Jessie Lilac Blog

I'm not going to talk about the weirdness that's happened to the world because we all know about that already but one thing I noticed since lockdown is that my artwork has changed from drawing girls to drawing houses. I'm going to share my latest ones here.  They're all done in watercolour and with these first ones I used black pen too.  They're mainly based on cottages I've seen on visits to Cornwall and Dorset with the addition of my own imaginary flowers and colours. I'm not sure which style I prefer, the very traditional looking paintings or the more abstracty ones without any pen lines. I'm enjoying painting both styles and that's the most important thing. I hope you're staying safe and well.

 My youngest graduated last week with a first class honours degree in Social Pedagogy. I'm a proud mama and here's a little watercolour I did of her in my art journal when we got back. It was an extremely hot day but the setting next to the river Thames was perfect for taking photos.  I like to draw different hairstyles, this one is done in Tombow pens. This hairstyle was more challenging because of the detail but it's all a learning curve drawing something new. I loved how the cat came out even though she's missing a tail! I'm always a bit fazed by drawing animals because I've very rarely ever drawn them from life but I enjoyed painting this one. Cats are my favourite animal so that helps. 😉 💖 I think I must have been channelling Frida for this one! I like using my pentel black brush pen, it makes lovely sweeping swirly lines. It actually ran out of ink so I took it apart and refilled it with ordinary black ink from a bottle. That m...

Here are my latest pages from my sketchbook. Life's been very busy this year and I haven't found the time to make finished paintings as such but I do make time most mornings to sit down and fill a sketchbook page. If I have a gap of not doing any art for more than a week I find it reeeeally difficult to get back into it again so these pages are important to keep the creative part of my brain up and running. The top one is done with Tombow Dual Brush pens and watercolour.  This one above is an inky background with a Posca painting on top.  This one's done in the same way with Posca painting on top of a layer of indian yellow FW ink.  I was having a difficult emotional day when I made this one.  When I looked at this later I was amazed I can see in it just how I was feeling that day. I love it when art does this don't you? And finally  a more cheery one! I used my ✨Sparkling ✨ Posca pens for this, they're so fun to use you can't but he...

I'm getting back into using my watercolours again. I love how they flow on the page leaving behind tide-marks. Some people call it 'cauliflowering' in the sense that it's unwanted. But me? I love it!  I don't live near any shops so a trip to the big city is far and few between. Exeter was looking lovely when we had a brief visit there last week to buy table lamps for the bedroom. At the weekend we went to Saltram House , it was cold but still nice to walk around the gardens. What a magical looking tree this is. 💚 Have a great week and I'll see you again soon. xx

 Having talked about all the mediums I love to use in my last post, I have to say that I often come back to watercolour even though I find it the most difficult because it has its own mind and if you have any experience of it yourself you'll know that it quite often does what it pleases! This painting is a combo of watercolour and coloured pencil and I used it as a Mothers Day card to give to my mum this year. I'm thinking about getting it printed to sell in my shop but I haven't made up my mind about that yet.  At the weekend, we often go somewhere a bit different and last Sunday we visited Buckfast Abbey. It's always so calm and peaceful there. I'm not Catholic or even a church goer but I love the spiritual atmosphere and the beautifully kept abbey and gardens.    The Millenium Show garden has a beautiful wall made from cut logs. Isn't it lovely? I'd love a wall like that in my garden. My own gardening efforts are a bit hit an...

Over the years I've tried out all kinds of mediums and I don't think I've ever settled on just one or two absolute favourites but I have a feeling people who have seen my sketchbook pages over the past year might think differently? Anyway, the top picture you see here is an acrylic background with a stamped pattern and the drawing done in Posca pens. Here below are a few of my most recent paintings that I do on a daily basis in my little A5 Moleskine sketchbook. Let's see what my current fave mediums are. This one has a background of FW inks with Posca pens on top. The white flowers and the bird were done with a Liquitex paint marker.  You can't see the lovely shininess from the photo, but these are my Spectrum Noir brushpens. They are lovely and glittery. I also used some cobalt blue watercolour because I don't have many of the Sparkle pens and I felt the picture needed an extra colour. Here's another Sparkle pen painting, the onl...