Jessie Lilac Blog

Monday morning, I hope you had a lovely weekend! Mine was filled with family visiting but now the house is once again quiet, it's time to show you what I was working on just before the weekend. Thankyou so much for your lovely comments about my beach baby painting! As I had some time left at the end of the day that I finished it, I decided to work some more on a painting that you might remember from last year? Do you remember this one? I've had it hanging up on the wall at home and so each day it would catch my eye and after time, I knew I wasn't happy with the face on the yellow vase. I felt it looked unfinished and at first I was going to put more shading in it to give it depth. Something else happened once I had my paints out! Not only did I change the face, I painted over it completely and added some birds and some more spots. (If you look closely you can see the masking fluid I put on around the edges of the vase so that I wouldn't ruin the bac...

Thankyou so much for your helpful comments about phones in my last post. I'm still a little wary of taking photos on mine to upload straight to the web but I'm sure I'll get used to it in time! I've just finished this painting that I'm calling 'Broadsands Baby.' There's a beach in Devon I've been to many times and it's filled with so many memories of my children, from when they were babies and later when they'd play in the sand or the sea. It wasn't always quite as serene as this painting shows ;)  but I wanted to create the feeling I have when I go there. I thought I'd share with you my thinking process from sketches to the finished piece. :) I had in mind using a palette of pale blues with little hints of orangey red. This is the first sketch, I always like the first sketch so much more than anything I do after that. Do you artist painters find that too? I hadn't yet started the painting on canvas at this...

 Here are 2 of my most recent journal pages. I scanned and uploaded these in my usual way. (My usual way is to scan the sketchbook, upload to Photoshop to resize it and then upload to whichever website I need it) but yesterday I tried to send them  straight to Facebook using my shiny new Smartphone.  That's my new Samsung Mini on the left and my sad old Nokia on the right. It might be called mini but it looks pretty big to me. The idea is to make it quicker for me to take pictures and to upload them. Yes at last I have joined everyone else with a phone that can do all things I've been longing to do to save me time. Or so I thought! My first uploads looked like this and this . I have a bit of a way to go before it becomes easy peasy for me and so far I've spent even more time online than ever finding out how to make it work. Don't worry I'm getting there slowly!  Do you use your phone to upload pictures? Do you find it quicker and easier? (...

Thankyou for your kind comments on my last post, it seems that I'm not alone in loving lots of colour! Yarn, paint, pencils, you name it, I can't get enough! You might remember from a previous post that I hunted for a long time looking for nice colourful cushions (pillows) and it was the online shop Society6 where I eventually found the perfect ones for me! This gave me the idea of starting up my own shop on the site with just a few of my designs to begin with. I'd like to show you some of the items I'm selling. At the top of the post you can see my watercolour painting appearing as a cushion! It's also available as... I quite like how my Buddha sits quite nicely on the phone case. :) T-shirts for big people... and little people... Here are a few examples of my mug designs... and tote bags... It's so fun seeing my paintings appear on different items! The ones I've pictured here are only a few of the designs, there ar...

I like making crocheted blankets and have a couple ( ok, I have about 4 if you're counting ) of my own. When I discovered Middle Daughter would like one I couldn't wait to get started on another. :) I wouldn't have minded keeping it for myself. It does match the duvet cover quite well doesn't it? The fringing is the part I least enjoy, it's very fiddly trying to get all the strands the same size.  So I gave it a haircut! Now that my stock of colourful yarn is very much depleted I need to go out and buy some more for my next project. YaY!

My birthday, new year's eve, at Hope Cove Hello there! Have you have a lovely christmas time and new year? I did, although it's all a bit of a blur because I've had a horrible virus over the holidays and I'm only just emerging from it now. My head's still spinning but I don't want to delay this post because talk of new year gets old very quickly doesn't it, once the usual routine begins again. :) My days after christmas have been filled with lovely quiet walks and time with family. Here are Youngest and Eldest sons at Broadsands in Devon. With their busy lives it's a rare treat to get these two together and to go for a walk with them on a beautiful wintery day! Broadsands, South Devon and it was indeed beautiful as you can see. :)  The next day we walked along the river Dart in Totnes. It was the last few minutes before the sun started to go down over the horizon. So peaceful and calm. My birthday is on new yea...