Blue Arsed Fly Part 2...

The blue-arsed-fly-styled running around has continued into this week

 I thought last week was busy until I hit this week

 and it has been taken to a whole new level

 when you add the need to film a lesson for Soul Food 2015 into the mix

To call myself a technological black hole of nightmare proportions

would actually be underplaying my ability to make cameras lose photos,

new fancy schmancy rice cookers to implode and computers freeze

but I pushed all this aside and gamely jumped into the whole thing

with uncharacteristic enthusiasm and admit that I learned some gems along the way

I learned that if you invite one chin to the party then all the others turn up as well

It is most disappointing to see them all there

I learned that half arsery and not planning leads to having to move the camera and set up and take things down a million times

I learned that even attempting to be "normal" and not muck up and play the fool is really really hard, and is totally exhausting

 not to mention that armpits shots happen more often than you would think

and they are not my best angle

It is also inevitable that just as you get to the end of a great take

you will do one of the following

spill tea

sneeze

have the back door neighbour come out and yell at the kids

or have the sort of hot flash that has you doing a credible impression

of an ice sculpture in the Sahara

but all in all it came together

and I learned that editing is not actually impossible

that you can make something out of nothing

and that the whole thing was actually fun... like lots of fun

so much fun that I decided to also try to immortalise the camera I used

and while I actually kind of prefer the sketch stage above to the finished piece

I don't hate the finished sketch by any stretch

So filming done, I used the extraordinary amount of time it takes to upload the things

and painted up the blue arsed fly, finished off last week's Assam tin

and got started on some of the commissions on my desk

so all in all quite busy, some may even say gloriously so

happy painting all...xx

Busier Than ...

This week I have been busier than a blue arsed fly

 in fact I had grand plans of painted a fly with a blue butt

 to highlight just how mad the week has been

but it turns out I have been too busy to draw just how busy I have been

plus I found out from Mr Google that the saying is running around like a blue arsed fly

and while I have been doing a lot of running around

 I am gutted that I have been using the wrong saying...and for years too

mind you the busier than sayings are all oddly horrid and mildly inappropriate

so I am thinking I may just stick with my blue arsed fly

busy week means I have an unfinished painting to share of some amazing tea tins

plus a little sneaky look at the amazing project that has taken up so much of my time

not to mention I have spent quite a bit of time trying to decide whether this bunny bowl

is crazy creepy... or totally genius

I am tending towards genius

because throw some mini chocolate eggs in there and it is going to be perfectly Easter

but come Halloween I can use it again

and serve spaghetti in it to recreate glorious bunny guts

which will be creepy, but also totally seasonal

 double duty bunny bowls has to fall into the genius side of the ledger right...

happy painting all...xx

The Things We Do For Friends...

I needed to go to my happy place and paint my new mugs

  after a mildly traumatic morning in the studio yesterday

 I started by breaking my favourite hair band before I had even put pen to paper

 which is a tragedy of epic proportions as I only have one

 and I just have enough hair grown to actually get in my eyes so it is still exciting to need it

 after more than 18 months of either being bald, covered in stubble, or very short hair

 it is a thrilling shock to look down and have something flop into your line of vision

 so I was reduced to clipping my hair back with a bulldog clippy thing from the studio

 which would have been all good if it wasn't for me dropping Phants to the train station

  and popping in to get an iced coffee all with the bloody bulldog clip in my hair

I followed this fashion faux pas with spilling the stupid iced coffee

all over the freshly cleaned kitchen bench

and in the process of cleaning that up I knocked the giant peppermill over

and somehow it managed to explode peppercorns all over the place

those suckers spread let me tell you

so I sorted that and then headed into the studio to attempt to tackle a self portrait

Paint Party Friday turns four this week and the theme is self portraits

now I hate drawing and painting faces at the best of times, let alone my own

 so it is a testament to how awesome I think this tribe is that I even attempted this thing

and it was a challenge that drove me to three cups of tea 

which on top of the half a cup of iced coffee

 had me popping and whizzing like a lightning bug

which is possibly not the most conducive state to paint in

but here it bloody is

sans bulldog clip because after a time it starts to hurt like crazy

I used gouache,ink and acrylic and concentrated on this crop because it was taking forever

like it could be the 5th birthday before I finish it forever

but aside from the time it took I have to admit it was fun  to do something a bit different

not that I want to do it again any time soon

but PPF's birthday doesn't come around every day does it

and on Friday the 13th no less...

So I settled my frayed nerves and reassured myself that I am still speedy with paint

by drawing and painting up the two new mugs

and adding another layer to the latest perfume bottle painting

but the whole time I was thinking about how awesome it is to have the meet up at PPF

how many truly wonderful friends I have made, 

how many times I have been inspired and supported, and just had fun

so a huge thank you to Eva and Kristin who host this wonder every week

and give us all such a fabulous place to meet up

happy birthday PPF...xx

here is Tuesday's post link in case you missed it...

Tea-rex versus The Teatanic...

Tea-rex Versus The Teatanic...

It is no secret that I like good tea infuser pun

 as I have painted them and written about them before

 there was Crime Scene Tea Party which featured Freaky Pete and Sharky

and then the Mana-tea/ dugong farce of November last year

The latest punny infusers are glorious additions to the tribe and make me insanely happy

I give you Tea-rex and the Teatanic... they are bloody awesome aren't they

Things are awfully quiet in the studio without the studio mutt

so I am taking any company where I can get it... even tea infusers are fair game

it turns out that Tea-rex is quite the philosopher and has plenty to say on almost anything

Teatanic is a lot more sedate and has little to add to any conversation quite frankly

but he is a mighty infuser and so I let him off on being light on in the conversation area

Teatanic also manages to hold a buttload of leaves

which means I will be able to float him in my clear glass tea pot

well I haven't done it yet, but that is going to be awesome when I get around to it

but they are both very worthy additions to my growing collection...

it does get me thinking though about who would be top dog in the tea infuser stakes

Sharky is impressive... well he is a shark fin

and seeing it float in your cup is endlessly amusing

plus you get to hum the Jaws theme which makes any day better

but seeing the Teatanic floating there with its butt up in the air is also smile inducing

I did attempt to sing that awful bloody song from the Titanic movie while it was infusing some tea... not a good choice for someone who is enthusiastic but tone deaf... it was so bad I have banned myself from ever doing that again!!!

Sadly Freaky Pete is looking a bit sedate next to these beauties

even though stuffing his shorts with tea is fun, it isn't quite on the same level fun wise

but at the end of the day I think that Tea-rex may have my heart for now

the little arms, the grinning face and tea filled belly are just adorable

so without further ado I am going to go and refill his little belly with leaves

and get back to some painting

This perfume bottle is on the table and should be just about ready for another layer

happy painting all...xx

What's Been Happening ...

You would think that after the magic beach break we had

 I would come home mentally and physically refreshed

  after all I am one of those mentally hyperactive types at the best of times

 and other than walking on the beach, and swimming

  I was horizontal for the better part of every day

 but instead of coming home like an energizer bunny on steroids

 I came home a touch subdued which was a bit puzzling at the time

  I put it down to missing the Wonder mutt and all that horribleness 

 but it turns out I was busy being a human petri dish and was incubating an epic flu

I didn't get the pretty flu either... you know where you sort of lounge around feeling a bit off

oh no I got the truly disgusting whole shebang

for a time I seriously considered whether I had some serious ebola type bug

though that may be due to the fact that we binge watched Helix on holiday

so my mind was on worse case scenarios big time after watching that show

and yes I can be that psycho and dramatic

after all a little light hypochondria isn't unexpected after the last 18 months

I even had man flu moments where I think I may have actually groaned out loud

 and courtesy of having a butt load of lymph nodes removed and zapped by radiation

I now get a rash all over lefty and the left hand side of my torso as the lymph nodes that are there can't work hard enough to clear all the crap which is a whole new joy

we are talking a rash that made me look like I have walked into a ketchup fight

or perhaps am an extra in a Quentin Tarantino movie... it is quite something to see

So I promptly went to bed and slept away the better part of a week

while the rash appeared and generated an ungodly amount of heat

I swear I could have been rented out as a snow melter, 

which I know lots of you could do with at the moment

I could have just swanned through those drifts and with a flash of what remains of lefty

those pesky snow drifts would have melted away in seconds... like a superpower

but with an awesome amount of sleep I started to recover nicely

and managed to get in and do this pen drawing of the perfume Sinus got me for Christmas

it had started as a watercolour but I learned from my lesson during treatment

I know better than to attempt to use watercolour in bed so I finished it off with a ballpoint pen

it was perfectly therapeutic working in pen

and I quite like the effect of blending watercolour with ballpoint

plus I preserved the new white duvet cover which we have on the bed

well white with one or two little teeny tiny pen marks... adds to the charm of it I am sure

So I am now firing on all cylinders and back in the studio and working on lots of fun projects

some I of which I can happily share like this illustration for Delicious Skin

which is a skin care that smells like chocolate... seriously... it is amazing

and I have been in a frenzy of drawing, sketching and painting

including that blue Elie Saab Resort Collection bottle that is just crying out to be painted

so I am going to leave you there and get back to it

Happy painting all ...xx