Jessie Lilac Blog

I'm going through a coloured pencils obsession at the moment. 😊  This painting was done using my set of pencils from WH Smith that I've had for many years and I've added a touch of watercolour. Let me show you my process... The pencils don't have the names of the colours on them but the one I used for the initial drawing I would say is similar to a burnt sienna. So I drew her out lightly with the burnt sienna pencil. You can see my faint outlines at the bottom of the picture where I've mapped out where I want her dress to be. If you draw very lightly you can (almost!) rub out the lines if you make a mistake. I then darkened the lines and added some shading, all with the same pencil. The next stage I added blue pencil spots to the dress. The blue watercolour wash was put on afterwards. You can do this because of the waxiness of the pencils, it acts like a resist as long as the watercolour wash isn't too dark. Then I drew in ...

Hello I'm back in the Bloggesphere again! I've had some time away from the world over the past week because my cough and cold turned into something really nasty. I had a fever for several days with severe pain and couldn't eat or move very far. I'm still not exactly bouncing around the place but I am slowly getting better each day and for that I'm very grateful ♥   because it was very scary feeling that ill. These journal pages were made on the day before things took a turn for the worse. I've no idea why the top image popped out of my head but looking at it a week later, I think she looks like a sort of 1930s maid doesn't she? The one below started with a sketch of a daffodil. Isn't it lovely to see the daffodils out now? However cold and rainy it gets, they're there to remind us that the season really is changing! I'm sorry if you've been to visit my Etsy shop  this week and found it closed, I've just reopened it and it'l...

I felt in the mood to use my coloured pencils for this one. It's been ages since I have used them and it was lovely to choose which colours to use and not have to mix paint. Don't get me wrong, I love to mix paint too but I enjoyed having a change of medium.  I need you to help me find a name for her. She'd like to have gone to Glastonbury Festival this weekend and is all dressed up with no-where to go. Ballgowns at Glastonbury you may ask? Of course! :)

Sometimes I like to spray my pages with water and add some gorgeous coloured ink. Then I add some collage and some paint and coloured pencils. I add some more characters and layers of collage and paint, until it feels like the time to stop. I'm enjoying making these mixed media paintings, quite different to my watercolours, more messy, more textural. I go from one way of working to the other depending on how I feel. This one below is purely done with watercolour and a black pen... Stephanie has kindly featured this art print of mine ' Shawl of Leaves ' on her beautiful blog, Millefeuilles . If you haven't visited her blog yet, you're in for a treat! Click to see her lovely creations. I promise you won't be disappointed. :) A mixed media painting with a mixed meaning. :)  These paintings evolve on their own and quite often it'll be some time before I know what they're about myself!  Any ideas?

Thankyou for your comments, it really is lovely to see flowers again isn't it? I didn't realise how much I missed their colour until they started sprouting forth again! With colourful blooms still on my mind, here's my picture for this week's Illustration Friday. 'Yield'. **UPDATE** This painting is now available as a print!  CLICK HERE  to see the details. :) Why did I draw a teapot? I'll explain why that was on my mind. The other day I bought a packet of loose tea by accident, thinking it was teabags. I have a few teapots on the shelf in my kitchen (There's something about them I love, maybe it's their shape, so round?) but they very rarely get to be used. I don't like to waste things so I've been making proper tea in a proper teapot just like I used to in the olden days. Being the only tea drinker in the house it does feel like a great big faff and life is too short and.... I think I'll go back to tea bags next time! ...

I don't know how I managed to draw this today because this lady looks a lot more capable than I feel today! I've been suffering from a chest infection and haven't been able to do as much as I wanted to this week, my energy is quite low at the moment. Thankyou for all your lovely comments on my last post! I love to hear what shapes you make when you're doodling and drawing. I wonder what it says about us as a person? You can see here in the picture above I've included my usual leaf shapes again. I like them to be neat and controlled but they are often less than perfect. Make of that what you will! ;o) You might remember this watercolour painting I did last year. It's now available to you as a lovely print in my Etsy shop. Have a lovely weekend whatever you're doing and I'll see you again soon.xx

This is my painting for this week's Illustration Friday word.  I first drew it with a black fineliner pen, added watercolour and finished the shading with coloured pencils. I don't know why I'm drawing fish recently, it could be the shape. They're similar to leaves aren't they, and teardrops or raindrops? I tend to draw a lot of spirals too.  What shapes do you have a tendency to draw? (close-up view) Don't forget I have a 10% discount in my Etsy shop this week! :)

The other evening I stood and watched the beautiful sea. and images of mermaids and fish started brewing in my mind.... 'Popularity' for Illustration friday . It's been a while since I've used pencil crayons and I had a lot of fun blending the colours. :o) The ones I use are WH Smith's own brand, soft and bright. Just how I like it!

I used a limited colour range of pencils for this, purples, golds and pinks. The shapes drew themselves if you know what I mean. What do you think they mean?

You might have noticed I've had a blog make-over. I've been craving gentle colours. Mauves, soft pinks, gentle ochres and fawns. I felt I wanted to use a soft medium too, so I dug out the old pencil crayons that had been long neglected and spent time playing with them to produce the picture above. I feel the need to be kind to myself, to surround myself with softness. This is the scarf I've just made using the softest wool I could find. Its called Wendy Merino Bliss . I found myself choosing gentle colours, earthy colours. I want to be surrounded with gentle.

Inspired by autumn leaves and the fact I feel like this most of the time these days! Can you see the salt texture on the purple? That was fun to do. I use sea salt because the granules are quite big and they make really good shapes don't they? Today I've managed a morning of yoga, plus the long walk there and back carrying a big heavy bag of shopping so I think I'm entitled to feel like this! ;)

Today I'm listing my painting of Paisley Girl on Etsy ! Do you remember I did this one a few weeks ago for Illustration Friday's word which was ...er Paisley! She's painted with watercolour and a touch of pencil crayon with pen and ink. I loved playing with salt to get the lovely textures in her dress. The original painting will be only $40 (which is approximately £25, or € 28 ). The Etsy site will automatically convert the money to your own currency, whatever country you're from! :) CLICK HERE to see more details.

Here's my illustration for Illustration Friday . I thought about water but finally decided ripples in the hair would be fun to do!

I'm getting frustrated with Blogger today. They've changed the settings yet again! I just about get used to the links at the top but now there's a new one called 'design' and when I click it, I get taken to a scary unfamiliar page where I'm just going to have to hyperventilate for a while............ .... .......... ... ............ Ok .......... I've added a list of links to the sidebar but that took me so long to do! Why why why do they need to change it? Here is a page from my sketchbook I did yesterday in the sun and also managed to burn my neck in the process. Silly me, I had my hair up, that'll teach me! I'm now off to tackle this week's Illustration Friday which is 'Ripple'. I've just realised it's thursday already so I'd better get a wiggle on!

My builders have finished, well almost . All they need to do is to varnish the doorstep but it's raining so heavily today I can't blame them for packing up and going! Well this has given me the opportunity to sit down and to do Illustration Friday , yay!

It was my middle daughter's birthday yesterday and she's 22! This is a sketch I did the other day, it's not supposed to be her, but looking at it now I think I must have had her in mind when I drew it. Quite often I find myself drawing girls with this hairstyle when I'm trying to draw one different to my own. In fact have a look at the last post too because again it's very similar isn't it? It was a scorching hot day yesterday and when she sat in the garden I though she looked like one of the flowers! After tea she blew out the candles on her cake. She was given a mameshiba present from both her boyfriend and her brother but that's ok because they just chatted away to eachother. They speak Japanese and it sounds so cute! I'm selling a couple of my watercolour paintings on Ebay so if you have a moment, do have a peep HERE. Thankyou!

acrylic and coloured pencils collage watercolour and gel pens I don't know where these images that I've just drawn have come from, I really don't, somewhere in my subconcious perhaps but here they are in my sketchbook for your perusal. I had plans to do a larger scale painting on canvas but what with the imminent arrival of builders any day, it stops me from concentrating so instead I'm busy repainting old furniture. I'm renovating a Lloyd Loom ottoman, painting an old (cheap) pine table white, then onto the coffee table and another side table which just needs a sanding and a varnish. I'm sure I can find many more jobs to do before I start my bigger painting! ;o)

Sometimes I like to make little paint sketches using whatever mediums I'm in the mood for. Sometimes watercolour, and a little bit of coloured pencil, This one is a base of pink acrylic paint, then drawn on top with a gel pen, then I used my Inktense pencils to colour in the hair and flowers. I've also had a play in Photoshop combining 2 pictures together to make my new header. I used this one, and this one, this one above shows what it was like before and this one is after. Much better I think! (Or should I make that moon lighter...hmmmmm.......)