Jessie Lilac Blog

We've had a couple of lovely sunny days and my first daisy is tentatively peeping from her winter slumber. The light's lovely in the morning, perfect for drawing and painting. After admiring the results other people have made with gouache paint, I bought some for myself. I had a little play but I still find them very difficult to use, the brushes I was using made the marks clumsy and when I tried a finer one, the paint was too thick. They say don't blame your tools so maybe I'm just not suited to them! Anyway I'll try again another day, I don't want to give up on them just yet.  This one was done with acrylic paint and the details were drawn with my Sakura pens. Again, the one below is mainly acrylic with the line detail drawn with Sakura pens. Have you ever tried using ordinary fineliner pens on paper and adding water?  Because they're not waterproof, when they get wet they bleed and make a lovely watercoloury effec...

Do you like to doodle? One of my new year's resolutions is to doodle more and last week I managed a doodle a day.  This one was done with my black Pitt pen.  Prismacolors are lovely to sketch with, the colours are juicy and you can press as lightly or as hard as you like to get varying textures. So many to choose from, it was satisfying to stick to just the blues for this one, with a hint of orange. :) Fineliner pens are nice to use because their points are thin and fine, great for patterns. And another done with my Pitt pen. You might have noticed a set of colours peeping at the top of the photo? The lovely bright colours of my new set of Inktense sticks that I had for Christmas! They're so big and chunky, after playing with them on this small sketchbook page I think I need a larger area to work on next time. My sketchbook is A5 size. I like that size because I use it as an art journal or visua...

Sorry to those of you who came here today to see my new autumn inspired pictures! I had a head filled with autumn leaves, golds, purples and reds...  but I had to draw a blue bike,  I couldn't rest until I did, oH and some roses too! sketchbook with fineliner pens Today I came back from the hairdressers with my youngest. She'd had her hair cut and blow dried in a style that I am apparently 'too old to know what she means.' She's happy, so I'm happy. Parents of teenagers will possibly understand. (!) note: She's the one in the foreground with the blonde hair, not the spiral headed lady behind her. That isn't either the hair stylist or me, its my artistic licence! ;)

I feel a bit like the girl in my picture, semi-reclining! It's been a mad whirl of visitors and lots of sleep-inducing food. My birthday's in a few days too so this time of year feels particularly indulgent to me. (I could never do moderation anyway!) I hope you're all having a nice christmas week where ever you are. :) 

I've finished the last of the christmas shopping, my cold is slowly getting better, more visitors arrive tomorrow and everything is now ready for christmas 2011. Thankyou to each one of you for your support and lovely messages. :) This blogging world is truly like no other and has changed all sorts of aspects of my life. It's helped my artwork become closer to how I want it to be, (even though I feel I still have a long way to go!) It's opened my eyes to different ways of communication between artists and friends. But best of all it's introduced me to amazing and wonderful people such as yourself!  I'm off now to open some treats.... I wish each of you a v e r y h a p p y christmas filled with l o t s o f f u n ! : o ) See you very soon! Jess xoxoxox