Jessie Lilac Blog

Hello new followers  ♥ thankyou for following my blog, it's lovely to have you join me here on my arty journey. Thankyou for all the comments I get here too, I aim to follow each of your links in the comments back to your blogs to return your visit and to see who you are! Please forgive any delay, life is busy and my computer is sometimes a bit temperamental. I love to find new blog friends that share my interests. xx You can see in the picture above I have finished my latest knitting project. You can read more details on Ravelry here if you are so inclined. :) I've spent a long time looking for cushions.(I think my US friends call them pillows?)  Every time I go into town or into any big store I have to look to see if there's anything that fits my fantasy of the perfect cushion. I have a motly collection of ones that I've bought in the past because they've been really cheap and the colour's been 'ok' but I have a fantasy of something bright a...

“Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.”   ~ Rumi The lessons we learn from people who we least expect it from, can be our greatest teachers. Unexpected lessons learned, from the most unexpected people. And for that, I am grateful ♥

  I've not been posting for a while have I? Sorry about that, I did miss it! The reason being is that my scanner broke the other day. Here's what happened. I had to move my art table away from the wall so that my broken window blind could be fixed.  You see my scanner sits at the back of my art table and there is... (was) a small gap between the table and the wall. The blind was fixed, all was good until... I wanted to use the scanner. I lifted the lid and the whole thing fell CRASH off the back of the table. THE GAP WAS TOO WIDE BETWEEN THE TABLE AND WALL! I thought it was just injured but it was dead.  Overdramatic ...moi? I need my scanner to get clear images of my paintings and so now I have to do with taking photos of them instead. I hope these aren't too bad quality, my camera's not particularly clever or expensive but it does its best. :) So let me show you what I've been doing of late. The images I've shown you so far are...

I really liked making my mixed media paintings last week but I fancied a change for this newest painting.  I love to use watercolours and missed their delicacy and the way the paint puddles onto the white of the paper, so satisfying :) I thought I'd share with you the stages I go through to get to the final image :) I did a very quick sketch to see how the bending trees would look swaying to the music, then I drew out the composition with my black Pitt pen. For this I used the 03 size. Then comes the fun 'colouring in' stage. I wanted to use the colours of autumn, reds, golds and purples. I like the random way the washes dry, sometimes I'll use salt on the wet paint to get more texture but his time instead of doing this, I used two different colours that could wash into eachother as they dried to get a sort of 2-tone effect for each hill. Almost done,  when the paint was dry I added more details with black and white ink on the le...

The weather is changing rapidly now, I've managed to capture the glorious red leaves on my garden wall before they began to fall. Thankyou so much for helping me with my 'naming the girl' in my last post. It was one of the later suggestions on Facebook that felt so right, it's the name 'Fawn'. She looks quite deerlike I think, don't you? :) You might remember I bought some canvas boards a while ago and started by collaging them with background layers but the summer became so very busy I had no time to continue with them, that is until now. Abundance, 7 x 5 ins This one is called ' Abundance ' and her garden is full of red berries and copper tinted leaves. The fruits are ripe and the sun squeezes out its last warm rays. Gratitude, 7 x 5ins. This painting is called ' Gratitude '. Her heart thrives on beauty and love and she keeps safe her loving essence that pours gratitude quietly from her eyes. I'm going to lis...

I'm enjoying the colours at the beginning of this new season. We're getting very dramatic evening skies! I've started to embrace the reds and coppery tones that this time of year brings, so much so that my palette is now filled with them. The watercolour sketch above shows a worried looking girl, deep in thought and maybe a little sad. She'd like a name please if you can think of a nice one for her? I've asked Facebookers to do the same so that once I have some ideas, I can find the perfect fit for her. :) Meanwhile, I've started a new mixed media piece on canvas board using acrylics, ink and various collage papers. I'll let you see the finished painting when it's ready. I'll keep the same colours but it could possibly change from this, you'll have to wait and see! :)

Here's another pencil drawing that evolved as I drew. I started with the eyes and formed the face around them, the cat asked to appear on her shoulder and the hair arrived last of all! If you've been following my blog for a while you'll know how unusual it is for me to work without colour so it was inevitable that a tiny spot of colour would end up there too! My next one is very likely to have a little more colour than this. :) After all that dark rain yesterday the sun is shining here today, have a good weekend!xx