Jessie Lilac Blog

Some people have a fear of being faced with a blank page. As for me, I love having a clean sheet of paper to play with, poised and ready to cover with lines and colour and mess and ....oh the possibilities! The one above took about 3 minutes or less, I just let the pen doodle away, travelling around the page. This one was drawn in a few minutes, the tree might look complicated at first but I splodged an area of black acrylic ink which dries very quickly and drew on top of it with a silver pen. The dots of blue ink were added with a brush. A lot of my pictures begin their lives as doodles, such as this one below... I had no intention of her wearing a lampshade on her head and wasn't planning on showing this one at first but I added watercolour to it and it looked like a finished picture. I'm still not sure about it but it's there for the world to see now! This bat lady doodle stayed safely in my sketchbook but there are aspects of it I'm sure I'll

Thank you for your kind good wishes on my last post. I'm gradually getting better and I had a lovely weekend. A sunny Sunday was spent in Windsor catching up with my eldest and her family. Here we are with my youngest and baby Maisy and that's the castle peeping through the trees in the distance. We didn't visit the castle but had a nice lunch in a pub catching up on all the news. painting by Jane Ray from my Pinterest  Board,  'Art I like' . Last week was spent mostly at home, skipping through the amazing site called Pinterest. I'd heard of it many times through people's blogs but I couldn't see the attraction until that is, I gave it a go myself! I am now hopelessly hooked. For instance, I can collect all my favourite artists in one place. ( CLICK HERE  if you'd like to see my boards) Another new venture for me is my new Facebook Fan page. I wanted to do one for ages but wasn't sure how and kept putting it off. With t

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! :)

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 you get to the checkout. Please CLICK HERE  to visit my shop and see all

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!

Feel the love, this Valentine's Day :o) ˙·٠•● ♥ Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ ♥ ●•٠·˙   ♥  ˙·٠•● ♥ Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ ♥ ●•٠·˙

I'd love to learn how to play a harp but they probably cost lots of money and I do love guitar music so I'll stick with that I think.

When you think that you know what your fears are and then it takes someone else to point out it could in fact be something else, you have to reconsider quite a lot about yourself don't you? That was quite a powerful full moon we've just had wasn't it. It was enormous! This little sketch was an experiment in drawing a face in an 'animae' style. I love those blue eyes, like a blue watery ocean.

The word for Illustration friday this week is Suspense Would the little lost birds find eachother when they only had their shadows helping them to find the way?

Was that winter then? We had a very brief scattering of snow but by the end of the day it was gone. The innocent sun continues to shine,  casting rainbows  oblivious to the cold. I sit and doodle in my sketchbook. Lost in my own created world.  

White rabbits! :) Or do you say "A pinch and a punch, the first of the month!"? I have my favourite flowers, tulips on this sunny (but very cold !) 1st of February. It's nice to see the sun out, it's light enough to take a photo of the little phone pouch I made the other evening from some scraps of wool I had leftover that were too small for anything else, with a handy dandy cord so it doesn't fall out of my bag and a complete stranger has to tell me that I've dropped my phone. Again! So, here's my latest doodlings. I started the drawing with a fish, added the girl carrying it and she looked as though she'd quite like to tippy toe on a branch. The leaves are done using a little rubber stamp I found lurking in a cupboard when I was having a tidy up. I've liked how I've seen other people using stamps but looked at the price of them and they are a teeny bit too much for the amount of times I think I'd use them but this one (and a few others