Jessie Lilac Blog

I was standing in the garden this morning feeling exasperated with my painting (see my last post). I know paintings often go through an ugly phase, or a phase that seems hopeless but it seemed that whatever I tried, I wasn't happy with it.  It's been very grey and dull here for what seems like ages but I looked around and saw it hadn't put off the little flowers in my garden. They were full of faith for what was to come despite the cold weather.  It made me think how I could do the same. So with renewed optimism, I went back to my awkward painting and decided I really didn't like that green hair. It looked cold to me. The only answer to my mind was to use bright shocking pink! :) Nice warm pink - yes! I added some more flowers and voila! It is finished. It's now listed in my Etsy shop for sale. It's another 10 x 10 inches (25 x 25cm) and is on a box style canvas, ready to hang on your wall. Please click here to see mor...

Thankyou so much for my new likes on my Facebook page, you're all so lovely! I'm still learning how it works, it's slightly different to the one I had before but I think it's going to be easier because I use the same email address as my personal one, so it's just a click away for me. I'm so happy to have 37 likes already - yay! Having recently spending many hours decorating the bathroom I still have houses on my mind hence the house in this new painting! It measures 25 x 25cm (that's 10 x 10ins) and is painted on a box style canvas, ready to hang on your wall. It's now available to buy in my Etsy shop . (a close up of the finished painting) You might remember this sketch I made a couple of weeks ago. I'm going to make a new painting based on it. Experimenting with colours, I like the orange and pink so they'll stay, not sure about the jug staying purple though and those fried egg flowers?  They've got to go! I...

'Love Cat' ACEO painting, currently for sale in my Etsy shop. Thankyou to my  lovely new followers and a happy hello to old ones. :) To celebrate, I'm having a half price sale on all of my ACEO paintings. They were $10 and will now be just $5 (£3.37) each! Please click here  to see them all. :)  My Facebook News I'm so happy to have so many new likees on my Facebook page. Thankyou for your support! I'm going to open a new Facebook page and I shall tell you my reason. My old one doesn't have a newsfeed and it doesn't allow me to 'like' anything on your pages which is disappointing for me, especially when I see something I love (which is often, there's so much amazing talent out there!) This could be because it's a business page so I've now made a new one that's linked to my personal one so I can access it easily from there. It's quite a brave step to take because it's going to be brand new. Because I'm starti...

At last the painting is finished. It's quite a big one, bigger than I've done for quite a while! It's 70 x 64cm (25 x 27 ins) You can get an idea of the scale of it from the vase of flowers. I had fun making up the flowers and leaves. The colours are a little brighter than this in real life - yes really! All I need to do now is to paint the sides white. I like to do that because I don't frame my canvas paintings and it gives it a nice finish ready for hanging. It's been quite a journey to get to this stage but I feel ready to start a new one now. What are you up to? :)

We've had a nice few sunny days here over the half term holiday but I've spent a lot of it decorating the bathroom. No finished pics yet to show you, I have a curtain to make and a floor to sand and varnish before that happens. :) I'm still managing to do a drawing a day, (click here to see the others) and the picture above is a page from my sketchbook where I've used one of those drawings in a collage with a nice colourful acrylic background.  Doing a little drawing each day has really helped get my mind back into painting and the big one that I'm working on is coming along slowly, decorating permitting! Here it is at the moment. I want to add more flowers in the foreground and I think the house on the left needs another window downstairs. It must be very dark in there! I'm thinking about putting curtains in the windows but I have a feeling that might be too much fiddley detail. What do you think? :)

Friday evening was the private view of the group exhibition that I'm taking part in.   It's called ' Cornucopia ' and will be at The Grant Bradley Gallery in Bristol until March 2nd.  If you're around this part of the UK, hope to see you there! :) After all the excitement of the opening night, I was lucky enough to spend the weekend in my favourite place, with the best view. From every window was a joy to behold. Wellies on and a few steps away and I'm right there on my favourite beach. Some of you might recognise it already? Surprisingly, there weren't many seagulls around. Where have they all gone?  While London was getting coated in snow, the sun shone on beautiful, lovely St Ives. ~  ~  bliss  ~  ~  ~ ~ Back down to earth today, the easel beckons and there's lots to do. See you again soon! :)

I thought I'd show you my recent creative doings. This was an old doll's cot that I've had in the family for years, so long I can't remember where it came from! It was old, worn and not particularly attractive to look at so I've given it a new lease of life because I wanted to give it to my daughter for her daughter. I made a little crocheted blanket to match it too. The flower decorations had to be painted in a material that would sit on top of the white gloss paint, so I used ordinary artist oil paints. They took a few days to dry but worked perfectly and seem quite hard wearing now it's all dry.  I've finished the rainbow coloured cushion cover I was knitting. The fastening was easy, just a line of buttons to do it up, no fiddly zips to sew in. I've tried the 'fold over method' before and I found it wouldn't stay the right shape. The cushion would be constantly trying to make a break for freedom! This way the buttons keep the...

Since I  first heard the John Lennon song many years ago that has the line:  'Life is what happens to you when you're busy making  other plans'   those words have stayed with me.  It's good to plan but so important to remember that we're alive NOW! I got up this morning to a lovely sunny day, with thoughts about how it's important to live each day as it comes and to enjoy being alive. Some people say 'live each day as though it was your last'. That doesn't work for me, I'd end up obese and alcoholic within a month of living like that! ;) I then turned on the radio and the song by Junior 'Mama Used To Say' was playing, singing lyrics that seemed to repeat the thoughts in my head. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, the chorus goes: And mama used to say Take your time young man And mama used to say Don't you rush to get old And mama used to say Take it in your stride And mama used to say Live your ...

It's only been 3 days of my A-Drawing-a-Day challenge and already I'm getting back into the flow of creating again.  I'm making backgrounds in my art journal and sticking the images I've created on top, to create something new, adding a little more paint here and there once the glue's dry. It might not qualify as a finished painting as such but just the doing  really unlocks the part of the mind that finds visual solutions through play. Try it if you're stuck at all, it's really working for me! To see the drawings as they were originally, please click here. :) While we're talking about Facebook, can I ask a question of those of you who have a Facebook Page for your work?  I don't seem to get a newsfeed like I do on my normal personal Facebook acccount. Is this normal? How do you see what other people are doing unless you individually click on them on your 'like' list? Also, quite often I find I can't 'like' other people...