetime under this name to produce a body of work that says, "This is how I saw the world." Your work is worthy of whatever time it takes.'
And I realized this is what I'm seeking to do when I 'make stuff' - it's to put something out there that says 'This is me - this is how I see and feel' - and this is why this blog is an important - and dare I say it sacred - space to me. It's where I dare to call myself an artist...

A new link

I've been noticing that a growing number of folk are switching over to typepad - there's certainly lots you can do with the format there. And I'd been mulling over how to show more of the stuff I've actually made since I made my first pieces back in March this year - and here it is! I've created another blog with just my art stuff on it - and there's the link MY ARTWORK... so do go have a look to see what I've been playing with these past few months :o) I'll upload images over the next few days - trying to list them in roughly chronological order. I think it will be kind of fun to see my creative journay unfold....

Fabulous full moon

It's not the clearest shot - my wee camera doesn't have the greatest zoom - but you get the idea. It really was that full and bright last night as the temparture plummeted after a pretty mild day. One thing I keep meaning to do is keep a creativity log and see if it corresponds to the lunar cycle at all. I know some people are convinced they're more creative at different times of the month - depending on whether the moon is waxing or waning... And I really do think we all (male and female) have a deeply natural connection to the moon. Something we've lost amid all the artificial western measurements of time...

Beauty in abundance

I just HAD to add another picture of my lilies! Their sheer exuberance is amazing - no wonder Georgia O'Keefe loved to paint them! I don't feel quite up to the challenge of capturing them in any other medium than photgraphy right now, but one day... I had no idea so many of them were going to open up to be flushed with pink. And if you compare this shot with the one from the other day you get the full effect of just how many blooms there are - and they're not all open yet!!!!!!!!!

Nature's artwork

Not having any of my own handiwork to post right now, I thought I'd share some of the beauty from my garden! My wee maple is making a final flourish before losing all her leaves - she was a 40th birthday present from Nick and the kids a couple of years ago and she is a daily source of joy to me :o) And the fuchsia bush was here when we moved in. I love these plants - they save all their exuberance for when the summer flowers have faded away. They have the stage all to themselves and they always put on a breath-taking show!