Jessie Lilac Blog

So autumn is finally here. I love the sunshine this time of year, the long shadows and low magical sunlight. Having said that, every year I try to resist the fact that summer is over, wanting the season to stretch as long as it can but this year I'm making new plans for my shop and retocking it with lots of new items! I've been asked many times if I have prints available from my paintings so I thought it was about time I stocked up the shop with oodles of them!  Each one is printed on Epsom archival matte photographic paper and the colours are clear and bright, hard to tell them from the originals. Each one is printed A4 size and have a white border to make framing easy. Please click here to take you to the print section of my Etsy shop. ~ There are lots to choose from! Now September has started, I'm starting to work on bigger paintings again, playing with paint and colours. I shall be back soon to show you my progress. See you then! xx

I could not believe my eyes earlier today when I saw that my likes on Facebook had jumped up to 900! As a thankyou I'm having a giveaway of one of my A4 prints. All you need to do is to be a liker of my Facebook page and to share the post I have there about the giveaway on your own Timeline.You can choose any print from these above, so please leave me a comment underneath that post too so I know which one you'd like to win! To see the prints in more detail, please  click here . I'll announce the winner on Monday, both here and on Facebook. I've been working on a new painting for Spring.  You might remember this sketch (below) I did a couple of weeks ago? Well I kept finding myself turning the page of my sketchbook back to it because I love the colours. I just knew I had to do a painting based on it. So here it is! It's called 'The Song of Tulips' and is painted with acrylic on 7 x 10 canvas board. It's now available to buy...

Hello, I'm here today to tell you about my giveaway! I reached 100 likes on my Facebook page a few days ago,  142 today!  ♥ THANKYOU! ♥  There will be two prizes, one will be my original watercolour painting, painted on thick watercolour paper, with lovely soft hues of pink and mauve called 'Peace' :) I'm also offering you a print on lovely Bristol paper from my mixed media painting 'Open Up To The Best'. Here they are.. Peace,   watercolour painting, 8 x 11 inches Open Up To The Best , art print 8 x 10 inches. (The copyright watermark will not appear on your print.) To Enter: Go to my Facebook page where the link for my giveaway is and 'share' and 'like' the link.  There! That's all you need to do. :) If you're not a Facebook person , that's still ok, just copy and paste one of these pictures above to your blog with a link to this post but don't forget to come back here to tell me that you've...

Dragonflies  (available as a print here ) It stops me in my tracks when I see a dragonfly. That doesn't happen very often, so when I saw this one, I had to get my camera out and capture it before it flew right away! They're lovely shapes to draw and I can imagine I'll be drawing more before too long. :) I spotted another lovely shaped object, this amazing seedhead and something else that caught my eye. Beautifully curved, lipstick pink flower petals, almost transparent in the sunshine. I love the silhouette of the stems of this plant with its bright pink flower heads against the dark green of the yew. (I'm not great at knowing plant names -sorry!) But I do know that the almost ghostlike plant behind it is love-in-the-mist. I'm growing some in my garden but they're still very tiny at the moment. All that rain has confused my poor seedlings and now the sun is hot to trot, they may well bloom after all! Have a lovely we...

Open Up To The Best I've made a new print from my mixed media painting. Please note, the watermark along the bottom edge won't be on your print. :) Please click here  if you'd like to see all the details. Do you remember this picture of my studio? I'm still working on some new paintings on canvas for my exhibition and the ones featured in that post are now finished, hooray! I'll do a proper post on them very soon and it would be lovely to see you here again. x

To me, pink is happy and comforting. I love its bright jolly colour that adds a shot of warmth. As you might be aware if you've visited here before, purple is my favourite of all and I'm currently making a summer cardigan in a lovely shade of lilac. As much as I love purple, I felt it needed a shot of pink so I'm edging the sleeves with a narrow strip of bright fuschia!  You can see the project in more detail here on Ravelry if you like. :) Meanwhile, this morning I've listed a brand new print of my painting on canvas 'Travelling Dreams' on Etsy.   Click here to see it!xx

I've been making mixed media paintings on canvas. This one is finished and it was such a lovely sunny day yesterday I thought I'd take its photo in the garden amongst the flowers! The forget-me-nots and aubretia look so pretty at the moment and have started to spread between the cracks in the path, much to my delight!  I have it available as a print to buy in my shop .  The colours are reproduced really vividly as you can see! The texture of the mixed media looks like the real thing! Please click here  if you'd like to find out more. :) ******** This morning I sat in bed with my sketchbook. Not a thing I do very often I hasten to add! I felt as though I needed to doodle. I get this feeling often but usually the guilt of staying in bed a moment longer takes over and I get up and on with the day and the urge disappears under all the layers of the daily jobs.  Today I did a quick drawing and instead of feeling I should have got up, I felt ha...

I see I'm not alone in thinking there's something special about teapots! I'm getting used to making tea with leaves in a teapot even if it is just for one, the ritual of making it is growing on me! As I said in my last post, my Illustration Friday painting with the 'magical teapot' is now available as a print in my shop. :) Here are two more of my newly  listed prints... Another painting originally painted for Illustration Friday. I've renamed it 'Swirly Shower' and you can see the details here . and this one...... Yes! Another Illustration Friday picture with a new name of 'Shawl of Leaves' that you can see more details about here. Each are printed on good quality A4 Bristol paper and look as bright and clear as the original paintings. :) I've also been very privileged to be included in some lovely Etsy treasuries. :) Thankyou so much to  Irina ! Her jewellery shop can be found here . These are the Tre...

'Spring Cleaning' by be2be ROSIE Feminist Femi... Yesware $5.95 Shades of Spring Di... Vestberet $9.00 Kitchen gloves Diva... apronqueen $12.95 SPRING CLEANING SAL... CreativeChics $27.00 Handmade Liquid Lau... vintagehouse1 $2.50 Ironing Board Cover... GaranceCouture $24.00 Spring Tea Towel claudiagpearso... $16.00 spring clean - sign... sarahkdesigns $15.00 100% Wool Dryer Bal... saltairstudio $20.00 moss brush-handmade... Birribe $210.00 Spring Clean. Art p... jessicastride $15.00 Spring Bluebird Fel... Engelfelt $12.00 Treasury tool by Red Row Studio . I've been chosen for a lovely Etsy treasury by Lauren . Thankyou Lauren! :)   My Etsy print ' Spring Clean. ' :) **** This week's word for Illustration friday is 'Intention' and I have every intention of making a painting for it!  See you there!

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

I've had an Etsy shop for a while and up until now, I've mainly used it for selling my watercolour paintings. The only downside of this is that when they're gone, that's it, they've gone from me forever on their journey into the world, never to be seen again (by me that is!) Yes, I know I should have made good scans of them before they left but a few do slip by without a decent copy of them having been made. The two above are examples. But I'm here today to tell you that not all of them got away! Here's a small preview of some of my new prints I listed today on Etsy . Each one has lovely bright colours and are printed on acid-free good quality paper and I'm offering them for sale at only $15. (That's £9.71 each!)                     ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~AND STARTING TODAY FOR A WEEK~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ I am giving you a discount on your purchases. Just use the code BLOGPROMO when yo...