My Week On A Page # 9 ...

My week on a page in tea and infusers...

 Earl of Grey in a lollipop infuser

   Oolong in the dagger

  Boulder Breakfast in the Tardis

 Pink Lemonade Green in the birdy

 Earl Of Grey again in the strawberry

 Summer in Provence in the little weird yellow thingy

 White Tea with Cucumber in the heart

 they grew across the page each day like a line up

 and I can't see a line up without thinking about The Usual Suspects

happy painting all...xx

The Big Drip...

I have been known to have flighty weeks every now and again

  okay... pretty regularly if I am completely honest

  but this week has been all over the place mentally

  I haven't been able to settle to any one thing 

  my brain has been flitting from thought to thought like a hummingbird on roids

I blame the drippy chairs for this sad state of affairs

I have spent all week trying to work out how to scale them up and paint larger versions

without having to do the whole soak and stretch paper to keep it flat

but have been plagued by paper buckles

which could be graded from mild in some cases all the way through to truly mountainous

I could try the old iron and heavy book trick

but I am always scared of doing that and the whole possible burning down the house thing

so I am trying to find just the right combination of paper weight and paint application

these paintings take a lot of moisture to create 

and finding the right combination is meaning lots of experimenting

which is never a bad thing, though there has been moments of insane frustration

followed quickly by awesome yowzer moments, followed by more frustration

ahhh the joys the are the rollercoaster of creation right

I could have made my life easier

and used the 640 gr hot pressed paper that I favour for huge watercolours

those suckers take more abuse than any paper known to man

and stay so flat and perfect it is mildly freaky

but for some reason in my brain I decided that it just wasn't white enough

so I have tried creating them with different papers

both stretched and unstretched

thick smooth white paper in 5 different weights and brands,

 and even a lighter weight paper... as if that was ever going to bloody work

and finally even had a play on Yupo

but to be honest Yupo sort of does my head in a bit

something about that plastic surface just feels mildly wrong

I even tried different paints

high pigmented ones

normal ones

and finally even the Peerless liquid colours

I even hunted out some inks

and played with different combinations of all of the above

the studio has been looking like some giant threw up paint everywhere

my hands look like I am wearing technicolour gloves

and most of the clothes I have worked in this week

have little dots of colour splattered in lovely outlines

courtesy of my apron just not being up to the task

so these are the closest I have gotten to results that don't make my brain hurt

Of course you know what I am going to do next don't you

yep this morning I have pulled out the 640 gr paper

and it is quite white actually

so I am going to get in and do some on there

which is what I should have done in the first place

but then where would be the fun in that

happy painting all...xx

My Week On A Page #8...

dreaming of a Mexican themed Christmas 

No Mexican Christmas would be compete without ceramic cacti right 

scoffing...Phantom's pecan biscuits/cookies

Loving... My Steep and Go iced tea tumbler

Genius!

Coveting... Tiny tea cups

I bought them for presents and now really want to keep them

Adoring... Spring poppies

Things I Love...

There are a lot of things that I love

  Tea, chocolate, Sinus and Phantom

  Not necessarily in that order

  Sometimes Sinus is rather annoying

But here is a bit of a list of others...

I love drinks with umbrellas in them

Doesn't matter what they are 

They could be turkey gizzard smoothies with a sprinkling of dead ants

But if it has an umbrella then I am going to be smacking many lips like crazy

I love the mini horse down the road

 it is elusive to spot

but makes my day everytime I see it

I love the word synecdoche 

I also like the words, trope, bouillabaisse and antiestablishmentarian

I love the banner I made for the website and etsy shop

no clue how to attach it in the right size etc

but love it none the less

Novelty duct tape

especially duct tape that has ducks on it... duck duct tape is a perfect item

I looove the bottom sheet of the bed to be perfectly smooth and tight

Like crazy smooth and tight

Forget bouncing a coin on that sucker

I want to be able to bounce an elephant

Or a small car

Top sheets can do what they like but the bottom sheet has to be perfect

Puppies

They make my ovaries quiver

My sunburst granny squares

great colours and haphazard crochet all rolled into one

Lip balm

Burts Bees peppermint lip balm to be exact

I have always been lip balm crazy

The misplacement of such item is a cause for search parties

raised blood pressure and panicked voices in our house

I would love lip balm with GPS markers built in

The song Drive All Night by Glen Hansard

yes it is a Bruce Springsteen song but I love Glen Hansard

and he is backed by Eddie Vedder... doesn't get much better than that

I would drive all night again...Just to buy you some shoes.... 

Why thank you very much Glen... I take a size ten

yes I have whopping huge feet... get over it

Kale

I love creaming butter and sugar together

Always the start of great baking

but also there is something about the grainy, lumpy beginning

Turning into that light smooth loveliness that is satisfying

I love segmenting oranges, or grapefruits

you get that fan type membrane insides left that you can flap about a bit

Weirdly fun

And my new pineapple mason jar drinking cup thing

I drew it up as part of my Week on a Page from Tuesday...

If I could work out how to add an umbrella to it it would be perfect

Happy painting all... xx

My Week...or two... On A Page... #7

So I ended up taking two weeks to do this week on a page

 due to website building melting my brain and things

 but here it is...

sneaking... Snow pea crisps

how could I not buy them... look at the colours and the packaging

how do they taste you may ask... oddly like asparagus

eating... the first ice blocks of the season

coconut yogurt, strawberry and blueberry in case you were wondering..

trying out... new paints

bit scared of... Blk. alkaline fulvic water

it is black!!!!... black water... have to get Sinus to try it first

playing with... drippy chairs

lots of drippy chairs

smelling... green tea and lemon oil

loving... my new pineapple mason jar thingy

how could you be anything but happy when you have one of those in the house

happy painting all...xx

I Didn't Break The Internet...

To say it has been a full on week is the understatement of the month... I was going to write understatement of the year, but it has been kind of a manic year so that seemed a bit excessive. I spent the week working on creating a website, and any of you familiar with my tech skills will know that the idea of me doing any such a thing is scary. I could bring down the whole freakin internet quicker than a Chinese hacker just by trying to change domain names and things... but other than a brief time when www.traceyfletcherking.com disappeared while www.traceyfletchkingblog.com came into being it all went pretty smoothly. Of course now they are both happily existing, well sort of getting on rather than living happily together just yet, and apart from about 12 squillion links on pinterest that now need to be adjusted to the new blog address, things are a bit smoother.

It was time to take a step and create a website as I have been getting more and more illustration enquiries and I needed a place to send them other than the blog because I really didn't want to be too grown up here. If I don't have a place to be haphazard and as crap as I want then I think my brain will leak out my ears, so I am keeping this as it has always been, and creating the website as a hub for illustration work, selling prints and classes and things... all the stuff that requires a semblance of decorum and professionalism, or at least the appearance of it. Of course it is still a bit haphazard over there but it is going to be a good home I think, and as I unpack the boxes in my brain and get the shop organised and things I am starting to feel more comfortable with the process.... and it has already paid off as two new enquiries came in for quoting already so maybe the angst is going to be worth it. 

All of the brain hurting and anxiety induced by taking what feels like a big step, has been offset by lots of play with paint and lines and doing some little experiments. I like the idea of blobs of paint with things drawn over them, so there has been some playing on scrap bits of paper. I like using scrap paper because then i don't get too precious and the drawing of chairs has come about as I start to think changes to the interior of the house... and the little man came about because I saw one a tv show that had been painted up so their little wooden model looked all cool and funky and I am thinking I will need to do just that... it looked kind of awesome, and now I am thinking that maybe I need a shelf of the miniature ones all painted in different colours... fun to be had there I think.

Of course with the whole effort to be more professional and all that I have been thinking new business cards, and some stickers for packaging and things so I have have an excuse to play with paint and masking fluid... play time has been rampant this week and my shelf above my desk is looking very inspiring and full of paint drips. Downside has been I didn't get a week on a page done, but this week I am going to combine the last two weeks and it is progressing slowly... the paint drips have been very distracting

In fact they have played on my mind so much I have started playing with scaling them up and making them larger. This beauty is on my desk waiting to be played with so I am going to leave you there and get back to it...

happy painting all...xx

The Holy Grail...

This week Sinus Man and I went on a bit of a date... well by date I mean he came along while I went to the yarn store to buy yarn I didn't need, and a hook that I did ... and the deal of him coming along was that I would get him a good coffee. Actually I am now thinking if I had to bribe him it wasn't much of a date really. So after a mildly heated disagreement over where The Hawthorne Garage actually was... I was right by the way as I have an uncanny sense of direction, whereas Sinus can get lost driving home from work which is five minutes walk away! Yet another reason why we are a good team, or rather we would be if he ever believed my directions! ... we arrived and found the holy grail of gluten free... bagels!!!

Phantom Steve is a coeliac and I have an intolerance so we are a gluten free household, and have been for many, many years. We are talking back in the dark ages where the gluten free aisle at the grocer consisted on three mildly manky products. But now gluten free products are more prevalent, tastier and so much easier to find and life is certainly a bit easier. Having said that Phants and I often engage in a good old game of what do you miss most. Number one on my list has always been bagels so to find these was fairly monumental... and they actually taste like bagels... awesome. Plus I found these delicious bars from The Health Food Guys which I have been having as a breakfast on the go in the studio because I have been slammed with some illustration projects so time to work on other painting has been a bit short this week. 

Being so busy is making it hard to find the time to create a lot of artwork for me, so I am finding that doing my Week On A Page sketches in a sketchbook is a bit of a creative lifesaver. I add little drawings as I think of them, or as I find a bit of time, and by the end of the week I usually have a page of outlines at the very least, though sometimes I actually get in and paint them along the way as well. What is really great is I have to really think about how they are going to work together and it has to grow and change as the week goes on so I have to  think about composition as well... so it feels as though they are doing all sorts of work... they are helping me to be mindful, they are fun, they are getting me doing at least some drawing and painting each day that isn't work related, they make me think about composition, colour and negative space and all that good stuff. Plus by posting them every Tuesday I have been making myself accountable and have managed to keep it up for six weeks. Of course the biggest plus ifs that it is fun... fun to create, fun to think about, and fun to plan in my head while I am doing other things.

 All round a pretty awesome week when I think of it

happy painting all...xx

My Week On A Page #6...

It started with the shoes and exploded into a very minty week...

 loving... new studio shoes

 dusting... fake succulents

 which just happen to be in perfect mint coloured tins

 using... my new mug

 smelling... the most delicious candle

 starfruit and citrus... it's like summer in one sniff

 freaking... out at ants in the car

 note to self... remove all wildlife before hauling half the jungle garden to the tip

 frustrated about... crap painting of my new teapot

considering... eating mint tea flavoured chocolate

which feels oddly appropriate 

happy painting all...xx