Jessie Lilac Blog

How did 2 weeks fly by since my last blogpost?! Things are still pretty busy around here and lots has been happening so let me tell you what I've been doing. Over the half term we had a few days away in Cornwall. We drove over to the Lizard Peninsula to Kynance Cove (pics above) and then along the coast to another beautiful cove that I haven't been to before called Poldhu Cove. I loved the caves there, I imagined I'd see a mermaid living inside one of them but alas I didn't this time. The same day that we arrived back home, we had a family celebration for Youngest Son as he's just passed his driving test and had his birthday too! I'm always inspired to paint when I've been to Cornwall and once the house was quiet again, I finished this painting.  It's called ' Looking Back '.  I love the combination of bright turquoise together with the the earthy tones of browns and I've had in mind to do a paintin...

First of all let me say happy Valentine's day to all of you out there in Blogland. ♥ ♥ Thankyou for coming here today and to see what I've been up to of late. :) You might have noticed I've recently been enjoying working on some little mixed media pieces and I've now finished 3 more! This one's called ' Peachy ' and measures 6 x 6inches. It's painted on box canvas, with white painted sides and wire on the back ready to hang. ' Demeter ' and ' Maris ' are painted on thick watercolour paper and measure 10 x 7 inches each. . Maris Demeter They are all now listed in my Etsy shop ready for someone special (is that you?) to give them new homes. :) ♥ ♥ ♥ Before I go, I'll show you my current crochet makings. It's a stripy blanket for ME! I'm enjoying these stripes so much, choosing which colour to use next that I'm not sure if I'm ever going to be able to stop! For...

Hello there, after the very eventful and exciting week I wrote about in my last post, this week has been very quiet in comparison, I've been spending the time working on some new little paintings on canvas board and on paper. The three you see in the picture above were all worked on at the same time, while one was drying or if I'd reached a point where I wasn't sure what to do next, I'd move on to the next one. If you follow me on Instagram or Facebook you might have thought they were flying off my art table like a conveyor system! The truth is that they each took several days to complete and they all finished within a couple of days of eachother. Here's the first one, it's called 'Noctambula.' It measures 7 x 5 inches and is painted with acrylic paint and collage paper on canvas board. Sometimes I like to incise into the wet acrylic paint to make fine lines. I actually use an old knitting needle for this! It's a very satisfying thing t...

There's a good reason for my quietness here over the past couple of weeks. So much has been happening, I don't know where to start! I'll begin with last week, when I was immersed in a new illustration project. It involved drawing men. Now those of you who are familiar with my paintings will know that this is a rare thing indeed and at first it felt quite a challenge to me. I've done a lot of life drawing in the past so when I started to draw a man's form instead of my usual lady ones, my memories of life drawing came flooding back to help me. They're almost finished but sometimes work has to stop while life events take over doesn't it? Two BIG events took over the beginning of this week. On Monday, Youngest Son had his graduation ceremony at Birmingham University. He's a primary teacher now, working in Devon. Tuesday saw the birth of Ruby Rose, Middle Son's new baby daughter. It was a bumpy journey into the world for...

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...

 At the end of my last post I promised to return soon with my new year's resolutions. They've been brewing in my mind for a very long while, too long I've put these daily tasks off. Even my enormous turn of the year on new year's eve (it's also my birthday) didn't jumpstart me into action. I thought some magic in the universe might do it for me but no it didn't. So it's down to me then is it? ;) Ok here we go: No.1:  exercise I used to do this a lot and I remember how much better I felt when I did it regularly. No.2:  stop using my body as a dustbin I do. If it's in the house and it tastes nice then it has to be consumed. By me. My clothes no longer fit comfortably and I don't like being uncomfortable. No.3:  do yoga I've done yoga on and off for most of my life since I was 17 but over the last year or so it's been off. All the time.  No.4:  doodle   I only usually only doodle when I'm on the phon...