Happening Around Here Lately

Hello everyone! I feel like I haven’t posted in a while, even though I had daily posts going on every single day the last 20 days! Phew! I hope you enjoyed the 20/20 series!

For those of you who are subscribed to my newsletter, I’ll be sending out the download link for the e-book to the series later today!

 

1. Happy Spring, everyone!

Look who I finally captured on “film”! I get so many hummingbirds in the garden and they let me come up quite closely, but I’ve never had a camera handy when they do! Until now!

   

 

 

Things are really happening in the garden as we’re moving out of the “winter” veggie harvesting and into the “summer” planting. I put adverted commas, because the dessert seasons are obviously not like the usual seasons! We’re having a little bit of a lull, right now, while the various summer veggies are getting there! But I still have plenty to keep us happy!
I have to say though, I am REALLY looking forward to the zucchini, cucumbers, beans and melons that are currently growing! Won’t be long now!

 

2. I’ve been working on my first portrait. It’s a gift for my father’s 70th birthday.  I am all at once fascinated by the thought of me doing even a single portrait and astounded that it actually looks like him!

I was somewhat in the zone when doing it, but haven’t been able to do another portrait of similar “skill” since! Go figure! Now, how do I go back into that zone?

 

 

3. I’ve been busy playing with my Gelli Plate! So much fun! I am working on a separate post on this however, so here is just a little preview.

 

           

 

4. Lifebook 2014 has had some more rocking lessons, in particular the last two I worked on, which was one by Tamara Laporte and the other by Anna Dabrowska, aka Finnabair!

 

Tamara’s lesson was on the “paint over collage” technique, which took me from this

 

 

To this:

 

 

Anna’s lesson was on her collage technique, which was quite fascinating! My take on the lesson took me from this:

 

 

To this:

 

 

The final collage was a little hard to photograph, as I used primarily shimmer mists to color the collage and they don’t photograph well! In real life the colors and objects have much more distinct colors and the separate objects stand out much more in their own right than the photo suggests. But you get the idea!

 

I am so glad I decided to do Lifebook 2014! We’re only in March and I have already learnt SO much and I just love having all the different artists show us how they do what they do!

By the way, if you’re thinking you might want to join too, you can! It’s not too late! Once you join, ALL the lessons are available for you to download and do at your own pace!

Even though Lifebook 2014 has a somewhat overriding theme every month (this month it is “celebrating connections”,) the lessons don’t build on each other, so you can jump in at any time and do the lessons in any order!

And for those of you that don’t want to do it because they think that the inner mean girl would never let them post their work or enjoy any of it - Lifebook has an amazingly supportive community, with EVERY level of artistic ability fully represented. Really, from ABSOLUTE beginner, the I-never-even-held-a-brush-before kind of beginners, to professional artists!

Anyway, as you can see, I’m really, REALLY enjoying myself in Lifebook 2014! It rocks!

 

5. I want to leave you with this awesome reminder by Ira Glass, about the creative process!

 

 

Yes, yes, YES!

Pin It