Jessie Lilac Blog

The weather is changing rapidly now, I've managed to capture the glorious red leaves on my garden wall before they began to fall. Thankyou so much for helping me with my 'naming the girl' in my last post. It was one of the later suggestions on Facebook that felt so right, it's the name 'Fawn'. She looks quite deerlike I think, don't you? :) You might remember I bought some canvas boards a while ago and started by collaging them with background layers but the summer became so very busy I had no time to continue with them, that is until now. Abundance, 7 x 5 ins This one is called ' Abundance ' and her garden is full of red berries and copper tinted leaves. The fruits are ripe and the sun squeezes out its last warm rays. Gratitude, 7 x 5ins. This painting is called ' Gratitude '. Her heart thrives on beauty and love and she keeps safe her loving essence that pours gratitude quietly from her eyes. I'm going to lis...

I'm enjoying the colours at the beginning of this new season. We're getting very dramatic evening skies! I've started to embrace the reds and coppery tones that this time of year brings, so much so that my palette is now filled with them. The watercolour sketch above shows a worried looking girl, deep in thought and maybe a little sad. She'd like a name please if you can think of a nice one for her? I've asked Facebookers to do the same so that once I have some ideas, I can find the perfect fit for her. :) Meanwhile, I've started a new mixed media piece on canvas board using acrylics, ink and various collage papers. I'll let you see the finished painting when it's ready. I'll keep the same colours but it could possibly change from this, you'll have to wait and see! :)

Here's another pencil drawing that evolved as I drew. I started with the eyes and formed the face around them, the cat asked to appear on her shoulder and the hair arrived last of all! If you've been following my blog for a while you'll know how unusual it is for me to work without colour so it was inevitable that a tiny spot of colour would end up there too! My next one is very likely to have a little more colour than this. :) After all that dark rain yesterday the sun is shining here today, have a good weekend!xx

When I sit on the sofa in the evenings to watch TV, I can't just sit there I need to do something at the same time. Are you like this? I'm making a cardigan at the moment in navy stripes. Yes navy stripes are getting everywhere, not just my drawings! For those of you interested in knitting you can see my progress on Ravelry . :)  Most of my drawings are finished very quickly and I tend to use a black Pitt pen and watercolour but today I felt in the mood to do a pencil drawing and what better place to get lost in the process than sitting on the sofa! It began as a simple doodle but I kept shading and shading until it became a whole page drawing! Here's the finished drawing. It's rare for me to draw with just a pencil but I really enjoyed it. Perhaps I'll do it again. :)

I'm still a-doodlin' and here are the latest from my sketchbook. Meet Lucinda :) She's rather partial to oranges, especially this time of year when they're super sweet. This poor girl has other things on her mind. I expect you can guess what!  I've decided her name is Felicity! For those of you who know me on Facebook you might have already seen I've been making cards from digital prints of my canvas paintings. These are all assembled by hand(mine!) and I've sourced eco-friendly cardstock to make them. The envelopes are environmentally friendly too! You can buy them here if you feel so inclined. :) They're available in a set of 4. These ones above are available here . And if you're lucky enough to know someone who will be having a baby soon, or has just had one, I've made New Baby cards, pink for a girl, blue for a boy. These are available as individual cards, unless of course your friend or relative has twins!...

Hello new followers! It's so lovely to have you here on my little blog of painting and stuff. I hope you've all had a nice summer. :) So the new term has started and I've actually started painting again for the first time in ages! If any of you have ever had a long break from doing something, you might know how very difficult it is to get going again. My mind has been whirring with ideas over the summer but my problem is not remembering what ideas I had and not finding time to try them out. Yes I should have written them down at the time but I didn't.  By the time I sat down to paint yesterday I didn't know what I should be painting. I think it was Julia Cameron who said to just "turn up at the page" when you're feeling creatively blocked, so I did. She also said something along the lines of "creativity is surrender not control." With these things in mind I started painting a face over a collaged board that I'd made before the s...