Jessie Lilac Blog

Thankyou so much for your kind comments in my last post! I've had quite a busy few days and not much time to keep up with posting so this one will hop from one subject to another as I show you what I've been doing. :) You might have noticed the top picture of the gorgeous poppies? Well a lovely friend of mine Peri Taylor had already discovered this beautiful field and as it wasn't very far from where we live, a trip there was needed as soon as possible before the blooms had gone! Let me share their dazzlement with you. There's always one! ;) So different to all the others but equally as beautiful. Aren't they lovely? I've never seen so many up close like this before, it was a rare treat. art journal page The summer Solstice is a time when we go for an evening walk somewhere special (but not too far away) with my brother. This year we went to place called Coaley Peak.  The weather was perfect and after both o...

  Hello! It's a very sunny day again today and I've had a busy family filled couple of days. It's lovely to be able to sit in the garden and enjoy the flowers that are springing up everywhere. One of the pots of flowers that have caught my eye lately is the one with verbena growing in it. I love the way the flowers grow in clusters together. I like it so much I was inspired to paint my next painting featuring them. Here it is: It was fun drawing all those little flowerheads! I've listed this in my Etsy shop if you'd like to have a look. :) Sitting in the garden took a different turn yesterday because I had a bit of an accident with the deckchair...! OOPS! I couldn't move for ages because I was laughing so much. Enough time for my children to take a picture! Have a lovely weekend and I hope it's sunny where you are too. I won't be sitting in a deckchair any time soon! x x

A little while ago I had a very vivid dream of a brightly coloured fox running through the woods. It was very close to me and I was overwhelmed with it's bright coat. I wanted to recreate the feeling of the dream but as I was painting, it changed to a memory I have. While walking along the river one day in Totnes, in the distance a fox ran across the fields by edge of the trees. Its coat was so orangey bright that it shone against the landscape. Compared to the urban foxes that live around here, it looked so healthy. We have a lot of foxes near where we live, in fact there's been a den at the bottom of the garden for a few years. It's actually the other side of the fence so I haven't actually seen it but have I heard them????! They've been really noisy the last few nights! I've only ever drawn a fox a couple of times before so I did a few sketches to get to know the shapes. Here's an old painting I did about 5 years ago. The fox isn't ...

At the end of my last post I gave you a little taster of what I was going to be working on next. It's a bit different to the sketch but the composition's still quite similar.  It had a bit of a disaster towards the end of the painting because I had the bright idea of adding more detail to the background. I wanted to save the areas where I'd painted the feathers and the girl's face so I coated them in masking fluid so that they wouldn't get splashed with paint. Big mistake! When I tried to remove the masking, half the girl's face came off and so did one of the feathers! Luckily I was painting on very thick 300gsm watercolour paper so after my initial panic I discovered that it was tough enough to lose a thin top layer in a few places!  It's all fine and dandy now because I repainted them and here below you can see the final piece. She's now sitting in my Etsy shop waiting and ready to go to a new home. :) Please click her...

 Hi there, Do you remember at the end of my last post I was showing you my sketches of bees and told of my plans to make a painting about them? I've finished the painting and here it is in the very place of the garden where my inspiration came from! I'm calling it 'Beatrice and Her Bees' and it's now listed in my  Etsy shop .  :) I enjoyed drawing the little bees and the details on the basketware. I could have gone on adding details for ever but something told me it was time to stop and to move on to a new painting. :) The new painting will have feathers. It'll be a bit like this sketch. I'll see you soon with an update! xx

Every time I go into the garden I'm surrounded by bees! They're so preoccupied and never seem to take a break from their busy work, flying from one flower to the next.  Not a day goes by when I don't have to shoo one or two of them out of the house!  My day seems to be so filled with them that it's inspired me to make a painting. Here below are a couple of sketches I've done where I wanted to try out the idea of a girl wearing a beehive and I got to practise drawing bees too!   These are only in my sketchbook so my next project will be to make a 'real' painting quite similar to this but with more detail :) so do please come back soon and I'll show you my finished piece. :) Bye for now! xx

I'm still playing with my new Neocolor II crayons and discovered how bright the colours are even when they've have had water added. The background looks like watercolour washes doesn't it? :) This one's completely Neocolor, I had fun blending the dry colours together  This one was done on a layer of gesso and I liked the way the texture picked up the pigment. I've used other mediums too, like collage and acrylic paint for the girl. . And finally another mixed media piece done on a base of gesso. I pulled a comb through the gesso while it was still wet and it made a lovely base to crayon over! I love how they're chunky enough to cover the surface quickly and it's so fun adding water, turning it into lovely pools of bright colour. I think I'm going to wear them down quite quickly don't you?! xx