Good to have second painting on the go.

The clockwork bird was a car boot bargain - £1.00 and Buzz was 50p.
I like this first stage when its loose and free it will be lovely to keep it like this. The Framer will be sorted next week, he is 2 villages away - best to buy local and he is really good.

You can see the varied green ground showing through. The only green in the still life were the few bits on Buzz. Using a varied green ground will make it easier to balance these within the painting.

Oil paints are just wonderful. They glide over the canvas, picking up unexpected traces of another colour, adding, mutating...
Its been a while, the last few paintings have used acrylic for a more detailed under painting with oil paints scumbled or glazed over that.

The 4 still life paintings will all have a loosely brushed coloured acrylic ground with oils used to model figures and forms.

And I must sort out frames soon too, the list continues to grow....

I have 4 small (30 x 40cms) still life paintings underway now.
The photograph on the left is the first - Hands Up

These are for Giuseppe D'Anna's gallery - Argentum in Colchester.
It is a pre-Christmas show so the still life paintings are
cute and colourful and use toy figures and animals.



I have a lovely and very intuitive friend Jane Stevenson, who makes Back flower remedies - She makes them in the way prescribed by Dr Bach himself and they are potent and effective. Jane works with both people with animals and has created some great "Pet Blends", she lives in Cromer - as Dr Bach too.

I will put a link at the bottom of the post.  

I gave Jane a Navajo Tea bundle to try and this Thursday I think there will be enough flowers for her to make a new remedy from the Thelesperma megapotamicum flowers. It will be interesting to see what emotional states this flower will relate to.

http://www.creaturecomforters.co.uk   and do look at the CCFE Essences page to see how the "Mother Tincture is made,  it is a beautiful process.
 

Half way through the challenge.. #draw21days
I did finish the sheet of birds but rebelled over 2 drawings of man made objects - I completed just one.

The challenge for yesterday was a monster - an unknown monster, so Godzilla is out of the running. I think I may end up with something creepy so will post once I've completed it - here is my "barely" cubist vase of flowers - and my sheet of doodles - long time since I did a whole sheet..

The 21 day Drawing Challenge gives participants the weekend to catch up - just as well - I have been more than a bit Manyåna lately. 
Saturday we had a really good meal in Norwich at The House - Freshly made Thai food that was truly delicious, I didn't take a camera so no images which was a pity as the food looked so beautiful on the plates too.
I also managed to avid buying anything in the 4 really good charity shops just a few steps away!

Sunday it rained and not the soft and gentle Irish rain - full on tropical downpour without any added warmth, we lost power and I caught up with the drawing I had procrastinated about.
Out of a choice of 8 subjects, I chose My Boss and being self employed it was an opportunity for a quick self portrait. I did a couple of revisions in the evening and again today as it was part of the brief and applied a gaussian blur by rubbing the pencil marks with a couple  of fingers...

Continuous line drawing - and Fill the shapes..

I was at Alby Crafts on Thursday, Claire Knight, papercut artist needed a day off.

I have some paintings in what was an empty workshop/gallery space for 3 weeks next to Claire's workshop at Alby.

Turned out to be a real blessing as I had started filling the shapes of Day 3's challenge with birds and Claire had a great book of aviary birds that proved to be very useful.
Tomorrow - High 5 ..

I like Lynda.com and although I sadly cannot justify the £14 per month membership would cost, I can do the 21 Day Drawing Challenge.
Day 1 - The subject - Cat - with 4 reference images of cats.

This was my solution and I may go on to draw the rivets and detail the metal seams.

Back in 2004 when my friend Tina was 50 I we went on a 3 week drive around Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Arizona. While in Monument valley I drank some Navajo Tea, it is totally delicious and I was hooked.

I managed to get some sent over from a chap called Steve Heil - but he seemed to have disappeared from the pages of the internet.
The only way to get some - if I didn't want to pay $35 to get some posted to the UK - and I didn't - was to grow my own.

It proved a tetchy germinator - mostly because it is a high sea level plant and I was growing at practically below sea level in North Norfolk  England.

6 plants were planted out and began to put on strong growth.
Yesterday I cut the first crop, leaving the plants in the earth to grow another set of leaves stems and flowers and I now have almost 20 small bundles drying in the storage area in the studio.

First 2 small mugs of Navajo Tea drank yesterday were like nectar. The research into the plant is interesting too,  Thelesperma megapotamicum contains Luteolin and is Hepaprotective and cancer preventive - handy for someone with autoimmune liver disease (PBC) and throat cancer in 2011.
 

This week's plan was, "I will get the plan chest emptied and moved, temporarily, over to the house."

Only take a day - what a crazy idea that was.

Over the 7 months I hadn't used the old studio, a family of mice had made a colourful nest under the plan chest with small pieces of card and paper, so much that was left had to be thrown out.

And while doing emptying and cleaning it - why not replace the wooden runners I didn't get around to last time it was emptied.  And having done that - now 3 drawers dont want to go back onto their allotted replaced runners..

soon - soon I will be able to sink into painting......

Prozac Pup has one first prize in the exhibition organised by Karen Bethel.

How brilliant is that.
I was really keen to take part in this exhibition, my stepson Mark is bipolar so mental illness is something we, like many others, have experience of as a family.

Mark was a world class acrobat and performer - as he would say " I've been round the work 7 times"
this was either with Ra Ra Zoo or with his then partner Ali and their 2 children.
He could juggle, back-flip for England, trapeze, diabolo, make balloon animals, swords and flowers....  he just loved to perform.
He and Ali choreographed a surreal double act that was one of the top acts on the Physical Theatre charts.

Somewhere in the combination of traveling, permanently high adrenaline levels and some tablets he was given and didn't question, his personality began to change.

He became more and more manic,  at first the gradual change seemed like him just being a more outrageous performer but eventually we realised something serious was happening and then he was arrested in London with the possibility of being sectioned unless he self referred.

He self referred -
his life has changed immeasurably.

He is now a alcohol and nicotine dependent and amongst other changes doesn't take a bath without putting up a lot of verbal resistance often to the point of a bath being abandoned.
Better to have a smelly hug than no hug.

Mark is a very loving, wonderful man who is so good hearted. He is also a man who became proficient in at least 3 martial arts (I have never known him to be violent) and Japanese "No" theatre.

Mark is one of those that have been  lucky - he now has a flat, with entry system and caring help and support from Julian Housing. They are an amazing charity.  What is being done to the NHS now especially in Mental Health will set standards of help and support back many years.